Something Missing (29 page)

This was the most severe moving violation of Martin’s life.

Less than thirty seconds later, Martin was within five car-lengths of the pickup, resuming his tail. Had this been an ordinary client, Martin wouldn’t fear detection as much as he did now. Ordinary people weren’t typically concerned about being followed, and rarely would someone suddenly become aware of the same vehicle in the rearview mirror for an extended period of time. But in Martin’s business, the threat of being followed was a constant concern. He imagined that the intruder might feel the same way.

Martin maintained a safe distance for the next two miles before the pickup made a left turn onto what Martin knew was a residential street. Had the pickup continued on for another three blocks, the intruder would have reached Park Road, a main thoroughfare through town. Turning off prior to Park Road probably meant that the intruder’s destination was somewhere within the twelve to sixteen blocks that made up this middle-class neighborhood.

Wary of following the pickup into the residential area (tailing a car on a main road was one thing, but doing so on a side street might draw suspicion), Martin continued past the turn (Ascension Street), taking the next left instead, hoping to reacquire the pickup as it crossed through the neighborhood.

This is when Martin’s luck failed him. By the time he rounded the block and was at the intersection of Gates Road and Ascension Street, one block north of Quaker, the pickup truck was nowhere to be seen.

Martin was not immediately concerned. There were obvious explanations for the absence of the truck. There could have been an additional side street dividing Ascension: a cross street, a dead end, or a cul-de-sac. Or the intruder’s destination (and perhaps his home) might be somewhere on Ascension Street. As long as he didn’t park his truck in a garage, finding it would be only a matter of time.

Martin quickly decided to turn right onto Ascension, continuing north on the same street where he had expected to find the pickup. As he rolled slowly through the neighborhood, he scanned both sides of the road, looking for the blue truck or a side street where it might have turned. After less than a block, Martin spotted it, disappearing behind the automated door of a garage set behind a small white Cape. As he pulled past the property, Martin spotted the intruder walking up the driveway toward a side door. Martin took note of the house number, 414, before continuing past the house and circling back to Quaker Lane.

414 Ascension Street. That was probably all he needed in order to identify the intruder.

By late morning, Martin had finished processing the day’s acquisitions (managing to visit the remaining three clients on his list in near-record time), and with his workday complete, he was now ready to identify the Pearls’ intruder.

This process had occupied his mind all day.

Though determining a client’s identity was sometimes necessary he often knew the client’s name long before entering their home. However, it was standard operating procedure for Martin to identify his clients’ neighbors as well (hoping to identify law enforcement officers, stay-at-home moms, and the like), and for this purpose, Martin had a system in place. Sitting at his kitchen table with a tall glass of lemonade (courtesy of the Reeds, who purchased more Country Time lemonade than a person could ever consume), Martin began his online detective work in the property records for the town of West Hartford. Within minutes, he had the particulars for 414 Ascension Street on his screen, including the owner’s name (Clive Darrow), the date of the home’s most recent purchase (two years ago), and a basic blueprint of the house (useful to Martin when scouting potential clients and their homes).

Unless the man lived with a roommate or was renting the home, Martin was relatively sure that he had identified the Pearls’ intruder by name.

Next, Martin conducted an online search for the name Clive Darrow, hoping to turn up any information on the man. After scanning several websites containing the name (including one on which a Cayman dive-master by the same name frequently posted in the scuba forums), it did not appear that any matched the Clive Darrow who had visited the Pearls’ home earlier that day. None of them seemed to have any recognizable connection to Connecticut.

In possession of the intruders’ probable name and address, Martin next went to an online directory in order to secure his telephone number. In less than a minute, he had this bit of information as well. A well-timed call from a nontraceable phone would likely give Martin the confirmation of the intruder’s name, either by tricking the man into confirming his name
(Martin would falsely represent a charity in this case) or by listening for the intruder to identify himself on his answering machine (which most people did).

Next, Martin logged onto a website that provided in-depth background checks for a monthly fee. There were dozens of these websites in existence, and after extensive research, Martin had found the service that he thought was best. Simply enter the client’s name and at least one other identifying piece of information (current address or Social Security number, for example), and in minutes Martin would receive a report that included up to ten years of address history with all listed phone numbers, a marriage and divorce history, an instant criminal background check, a Sex Offender Registry check, as well as a list of bankruptcies, tax liens, and small claims judgments. The report would also include a local and national Web-based search of more than five hundred sources, including major U.S. newspapers and magazines, trade publications, websites, and newswires.

As he waited for the report to arrive in his e-mail box, Martin conducted a search of eBay for Clive Darrow’s name, turning up no further information.

At that moment the phone rang, startling Martin. Though he was engaged in nothing illegal, he couldn’t help but think that the intruder was watching him, tracking his every move. He involuntarily glanced at the open kitchen window just to be sure.

Martin picked up the phone during its third ring, as he always did, and was surprised to hear Laura’s voice on the other end. “What are you doing right now?”

Laura had a way of dispensing with formality and getting right to the point. This both excited and unnerved Martin. The absence of formality made Martin think that the two were becoming close despite the short amount of time that they had known each other, but at the same time, the lack of a standard
greeting and other social rhetoric flustered Martin, not allowing him time enough to develop an appropriate response.

“Just getting ready for lunch,” Martin managed to answer after a moment. “Why?”

“I’ve got an hour for lunch. Want to meet me someplace?”

