As I drove, I thought about Nancy’s description of the truck. I glanced at Devon. “What would you consider newer?”
“Who the hell knows? If it was clean like she said, then it could be a ten-year-old truck that’s been well cared for.”
I groaned. “Yeah, and that isn’t a specific enough description to try with the DMV database again. For now, let’s focus on those tip-line calls that may hold merit.”
We returned to the precinct and dug in. It turned out that after speaking to the person in Wyoming, we’d learned that our mystery man, who the caller said was named Dan Unser, had been in Cheyenne until two days ago. That didn’t add up with our timeline. Bentley said he’d spoken with the woman in Iowa. Although she described the man as very tall, she said he was heavy too. Our guy couldn’t weigh more than two hundred fifty pounds. He appeared fit, not heavy. That lead was a dead end too. Our last possible lead came from Kentucky. I dialed that caller back. The man, Brian Norris, assured me that the man on the news was his brother, Abraham. He said there was no mistake and that Abraham often disappeared for days or weeks on end. I was intrigued and asked if he had a current photograph of his brother. I also asked if he knew Abraham’s exact height. He said he did—six foot six. Excited, I gave him my email address and asked him to send the picture as soon as humanly possible. He promised he would. All we had to do was wait for him to dig up a recent picture, photograph or scan it, and send it over. I hoped it wouldn’t take too long.
In the meantime, I did a people search for the name Abraham Norris from Irvine, Kentucky, and quickly realized the program didn’t pull up statistics for cities under ten thousand people. The next largest city was Lexington, but nobody named Abraham Norris showed up.
I leaned back in my chair and squeezed my temples. “Damn it. I can’t find his name in Irvine, and Lexington is nearly fifty miles away. Besides that, the towns aren’t even in the same county.”
“Do a criminal background check on that name and see what pops.”
“Good idea.” I typed in his name, hit the nationwide criminal records tab, and watched as the circle spun.
Rue stood. “Coffee will help us think better. C’mon. Chances are the criminal background results and the picture of Abraham will have hit your email by the time we get back.”
“Yeah, coffee is exactly what I need right now.”
I didn’t know if I should be optimistic or not. Every lead we’d gotten so far had fallen through. I half expected to sit down at my desk, open the attached picture or pictures, and see somebody who didn’t look at all like our sunglasses man.
I dropped seventy-five cents into the coffee machine, picked my favorite brew, and watched mindlessly as the cup filled. Rue followed suit, then we headed to our office. After taking my seat, I saw that the nationwide criminal records site had finally brought up every living criminal with the name Abraham Norris. There were four in the entire country, and one was from Kentucky. My heart raced as I opened the record. The age range was right, and the document showed he’d had one arrest at age twenty-two during a protest. I groaned at the blurry black-and-white photo of a man with long hair and a full beard. That picture was useless and twenty some years old. Seconds later, an email alert came in. It had to be from Brian Norris. The short note stated that the photo was from last Thanksgiving—only six months ago. I clicked on the attachment and let out a yelp. It was our guy, and I could barely contain myself.
“Rue, take a look. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Is this really him? Have we really gotten that lucky?”
Devon leapt out of his chair and rounded my desk. He leaned in and stared at the picture. “Okay, grab that copy of his driver’s license photo. It’s the only thing decent we can compare it to.”
I opened my desk drawer and grabbed the enlarged picture. I placed it next to the image Brian had sent.
Rue pointed. “Enlarge that fifty percent or just until it pixels then back it off.”
I did, and we stared at the screen.
“It’s him, right?” I was beginning to doubt.
Rue grinned. “It sure as hell is. Get Royce in here. We need his opinion too.”
I called our sergeant, and he was in our office within a minute.
“You sure it’s him?” he asked as he rushed in.
“Look for yourself and tell us what you think.” I moved back and let him sit in my chair.
Royce squinted and looked from picture to picture for discrepancies. He said he couldn’t find any. “It’s him. Son of a bitch, it’s him, and now we finally have his name.”
We gave each other celebratory high fives, yet that new information still didn’t help us learn his location. We needed more.
Royce stood and looked directly at me before walking out. “You two head to the conference room, and I’ll get Bentley and Lawrence. We need to find that killer before you’re the next person on his list.”
We congregated a few minutes later, each with notepads in hand. Royce updated our other detectives on the latest findings.
“His real name is Abraham Norris. Cannon did a criminal background check on him, and the only arrest noted was twenty some years ago during a protest. Kid’s stuff and nothing that’s relevant anymore. He’s from Irvine, Kentucky, and it was his brother, Brian, who sent the picture. He told Cannon that Abraham disappears for days to weeks on end.” Royce sucked in a deep breath. “My personal opinion on that is those missing days are when he’s out killing people.”
“Did his brother say what Abraham does for a living?” Bentley asked. “I’d be curious if my brother up and left town on a regular basis.”
I fielded that question. “He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. Whatever Abraham may have told him his occupation was could easily be a lie anyway.”
Lawrence took his turn. “True, and the constant disappearing act likely means he’s a loner and doesn’t have a family either.”
“Okay,” I said. “We know he’s somewhere in Savannah. We were told by Nancy that he drove a newer-looking green truck that was clean. Not a lot of help there, but we can still put a local BOLO out for any well-kept green truck.” I jotted a note to myself.
“What’s that?” Royce asked.
“A reminder to call his brother back and ask if Abraham knows anyone in Savannah. Also, we need to find out if any green trucks have been reported stolen in the last two days.”
Royce tipped his chin. “Where did you guys get with the hotels?”
“Not far,” Bentley said. “Any within the historic district are over two hundred bucks a day.”
“Keep digging. Go a little farther out. Ask if any Abraham Norris or Ross Matson is checked in there.”
“On it. Anything else, Boss?” I asked.
“Yeah, find him.”