"She must have been scared of him for a reason. Maybe he's violent. Maybe the brother is the reason Pauline moved away and changed her name. She cut all ties at a very young age. She must have been terrified of him."
Faith listed it out. "Jake Berman was at the scene of the crime. He's disappeared. He wasn't very cooperative as a witness. He hasn't left a paper trail except for the one arrest for indecent exposure."
"If Berman is an alias Pauline's brother using, then it's pretty established. He was arrested and went through the system with the name intact."
"If he changed it twenty years ago when Pauline ran away from home, that's a lifetime as far as public records are concerned. They were still playing catch-up, trying to enter info and old cases into computers. A lot of those files never made the transition, especially in small towns. Look at how hard it's been for Leo to track down Pauline's parents, and they filed a missing persons report."
"How old is Berman?"
Faith scrolled back to the front of the report. "Thirty-seven."
Will stopped. "Pauline is thirty-seven. Could they be twins?"
Faith rifled around in her purse and found the black-and-white copy of Pauline McGhee's driver's license. She tried to recall Jake Berman's face, but then remembered she was holding his file in her other hand. The BlackBerry was still loading. She held it up above her head, hoping the signal would get stronger.
"Let's go back to the front of the house," Will suggested. They went around the other side, Will checking the windows, making sure nothing looked suspicious. By the time they reached the front porch, the file had finally downloaded.
Jake Berman had a full beard in his arrest photo—the sort of unkempt kind that suburban dads sported when they were trying to look subversive. Faith showed Will the picture. "He was clean-shaven when I talked to him," she said.
"Felix said the man who took his mother had a mustache."
"He couldn't have grown one that quickly."
"We can get a sketch of what Jake would look like without facial hair, with a mustache, whatever."
"It's Amanda's call whether or not we put that out on the wire." Releasing a sketch could make Jake Berman panic and go even deeper into hiding. If he was their bad guy, it could also serve to tip him off. He might decide to kill any witnesses and leave the state—or worse, the country. Hartsfield International Airport offered over twenty-five hundred flights in and out of the city every day.
Will said, "He's got dark hair and dark eyes like Pauline."
"So do you."
Will shrugged, admitting, "He doesn't look like her twin. Maybe her brother."
Faith was being stupid again. She checked the birthdays. "Berman had a birthday after he was arrested. He was born eighteen months before Pauline. Irish twins."
"Was he wearing a suit when he was arrested?"
She scrolled through the file. "Jeans and a sweater. Same as when I talked to him at Grady."
"Does the report list his occupation?"
Faith checked. "Unemployed." She read the other details, shaking her head. "This is such a sloppy report. I can't believe a lieutenant passed this on."
"I've done those stings before. You get ten, maybe fifteen guys a day. Most of them plead it down or just pay the fine and hope it goes away. You're not going to be going to court, because the last thing they want to do is face their accuser."
"What's the 'typical hand gesture' they use to ask for sex?" Faith asked, curious.
Will did something absolutely obscene with his fingers, and she wished she hadn't asked.
He insisted, "There has to be a reason Jake Berman is hiding."
"What are our options? He's either a deadbeat, he's Pauline's brother, or he's our bad guy. Or all three."
"Or none," Will pointed out. "Either way, we've got to talk to him."
"Amanda's got the whole team looking for him. They're doing all the derivations on his name they can think of—Jake Seward, Jack Seward. They're trying McGhee, Jackson, Jakeson. The computer will run the disambiguations."
"What's his middle name?"
"Henry. So, we've got Hank, Harry, Hoss . . ."
"How can he have an arrest record and we still can't find him?"
"He's not using credit cards. He doesn't have a cell phone bill or a mortgage. None of his last known addresses have given up anything useful. We don't know who his employer is or where he's worked in the past."
"Maybe it's all in his wife's name—the name we don't have."
"If my husband got caught getting his willy winked at the mall while I was standing outside with our kids . . ." Faith didn't bother to finish the sentence. "It would help if the lawyer who handled his public indecency case wasn't a total prick." The man was refusing to divulge any of his client's information and insisted he had no way to get in touch with Jake Berman. Amanda was filing warrants to look into the files, but warrants like that took time—something they were running out of.
A blue Ford Escape pulled up in front of the house. The man who got out of the car looked like the textbook example of anxiety, from his wrinkled brow to the way he was wringing his hands in front of his slightly paunched belly. He was average looking, balding with stooped shoulders. Faith would have pegged his occupation as one that required him to sit in front of a computer for more than eight hours a day.
"Are you the police officers I spoke with?" the man asked brusquely. Then, perhaps realizing how abrupt he had been, he tried again. "I'm sorry, I'm Michael Tanner, Olivia's brother. Are you the police?"
"Yes, sir." Faith pulled out her ID. She introduced herself and Will. "Do you have a key to your sister's house?"
Michael seemed worried and embarrassed at the same time, as if this could all just be a misunderstanding. "I'm not sure we should be doing this. Olivia likes her personal space."
Faith caught Will's eye. Another woman who was good at putting up boundaries.
Will offered, "We can call a locksmith if we need to. It's important we see inside the house in case anything happened. Olivia might've fallen, or—"
"I've got a key." Michael fished into his pocket and pulled out a single key on a springy band. "She mailed it to me three months ago. I don't know why. She just wanted me to have it. I guess because she knew I wouldn't use it. Maybe I shouldn't use it."
Will said, "You wouldn't have flown all the way from Houston unless you thought that something was wrong."
Michael's face went white, and Faith caught a glimpse of what the last few hours of his life must have been like—driving to the airport, getting on the plane, renting a car, all the while thinking that he was being foolish, that his sister was fine. All the while knowing in the back of his brain that the exact opposite was probably true.
Michael handed Will the key. "The policeman I spoke with yesterday said he sent a patrolman to knock on the door." He paused, as if he needed them to confirm this had happened. "I was worried they weren't taking me seriously. I know Olivia is a grown woman, but she's a creature of habit. She doesn't depart from her routine."