Page 6

Bellingham, Washington

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

I wasn’t around all those years ago when Kelly and Scott first headed off to kindergarten. I had a free pass back then because

I was at work and Karen, their mother, was at home. But on that Tuesday morning, as Kyle was about to set off to finish his

senior year at a brand-new school, I felt a sense of unease that was probably closely akin to what Karen felt back when that

first-day-of-school shoe was on her foot as opposed to mine.

Kyle didn’t say anything aloud, but he, too, was clearly a bundle of nerves. I offered him food. He declined. I wanted to tell him I knew how he felt, but of course I didn’t. I went all through school—grade school and high school both—with the same bunch of kids. Here he was starting over from scratch eleven and a half years in. If people asked him about why he had suddenly moved away from his family to live with his grandparents, what was he supposed to say? If I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t have wanted to tell them the truth, and I doubted he was going to, either.

That day when Sarah and I met up with Hank and Mr. Bean for our afternoon walk, Hank was curious.

“I missed walking with you yesterday,” he said, “but I noticed a lot of comings and goings around your place over the weekend.

It looked like you had plenty of company.”

“Turns out we did and still do,” I told him. “There are some upsetting marital issues going on with our kids down in Ashland.

Our grandson, Kyle, is going to be staying with us for the next little while.”

“Oh, boy,” Hank said. “How old is he?”

“Eighteen. He’s now enrolled as a senior at Bellingham High.”

“Good luck with that,” Hank muttered. “I’m glad he’s yours and Mel’s problem instead of Ellen’s and mine. I already did my

time in that barrel, and I wouldn’t want to relive it for all the tea in China.”

“He seems to be a good enough kid.”

“I hope so,” Hank agreed dubiously, “but get back to me about that in a month or so and let me know how it’s going.”

“I will,” I answered.

The night before, while Mel and I were getting ready for bed, I had brought her up-to-date about the Gabe/Caroline situation.

She was as troubled about it as I had been.

“So that’s the real reason Kyle left home, to keep Gabe out of harm’s way as far as Caroline is concerned?” she asked.

“That’s what it sounds like,” I said. “But the way people like that work, it was probably only a matter of time before she

tried putting the moves on Kyle as well.”

“Could be,” Mel agreed, “but the idea of his leaving in the middle of the last semester of his senior year to protect his friend makes Kyle Cartwright a hero in my book.”

“Mine, too,” I said.

With that she had rolled over and fallen asleep. So did I.

As soon as Kyle left for school, I turned my hand to tracking down whatever information there was to be found on Caroline

Richards, Jeremy Cartwright’s not-so-true-blue girlfriend.

Cops aren’t allowed to use police resources to look into any kind of private matter. Mel could have come up with all kinds

of information on Caroline with only a few clicks on her office computer, but that would have been illegal and any resulting

information would have been entirely off-limits. At this point Caroline was definitely a family issue, but as a likely sexual

predator she might eventually become a criminal one. As for private investigators? They’re free to gather information wherever

they happen to find it.

For starters I put in a call to my favorite nerd, Todd Hatcher. Mel and I had first met him while we were working for the

Special Homicide Investigation Team, aka S.H.I.T. Officially, he’s a forensic economist. Unofficially, he’s a fount of information.

He’s an absolute wizard at tracking down mountains of details on anything or anybody, and having him in my pocket makes my

work as a PI immeasurably easier.

According to his voicemail, he was currently at a conference and would return calls as soon as possible. I left a message.

“As soon as possible” turned out to be several hours later. He called back just as Sarah and I returned from our afternoon

walk.

“What’s up?” Todd asked.

“It’s a family issue,” I told him. “I need to know anything you can find out about someone named Caroline Richards, formerly of Medford, Oregon, and now living in Ashland.”

“Can you give me any other info?” Todd asked. “Having a date of birth would be helpful.”

Talking about cases is easy. Talking about cases involving family members is not.

“She’s my soon-to-be-former son-in-law’s current girlfriend,” I told him, “and her first and last names are all I know. I

suspect she may be somewhat on the sketchy side, but I’d like to know that for sure.”

“I don’t blame you,” Todd said. “I’ll look into this, but I won’t be able to get to it until later this evening.”

“That’s great,” I told him. “No rush.”

When Kyle came home from school, I asked him how it went. “Okay, I guess.”

I would soon learn that was typical Kyle. He wasn’t a big talker to begin with and the current complications in his life were

wearing him down. In hopes of raising his spirits we ordered pizza for dinner. After that, he once again disappeared into

his room and wasn’t around when Todd called back later in the evening.

“When you said you thought Caroline Richards was sketchy,” he said, “you certainly called that shot. I was able to locate

a Caroline Louise Richards all right, one whose date of birth is the same as the one on Ashland Caroline’s driver’s license.

The problem is, that first Caroline Richards was born in 1996 in Salem, Oregon, and died a year later of natural causes—some

kind of heart ailment.”

“So who she really is and where she’s from is anybody’s guess?” I asked.

“Looks that way,” Todd said. “How’d your son-in-law hook up with her?”

“I’ll give you two guesses,” I replied. “A dating app.”

“Which one?”

“I believe it’s called Alone in Jackson. Why?”

“I’ll take a look at that one and see if her profile is still there. If it is, that might give us some clues. And since I’ve

located her driver’s license, once I’m back home on Friday, I’ll be able to run her photo through some of my facial recognition

databases to see what turns up. Clearly she’s gone to a lot of trouble to conceal her true identity, and it would be helpful

to know why.”

“What?” Mel asked when the call ended. She had been privy to my side of the conversation but not to Todd’s.

“The real Caroline Richards was a year old when she died in Salem, Oregon, in 1997.”

“So now Caroline is not only a possible sexual predator, she’s also an identify thief?”

“Apparently.”

“People don’t go to the trouble of changing their identity for no reason.”

“My thoughts exactly,” I agreed. “It’s usually because they’ve done something wrong and don’t want to be caught.”

“Are you going to tell Kyle about this?”

“Not for the time being. The poor kid’s got enough on his plate right now. Let’s wait and see what else Todd can dig up.”

A few minutes later a text alert came in on my phone. Todd had sent me a copy of Caroline’s driver’s license photo. She was

good-looking, all right, with fine features and a thick mane of blond hair. It takes something for someone to look that good

in a driver’s license photo. In the old days, I would have referred to her as a blond bombshell. I was beginning to understand

how Jeremy might’ve fallen for her, especially if the rest of her body measured up to her facial features.

I passed my phone to Mel. She took a look and whistled. “She’s gorgeous.”

“Isn’t she just,” I muttered, “but as my mother used to say, ‘Pretty is as pretty does.’”

Later, after we were in bed, Mel snuggled up to me and asked, “So how’s this second gig at parenthood going for you?”

“So far,” I told her, “it’s not exactly smooth sailing.”

A week earlier, Kyle had stayed awake all night, worrying about Caroline Richards. That night it was my turn to lie awake

worrying about the same thing. What kind of a mess had Jeremy Cartwright gotten himself into? Because now the rest of us had

been dragged into it, too.