“It’s creased,” Gretchen said, pulling Josie from her memories of that time. She picked up the photo, and Josie saw where it had been folded. Gretchen turned the flap up and there was teenage Josie, only part of her face visible. She’d been standing on the opposite side of the fence to Ray, leaning in to give him a good luck kiss. There had been many games and many moments like this, Josie remembered. It had been an exciting season for the Denton East Blue Jays. Josie hadn’t missed a single game. The players had always come to that section of the fence before each game to receive a last round of well-wishes from family and other students. There was always a crowd there. What Josie had never realized was that Beverly had been somewhere behind her in that crowd, taking a photo of Ray without either of them knowing. Or had Ray known? Had he seen Beverly take the photo? Had he let her? Had something been going on between them after all?
“Look at this one,” Gretchen said, setting the photo of Josie and Ray back onto the bed and picking up the last one.
Josie shook her head slightly, trying to rid her mind of thoughts of Ray and Beverly so she could focus on the present. The photo was of a man lying in a bed. He was naked, on his side, facing away from the camera, and only his back from the shoulders down and a sliver of his hip had been captured. “Look,” Josie said, pointing to his left shoulder blade. “That’s a tattoo of a skull.”
Gretchen leaned in, slipping on her reading glasses, and peered at the photo. “It sure is,” she said softly. She pointed to another part of the photo where one of the man’s hands reached back toward the camera, as though he was trying to shoo away the photographer. His hand was slightly out of focus, but Josie saw what Gretchen had picked up on.
“That’s a wedding ring,” she said to Gretchen.
“Yes.”
“This is the guy she was seeing,” Josie said. “The one she was actually intimate with. No wonder she didn’t tell anyone about him. He was married.”
They spent a few moments examining the picture again to see if there were any clues as to where it had been taken, but all they could glean from the background was that the man was in a bed with white sheets and it appeared to be daylight.
Gretchen snapped a photo of the picture with her phone. “Not just that but she was a minor.”
“He would have faced criminal charges if they were caught.”
“His reputation and marriage would be destroyed as well, assuming he had a reputation he wanted to keep.”
“Right,” Josie agreed. She sighed and looked back at the closet where only one small plastic bin remained. “We still have no idea who this guy was or how she met him.”
Gretchen picked up the photo of Vera with the man in the kitchen. “Could it be this guy?”
Josie compared the two pictures but there was no way to tell. “I don’t know. I can’t even tell if he’s wearing a wedding ring in this photo.”
Gretchen walked over to the closet and took out the last bin, returning to the bed with it. Poppy immediately sauntered over and rubbed herself against Gretchen’s arms, her tail flicking across the lid of the bin. Gingerly, Gretchen picked her up and set her on the floor. Seconds later, she hopped back up onto the bed, only this time she kept her distance, watching the two women with suspicion.
“Would you look at this?” Gretchen breathed as she pulled several items from the bin.
They were driver’s licenses, Josie realized. Three of them, all with different names, all expired. Josie picked one up and ran a finger across the photo of Vera. She felt the slightest imperfection at the edge. “These are doctored,” she said. “And not very well.”
Gretchen picked up another and with some effort, managed to peel away the photo of Vera to reveal a completely different woman. “You’re right,” she said. “Not very good quality at all.”
Josie took out her phone and snapped pictures of each one. “We’ll look up these names when we get back to the stationhouse.”
They started bagging the evidence they intended to remove. As they worked, Poppy meowed loudly from the head of the bed. Josie said, “I wonder when she ate last.”
Gretchen said, “Let’s take care of the cat and then we’ll head back and see what we can come up with in terms of these doctored driver’s licenses. Then we can try to track down the guy in the picture with Vera.”
Thirty-Eight
A half hour later, they were back in the car with Poppy in a carrier in Josie’s back seat. The vet had supplied all the records without any questions but then suggested they take the cat to a nearby shelter. When they arrived, Josie parked and Gretchen went inside with Poppy. Fifteen minutes later, she came back out. With Poppy. “I can’t leave her there,” Gretchen told Josie.
It seemed Josie wasn’t the only one experiencing an overload of emotions lately.
With Poppy settled in the backseat, they started back to Denton. Gretchen used the Mobile Data Terminal to look up Alice Adams as well as the other names they’d found on driver’s licenses in Vera Urban’s closet. “It looks as though Vera’s modus operandi was to physically steal these other women’s licenses and change the photo. All of these women reported their licenses stolen and had them replaced. All four of them lived more than an hour away from where Vera lived in Colbert, although we have no idea where she was living before she moved there.”
Josie said, “Did Vera steal their identities as well? She didn’t open credit cards in their names or anything like that? Bank accounts? Utilities?”
Gretchen jotted something down in her notebook. “No,” she said. “There’s no record of anything.”
“But if she wanted to rent a room in certain establishments—even with cash—or even an apartment, she’d need identification,” Josie pointed out.
“Don’t most landlords require a credit check these days?” Gretchen asked.
“I believe they do but if I were Vera, and I were using stolen identities, I’d try to find someone who wasn’t going to check my credit. Although, if the landlord did, and Alice Adams, for example, had good credit, that would only work in Vera’s favor.”
“True,” Gretchen said. “And if the real Alice Adams wasn’t monitoring her credit closely, she might not notice an inquiry. So you think she stole these driver’s licenses and put her own photo on them just to get an apartment?”
“And also to go to the doctor. As long as she never went to collections for an overdue bill, the real Alice Adams would have no idea that she was seeing doctors or getting prescriptions in her name.”
“That’s insurance fraud,” Gretchen said.
“Assuming she had insurance. You said the medical bills you found in her closet showed she’d paid them in cash.”
“That’s taking a big chance,” Gretchen noted. “Not having insurance. If something catastrophic happened, she’d be in real trouble.”
“True,” Josie agreed. “But look at the way she was living. Speaking of cash, we don’t even know how Alice survived. Where did she get her income? How was she paying for that apartment?”
Gretchen said, “She would also need identification to cash a check or a money order.”