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“Catton. Hell, yeah. What’s he done?”
“How do you know him?”
“We studied drama together at Berkeley. We were also roommates for a while in this apartment, but I’ve lived here alone since he enlisted. I haven’t seen him in over six months. Are you saying you’re looking for him?”
The way “Reynolds” spoke about Bryan Catton in the third person was raising some doubt in my mind. However, they were both actors. This evasive technique could be easy for him. Blackout had lured people to their deaths.
Rich said, “These are the photos. Can you show me if you see Catton?”
The photo array was the same deck of six photos we’d shown to Tom Watkins, five mug shots and a photo of Blackout lifted from one of his videos, reduced to the size and shape of the other five.
Rich fanned all six out on the table. Witmar had described the results of Catton’s plastic surgery: his nose was smaller; his eyes were positioned differently in his face.
Reynolds hovered his right forefinger over the second photo and then the fifth, then shook his head.
“I don’t recognize any of these people,” he said. “I can’t make a positive ID.”
CHAPTER 88
AT MY REQUEST, Austin Reynolds produced his ID. He had the usual wallet-full: driver’s license, insurance, and credit cards.
While I studied the picture on his license, I asked him to take off his glasses. I placed the picture of Blackout beside the one of Reynolds. Reynolds had crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes and no surgeon’s scars at the temples. Reynolds’s eyebrows were closer together than Catton’s. His hairline was deeper, and his mouth was wider.
It had taken me fifteen minutes with Austin Reynolds to conclude that while he and Bryan Catton looked similar, they were not the same dude. Still, I hated to give up my conviction that we’d nabbed Blackout, and I needed more than a photo comparison to be absolutely sure that Reynolds was not Blackout before letting a killer walk free.
I said, “Mike, can we see that SEEK?”
Wallenger pulled the SEEK, a handheld forensic fingerprint device about the size of a small phone, from his windbreaker pocket.
“Here’s what you do,” said Wallenger. “You put your thumb right here and this little critter will send your print to Quantico. There it will be compared with Bryan Catton’s prints in the military database.”
“Oh. Oh, I see,” Reynolds thumbed the reader, laughing, “Oh, this is good. You think I’mBryan? Really? No, listen don’t feel bad when you guys turn out to be wrong. We used to get mistaken for one another a lot back in school.”
While we waited for the print to enter the government store of fingerprints, Reynolds answered Richie’s questions about Bryan Catton. No, he’d never seen any signs of violence when they were in school. Catton was extremely smart and the two of them competed for the best roles in plays put on by the drama department. Later, they competed for roles in commercials. People liked Bryan, Reynolds said, but he never made real friends.
“Except you,” I offered.
“Not even me,” said Reynolds. “But he was a good roommate. He had a sense of humor. He picked up his clothes and ran the dishwasher and that was all I cared about.”
“Got it,” said Wallenger, looking at the LED on the print reader.
“You,” he said, looking directly at Austin Reynolds, “arenotBryan Catton.”
“You were the last to know,” Reynolds said with a grin.
We wrapped it up quickly after that. I gave Reynolds my card, asked him to call me if Catton contacted him, but to keep walls between them.
“He’s a killer,” I said to Reynolds. “Don’t let him in the door.”
CHAPTER 89
I CHECKED IN with Brady as we set off for the Hall. Conklin was deep in his head when I broke in to say, “Listen, Rich. We know more than we knew twenty-four hours ago.”
“It still adds up to zero.”
I sighed. He was right.
Rich said, “But, we left a box unchecked.”
