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“You have considerably more data on her now. You’d be able to streamline the search you’ve already done.”
“Exactly.”
“Allow me. Computer access results of search of female victims of rape-murder by strangulation and suffocation and refine with DOD 2041. Victims with initials I, S.”
Acknowledged . . .
“Computer,” Eve added, “input victim’s age as between twenty and twenty-eight, and as having given birth to at least one child.”
“Right you are,” Roarke commented.
She had to smile at him. “You did okay, for a civilian.”
Acknowledged . . . File accessed, search commenced. Working . . .
“No,” Roarke said when she turned toward the kitchen. “No more coffee, not at this hour. You’ll never sleep. And while the answers you hope to get with this search are vital, they won’t help you catch your man tonight.”
It was hard to argue, even though she wanted the damn coffee. She stuck her hands in her pockets. It wasn’t just the comp that could give her answers. “He’s got to have another ID, has to be using one. Why isn’t it popping? Why do we only get Darrin Pauley?”
“Change your hair and eye color, even skin tone, some features. All perfectly legal, and even fashionable. While he may have elected to use the same basic look for the student ID he used with Deena and his Darrin Pauley ID, he’s likely to have a half-dozen others, with enough variation to slip by a search. More hair, or less, a variance of coloring and some subtle shift in features to pass for mixed race. And with some skill, and some money, it’s very easy to keep an ID off the grid entirely.”
“If he works, he has to have one that would pass, and would be on the grid. At least initially. It’s routine to do a quick background check before hiring.”
“Depends who’s hiring, but yes, most routinely. But one doesn’t have to stick with the same. Once hired, how often is an employee’s ID run through the grid? Especially if, as you’ve theorized, he keeps out of trouble, stays steady.”
“So he uses one look for his time at Columbia, possibly another for his approach to Deena, and maybe varies it otherwise. Different looks and personalities for different marks. Mavis worked that way back when.”
She itched for coffee, but hooked her thumbs in her front pockets and focused on the job. “Mira’s profile suggests he lives alone. Maybe so, maybe. But maybe he’s still hooked with his old man. A partnership like that, it would continually reinforce the mission, wouldn’t it? And it would help him maintain that control, that patience, because he’d always have someone to talk to about it, to share his success with, to brag to.”
“Someone to cheer him on,” Roarke added. “To help with the legwork, the research, the income.”
“Maybe he doesn’t work at all, the income source is the grift. They’re good at it, and it teaches him how to blend, to acclimate, how to get along. That fits profile.”
Task complete, the computer announced. One result from search. Display?
“On wall screen one,” Eve ordered. “Illya Schooner, age twenty-five, born in North Dakota, parents deceased, no sibs.”
“Easier if you eliminate any family, as their data would need to be generated.”
“Yeah, yeah, but she’s got the kid on record. David Pruit this time, and lists Val Pruit as husband and next-of-kin, as father of the boy. She looks different from the ID and mug shots taken as Irene Schultz. Longer hair, lighter hair, curly, change of eye color, fuller lips, sharper cheeks, the mole beside her top lip. She’s shaved off a year on her age, the neck’s longer, the eyebrows thicker and higher.”
“Much of which can be done by some e-tweaking, if the subject doesn’t want to deal with more permanent facial adjustments. Who really notices some of the more subtle differences, except a cop? And much of it’s just put down to whim. She changed her hair, wanted green eyes instead of blue.”
“She died with thi
s face, or a close proximity, in Chicago, where she had her address at the time, in May of 2041. Rape-murder by strangulation. I need more than that. I need the case file, the investigator.”
“Eve, it’s too late to push Chicago PD to search for a file for a murder nineteen years ago. You’d have better luck in the morning.”
“I can get some data through IRCCA now. And . . . Computer, search for David Pruit, DOB October six, 2037, mother Schooner, Illya, father Pruit, Val. Second search for Val Pruit, same data.”
Acknowledged. Working . . .
“They won’t be in the database.”
“No, but I want to confirm that. At some point, wouldn’t they repeat an ID? You’ve gone through all that time, trouble, expense. Why not update it? Reuse it.”
“An excellent point.”
