McCaskil had been born in Sarasota, Florida, on December 27, 1949, to Gerald and Suzanne McCaskil. At sixteen, he'd gotten his driver's license suspended in Tampa, Florida. At twenty-nine, he'd been convicted of mail fraud, selling low-cost life insurance policies through the mail to elderly people. He'd served six months. At forty-eight, he'd been convicted of real estate fraud, selling one-acre lots over the internet that belonged to the Florida fish and wildlife service. For that, he'd served eighteen months and gotten five years' probation. Because of the light sentences, Anna guessed large sums of money had not been involved. That or McCaskil had connections.
Connections. Anna stared at the report without really seeing it. There was something there that was jiggling a lever in her mind trying to turn a light on. Again she read the first paragraph: a.k.a. Bill McLellan, a.k.a. Bill Fetterman, a.k.a. Will Skillman. McLellan and Skillman were of a piece. People often chose the initials of, or aplay on, their given names when choosing an alias. Fetterman seemed out of place. Fetterman rang some distant bell.
Anna started with NCIC, the National Crime Information Center. Two Fettermans had wants or warrants, one was a twenty-two-year-old black male out of Philadelphia wanted on a burglary charge, the other was a thirty-one-year-old white male from Los Banos, California, wanted for grand theft auto. No tie-in that Anna could see with her a.k.a.
The obvious route petering out, she began a people search starting with the Fettermans of Sarasota, Florida. Fortunately, Fetterman was not a common name. Only three turned up: Dr. Peter Fetterman, A. Fetterman, and Fetterman Marine supplies.
A. Fetterman was Amanda Fetterman, the spinster daughter of the owner of Fetterman Marine. Anna told her she was from the Florida State Alumni Association trying to track down a William or Bill Fetterman for the class of '74's upcoming reunion.
Amanda knew no Bill or William. Anna tried McCaskil and McClellan out on her and struck out both times. Finally, too many questions made Amanda suspicious and she began asking questions of her own. Making a hasty retreat fueled with "thank yous," Anna disconnected. She called the marine supply store next and spoke with Papa Fetterman. Same story told in less time: he knew no Bill Fetterman, McCaskil or McClellan, no Skillman either and what the hell was this all about anyway?
Peter Fetterman was a doctor of marine biology. The number Anna'd gotten off the internet was apparently his home. Being an efficient man, his answering machine informed callers of a work number where he could be reached. Just because he sounded so sensible, when Anna reached him, she told him that she was doing background checks for three men who'd applied for law enforcement positions. The doctor knew no men by those names. The only Fetterman he knew of was a man in Tampa. Their paths had crossed over an incident regarding a shark poached illegally from a study area. He wouldn't tell Anna where, other than to say "off the coast." He seemed to suffer from the delusion that few people could resist the lure of frequenting shark-infested waters.
Tampa was where young Bill McCaskil had his first recorded brush with the law. Anna moved on. To have phoned three people and gotten hold of them on, if not the first, then the second try was a phenomenal bit of luck. It seemed the more electronic paraphernalia people purchased to remain in touch with an ever-scattering herd served only to separate them further. In the course of various investigations Anna had spent days of her life on pointless rounds from answering machines to pagers to voice mail, never once speaking to a real live human being.
Consequently it was no surprise that Lady Luck dumped her in Tampa. No Fetterman was listed, either as an individual or as a business. Anna taxed the phone company's much-touted, new-and-improved information system that promised to find numbers to places with forgotten names. Nowhere in or around Tampa was a place of business with the name Fetterman in the title. The telephone operator Anna had hooked up with was probably as close to a saint as the phone company had on its rosters. She was willing to keep on trying when Anna decided to throw in the towel.
"We could try recently disconnected numbers," the operator suggested.
"You can do that?" Anna was amazed not at the technology but at the operator's access to those files, and her willingness to take the time.
"It'll take a second."
Anna couldn't think what good a disconnected number could do, but she felt an obligation to wait. After all, the woman had worked so hard it seemed ungrateful somehow.
The strange quiet of telephone lines, not pushed full of Muzak, trickled into Anna's ear; faint hushing as of a distant sea, barely audible clicks and hums; the intercourse of the world kept at bay by a thin wall of rubber.
"Well," the operator came back on the line. "We've got something."
"Let's have it," Anna said. To prove she was paying attention, she sat up straight and held a pen at the ready over a sheet of scrap paper she'd nearly obliterated with doodles.
"Fetterman's Adventure Trails on Highway Forty-One."
Anna repeated it back to her. A name had been found, the operator seemed to feel at last her job was done and she could leave Anna in good conscience.
Rubbing the ear she'd compressed into the phone receiver for so long, Anna looked at the words angled in amongst the rococo permutations of bear tracks inked on the page. The name Fetterman had rung a bell. Fetterman's Adventure Trails set half a dozen clanging. Leaving the office in its state of productive disarray, she jogged the half-mile back to the headquarters building.
Harry was out to lunch. Maryanne was eating at her desk, delicately holding a sandwich in one hand away from the keyboard while she hunt-and-pecked corrections with the other. Anna hoped Harry knew how lucky he was.
The sandwich and the typing were set aside while Anna was settled in Harry's chair and copies of the past three weeks' 10-343s and 10-344s case and criminal incident reports were lifted from the files and placed before her.
On a case incident report submitted ten days earlier by the district ranger on the northwest side of the park, Anna found what she was looking for. No crime had been committed; it was the report of the truck and trailer abandoned off-road within park boundaries. The truck was registered to a Carl G. Micou out of Tampa, Florida. Anna rechecked the report on the abandoned truck. The only phone number on the vehicle registration turned out to belong to a business phone that had been disconnected, the phone number of Fetterman's Adventure Trails on Highway 41.
Anna had what she wanted but she didn't know what she had. For the next hour she read reports from the time the truck and trailer were found to the present but there was nothing else pertinent. A call to the Polebridge ranger station and another to dispatch let her know that no one had come forward to claim the vehicles. Anna photocopied the 10-343, thanked Maryanne and walked back to the resource management office.
The secretary's sandwich reminded Anna it was lunchtime but she was too preoccupied to take time hunting and gathering. Back in Joan's office she made do with candy. She was going to owe the researcher a bag of gummi bears before the day was through.