Thomas Perry - Shadow Woman

Now he had a few bits of information, and soon he would have enough. He stared at his watch for a moment, then carefully pulled the stem and set it three hours ahead. When he got to New York, he would still have time for some sleep. The hotel reservation was guaranteed, so the room would be waiting for him. The overnight package from Nevada would probably be there when he awoke. He could assemble the pieces of the gun after breakfast.

17

The telephone directory said that the 996 exchange meant that the telephone answering machine was in Deganawida. The road atlas said that the population of Deganawida was only 22,000 souls.

Linda Thompson sat at the desk in the little suite she had rented on the south side of Buffalo, her face illuminated by the computer screen. When Earl had initiated her ten years ago, tracking a person still meant going to counters in below-ground floors of old county office buildings and turning the pages of bound books of records while some sour-faced old clerk watched her out of the corner of her eye. Then she would fill out some form with a ballpoint pen with a chain on it, pay a fee in some strange number like three dollars, or six, but never five, and wait weeks for the copy to come in the mail.

Now all she had to do was put herself into a screen-trance, tap in the secret numbers and symbols, and then conjure what she wanted out of the air. She watched the lighted screen as she put in the mixture of upper- and lowercase letters, periods, slashes, pound signs in their correct order. The screen exploded into life with the company’s greeting, “Welcome to Probar Commercial Information Systems, Santa Ana, California.” There was a graphic of the front of a building with a big closed door like the vault of a bank. “User number?” said the screen.

Linda typed in the Northridge Detectives account number, the door appeared to swing open, and the doorway expanded beyond the borders of the screen as though she were stepping inside. The door was replaced by the menu. It was longer than it had been a month ago. PCIS had been collecting for seven or eight years now, and it had thousands of public records databases. She scrolled down the list quickly.

She moved her cursor to select “Tax Assessor’s Rolls.” She selected New York State. She selected Erie County. She selected City of Deganawida. The menu disappeared and the screen said, “Access charge five dollars. Do you wish to proceed? (Y/N).”

Linda tapped Y. She was guessing that this Jane woman did not live in an apartment building. The business of making people disappear did not lend itself to renting. It was almost inevitable that from time to time a client might show up in person, and renters on the same floor would wonder about it. Any clandestine business was best conducted from a free-standing building without a landlord who might drop in, and the address had to remain the same.

This Jane had apparently operated in Las Vegas as though she were good at it, and the people who needed to disappear badly enough to hire help doing it probably didn’t care what they paid. She could afford a house, especially in a backwater like Deganawida. Linda looked at the list that appeared on the screen. Now that she was in, she could manipulate the list. She asked it how many entries were on the list, and it said 5,864. Linda felt power begin to flow into her. The number was tiny. She ordered her computer to search for the word “Jane.”

The computer found sixteen Janes, a Janeway, and fifty-two houses on a Jane Street. She made a copy of each of the Janes. She was feeling more and more excitement as she went along. She had been in western New York for only a day, and already she had the list down to sixteen.

Linda relinquished her hold on the tax assessor’s rolls and returned to the main menu. She contemplated Jane. She was twenty-five to thirty-five years old, probably about thirty if Linda could trust Seaver’s description. She was tall, thin, dark-haired. She operated a very strange little business from one of these sixteen free-standing buildings in Deganawida. Would she have the office disguised as some kind of business? Linda could not decide. Was Jane one of the seven married women, someone like Ronald and Jane Schwartzkopf, Tenants in Common? Or was she one of the nine sole owners listed—Jane Hanlon, Jane Whitefield, Jane Carmen Rossi? Most of the women listed alone were probably widows or divorcees. Some would be too old.

Jane the woman who made people disappear would have a driver’s license. The driver’s license carried date of birth, height, weight, hair and eye color. Linda selected the Department of Motor Vehicles records: “Access fee ten dollars. Do you wish to proceed? (Y/N).” She began with the first of the sixteen names and scanned the information that had been printed on the license: Jane Anne Hanlon, DOB 08-09-29. Jane Pildrasky was HT 5-02, WT 160, HAIR BLD, EYES BLU. Jane Rossi’s license was RSTR: CORR LENS, DAYLIGHT ONLY. The Jane who had helped Pete Hatcher would never have picked a darkened room and a night escape if she could see only in bright light.

Before she relinquished the Department of Motor Vehicles records, Linda had eliminated all but four of the Janes who owned houses in Deganawida. All were HT 5-06 or better, HAIR BRN, DOB after 1960. She returned to the telephone directory and looked up the four names. She eliminated first Jane Sheridan and then Jane Whitefield because neither had the right telephone number. But then she discovered that none of the other Janes had it either. Of course. The Jane she wanted had to live a visible life in a small town. She would have a listed number in the book. It was the business phone that would be unlisted. Linda put Sheridan and Whitefield back in contention.

Linda stared at the main menu and let her reverie deepen. She picked up Jane and turned her around and around, looking at her closely, trying to feel her surfaces. Jane was a tall, lean, dark-haired, youngish woman who owned a house in Deganawida but was gone from it for periods of time. She probably operated much the way Linda and Earl did. She would get a telephone call, drop everything, and go to meet a client. Then she would come home and lie around for weeks, getting used to the time zone and letting her aches and pains go away. Linda felt herself coming closer and closer to Jane.

She selected the credit check: “Access fee, thirty-five dollars. Do you wish to proceed? (Y/N).” Y, of course. Now for the federal privacy law. “Please indicate your legitimate legal grounds for requesting the information. You are a Prospective: (a) Lender, (b) Employer, (c) Insurer, (d) Other. Please specify.” Linda loved that part of it. They gave you a selection of lies to choose from. She chose insurer. Insurance companies could do virtually any kind of investigation they wanted on anybody, and they often hired detective agencies to help.

When the four credit reports came out of her printer, Linda studied them. Jane Sheridan was employed by the Deganawida School District. She was a teacher. She couldn’t leave town every time the phone rang. Jane Finley was listed as a “home-maker,” which was more promising, but her record was full of late payments, credit extended by appliance stores and car dealers, and interest paid to credit-card companies. It didn’t make sense for the Jane that Linda was looking for to live that way. She didn’t need to, and it made too many people interested in her. Jane Colossi was promising for thirty seconds. She was an attorney. She seemed to spend a lot of money, but the most recent big charges listed for each credit card were for the month of June in France and Italy, when the right Jane was in Las Vegas. Jane Whitefield was the last one in the alphabet. She worked as a “career consultant.” She had the right kind of credit rating—excellent. Then Linda found it. Jane Whitefield had two telephone numbers. She probably didn’t know the telephone company’s computer had spit out the unlisted one when the credit bureau’s computer had asked. She was Jane.