“Yes.”
“How did he take the van away? Did he have a friend with him?”
“No, he had a pickup truck pulling a trailer.”
“Okay, good. Now, I’ve got your contact information. Someone’s going to be in touch with you real soon.”
“Who?”
“Likely someone from the Utica police, or state police or the FBI. They’ll take a statement from you and we’re going to need the VIN and—”
“The VIN?”
“It’s the Vehicle Identification Number. It’ll be on your papers. We’ll need your documents to verify the registration history for the vehicle. We’ll also want all your maintenance records, showing what kind of tires you had on the vehicle. Do you still have the records, or the name of the shop where you had your van serviced?”
“I do.”
“Do you have a recent photo of the van?”
“The one I used on the site.”
“Can you send it to me?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, someone will be in touch shortly.”
“Please don’t give my name to the public. I’m a little scared.”
“No, ma’am.”
After hanging up, Brennan called Utica police, the state police, the FBI and then he alerted his lieutenant.
“This one’s good,” Brennan told him before he began submitting details of the lead into the case data file.
Since the news conference and public appeal, the investigators had received more than one hundred tips, but most of the callers were vague: “I think it’s my new neighbor. He’s creepy.” Or, “I met this guy at a bar, who said he knew a guy, who thinks he knows where Carl Nelson is, but I can’t remember the bar—I was pretty loaded.”
The Utica lead was different. It was solid and could be supported by official records. It held the potential to be physical evidence that would stand up in court. It also fit with the theory that Nelson had used a second vehicle to leave the area. At the scene, they’d found tire impressions that didn’t come from his pickup truck or the car belonging to the teens who’d discovered the fire.
It would be a major break if we could match the impressions with the Utica van. Once the information was verified, details about the van and its link to the case would be submitted to regional, state and national crime databases, like the National Crime Information Center and Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. Bulletins for the van would go to every law enforcement agency in the country.
An email arrived from Lori Koller containing photos of the van. Brennan was reviewing them when Dickson returned to the office after following up on the search warrants executed at the MRKT DataFlow Call Center.
“Not much there. I talked to one coworker, Mark Rupp, who swears he saw Nelson online at work looking at real estate websites and taking notes. But the preliminary search of Nelson’s computer found nothing, so that one dead-ended.”
The warrants also included Nelson’s personnel file, where Dickson had followed up.
“We dug up his CV and it’s just what we figured,” he said. “Ten years ago when they hired him, the company’s background check determined Nelson was clean. Nelson said he was from Houston. Turns out he never lived at the address he gave and we now suspect the references he gave were bogus. He likely answered the checks himself. As for activity on his credit card, banking and phone records, we’ve still got nothing. Ed, this guy’s invisible.”
“Maybe not for long—take a look. A woman in Utica just called. She’s certain she sold her van to Nelson a few months ago.”
The detectives studied the photos on Brennan’s monitor. Several views of a silver Chevy 2013 Class B camper van.
“Bit by bit we’re gaining on him, Paul. Bit by bit.”
CHAPTER 29
Rampart, New York
Magnified images of death reflected on Morten’s glasses.
Staring into his twenty-four-inch monitor, the pathologist was thankful he’d persuaded the town and county to buy the scanning electron microscope. The unit took up one corner of his small lab across the hall from the cooler and the autopsy room at Rampart General. He was using it to search for microscopic clues into the cause and manner of death of the third victim whose remains were found at the scene.
The deceased was a female.
Her identity was still unknown, but since the case had gained a greater profile—Field of Screams, one New York City paper called it—Compton was confident that it was only a matter of time before they had confirmation, because now he had more help.
Radiographs of the deceased’s teeth had been sent electronically to the chief forensic odontologist at the New York State Police lab in Albany. The FBI was also assisting in accelerating DNA analysis for comparison through its CODIS system with forensic DNA evidence from other criminal investigations across the country and around the world. The FBI was also comparing the deceased’s DNA with the sample provided by Kate Page.
While awaiting word on identification, Compton continued his investigation with the scanning electron microscope. It was unusual for a small jurisdiction like Rampart to have such a piece of equipment. The price tag of a new Swiss-made model was $250,000, but Compton got a second-hand version for next to nothing through a contact at MIT.
The green light to buy it was part of the agreement by the locals to convince Compton not to accept a job offer in Arizona. He’d also taken a course on how to operate the equipment. And recently, he’d attended a conference in Chicago that included a workshop on how to use the technology to analyze markings of bones found at crime scenes.
The unit’s magnification power was stunning. The image on the screen of bones looked otherworldly, but to Compton it was evidence. He’d already concluded that the deceased was approximately five feet four inches or five feet three inches in height. Twenty-three to thirty years of age. The cause, manner and time of death remained a challenge because of the condition of the remains.
When the remains were removed, the forensic investigators working on the immediate scene sifted the soil and used metal detectors to determine if bullets were
