“Hair in the shower drain?”
“Gathered. Skin cells off the linens. But we don’t have Carl’s DNA. Believe me, if he was easy to catch, I’d have caught him.”
“What about his house in Michigan?” Amelia asked.
“No such house number or street.”
She was amazed. “But I sent Christmas cards. They never came back.”
Headly raised a shoulder. “All I know is, the house address doesn’t exist and neither does the e-mail address he left with Miss DeMarco to give to you.”
Dawson said, “There must be a record of his leases for the house next door.”
“One would think. We got the manager of the rental office out of bed late last night to serve the search warrant. He was obstinate at first, didn’t want to divulge personal information on a repeat client. But after some arm twisting to the tune of ‘obstruction of justice,’ he told us that Bernie Clarkson always paid him with a money order.”
“Like you buy at Seven-Eleven?”
“Exactly like that. I asked the guy if that hadn’t seemed odd to him. His answer, ‘He was from Michigan.’ As if that explained why he didn’t pay with a credit card or check. Anyhow, the little old man from the Upper Peninsula didn’t leave a paper trail.”
He focused on Amelia. “Did he always come alone?”
“Yes. The first summer he spent here—”
“2009.”
“That’s right. Jeremy was overseas. Grant was just a baby. I stayed the whole summer out here. Dad came off and on, but I spent a lot of time with Bernie because we were both lonely. He was grieving the recent death of his wife.”
“That’s what he told you. Doesn’t mean that Flora’s dead. Did he ever show you a photograph of her?”
“No. Which, now that I think about it, was odd. He talked about her with affection.”
“Did Jeremy ever meet so-called Bernie?”
“No. Even after he mustered out, he rarely came here. He couldn’t take time away from work. On one rare occasion when he did spend a few days, I invited Bernie to join us for dinner, but he excused himself, saying he didn’t want to intrude on our family time.”
“He declined because they were afraid you’d notice a resemblance.”
“I doubt I would have,” she said. “I see nothing of Jeremy in the Wanted-poster photograph of Carl.”
“I wasn’t struck by a similarity, either,” Dawson said. “I was totally taken in by Bernie.”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Headly said. “That’s a lousy picture on the Wanted poster and it’s over forty years old. Carl was just launching his criminal career then. He must look a lot different now.”
“Like a septuagenarian,” Dawson said. “Wrinkled, age spots. His hair has thinned considerably and it’s completely white. The limp could be faked. But maybe not.” He thought of something else. “The night of the storm, when he answered my knock, his eyes were red and he was rubbing them. I thought I’d woken him up. Now I think he must wear contacts to change his eye color. I’d caught him without them.”
Addressing Amelia, Headly said, “Bernie and Jeremy never let you see them side by side because you might’ve detected something. If not alike in looks, in mannerisms.”
“You’re still of the opinion that Jeremy knew who his father was, and that they were—”
“In cahoots? Absolutely. Bernie entered your life around the time your marriage started deteriorating. That wasn’t coincidental. He came here to keep an eye on you while Jeremy was in Afghanistan.”
“I was alone year-round. Bernie lived next door only during the summer months.”
“But when you’re in Savannah, your schedule is more structured,” Dawson said, picking up on Headly’s thread. “You stick to a routine built around your work, the boys’ schooling. You see the same people, go to the same places, do the same things. Basically, your life is under constant scrutiny.”
“That’s right,” Headly said. “You aren’t as free in town as you are at the beach.”
“Free?” She asked with a light laugh. “To do what?”