Baltimore 03 - Did You Miss Me?

would do anything like this.’
    Joseph leveled her a steady look. ‘Grayson, are you still there?’
    The speakerphone hummed as Grayson un-muted his line. ‘I am. I’ll check out the sons, too. How about the tutor, while I’m at it?’
    Daphne’s brows shot up. Her annoyed expression said, Too? ‘My tutor’s name was Joy Howard. I have no idea where you’d find her after all these years.’
    ‘I’ll see what I can dig up,’ Grayson said.
    ‘ Now can we talk about the gas man?’ Daphne asked. ‘Heather could still be alive.’
    ‘Yes.’ Joseph briefed the team on Daphne’s idea and McManus sat up straighter.
    ‘Do you remember the name of the company?’ he asked.
    ‘No. But there was a cat on the driver’s door. Like a bobcat.’
    ‘What about the driver, Daphne?’ Joseph asked.
    ‘He was about my father’s age, black hair. That’s all I remember.’
    Deacon took out a note pad and sketched an outline of a man, giving detail to his shirt. He added a round oval where a name tag might be, then sketched a bobcat above the oval. He slid the sketch to Daphne. ‘Take a look,’ he said quietly, ‘then close your eyes and see if you can fill in the oval.’
    She gave him a puzzled look, but did what he asked. She closed her eyes, her brows crunching as she tried to remember.
    ‘What color was his shirt?’ Deacon asked softly.
    ‘Blue.’
    ‘Good. Now I want you to picture his shirt. Can you see the oval?’
    ‘Yes.’ She opened her eyes, dismayed. ‘But I can’t remember his name.’
    ‘That’s okay. Just close your eyes. Picture the oval and I’m going to read you some names. Think about how big the letters were, how curvy, how straight. How many. Are they wide or skinny. Ready?’
    She frowned. ‘Okay.’
    Deacon looked at his laptop screen. ‘Dave,’ he said and after a moment she shook her head. ‘Jim. John. Bob. Mark. Bill. Tim. Chuck.’
    Her chin lifted and her eyes flew open. They shone with satisfaction. ‘Mark. It was Mark, with a k. I remember the cursive k at the end. But the letters were bigger – there were fewer of them. So Mark. My best guess.’
    McManus looked suspicious. ‘Where did you get the names?’
    ‘Social Security website,’ Deacon said. ‘You can search the Social Security administration’s website for names in order of popularity by state and birth year. Daphne said he was about her father’s age. I input that plus West Virginia and that list was generated. Getting the name of the company might be trickier, although your Better Business Bureau may have a list of companies doing business back then. You can ask your state income tax department, but they’ll put a yard of red tape around it.’
    ‘Or you could check the old phone books,’ Daphne offered. ‘I’ve searched old phone books for individuals before. The local library might have an archive.’
    ‘So we have to find the company and a guy named Mark,’ Joseph said. ‘Not a needle in a haystack, exactly, but not a simple Google. What else do we have?’
    ‘General contractors,’ JD said. ‘I’ll be checking with local contractors and hardware stores today to see if anyone matching Doug’s description has bought any HVAC supplies.’
    Joseph frowned. ‘HVAC? You lost me.’
    ‘Heating, ventilation, air conditioners?’ JD said tentatively.
    ‘I know what HVAC stands for. Why are you looking at them?’
    ‘Because Doug does HVAC work. It’s how he got into all those cops’ houses to plant cameras to watch them open their safes. He put flyers in cops’ mailboxes offering a free duct cleaning. The cops’ who took him up on the offer said he did good work, so he’s had training of some kind. If he’d been in the business, he’ll need supplies. Also, you said your sister Holly heard Kimberly say that he needed to bring his GC.’
    ‘“General contractor, ” ’ Joseph murmured. ‘I remember now.’
    ‘GCs and HVAC operators are advertised together in the phone book,’ JD said. ‘Wait . . .’ There was a long pause with a muffled conversation, then a very clear, ‘Shit.’
    ‘What?’ Joseph asked, afraid he knew.
    ‘Brodie and I are at the drugstore. She just checked with the clerk and all of the superglue inventory has been turned over. But we have a list of people who bought it, so that’s where we’re going. We’ll be in touch.’
    Joseph bit back a curse of his own. ‘Anything else?’
    ‘Yeah,’ JD said. ‘Brodie wanted me to tell you the