James Swain - The King Tides

“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?”

“Yes, it does. It all started with Jimmy Buffett.”

“The singer? What’s your connection?”

“I saved his life once.”

“Is that how you got the autographed guitar hanging in your living room?”

“Yes. I was a cop and assigned to protect him while he was giving a concert. When the show was over, we drove back to his hotel in a limo. As we pulled up, I got out first. There was a guy inside the lobby who struck me as suspicious.”

“What caught your eye?”

“It was summer, and he was wearing a long-sleeve Nike athletic shirt and jeans. Nobody wears long-sleeve shirts in the summer unless they’re hiding something.”

“Was he?”

“A knife, two guns, and a stun grenade. He was planning to ambush us and take Buffett out. He’d been stalking him for a while and wanted to kill him.”

“Jon to the rescue.”

He smiled at the memory. “It was one of my better moments. I took the crazy bastard down and the other cops on the detail whisked Buffett into an elevator and took him upstairs. Nobody got hurt. We arrested the perp and took him down to the station to book him. A couple of hours later I got a phone call from Buffett’s manager asking me to come back to the hotel. I went, and Buffett was in his suite waiting for me with the autographed guitar. He shook my hand so hard I thought he was going to break my fingers. Every time I look at the guitar, I’m reminded of that night.”

“Do you like Buffett’s music? I saw that you had a lot of his CDs.”

“I’m a big fan. That night had a lot to do with it.”

“If you don’t take cash, what do you live on?”

“I have a navy pension and my cop pension. That keeps me in groceries and pays my condo association fees.”

Daniels started to ask another question when her laptop made a noise indicating that an email had arrived. She went around the desk and had a look.

“It’s from the head of HR at Dartmouth-Hitchcock and it has an attachment,” she said. “Looks like we’re in business.”

The email’s attachment contained the names of every nurse employed by Dartmouth-Hitchcock during the time of the Hanover murders. There were over eight hundred names, and the list included both male and female nurses. With his help, she printed the list on the HP LaserJet printer that was stored in the closet.

They spent a half hour parsing the list and running a black line through the female nurses’ names. When done, slightly less than half the names remained, which were in random order. He got on the DMV site and used his password to gain entrance.

Daniels took the chair at the desk and faced the computer while he stood next to her and stared over her shoulder. The first name on the list was a male nurse named Ronald Colley. Daniels typed the name into the DMV search engine and hit “Enter.” A second later Colley’s driving record appeared on the screen. Ronald Colley had moved from Hanover six years ago and now resided in Boston.

“Not him,” Daniels said.

She repeated this process for the next fifty names on the list. There were no hits. It was an exhausting process, but she did not tire. People on a mission rarely did.

“You hungry?” he asked.

“Starving,” she said. “What’s on the menu?”

“Uber Eats. Name your pleasure, and it’ll be here in thirty minutes.”

“I like Chinese, no MSG.”

“I’m partial to a joint called the Rainbow Palace. Any preferences?”