When Noah got back to his office he found a message to call Matt Ashton. Taking twice the time he should have, Ashton told him he'd faxed his request up to Quantico. He said he'd already talked to them about the case and that he would be hearing from an agent named Steph Dalton. The VICAP forms would be processed overnight, and he should be hearing from one of their analysts within the next two days as to any possible matches in the violent crime database.562Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5j1ofZMniN
Noah thanked him, hung up the receiver, and flipped on his computer. Carolyn Schultz was first. A driver's license check, nothing. Person inquiry: nothing, neither of her names showed up as an ID name or an alias. National Criminal Information Center: she was not wanted on any criminal charges. New Mexico Criminal Information Center: she was not wanted for questioning in any crimes. Pawns: she hadn't pawned anything within the past six months or sold anything to a pawnshop within the last week. Location check: no record of the police ever having been called to her residence on Paso Bajo for so much as even a Peeping Tom check. Well, it was a longshot.
He did the same thing for Peyton Pristino, Curtis Hogan, and Geoffrey Stewart. Again, nothing, except that Stewart had accumulated too many speeding tickets within a ten-month period back in 1986. His driver's license had been in jeopardy, but then his violations suddenly stopped and he'd managed to redeem himself with his insurance agency over the next two years.
Stanley Needham was a different story. Almost every screen Noah called up had something to say about Lauralee Dowey's ex-husband. From 1968 to the present he had fourteen moving violations, including three DWIs. he had done time in Santa Fe for the last one. He was known under four different aliases and had been arrested seven times, including three times for aggravated assault against his wife, Lauralee Alvina Dowey Needham. All three times she'd refused to press charges, though on the last occasion she requested a restraining order against him. He was paroled on the DWI sentence in August 1988 and on February 1989 a warrant was issued for his arrest on the basis of parole violations. He was also wanted by the Albuquerque Police Department for questioning in an aggravated assault of a woman in the North Valley subdivision four months earlier. A month before that incident he'd pawned a pair of Zeiss binoculars along with a 9-mm Smith & Wesson Model 459 automatic pistol.
Noah picked up a pencil and made one additional note. When he'd begun his investigation of the Vick San Felipe case he'd checked with Tolumura's central crime analysis division to see if any other homicides in the city had an M.O. pattern resembling what he'd seen with San Felipe. The search had been negative. Now, considering the fact that Needham was wanted in Albuquerque for questioning in an assault on a female, he decided to check with their crime analysis unit as well. Additionally, he wanted to check with the crime analysis office of the New Mexico State Police in Santa Fe, which collected statewide information.
The telephone rang and Noah picked it up. It was Overpeck, still at Dowey's.
"I'm about to shut down here," said Overpeck, sounding tired, "but I've made some progress. I found Dowey's financial papers, bank statements, income tax returns, personal correspondence, and a photograph of Stanley Needham. He looks like a real sleazoid. The gal had strange tastes. Anyway, I went through the bank statements and the checks first, and I think there's something a little screwy here."
Noah could hear him flipping the pages in his notebook, which he knew Overpeck was looking at through his cheap plastic half-lens reading glasses that he had bought off a rack at Walgreen's.
"Beginning in January of last year, she started making periodic withdrawals from one of her two accounts at the Bank of the Southwest. There were eight of these withdrawals last year, and already this year there've been two, on in January, one in March." He read off the dates and Noah jotted them down. "I called the bank to see if there had been any since the last bank statement went out and found out there was a $3,000 withdrawal a week ago yesterday, three days before she was killed. Those earlier withdrawals ranged from $500 to $3,000 a pop. There didn't seem to be any pattern to the time or the amount of the withdrawals."
"She would get cash?"
"Yep. I wonder if she was feeding them to Needham?"
"I wouldn't be surprised," Noah said, and he told Overpeck about his conversation with Craig and of his discovery of Needham's criminal record.
"Jesus, that figures," Overpeck said. "Anybody who'd let her husband hammer on her that much and not press charges against the bastard is just goofy enough to turn around and pay him money too. Women like that, shit." Overpeck had a thing about battered women. He didn't understand them, not even a little.
They talked a few more minutes, and Overpeck said he'd bundle up the stuff he'd gotten together and take it home with him, see what else he could come up with overnight. He said he would go home from Dowey's and see her at the office in the morning.
Noah sat back in his chair and looked at the notes scattered all over his desk. He'd checked on Yung and Pittman, who were still at TechCube and were staying until the place closed down at 5:00. It was well after 4:00 now and the homicide division's evening shift had already come on. There was a new lieutenant, a squad room full of new detectives, and a whole new set of problems.
