A ninhydrin analysis revealed a total of nearly two hundred latent fingerprints on the three pages on which the paragraphs had been underlined. Unfortunately, many of them were old and were only fragments. Technicians had located a few that were clear enough to be identified and had run them through the FBI's automatic fingerprint identification system in West Virginia. But all the results had come back negative.
The cover of the book, wrapped in print-friendly cellophane, yielded close to four hundred prints, but they, too, were mostly smudges and fragments. AFIS had provided no positive IDs for these, either.
Frustrated, Altman thanked the technician as cordially as he could and hung up.
"So what was that about?" Wallace asked, looking eagerly at the sheet of paper in front of Altman, which contained both notes on the conversation he'd just had and a series of compulsive doodles.
He explained to the reporter about the forensic results.
"So, no leads," Wallace summarized dramatically and jotted a note, the irritated detective wondering why the reporter had actually found it necessary to write this observation down.
As he gazed at the reporter an idea occurred to Altman and he stood up abruptly. "Let's go."
"Where?"
"Your crime scene."
"Mine?" Wallace asked, scrambling to follow the detective as he strode out the door.
The library near Gordon Wallace's apartment, where he'd checked out the novel, was a small branch in the Three Pines neighborhood of Greenville, so named because legend had it that three trees in a park here had miraculously survived the fire of 1829, which had destroyed the rest of the town. It was a nice place, populated mostly by businessmen, professionals, and educators; the college was nearby (the same school where the first strangler victim had been a student).
Altman followed Wallace inside and the reporter found the head of the branch and introduced her to the detective. Mrs. McGiver was a trim woman dressed in stylish gray; she looked more like a senior executive with a high-tech company than a librarian.
The detective explained the connection between the person who'd checked out the book and the murders, shock registering on the woman's face as she realized that the killer was somebody who'd been to her library. Perhaps even someone she knew.
"I'd like a list of everybody who checked out that book." Altman had considered the possibility that the killer might not have checked it out but had looked through it here, in the library itself. But that meant he'd have to underline the passages in public and risk drawing the attention of librarians or patrons. He concluded that the only safe way for the strangler to do his homework was at home.
"I'll see what I can find," she said.
Altman had thought that it might take days to pull together this information, but Mrs. McGiver was back in minutes. Altman felt his gut churning with excitement as he gazed at the sheets of paper in her hand, relishing the sensations of the thrill of the hunt and pleasure at finding a fruitful lead.
But as he flipped through the sheets, he frowned. Every one of the thirty or so people checking out Two Deaths had done so recently – within the last six months. They needed the names of those who'd checked it out before the killings a year ago.
"Actually, I need to see the list before July tenth of last year," he explained.
"Oh, but we don't have records that far back. Normally we would, but about six months ago our computer was vandalized."
"Vandalized?"
She nodded, frowning. "Somebody poured battery acid or something into the hard drive. Ruined it and destroyed all our records. Backup, too. Somebody from your department handled the case. I don't remember who."
Wallace said, "I didn't hear about it."
"They never found who did it. It was very troubling, but more of an inconvenience than anything. Imagine if he'd decided to destroy the books themselves."
Altman caught Wallace's eye. "Dead end," he muttered angrily. Then he asked the librarian, "How 'bout the names of everybody who had a library card then? Were their names in the computer, too?"
"Prior to six months ago, they're gone, too. I'm sorry."
Forcing a smile onto his face, he thanked the librarian and walked to the doorway. But he stopped so suddenly that Wallace nearly slammed into his back.
"What?" the reporter asked.
Altman ignored him and returned to the desk, calling as he did, "Mrs. McGiver! Hold up there!" Drawing stares and a couple of harsh shhhh's from readers.
"I need to find out where somebody lives."
"I'll try, but you're the policeman – don't you have ways of doing that?"
"In this case, I have a feeling you'd be a better cop than me."
The author of Two Deaths in a Small Town, Andrew M. Carter, lived in Hampton Station, near Albany, about two hours away from Greenville.
Mrs. McGiver's copy of Who's Who in Contemporary Mystery Writing didn't include addresses or phone numbers, but Altman called the felonies division of the Albany police department and they tracked down Carter's address and number.
Altman's theory was that Carter might've gotten a fan letter from the killer. Since one notation called a passage "brilliant" and the other appeared to be a reminder to do more research on the topic, it was possible that the killer had written to Carter to praise him or to ask for more information. If there was such a letter, the county forensic handwriting expert could easily link the notation with the fan, who – if they were lucky – might have signed his real name and included his address.
Mentally crossing his fingers, he placed a call to the author. A woman answered. "Hello?"
"I'm Detective Altman with the Greenville police department," he said. "I'd like to speak to Andrew Carter."
"I'm his wife," she said. "He's not available." The matter-of-fact tone in her voice suggested that this was her knee-jerk response to all such calls.
"When will he be available?"
"This is about the murders, isn't it?"
"That's right, ma'am."
"Do you have a suspect?"
"I can't really go into that. But I would like to talk to your husband."
A hesitation. "The thing is…" Her voice lowered and Altman suspected that her "unavailable" husband was in a nearby room. "He hasn't been well."
"I'm sorry," Altman said. "Is it serious?"
"You bet it's serious," she said angrily. "When Andy heard that the killer might've used his book as a model for the crimes, he got very depressed. He cut himself off from everybody. He stopped writing." She hesitated. "He stopped everything. He just gave up."
"Must've been real difficult, Mrs. Carter," Altman said sympathetically.
"I told him it was just a coincidence – those women getting killed like he wrote in the book. Just a weird coincidence. But the reporters and, well, everybody, friends, neighbors… they kept yammering on and on about how Andy was to blame."
Altman supposed she wasn't going to like the fact that he'd found proof that her husband's book had indeed been the model for the killings.
She continued, "He's been getting better lately. Anything about the case could set him back."
"I do understand that, ma'am, but you have to see my situation. We've got a possibility of catching the killer and your husband could be real helpful…"
The sound on the other end of the line grew muffled and Altman could hear her talking to someone else.
Altman wasn't surprised when she said, "My husband just got back. I'll put him on."
"Hello?" came a soft, uneasy voice. "This's Andy Carter."
Altman identified himself.
"Are you the policeman I talked to last year?"
"Me? No. That might've been the case detective. Sergeant Bob Fletcher."
"Right. That was the name."
So Fletcher had talked to the author last year. There was no reference in the case file to it and he supposed that Carter hadn't provided any helpful information. Maybe now, after this much time had passed, he'd be more cooperative. Though Altman soon found that wasn't the case. He reiterated to Carter what he'd told his wife and the man said immediately, "I can't help you. And frankly, I don't want to… This's been the worst year of my life."