Traffic was at a standstill a mile from the entrance ramp to I-95. He opened the traffic app on his phone and saw that I-95 was a parking lot. Daniels punched the wheel in frustration. Every wasted minute might lead to another young woman being lost.
“Why don’t you work out of my place,” he suggested. “I do consulting work with Team Adam, and have access to all the major databases on my computer.”
Daniels answered him by doing a U-turn and heading back to the beach. He gave her instructions as she drove. Daniels had a wire in the blood and was seeing things in a new light. It was how many investigations went. Months or years of tedious searching were rewarded by a sudden revelation that propelled the case forward.
“How long have you consulted for Team Adam?” she asked.
“Two years,” he said.
“What do you think of them?”
“They have a ninety-two percent success rate.”
“Wow. How does that work?”
“I asked myself the same question when I started with them. Why is Team Adam more effective at solving difficult cases than other law enforcement agencies? After working a few cases, I saw what it was. They never stop moving forward. If a team working an investigation hits a wall, a fresh pair of eyes is brought in to review the evidence and offer a different perspective.”
“Keep moving forward,” she said. “I’ll have to remember that.”
Three blocks from his condo, they hit another deterrent. The King Tides were unpredictable and often flooded roads without warning. A pair of metal detour signs had been placed in the middle of the road, forcing drivers to seek alternative routes.
“What’s with all the water? Have you had a lot of rain recently?” she asked.
“It hasn’t rained in weeks,” he said. “The flooding is a strange phenomenon called the King Tides. No one really knows what causes it.”
“I’m assuming there’s an alternative route,” she said.
“Of course. Back up, and I’ll get you there.”
She threw the rental into reverse. Turning in her seat, she looked over her shoulder, hit the gas, and expertly drove backward down the block until she reached the intersection, where she made a sharp turn, then hit the brakes, threw the rental into drive, and headed off in the direction that his finger was pointing. He’d been trained in defensive driving while in the SEALs, but this was a cut above.
“Where did you learn to drive like that?” he asked.
“Impressed?” she asked.
“You’re way good. I’m very impressed.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment, coming from a former SEAL.”
“I trained in Southern California. We didn’t spend a lot of time learning to drive in reverse. Most of our missions were conducted on foot or using small boats. No cars.”
“I learned on a course at TEVOC at Quantico. That’s short for Tactical and Emergency Vehicle Operations Center. The FBI teaches its agents how to drive every vehicle you can imagine in an emergency situation. We’re required to go back every six months for a refresher.”
“Do they take outsiders?”
“Help me solve this, and I’ll put in a word for you.”
Soon they were at his condo. He brewed a fresh pot of coffee while Daniels sat at the desk in his study and spoke with the head of human resources at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, with whom she was on a first-name basis. The head of HR agreed to email Daniels the names of all male employees at the hospital during the time of the Hanover killings, and the call ended. He placed a steaming mug in front of her.
“Sounds like you’re making progress,” he said.
“One step at a time,” she said. “Dartmouth-Hitchcock is an academic facility and has several thousand employees. There are a lot of male nurses working there. I’ll need to run background checks on each one to see if they have criminal records. We could be here for a while.”
Running criminal background checks was problematic since there was no single database that contained every criminal record.
“I think there might be a simpler way to track down our killers,” he said.
Her eyebrows lifted. “I’m listening.”
“We know these guys have a residence in Fort Lauderdale and live here part of the year,” he said. “I’d suggest that you run the names of the male nurses the hospital sends you against the Department of Motor Vehicles database to see what pops up. The DMV database includes address changes and name changes and is always current.”
“That’s an interesting angle,” she said. “What if our killers are still using their out-of-state driver’s licenses? Your idea wouldn’t work then.”
“That’s unlikely. If our killers have a residence here, they’ve probably applied for a homestead exemption, which saves them a bundle on property taxes. They’d also want to establish residency so as to not pay state income tax.”
“There’s no state income tax in Florida?”
“Nope. It’s why so many people retire here. Once a person establishes residency, they have thirty days to get a new driver’s license. If they don’t, and get pulled over by a cop for speeding, they’ll get arrested.”
“Good thinking. Do you have access to the DMV database?”
“I sure do. And I have a Team Adam password.”
“I’m willing to give it a try.”
They drank more coffee waiting for the head of HR’s email. Daniels got up from the desk and moved around the study, admiring the collection of art hanging on the walls. There were paintings, glass work, ceramics, and a black-and-white photograph of the Everglades at sunrise taken by the state’s answer to Ansel Adams, Clyde Butcher.
“You have good taste,” she said. “There was an exhibition of Clyde Butcher’s work at a gallery in Georgetown, where I live. The prices were through the roof.”
“I actually have lousy taste,” he said. “Just about everything in my place was given to me by one of my clients. It’s how I do business. I don’t take cash.”
She sat on the edge of the desk and looked him in the eye. “Is that the deal that you have with my sister and her husband?”
“Yes. Your brother-in-law agreed to buy me a new refrigerator. I’m got my eye on a make by Bosch with all the trimmings.”
“So no cash. Are you hiding it from the government and not paying taxes?”
“No. I declare everything and pay taxes on it.”
“Okay, I’m hooked. What’s the story here?”
“I need the memories.”
Daniels shook her head, not understanding.
“While I was a SEAL, I performed a hundred and fifty missions in all parts of the world. Most were rescues and were done in secret. They weren’t written down, and our government will disavow that they ever happened. The people I rescued were kidnap victims that worked in our embassies or undercover CIA agents whose cover got blown. Except for my first mission, where we were given bad information, I got every single one out alive.”
“That’s some record. Good for you, Jon.”
“Thanks. There was only one problem. I wanted to know what happened to the people I rescued later on. Did their lives go back to normal? Did everything work out okay? Because the mission was never officially acknowledged by the government, I couldn’t contact them and find out. It bugged the hell out of me.”
“You got attached to the people you rescued.”
“In a way, yes. I wanted to know if they were okay. That way, I could move on and stop worrying about them.”
“You wanted closure,” she said.
“Yes, closure. Over time, the missions faded from memory, which bothered me even more. I had nothing to remember these people by. Not even a selfie.”
Daniels was a quick study and nodded understanding. “You make your clients pay you in material objects so you have something to remember them by. Does it work?”