Suddenly Noah was exhausted; the sleep he'd missed the night before was beginning to take its toll. But he still had to type in his supplements. He called up the appropriate screens and got to work.
It was after 5:00 and he had developed a dull headache by the time he'd printed out two copies of his supplement, filed one in the case file, and walked across the squad room and put the other into Abbot's box. Just as he was making the last turn into the aisle that led to his office, he heard his telephone ringing. He ran through the door and picked it up in mid-ring.
"Hey, thought you'd gone home," Yung said. "Have any luck today?"
He told him how their day had gone, starting with his visit the night before with Toby San Felipe. He told I'm Pittman's hunch about the pizza delivery had been correct, and then filled him in on his visit to Burr, on his interview with Craig, and on Needham's arrest and prison record.
"I like the way this Needham looks," Yung said. "You checked him out with Albuquerque yet?"
"I haven't had the time. Did you get anything?"
"Dowey's boss said everything good about her," Yung said. Noah could hear him eating something. "She was conscientious, ambitious, reliable, productive, da-dah, da-dah, da-dah-----He didn't know anything about her private life except that she was divorced. We talked to Pristino." Yung kept having to swallow. He was probably eating peanuts. He didn't say where he was calling from, but Noah would have bet it was a bar. "Also divorced, but he hadn't dated her in over a year. He said she was good-looking, well-built, a good sense of humor, and a sharp lady, but she didn't want to get sexually involved. Said he didn't go out with her but two or three times."
Noah massaged the nape of his neck with his free hand. Pristino had said Dowey was attractive, her figure was physically appealing, her personality was enjoyable, and she was intelligent. But he didn't want to get sexually involved. After a few dates he moved on. Christ, he really knew what to value in a woman. He must've been a quality guy.
"We talked to Poole," Yung went on. "She just sustained what the others had said, nothing really new. But she did say that probably Dowey's best friend, the one who knew the most about her, was Nolie Burr. And she said that Needham gave Dowey some flak now and then, that Dowey would sometimes say she wished to hell he'd move out of the city. She knew that Dowey had given him money on a number of occasions. Nobody else at TechCube gave us anything substantial."
"That's it?"
"Almost. We got an interesting fluke here. Todd gets smart and pokes around in the records of Dowey's clients. These records are very complete, including frequency of the rep's on-site calls. Over the last year Dowey called on one client a hell of a lot more than any of the others. InsuranceMates, Inc. a multinational insurance corporation that underwrites anything the touches water. Their offices are only two blocks away. Records show that Dowey had been there on the Thursday she was last seen. It turns out the contact, guy named LeStrange, was not the person she regularly went there to see. She checked in with LeStrange, all right, but then she went back into accounting and visited with a woman named Ottie Needham."
"His wife?" Noah was surprised.
"She's not married. We think maybe a sister," Yung said. "We checked at InsuranceMates but she wasn't there. She'd called in sick on both Monday and today. Her personnel file says she's from Charleston, South Carolina."
"Needham's hometown."
"Right. You wanna talk to her?"
"Haven't you?"
"Nope. We located Peyton Pristino, though. He's still a VP at a bank downtown. We called him, and he's agreed to meet us at this little place in thirty minutes."
This little place. Yung's euphemism for a bar.
"So you want Sis, then?" Yung asked. "She's out in Appleheart."
"Sure." He jotted down Ottie Needham's address.
"Also we found Geoffrey Stewart. He's some kind of executive with a business called McDuff. It's a radio communications firm. It's off Mago Vista Lane. Since it's out toward Dowey's, you want to talk to him, too?"
"Sure," Noah said again, and wrote down the address. It looked like Yung was going to stick to Needham. He knew a good horse when he saw one. "Those dates when Dowey called on Needham at InsuranceMates, do you have them?"
"Damn right. We photocopied the schedule. Just a sec." Noah heard him lay down the telephone; the music was distant but it was standard-issue bump-and-grind.
Then Yung was back on the telephone reading off the dates. Noah took them down, and they hung up. He quickly scrambled through the notes on his desk and found the dates Overpeck had given him when Dowey had withdrawn money. It took him only one moment to see that Dowey's cash withdrawal corresponded with the dates she had also called on InsuranceMates----which was right across the street from the Bank of the Southewest.562Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ001946UHTD
He looked at his watch. It was too late to get Stewart's office. He would call him in the morning before he went out.562Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjpF57yIgNb
