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“Thirty-three years ago?” he said, squinting at me. “I don’t know how you’re going to find someone just on a name.”
“I believe in miracles, Father,” I said.
“Well, I can check and see if a funeral Mass was said for Mr. Brown here, but if the old records are as poorly maintained as the newer ones are, I can’t offer you much hope, Detective Cross.”
I gave the priest my business card, told him to call if he found anything.
Over the next two hours, I knocked on the doors of every other place of worship in town. Someone answered at every church, but no one knew of a Paul Brown committing suicide there years before.
One evangelical minister recommended I try the churches in nearby towns to the north. Another advised me to do a county records search for death certificates. Both were good ideas, and as I left the second minister, I tried to figure out what to do next and how best to do it.
It was beastly hot and humid, and I was eager to climb into my rental car and cool off in the air-conditioning. But then I noticed a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office van parked up and across the street next to one of those shabby apartment complexes with two floors and exterior stairs.
I wandered over, looked into the complex, and saw a small crowd of people watching the upper floor where yellow crime tape had been strung up around the door of one of the apartments. A criminalist, a young guy, came down the stairs and started to walk past me.
I held up my badge and identified myself before asking where I’d need to go to get someone with the sheriff’s department to pull some documents for me as a professional courtesy.
“I honestly don’t know,” the tech said. “Sergeant Drummond might.”
“Where’s Sergeant Drummond?” I asked.
“That’s him,” the criminalist said, gesturing to two men dressed in suits exiting the apartment. “The one with the face scar.”
One of the men was big, African American, older, sixties. The other was in his thirties, dark good looks and, judging from his physique, a power lifter. My bet was on the lifter for the face scar, though I can’t tell you why. But when the older detective turned to climb down the stairs, I saw the large patch of ragged skin that began beneath his right eye, ran down seven inches, and then looped back above the jaw toward his ear.
“Sergeant Drummond,” I said, holding up my badge. “Detective Alex Cross, with the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police, homicide division.”
Drummond’s face was flat as he examined my credentials. “Okay?”
The younger detective grinned and stuck out his hand. “Detective Richard S. Johnson. I know who you are, Dr. Cross. You used to be FBI, right? I saw one of your Quantico lectures on tape. Sergeant? Haven’t you heard of Alex Cross?”
Drummond handed me back my badge and said, “I hope it doesn’t crush your ego that I haven’t.”
“Unlikely, Sergeant,” I said, smiling. “I have a pretty bombproof ego.”
“So how can we help?” Detective Johnson said. “You down here tracking some serial killer or something?”
“No, nothing like that,” I said, and I explained that I was looking for a long-lost relative who’d supposedly died in Belle Glade years before.
“We can do a search for you back at the office,” Johnson offered.
“Can we, now?” Sergeant Drummond asked. “Or do we need to figure out who killed Francie Letourneau and two Palm Beach socialites?”
“I don’t want to mess up your investigation,” I said. “Just point me in the right direction. I’ll do the legwork.”
Drummond shrugged. “Follow us back to the office; we’ll see what we can do.”
“And maybe you’d want to take a look at our case?” Johnson said.
“Detective,” Drummond growled.
“What, Sarge?” his junior partner shot back. “This guy’s the expert’s expert. He trains FBI agents, for Christ’s sake.”
“Used to,” I said. “And I’d be glad to help. But if it would crush your ego…”
The sergeant actually smiled, said, “What the hell, Dr. Cross. Maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks.”
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