Before bringing in Ellie, Flann had eliminated from consideration anyone in Amy’s current life, and she trusted Flann not to miss an obvious suspect. That left Amy’s past.
The fact that Amy had a restraining order against a boy from her hometown kept jumping out at her. Lots of women had problems with ex-boyfriends, but how many required a court’s intervention? And then there was the fact that the boy in question had been so computer savvy. An obsessive person with techie skills was precisely whom they were looking for. She pictured a personality like Taylor Gottman’s. Was it so far-fetched that something could reignite an obsession a decade later?
She looked at the notes she’d made – and then crossed out – from her conversation with Suzanne Mouton. Edmond Bertrand had been looking like a prime suspect until Suzanne said that he had died. He overdosed on heroin. I heard about it at LSU.
Ellie realized then that she may have been too quick to write Bertrand off. Suzanne hadn’t lived in New Iberia when he supposedly overdosed. She heard about it, undoubtedly from someone who repeated a secondhand story. And people embellish when they repeat, and then other people embellish further. Like in a slumber party game of Operator, news of a bad drug trip one night in New Iberia might have turned into a fatal overdose by the time it hit Suzanne Mouton’s dorm on LSU’s Lafayette campus.
Ellie left the solitude of the break room and pulled up the New York DMV database on Flann’s computer. No New York driver’s license or identification card. She tried crime reports. No New York arrests or convictions. She went next to the NCIC database, a national clearinghouse of records like fugitive warrants, missing person alerts, and sex offender registrations. She ran Bertrand’s name and got a hit.
Edmond Bertrand, date of birth, October 16, 1974. Arrested in Boston six years earlier for forgery. Bertrand no-showed for his arraignment, and was never picked up on the warrant.
According to Suzanne Mouton, the Edmond Bertrand who’d stalked Amy Davis had overdosed ten years ago. She found Suzanne’s phone number and called.
After apologizing in advance for the bizarre nature of her question, she asked Suzanne if she were certain that Edmond Bertrand’s drug overdose was fatal.
“Um, you warned me to expect the bizarre. It’s not like I saw the body or anything, but, yeah, that’s what everyone said.”
Ellie took another look at the six-year-old Massachusetts arrest warrant on the computer screen in front of her. “And you’re sure about the timing? It couldn’t have been in the last six years?”
“No. I was definitely at LSU. I’m pretty sure I was a junior; maybe even a sophomore.”
“Did you actually see an obituary? Or do you know anyone who went to the funeral?”
“What’s this all about?”
“It registered after we hung up last time that you had heard about Bertrand’s death secondhand while you were in school. I thought I’d verify it wasn’t just a rumor – just to make sure we didn’t jump the gun counting him out. That’s all.”
“I guess I never questioned what I heard. I know that Amy and her parents heard the same thing.”
“That’s fine. I’ll call around down there and have someone check the death records, just to be sure.”
“I’ll tell you what. I’ve got a neighbor down the road who works for the sheriff’s office. He can get you all the details. Do you have a phone number or e-mail or something?”
Ellie rattled off her number and e-mail address. “And can you also ask him to look up Edmond Bertrand’s date of birth? It’s important.”
THE WOMAN AT the records division of the Boston Police Department was able to pull up the information Ellie requested in less than a minute.
“The only entry in our database for an Edmond Bertrand is that one arrest. And, unfortunately, there’s no booking photo coming up on that. But a picture from a six-year-old forgery might not have made it into the computer anyway.”
“So is there somewhere else I could get a photograph?” Ellie spotted Flann heading her way, coat still on and coffee in hand. He looked excited and gestured at her to cut the call short.
“My guess is on a charge like that, the officer probably cited and released him, in which case we wouldn’t have either a picture or prints. The only way to know for sure is from the police report. Want me to put in a request for you?”
“I’d appreciate it.” Ellie gave her the fax number at the precinct and hung up.
“What was that?” Flann asked.
“A favor for a friend.” Ellie wasn’t sure whether she fibbed to gloss over the long-shot phone call to Boston, or because of lingering resentment toward Flann for his own secrecy. Either way, it didn’t seem to warrant discussion in light of Flann’s eagerness. “What’s up?”
“I told you media attention would be our friend. I just got a call from a very apologetic Mark Stern, who assured me he called the moment he got our messages.”
“He’s finally willing to help?”
“GregUK’s real name is Greg London.”
“And we both know he’s not going to be our guy, just like Amy Davis’s date wasn’t our guy.”
“That’s why he’s going to pull up all the names of the men who contacted Caroline Hunter, Amy Davis, and Megan Quinn while we have a little chat with Mr. London.”
GREG LONDON had absolutely no criminal history, was fully employed as a lighting technician for Broadway shows, and insisted that on the night Megan Quinn was murdered he was at home reading a Truman biography. Although no one could vouch for his whereabouts, they were nevertheless able to exclude London from suspicion: The man in the security video from Megan’s apartment building was six feet tall. Greg London was five foot eight.
Ellie wasn’t particularly disappointed, and she certainly wasn’t surprised. The killer would never make it that easy.
LIKE A LOSING politician who gives verbal hugs to the candidate he spent fourteen months trashing, Stern welcomed them into his office as if he had never been their adversary. “I’ve got the names of every account holder who ever contacted Caroline Hunter, Amy Davis, or Megan Quinn – just like you asked. But there’s one guy you’re going to want to check out first. His name’s Richard Hamline.”
“What puts him at the top of the list?” Flann asked.
“Because I cross-referenced the lists. He’s the only user who’s been in contact with two of the women: Amy Davis and Megan Quinn.” Stern directed their attention to the flat-screen monitor on his desk. “I pulled up a dummy of his account. We’re basically seeing what Hamline would see if he pulled up his own account, but I’m able to go through the back door without actually logging in. That way, he won’t be able to tell someone else is in his account.”
The screen displayed Hamline’s FirstDate connections. Stern clicked first on Megan Quinn, opening up a series of e-mails, then on Amy Davis. Ellie shook her head in disbelief.
“We had him in front of us the whole time, Flann. The user name. Check out the user name.”
Richard Hamline was the real name behind the pseudonym Enoch, the one with the generic profile and very specific questions about Amy Davis. The one who never did return the flirt from Ellie. The one using the biblical name she was going to ask about if he ever contacted her. The killer had contacted the two most recent victims through the same FirstDate account. He had to know they would make the connection. He was engaging them. Ellie took a hard look at the dark-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned man smiling at her from the screen and wondered if Hamline was bold enough to use a real photograph.
“What else can you tell us about him?” Ellie asked.