“Yes,” he says. “We know. We've been trying to get in touch with her.”
“Exactly. Everybody has. That's part of my investigation,” Dean tells him.
Noah looks at me.
“He can explain better than me,” I say.
“Mason Goldman married Eleanor one week before he disappeared. Nobody knows anything about her. No one in his life has ever heard of her, seen her, met her, or had any indication that Mason was involved with anybody. She has practically no paper trail or anything that I’ve ever found. The only way I found out that he was married was through the bank account. It was opened in Eleanor's name, with Mason's attached to it. Since very soon after the account was opened, nobody's been able to get in touch with Mason. He hasn't been seen or heard from in over a year. But the account has been kept active. Just recently, his wife showed up at the bank. Her actions there were fairly suspicious, and she left as suddenly as she came. Since then, no one has been able to reach either one of them,” Dean explains.
"How is this not being formally investigated more extensively?" Noah asks. "The only way we knew he was missing was finding him on a database."
Dean's eyebrows furrow. "A database? That doesn't make any sense. The whole reason I got involved in the case is that his ex, the mother of his child, didn't want to get the law involved. She didn't really get into it, but she said she wanted to handle it on her own. He was never officially reported missing. When I heard on the news that it was a missing persons case, I assumed someone had already gotten in touch with Debra. But as she isn't the next of kin, it wasn't an official notification."
"No," Noah shakes his head. "No one has contacted his ex." He looks around. "Come with me."
He leads us out of the open area and through the door into the hallway. We walk briskly to a conference room, and he closes the door behind us. Glancing around, I notice whiteboards and bulletin boards positioned around the cluttered table in the middle. This is his war room.
Another officer is sitting at the table, looking through pictures. His head snaps up when we walk in.
"Detective," he says.
"Belmont, this is Agent Emma Griffin from the FBI, and Dean Steele, a private investigator. They may have information about the burned body," Noah says, cutting him off before he says anything else.
"The notification still hasn't been made," Officer Belmont says, lowering his voice just slightly, as if he's telling Noah something he doesn't know and doesn't want to embarrass him.
"I know. Agent Griffin and Mr. Steele are involved in the investigation of Mason Goldman's disappearance."
"He mentioned a database," I say. "We're trying to figure out what that means."
Noah nods. "When the body was found and the identification taken out of the wallet, we had to try to figure out who it was. There were no missing persons reports in this area with that name, so we expanded the search. It brought up a database that listed Mason Goldman."
He crosses to a laptop sitting on the table and clicks a few commands before turning the screen toward us. I lean against the table to look at the screen.
"This isn't maintained by law enforcement. It's not an official database,” I note.
“No,” Belmont says. “It's not. It's maintained by a civilian group that raises awareness about missing people and other unsolved crimes. People with a particular interest in justice gather information and post it here. Others can then read about it, make comments, add their own evidence, and try to find the missing or break the cases."
I shake my head. "It's crowdsourcing for solving crimes."
"Essentially," Noah sighs. "People from all over the country are involved in this group and ones like it. They network and use their own resources to figure things out."
"And this is the kind of information you use to build your cases?" Dean asks.
I happen to know of some of the ways Dean does his own investigations, and while not all of them are completely on the up-and-up, at least he doesn't have a shield to uphold.
"Sometimes," Noah says. "It's not our sole source of information, but there are times when things like this can prove very helpful. Such as this situation. If he hadn't been included on this list, we wouldn't know he was missing."
I scroll through the information posted about Mason under a grinning picture of his face. Something catches my attention, and I point to it.
"Look. This is the date when he was added to the database," I say.
"Two days ago," Dean notes.
"Did you notice that?" I ask Noah.
"We were paying attention to the date he went missing and the contacts provided in it," Belmont says defensively.
"So, no," Dean remarks.
"That information wasn't given to me in the report," Noah says, glaring at the younger officer.
"When the name was added to the database didn't seem as important as the other information," Belmont protests, trying to defend himself.
"A man who has been disconnected from everyone and everything for over a year shows up on a missing persons database for the first time, then two days later is found dead?" Noah asks. "Yes. That's important. Somebody's calling attention to it."
I nod. "They wanted him to be identified."
"Where was the wallet found?" Dean asks.
Noah looks at him with the same hesitation he did at the bank.
"I don't know if I should be discussing the details of the case with you," he says.
I set my jaw, stand up straight, and cross my arms over my chest.
"Dean has been instrumental in solving multiple murders and imprisoning extremely dangerous, conniving criminals. If you want my help, you'll want his, too. He knows far more about Mason Goldman and his wife than you do. He's also seen some shit."
"Emma," Dean starts under his breath.
"It's true. Do you want our help?"
The detective looks at us, then gives a sharp nod.
