Evie scowled. “I don’t find that reassuring.”
He grimaced. “I didn’t say that to scare you but rather to explain why we need to stay focused on the men who have been here since we were in high school.”
“Okay. Have you found anything interesting on Rick Thomas?” She propped her chin on her hand. “Maybe you can use his wife, Marcie, to help find him.”
“Good call.” He quickly typed Rick and Marcie Thomas into the search engine. To his surprise, Marcie’s name popped up. He clicked on the image and recognized their former classmate from their earlier lunch. Marcie’s profile picture included her with the kids.
Personally, he wouldn’t post photos of his kids on social media for everyone to see. To his way of thinking that was just asking for trouble. Shaking his head at some people’s foolishness, he dug deeper, hoping to find a link to her husband’s page.
Unfortunately, Rick or Richard Thomas wasn’t listed as one of her friends, which meant it was likely the guy hadn’t bothered to open an account. Scrolling through the photos, he found a picture of the entire family.
“Rick looks a lot different from what I remember from school.” He turned the screen so Evie could see it more clearly. “He’s going bald.”
“Male-pattern baldness is hereditary.” She peered at the screen. “I must agree, though. He has less hair and carries more weight around his middle than I recall.”
He almost mentioned she looked almost exactly the way she had back in high school but thought better of it. He would mean it as a compliment but wasn’t sure she’d take it that way. “Yeah, he’s a regular family man.”
“One who doesn’t look like a serial killer.” She sighed, then turned the screen back toward him. “Not that he still couldn’t be guilty.”
“Looks can be deceiving.” He stared at the group family photo for a long moment. He couldn’t get a good read on the guy’s eyes from the picture. “We’re not going to find anything more about Rick other than what his wife posts about him. I say we move on.”
“That’s fine.” Evie glanced at her watch, and he knew she was anxious for Doc to arrive. “Who’s next?”
He’d already tried each of the police officers they knew by name. Drumming his fingers on the table, he considered who else to try. He really wished he’d been able to find a page for Dan Johnson. Then a thought occurred to him. “Why not try Dan Johnson’s ex-wife?”
Evie’s gaze held doubt. “Why would she be on social media when she has a restraining order against him?”
She made a good point. Still, he typed Loretta’s name in the search bar anyway. “He’s not on social media, so she might feel safe enough to post.”
“That’s still too risky,” Evie protested.
He didn’t disagree. He found a page for Loretta Gilmore, her maiden name, but a quick glance at the page revealed she hadn’t posted anything in the past three years. In fact, her location still identified her as living in Grand Haven.
“Okay, you were right. She’s not active on social media.” He stared up at the ceiling, frustrated that their efforts for the evening had been in vain. “I can’t think of anyone else to search for. We don’t know anything more than we did earlier.”
“What about Beverly Jenkins?” Evie suggested. “She mentioned her husband was a cop but didn’t give us his name. Maybe she has a social media presence.”
“We can try, but we won’t know her married name.” He typed in the name Beverly Jenkins and was surprised to find an account in her name featuring her familiar face. “Wow, I’m surprised to find she is on here, under her maiden name of Jenkins along with the last name of Abernathy.”
“Abernathy?” Evie’s blue eyes widened. “She’s married to Kyle Abernathy?”
“It would be quite the coincidence that there would be two cops on the force with the same last name.” He tried to dig into her profile but couldn’t. “She has the privacy settings enabled, so I can’t see any of her photos or posts.”
“But you can do a background search on her, right?” Evie leaned forward eagerly. “Her marriage would be on file.”
“True.” He quickly entered the information into the database. “Okay, I can confirm she’s married to Kyle Abernathy for the past eight years. Interestingly, it looks like they filed for a legal separation two years ago.” He frowned at Evie. “She made it sound like they were still married, right?”
“Right. Could be they didn’t follow through with a divorce.” Evie stared at the photo on the screen. “Maybe she sensed something was off about Kyle but then decided not to follow through with breaking up their family. She sounded content when we spoke to her earlier.”
“That’s true.” He thought again about Dan Johnson. The domestic abuse angle gave him an idea. “Let’s try a general search on our buddy Dan. We might get a hit off his domestic abuse incident that will tell us more. Like where he lives.” He wouldn’t mind driving past Dan’s residence to check the place out.
“He might live with his dad,” Evie pointed out as he typed Dan Johnson, domestic violence, and Grand Haven into a popular search engine.
“That’s entirely possible since he would have had to pay a divorce lawyer big bucks. And if they had a house, he’d have to split the proceeds with Loretta.” The top hit was indeed a newspaper article about Dan Johnson’s arrest.
He was disappointed that the short article only mentioned the few details they already knew. That Dan’s wife, Loretta, had called the police because her husband, Dan, had struck out at her in anger. Reading the words made his blood boil as he recalled how Dan had forcibly dragged Tammy into the lake.
“Look, it gives an address.” Evie’s soft hair brushed against his arm as she leaned closer. “Maybe Dan still lives there?”
