Three, maybe more, young American men in their early twenties left the United States in 1980, showing signs of life just long enough to carry out highly lucrative scams. Did Ward have anything to do with their disappearances? Did he know that they were absent from the U.S.? And if so, how? And then there was one more intriguing question. Without physical evidence, how did the FBI tie the eleven scams to Ward, despite the eleven different aliases? I couldn’t answer the first two questions, but I could take a stab at the third by asking the FBI itself.
I called FBI Special Agent Kevin Lee, the last agent named in the topmost file. After the unavoidable cordialities, I asked him how they had connected Ward to all eleven scams.
“Well, our guys down at Quantico are pretty good at this type of analysis,” he told me. “The physical descriptions of all the defendants made by all victims generally matched Ward’s. We’ve a similar MO, and based upon that and other evidence we concluded that all the cases were perpetrated by one person.”
“Other evidence? What evidence? I thought I had it all in the file.”
“Let me look,” he said. “This case is old.”
You’re damn right about that, I thought.
An hour later he called. “OK, we also discovered that each perpetrator used the same Delaware incorporation-service company to incorporate all the companies used in the scams.”
“Did you interview the principals of the service company?”
“No. The company went out of business, and the directors disappeared without leaving a trace.”
“Any additional evidence?” Based on what he’d told me, the FBI’s backing seemed thin. “You know, as in, did you ever have the witnesses take a look at Ward’s high school photo in a spread? Ask them to pick out the guy they gave their money to?” I tried not to sound like I was criticizing their work.
He sounded vaguely annoyed. “Well, I’ll have to look up the file again. It was a long time ago. Anyway, all eleven aliases were of white males born between 1959 and 1962 in the Midwest.”
“Did anyone check any passport applications of these people?”
“No. The State Department gets rid of routine passport applications after one year.”
“So there’s nothing on file?”
“The State Department may have something more. Why don’t you ask them?” he said, having lost interest. I hung up, shaking my head at the apparent incompetence. It would be my job to pick up the slack.
I called the principal of the Milwaukee Trade and Technical High School’s Evening School, from which Ward had graduated, identifying myself and my business. The secretary told me politely that the principal in the seventies and eighties, Donald Peterson, had retired to Arizona, but offered to give him my number. Within five minutes, my phone rang.
“Yes, I remember Ward well,” said Peterson. “I hope he hasn’t done anything foolish. Has he?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Please tell me about him.”
“He was a decent young man. Very curious, loved geography and photography, and he said he wanted to be a photographer for National Geographic Magazine someday. I always wondered if he fulfilled that dream. He did manage to graduate in spite of his handicap.”
“Handicap?”
“Yes, he was dyslexic, with serious learning disabilities. Until he graduated he had difficulty reading and writing. Now, compound that with his speech impairment, and you can understand why we really tried to help him.”
“But what speech problem do you mean?
“He had a serious stutter.”
My blood pressure went up. Stutter? None of the victims had mentioned that. In fact, most of them described a smooth-talking person. Although even a bad stutter can be cured, the hunter in me smelled blood.
“Thank you very much,” I said. “I’ve got one last question. Do you happen to have Ward’s picture?”
“You know, I must have it somewhere,” said Peterson. “Ward loved photography, and he took many photos of class events. I’m pretty sure he sent me copies of several shots he made at graduation.”
“If he was the photographer, doesn’t that mean he isn’t in those pictures?”
“No, I think he should be, actually, because he used a timer for the shutter, I guess. So he could run and be in the picture.”
“Mr. Peterson, could I ask you a favor? Could you please send me those photos? I promise to send them back.”
“Let me find them first.”
Four days later, an envelope came in the mail with three color pictures of smiling high school kids at a party. In the attached note, Donald Peterson identified most of the students by name, apologizing that he couldn’t remember them all. Ward looked like a nice kid, your neighbor’s son. No especially distinctive features, overgrown light-brown hair, brown eyes, nice smile. They were a lot livelier than his formal high school graduation photo in the file. I wrote down the names of classmates Peterson had identified, and asked Esther Quinn, our office admin clerk, to run a check on them with their current addresses. I wondered, grumbling to myself a little, why Esther and I were stuck doing the legwork the FBI had neglected.
I called Donna Swanson, the first name on the high school principal’s list, at her home in Los Angeles.
“Yes, I remember Albert, but I haven’t heard from or seen him since we graduated,” she said. “If you need current information, you should call his best friend, Tyrone Maloney. They must have stayed in contact. They were buddies.”
Later, Esther handed me an address and phone number. “Tyrone Maloney has a bicycle store in New York,” she said.
I decided to get some fresh air and see a face. I went to his store in SoHo, on the southern part of Manhattan. Maloney was a stocky fellow, with blond hair and a broad smile.
That smile disappeared when I told him who I was and asked him about Albert Ward.
“Bad news?” he asked. “Has he been found?”
I ducked the question. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, has he been found? The last time I heard from him was more than twenty years ago, and I haven’t seen or heard from him since.”
“When was that, the last time you heard from him?”
“Let me see,” he said, frowning a bit. “That must have been 1982 or 1983.”
“Can you tell me about it?”
“He left the United States at the end of 1980 after saving up some money. He wanted to travel the world, take photographs and sell them to travel magazines. He had no family left in the United States, so he figured he could do anything.”
“Do you know where he went?”
“Yeah, I do. He went on a freighter to Hong Kong working as a cook’s assistant. He liked jobs where he didn’t have to talk a lot. Because of his stutter, you know.”
“Did he stay in Hong Kong?”
“He did, but then he moved on. I received a few postcards from China, Thailand, and Pakistan.”
“Which one came last?”
“I think the one from Pakistan. I haven’t heard from him since.”
“Did you try to find him?”
“I called a few of our mutual friends, but none of them had heard anything. None of his postcards carried a return address, so I could never write back. He didn’t write much, just one or two lines saying he was having a great time, see you soon, stuff like that.”
“Do you still have those postcards?”
“I’m sorry, no, I never kept them. Tell me, is he OK?”
“I don’t know,” I said candidly. “Not yet, at least.”
It was getting dark. I decided that instead of returning to my office, I’d go home and walk Snap, my happy- go-lucky golden retriever. Though he had a tendency to overdo it with his licking and jumping on people with his long front legs that almost reached my shoulders, he was a loyal friend who always seemed able to put a smile on my face even when I was in a bad mood, which wasn’t all that infrequent. He sure as heck deserved more attention than a bunch of stale files, now resurrected.