“Sure.” Martin hadn’t thought he’d see Laura before Saturday, so this was quite a treat. Their conversations on the phone had started out awkward and stilted, with Martin taking notes on everything Laura said and reviewing them later for future conversational topics. But in the past couple of days, he had found himself able to speak to her with less and less mental exertion. In fact, he had inadvertently stopped taking notes for more than ten minutes during their last phone call before realizing his gaffe and attempting to remember what had been said in order to jot it down. It had been his most relaxed conversation with her so far, and the prospect of seeing her in person thrilled him. “Where?”

“Max’s in the Center makes a great Caesar salad with oysters,” she said hopefully.

“Sounds good,” Martin answered, though he despised oysters. “When should I meet you?”

“Can you be there in thirty minutes?”

“You bet,” he answered, pleased with his quick response.

“Great!” Laura said with genuine enthusiasm. “I’ll see you there. I’ll be the pretty girl at the bar.”

“Okay,” Martin answered, shaking his head in disgust as he hung up the phone. “‘Okay?’ Is that the best I can do?” he wondered aloud. He’d think of something clever to say on the way over to the restaurant to make up for the blunder.

After a quick trip to the bathroom to straighten his hair, floss, and brush his teeth, Martin was ready to walk out the door when he heard the chimes that signal the arrival of an e-mail.
Glancing at the clock and seeing that he had a few more minutes before he needed to leave, he sat down in front of the laptop, unable to contain his curiosity about the intruder. He double-clicked on the e-mail and began skimming the text, not expecting to find much. These reports tended to be full of addresses and previous work history, and little more. He was about halfway down the page when his eyes fell upon a piece of information that he had seen only once before.

Martin was suddenly very afraid for Sophie Pearl’s safety, and a few moments later, when the rest of the puzzle pieces clicked into place, his fear rose exponentially.

Sophie Pearl was in grave peril.

The drive to Max’s Oyster Bar was torture for Martin. He had gone from absolute glee over Laura’s invitation to a desire to dispense with the lunch as quickly as possible. There was much to do if Sophie Pearl was to remain safe, and he had no idea where to begin.

Adrenaline raced through his extremities, causing his hands to shake and his fingers and toes to tingle. His ears were filled with the sound of rushing blood. His heart raced like never before. As he turned onto South Main Street, in the direction of West Hartford Center, his fear grew as he began to comprehend the type of man with whom he was dealing.

The intruder, Clive Darrow, reminded Martin of himself. Meticulous, clever, and cautious.

Halfway down the page, Martin’s eyes had found Clive Darrow’s criminal history:

A few lines past his criminal record, Martin saw that Clive Darrow was a registered sex offender, and it was this bit of information that allowed Martin to grasp the ingenuity of this man’s plan.

Only once before had Martin encountered a registered sex offender while conducting background checks. This had been Noah Blake, the man still living next door to the Pearls. Martin had allowed this fact to register as a coincidence for all of three seconds before the genius of Clive Darrow became apparent to him. Martin realized without any doubt that Clive Darrow, in search of a new victim, was targeting the home of a woman who lived within close proximity to a known sex offender. With a sex offender registry available online for anyone to access, Darrow would have been able to locate the homes of hundreds of these convicted criminals in the area. If his plans for Sophie Pearl were timed properly and executed without leaving any physical evidence behind, this would give the police a prime suspect for whatever crime Darrow might commit. And if Darrow was capable of breaking into the Pearls’ home undetected, he was more than capable of gaining access to Noah Blake’s home as well, in order to collect DNA evidence to leave behind at the scene. Hair from a drain or comb would be simple enough to obtain. In fact, he might have already gathered the necessary evidence and spent the morning dispersing it around the Pearls’ house. And since Noah Blake was a registered sex offender, his DNA would already be on file with law enforcement agencies.

Just as Martin was meticulous and ingenious in his work, it appeared that Clive Darrow was equally capable, and this was a dangerous combination in Martin’s estimation. Sophie Pearl was in great danger, and Martin knew that he would have to stop Darrow before it was too late.

What he should do was unclear, but as he pulled alongside a parking meter a block from the restaurant, he tried to rid his mind of this new problem, at least until his lunch with Laura was finished. Filling the meter for one hour and hoping he wouldn’t be there any longer, he walked briskly into Max’s, spotting Laura where she said she would be.

She hadn’t been lying when she told Martin to look for the pretty girl at the bar. In Martin’s opinion, no one in the bustling restaurant came close to Laura’s beauty. She was wearing a green sweater and blue skirt, and her hair was pinned up and away from her face, the way Martin would have her wear it every day if it were up to him. She spotted Martin almost immediately, walked over with a glass of seltzer water in her hand, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. He smiled and wondered if he should kiss her back in the same fashion but refrained, rejecting the mental image of such an attempt and feeling foolish for even considering it. The two were quickly seated by the window at a small table for two. As soon as he sat down, Martin’s thoughts returned to Sophie Pearl.

He tried to push them away.

“How is your day going?” he asked, attempting to fire off the first question to avoid being blindsided by Laura’s randomness.

“Better now. What were you going to have for lunch?”

“Huh?”

“You said you were about to have lunch when I spoke to you on the phone,” she reminded him. “What were you going to have?”

“Oh. A grilled cheese sandwich, but this is much better.” Though he liked the line (it had made Laura smile), Martin knew that the excitement and joy that he typically felt when speaking to her was gone. His hands were still shaking beneath the table when the menus arrived and drinks were ordered.