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“Yup. His name’s Hudson Montgomery, adopted by a college professor and his wife, who lived in Syracuse. Still do.”
“Was Hudson in California at the time of the murders?” Lucien asked.
“That’s iffy. Hudson had traveled here after his sophomore year of high school over Memorial Day weekend in 2001 to meet his birth father in person. According to Mr. And Mrs. Montgomery, they accompanied him on the trip to the Los Angeles area. They met Mack in the lobby of their hotel near LAX on Saturday, May 26th. Mack also returned the next day, the 27th, to visit Hudson that Sunday morning, spending most of the day with him before taking Anna and Elliott on the trip to Santa Cruz.”
“But the phone Hudson used was tied to the Lombardi Trucking Company,” Brogan pointed out.
Brent shook his head. “Not significant. It was a name Hudson used for the burner phone so that Mack would recognize the family’s trucking company. A code, if you will, to prove that he was Mack’s son. I guess you have to think like a fifteen-year-old trying to play James Bond and a cat-and-mouse game with his birth father.”
“Do you think Hudson Montgomery could’ve killed Mack and Anna?”
“Doesn’t make any sense that he would’ve gone to all that trouble, meeting him, then tracking the family down to Santa Cruz. The Montgomerys insist they caught their plane on Memorial Day and arrived back in Syracuse. They claimed they knew nothing about Mack’s trip to Santa Cruz. And if you consider Hudson, what would he have done with Elliott and Trey? When I interviewed him years later, he seemed genuinely hurt that he never got the chance at a relationship with Mack.”
“You spoke to him in person?”
“I flew to Syracuse over a weekend and talked to the Montgomery family.”
“So we shouldn’t spend too much time needlessly focusing on this son, right?”
“I wouldn’t.”
Brogan stared at Brent. “So, who would you concentrate your efforts on? The doctor who abandoned his practice and disappeared?”
“It would have eased my mind considerably to find out how the doctor came to be in Santa Cruz that Thursday afternoon. How did he learn about the murders so fast? The media had barely gotten the news out to local stations. Why did he drop everything and drive up here? Or was he already in the area? Why was he so upset? Was it all an act?”
Lucien shifted his feet. “If law enforcement can’t locate Deming, what chance do we have? He probably changed his name and took on a new identity. Not so difficult to do back in 2001.”
“I’m here to help any way I can. That means plugging into the system worldwide if necessary, getting his photo out there, sending alerts to Interpol.”
“Even twenty years later, he’s probably still practicing medicine somewhere,” Brogan asserted, her mind swirling with options. “Deming most probably left the country to start his new life.”
Brent bobbed his head in agreement. “If you’d committed a double murder, then kidnapped two kids, possibly adding two homicides to your count, wouldn’t you have second thoughts about sticking around in your old life?”
“Wow, we’re making a lot of assumptions,” Lucien tossed out. “The only reason a man would resort to murder is if he was desperate to get the toddler.”
“What if he thought Elliott belonged to him? Because of his affair with Anna,” Brogan speculated. “Do we even know there was an affair? Was Deming married at the time?”
“I never got that far in the investigation,” Brent admitted. “Deming was long gone by then. And Rivkin hadn’t followed up fast enough. I did uncover a marriage in public records between Aaron Deming and a former model named Caroline Casio. I couldn’t find anything about a divorce.”
Brogan began to pace. “Maybe he and his wife wanted that child. Maybe that’s what this has been about the entire time. Do you know if this Deming wore size thirteen shoes?”
Brent busted out laughing. “How would I know that kind of detail? I never got to lay eyes on the man. His California driver’s license lists his height at five-eleven. Maybe that correlates somehow to having big feet.”
“Will you give us all the information you found?” Lucien asked.
“That was the plan. Stop by my office tomorrow.” Brent checked his watch. “I need to get home. Come on, Saylor, let’s start back.”
“Brent,” Brogan began, “Thanks for sharing all this. It might’ve taken us weeks—maybe even months—to discover everything you’ve told us. Thank you.”
“Glad to do it. The Reschers need to find out what happened to their son. And Elliott, I’m not sure who’s left to worry about that little guy.”
They watched Brent leave before rounding up the dogs and going back inside. Brogan noticed how quiet Lucien had gotten. “What’s up with you?”
“What Brent said there at the last nags at me?”
“About Elliott?”
“Yeah. Who worried about the kid right after Elliott was gone? It wasn’t Anna’s brothers—Chad or Matthew. And Matt died a short year later. What was Chad doing during that time except for benefitting from the estate?”
