Bryan skimmed through Maldonado’s notes:
Co-worker tip. Thinks Poole looks like sketch in the paper. Works as an accountant??? at Debt Destroyers in Lake Worth – a ‘loan consolidation’ company. Tipster’s name is Gemma Jones, age 25 D/O/B: 6/4/88 – wants to remain ANONYMOUS. POOLE, DERRICK: white male, age 29, Height? ‘Tall, maybe 6 ft. Probably more.’ Dark hair. Had ‘goatee-thing going on’ but recently shaved – another reason she thinks something’s up. She seems OK – a little too into being a witness; excited over the whole homicide thing – but I took the tip over the phone, so who knows?
Maldonado had already had the analyst run a DAVID (Driver And Vehicle Information Database), along with a printout of Derrick Poole’s DL, which were both in the file. There was also a detailed CLEAR National Comprehensive Report, which listed any real property and vehicles owned by Poole, utility services in his name, phone numbers associated with him, creditors associated with those phone numbers, aliases, past and present addresses, deed transfers, warrants and traffic citations, possible arrests, and possible court dockets. Thankfully, Derrick Poole was not as common a name as, say, Bob Smith, or else there might have been a dozen reports in the file. But there was only one: he was twenty-nine and currently resided in West Boca Raton.
Bryan put the DL photo, in which Poole wore black, hipster, horn-rimmed eyeglasses and was clean-shaven, next to the sketch. If you could see past that, there was a strong resemblance. At 6ʹ0ʺ, the height was on the mark and the hair color was right. He had bony, pronounced facial features – ‘chiseled’ would probably be a good word, like Faith Saunders had said and Cuddy had drawn. As for hair length, it was slicked back in the photo, so it was hard to tell, but hair grew and got cut all the time, so that didn’t mean much. He was a good-looking guy, which threw Bryan off. Not that he hadn’t arrested good-looking guys before or that comely people couldn’t be murderers, but Poole looked neatly handsome and clean-cut – almost boring. No gang affiliations, or militia connections. A registered Republican. He looked at Maldonado’s notes again. The guy was … an accountant?
He carefully read through the CLEAR report. Poole had lived all over the state. First Florida DL issued out of Deltona, Florida in 2001 when he was sixteen. Changed addresses to Haines City, Florida three months later. Tallahassee in 2003, presumably for college at Florida State. Then a stint in Atlanta, Georgia from 2008 through 2010. In November of 2010 he’d returned to Florida, living in Wellington, and in January of 2012 to the address he currently resided at in West Boca. He didn’t own any property. No lawsuits. Had a couple of traffic tickets, one of which was a speeding ticket in Martin County which he hadn’t paid and his license had been automatically suspended as a result. Nothing remarkable at all, except an alias of ‘Derrick Freeley’ and a star marked on the DAVID next to ‘criminal record.’ Bryan looked at the FCIC/NCIC criminal history.
Poole had a sealed juvenile record out of Haines City, Florida.
Fortunately, from a law enforcement perspective, sealed did not mean expunged. Expunged meant really hard to get, sealed meant not so hard to get. Haines City was a small town with a cooperative police department. Bryan called up the Criminal Investigations Division, spoke with the lieutenant, and in less than an hour, the duty officer was faxing him a copy of Poole’s arrest report.
Bryan read it as it came over the fax. Then he called Maldonado. She picked up on the second ring.
‘What’s up?’
‘I need you back here. Something interesting came up.’
‘I’m eating lunch.’
‘Lunch? What time is it?’ Bryan squinted to look at his watch. He was turning fifty in a couple of months and that just sucked. Next thing to go would be the hearing. Hopefully not the hair – his dad still had a full head. It was white as snow, but it was all there. ‘What are you, like in middle school? Who eats lunch at ten thirty in the morning?’
‘Me. I’m hungry. Don’t judge.’
‘What are you, pregnant?’ he joked.
‘You’re not allowed to ask me questions like that,’ she fired back with a distinct Spanish accent he had not heard before.
‘Whoa now. I was only kidding. Where’d the Sofía Vergara come from, Maldonado? You OD on Modern Family last night?’
‘She’s Colombian. I sound nothing like her. I’m Cuban. My father floated here on a raft and a prayer, you know. You’re mixing up your Spaniards.’
Bryan took the phone away from his ear a little and made a face at it. ‘OK, then. I see why you need to eat something, Maldonado, because you’re cranky and I don’t want to get sued because I pissed you off with a joke. Just get back here when you’re done so I can go over this guy you left on my desk.’
‘I told you, you can call me Totts, or even Tatiana.’ She still sounded irritated. He could hear her crunching on something in the background.
‘OK,’ he answered.
‘We’re not TV cops,’ she added sullenly.
He rolled his eyes. ‘You are in a mood.’
‘It’s been a bad day.’
‘Wanna talk about it?’ he asked clumsily. He’d known the woman for two weeks. He didn’t want to know her life, necessarily, but he sensed she wanted to tell him.
‘No,’ she replied testily. Now she sounded surprised and irritated.
The Woman Whisperer he obviously wasn’t. ‘OK, then, well, what I just found out might make your day better. Or at least take your mind off your troubles,’ he tried. ‘Where are you, anyway?’
‘Picchu Palace.’
‘Oh …’
‘What?’ she asked defensively, as she crunched.
‘I got food poisoning there once,’ he replied with an evil smile. ‘Enjoy your lunch, Maldonado.’
Then he popped the last of his cruller into his mouth and hung up the phone.