Such bravado. Where had it been when I’d been in my house, alone in the dark?
Finally the computer sat ready. I brought up the Internet.
In my mind I’d reconstructed what I could of my search. I’d found two Melissa Harkoffs of the right age. One in San Jose—although that address had been listed four years ago—and a second in Gilroy, with an address listing only six months ago. I didn’t have my case file, but I could start over, again finding the two birth dates and their Social Security numbers. And I could log into my commercial data services and software from here.
But first I would start with Google—where I’d been when my electricity cut off. If I could find a picture of my Melissa, I could avoid numerous rabbit trails.
I typed in “Melissa Harkoff” + San Jose. Sixteen hits popped up, most of them apparently connected to a church. I clicked on the first and discovered the newsletter for San Jose Evangelical Fellowship, edited by Melissa Harkoff. Scrolled through it, looking for a photo or anything that might indicate this person’s age. No such information. I followed the second hit…the third and fourth. Different issues of the same newsletter.
The rest of the hits also failed to yield a photo or descriptive information. But the newsletter articles sounded quite dull for a twenty-two-year-old. Would someone that age be interested in writing about such things as a church picnic, volunteer committees, and the need for substitute Sunday School teachers? The photos that I did see contained not one young person.
On my pad of paper I jotted down the church’s name and phone number. I also placed it in my new note file. Unless I found my Melissa elsewhere, I may need to conduct a pretext call. A church office should be easy to bluff. I could pose as an attorney, looking for heirs to an estate of a deceased client. The receptionist wouldn’t likely give me a telephone number, but she’d pass mine on. That’s where my trapline came in. When Melissa called back it would trap her number. From there I could trace the address.
But my phones wouldn’t work until my electricity came back on.
I leaned back in my sister’s chair, blinking gritty eyes. If only I knew this was my Melissa. I could watch the church entrance tomorrow, stop her on her way out of the service. Then the trick would be to convince her to talk. Would the news of the death of Baxter Jackson’s second wife be enough to sway her conscience?
My mouth twisted. If this church-active Melissa was the right one, how could her conscience have allowed her to stand by a lie for six years, knowing Linda’s murderer walked the streets? Where was her sense of justice? What kind of Christian was that?
A false one, that’s what. Like Baxter, head elder at Vonita True Life Church. Perhaps he had taught our Melissa all too well.
I drank some water, scarfed down some Cafe Lattes, and googled my second possibility—the one in Gilroy. A few hits blipped on the screen—for Bluefly Flowers & Gifts. I clicked on the link and landed on a basic-looking website for the shop. Owner Melissa Harkoff smiled at me, a bouquet of flowers in her hands. She was gray-haired and at least in her mid-fifties.
Not my gal. Not the right age to match the birth date that had led me to a Gilroy address in the first place. Apparently this was the third Melissa Harkoff I’d originally found, the one with a birth date too long ago. But
Could this woman be a relative I hadn’t known about? Someone who’d know where my Melissa was? I copied and pasted the number and address of the shop in my computer file and wrote it on my yellow pad. Even so, I doubted it would lead anywhere. Linda Jackson had told me Melissa had no relatives, which is why she’d ended up in foster care.
My mind was growing sluggish. As hard as I typically worked, I wasn’t used to staying up all night. I needed some decent music along with my Jelly Bellies to keep me going.
Diminishing the screen, I opened Dineen’s iTunes and perused her playlists. Ack. All jazz and pop. I knew my sister had poor taste in music, but this was downright embarrassing. How did a person exist without classic rock?
So much for music. I closed the program.
I stretched my neck right, left. Rubbed a hand across my forehead. Outside the wind had finally ceased its uproar. Fine drops plinked at the window, mere shadows of the night’s deluge. By morning, perhaps, all would be quiet.
I listened for telltale sounds in the house. Nothing.
Maybe I
I sat up straighter and pulled in five deep breaths, hoping the oxygen would clear my head.
The computer clock read 3:10 a.m.
My right hand reached for the mouse, my brain ticking through what I had so far. I’d eliminated an older Melissa in Gilroy, but I still hadn’t found the one in that town who could match the birth date in ’87 or ’88. And the San Jose birth date still needed to be run down as well. If only I could remember those exact dates. I could do no more now without finding them again, then rematching them to Social Security numbers. There were still a lot of techniques I could employ once I had those SSNs.
Opening Skiptrace One, I went back to the beginning, typing in Melissa’s name and the State of California. Up came the fourteen addresses I’d found, with the two possible birthdates: 01/27/1988 and 09/13/1987. I ran those dates and snagged their Social Security numbers. From there I traced the addresses on each SSN.
Next, phone records.
Using the search-by-address screen, I ran the most recent San Jose address—820 Willmott, a single family residence—through the system’s real-time directory assistance. Real-time directories are up-to-date, unlike the stored data on free Internet directory sites, which could be six months old. Regular folks use those sites. Not an experienced skip tracer—except when old data are needed.
The Willmott address yielded no listed number. Melissa might well be there and choosing to guard her anonymity.
If I were Melissa, weighted by a dark secret, I’d certainly have an unlisted number. Once you’d lived through something like that, had seen a man you believed in and respected warp into a monster, whom could you ever trust?
The unlisted number wasn’t necessarily a dead end. Skiptrace One provided a data source for such numbers. Unfortunately the data wasn’t always complete. Beyond that I could turn to the information broker in Los Angeles I used for finding hard-to-obtain data. Numerous times Jeff Cotton had uncovered information I simply couldn’t find. But I hoped not to turn to Jeff here. I didn’t want
I ran 820 Willmott through the unlisted number search, asking God for a little help.
Bingo. A phone number. For a Melissa Harkoff.
I keyed the number into a different kind of search—to see if it was a landline or cell phone. Answer: cell.
Hmm. My Melissa? Sounded promising. These days younger people often used cell phones only, no landlines.
Cell phones were both good and bad news for skip tracers, since people tended to keep their numbers when they moved. If this number was attached to my Melissa, it was probably still accurate. On the other hand, she may no longer be at the address that had led me to the phone.
But I still had other tricks up my sleeve.
Using credit headers instead of directory assistance this time, I ran a reverse address check to see what names came up attached to 820 Willmott. Melissa Harkoff appeared second on the list. First and more recent—only two months ago—was a Tony Whistman. Either Melissa had moved out and Tony had moved in, or they lived together, and Tony had recently done something—bought a car, applied for a new credit card—to activate a report.
I noted my findings in my computer file, then took a little time hunting down information about Tony Whistman. It wasn’t hard to find. He was a realtor with RE/MAX in San Jose. He had his own website, which included his photo and a cell number. Tony looked to be in his mid-thirties, gray eyes, light brown hair. Beneath his may-I-help-you smile lay a hungry, intense expression, as if this young man sought to make millions and retire by age fifty. Make that forty-five.
