There were forty-five Erik Youngs listed in California and sixteen in the Los Angeles area alone, although there were hundreds of Eric Youngs with a c. Marybeth concentrated just on the sixteen Eriks. There were four in Covina, two each in Anaheim, Hermosa Beach, Huntington Beach, and Torrance, and one each in Monterey Park, Playa del Rey, Rialto, and Venice.
Methodically, she accessed each location. The database listed the name, of course, but also the street address, the value of the person’s home, and an approximate age — sometimes given as “unknown.” Marybeth eliminated all the names with ages listed as thirty or above, and that left her with seven possible Erik Youngs, all designated “age unknown.”
She isolated the list of seven. The site provided maps of each specific address as well as Google Earth satellite photos of each home. They ranged from a $2.8 million mansion in Playa del Rey to Apartment C in Venice to a post-office box in Covina to an “unknown” address in Torrance. She assumed that a family in a multimillion-dollar home would not send their son to a state university, and crossed that one out. Likewise, she assumed families living in apartments or listing their address as a post-office box would likely not have the means to send any children out of state to college. Of course, she thought, she could always revisit the top and bottom tiers if the middle didn’t pan out.
That left three possibilities: the $708,000 home in Covina (likely the parents of the P.O. box holder in the same suburb), the $565,000 home in Monterey Park, and the $268,000 home in Rialto.
She felt her pulse quicken as she looked at the likely homes that produced Erik Young and sent him to far-off Laramie to attend the University of Wyoming.
It took only a few minutes to access the L.A.-area white pages to obtain all three telephone numbers.
Surprisingly, two people answered — a housekeeper in Monterey Park and a stay-at-home mom in Rialto with a heavy Mexican accent.
She began with, “Hello, I’m calling to find out if this is the home of Erik Young who is a student at the University of Wyoming in Laramie…” She was careful not to misidentify herself or pose as either a law enforcement or university official.
Both said she was on the wrong track. The Erik Young in Monterey Park was a student at UCLA, the housekeeper said. The Erik Young in Rialto was incarcerated at the California State Prison in Corcoran. As the woman told Marybeth, she began to cry.
Marybeth apologized in both instances.
At the Covina home, she was asked to leave a message by a recorded female voice that sounded to be about right for the mother of a college-aged student, Marybeth thought. She left a message and asked to be called back on her cell phone.
But she was thinking: Covina.
When she had more time, she decided, she’d do an in-depth search of “Erik Young” and “Covina.” Perhaps she’d find where he’d participated in school activities, or been mentioned in blog posts or newspapers. Maybe she’d find where he had been thrown out of school for wearing a long black trench coat or arrested for torturing small animals. The thought of the possibility of cracking it so easily left her shaking her head.
She hoped that after the staff meeting and lunch she’d have another extended period at the desk when she could do the additional research.
The RMIN database went off when Marybeth entered the names William Critchfield, aka Bill Critchfield, and Eugene Smith, aka Gene Smith, of Medicine Wheel County, Wyoming.
She whistled as she scrolled through the list of priors: issuance of a bad check, several counts of DUI, breaking and entering, aggravated assault and battery, wanton destruction of a game animal, fishing without a license, and several parole violations. They seemed to operate as a team, because all of the charges except the check kiting and DUI had been filed on the same dates.
She whispered “Jackpot” to herself while cutting the text from the site into a Word document to send to Joe.
It bothered her that Joe had asked her for research help so quickly after he arrived, and she wondered if he was keeping his vow to simply observe and report back. But she knew the answer to that question because she knew Joe so well. Her hope was that by providing him with the information he’d requested, he could leave and come home more quickly.
As she built the document to send, she noticed there had been no charges or convictions for either man for the previous five years. Given the frequency of criminality prior to that, she checked her search criteria and ran it again. But no new activity showed up.
As the other librarians and support staff gathered in the conference room for the weekly meeting, Marybeth logged out of the criminal databases and deleted the history of her searches on the Web browser.
Her cell phone vibrated as she was about to place it into her purse, and she checked the screen: UNKNOWN CALLER.
Covina, she thought, and turned her back to the open conference room door so none of the others could hear her.
“Yes?”
The voice was hesitant. “Did you call me a little while ago?”
It was the female voice that was on the outgoing message at the Covina home, although more distant and suspicious.
“Yes, that was me.”
“Why were you calling me? I didn’t listen to the message, but I saw that 307 area code…” She didn’t finish.
“I’m calling from Wyoming,” Marybeth said.
“I know,” the woman responded. She sounded both weary and cautious, Marybeth thought.
Before Marybeth could explain, the woman said, “I knew this call would come someday. My God, what has he done?”
Marybeth felt a chill shoot up her back.
15
“Follow my lead and keep your mouth shut,” Latta said over his shoulder to Joe as the two game wardens walked across the shorn meadow to where Templeton had parked his ATV in the shade of a huge river cottonwood.
“Got it,” Joe said crisply but with resentment. He was still angry with Latta and getting tired of his constant admonitions.
Latta was several strides ahead and moving faster than necessary, Joe thought. There was no doubt Latta wanted to get to the ranch owner before Joe did.
Looking ahead over Latta’s shoulder, Joe could see Templeton stiffly climb off the four-wheeler. The rancher raised his long arms to stretch, then lowered them and put his hands on his hips and leaned slightly forward to receive his visitors.
He’d aged from the last photographs Joe had seen of him. Despite the beat-up ranch clothing, Templeton maintained his patrician bearing. He was even taller and leaner than Joe had guessed from the photos, and his short hair was now silver streaked with black rather than black streaked with silver. He had sharp, intelligent eyes that revealed nothing. His once-thin mustache had grown in acreage and now covered his full upper lip and drooped down slightly on the sides, giving him an almost Marlboro Man appearance. He was a memorable presence, Joe thought: the kind of man even men looked at twice.
Joe felt his phone vibrate in his breast pocket and paused to retrieve it. There was a text message from Marybeth reading: Call me when you can. Info on E. Young.
He paused, weighing whether to call her immediately, but decided since she hadn’t indicated it was an emergency it could wait a few minutes. Especially now, with Templeton right in front of him. Joe knew he might never get the chance to see the rancher in person again, and by doing so, his assignment might be near completion. He slid his phone back into the pocket. In his peripheral vision, he saw that Latta had used the opportunity to gain more distance on him.