“Including stalking her.”
Steve’s attorney finally spoke up. “My client did not stalk the victim. He admitted to following her for her own protection, not stalking her.”
Carina dipped her head. “You
He swallowed and his brow began to sweat. “You don’t know how sick I feel. You don’t know how much I hate myself for assuming that she was safe in her own home. If I’d handled the entire situation differently, if I’d gone to the police myself…I don’t know. I don’t know what I could have done to stop Angie from self-destructing.” He closed his eyes.
“Can you think of anything else about that posted comment that scared her?”
He shook his head, looked first at Carina, then the men. “She didn’t give me any details except that the comment implied the location of her work. That it was on the beach. Not by name. But it freaked her out.”
“Was that the only time she contacted you about being scared about a comment?”
“Yes.”
Carina turned off the recorder. “You’re free to go, Mr. Thomas, but I have to ask you not to leave town. We may have more questions.”
He nodded. “Anything to find Angie’s killer.”
When Steve left with his attorney, Carina pulled out her cell phone and called Patrick. She filled him in on the deleted comments and asked, “Is there any way to work with the MyJournal people?”
“We’re working on it right now,” Patrick said, “but it’s slow. However, she banned nineteen people from commenting on her journal. I have the list for you.”
“Do you have any personal information?”
“No, but you might want to start by hitting their personal pages and see if there’s anything that jumps out.”
“Thanks, Patrick, we’ll be right up.”
Nick cornered Steve in the hall when he left the interview room. “Steve,” he began.
“I had a feeling you were around. You heard everything.” He sounded so bitter.
“Yes. I’m glad you told the truth.”
“Are you?” he asked. “I told you the truth before and you didn’t believe me.”
“You told me a half-truth, Steve. You lied to me.”
“I told you what was important. Instead, you pushed and pushed, just to humiliate me.”
“That wasn’t my intention.”
“Funny, that’s how I felt.”
They stared at each other, at a standstill. Nick didn’t know what to do to fix the broken relationship with his brother.
If Nick went back to Montana, when would he see his brother again? It would be much easier to just continue his life as if this had never happened.
Carina, Will, and Dillon walked out of the interview room. Steve looked at them, then Nick, then walked away without another word.
Nick let him go. He asked Dillon, “What’s your take?”
“I’m ninety percent certain he’s innocent.”
Will concurred.
Carina said. “We gave him enough opportunities to trip up. But at least we have something to follow up on.”
“I’ll run upstairs and get the list of screen names from Patrick,” Will said and left.
“List?” Nick asked.
Carina said, “Patrick has a list of nineteen MyJournal members who Angie banned from commenting on her page.”
“And you think the deleted comment that scared her came from one of those people?”
“Exactly. We’ll see who she banned around January eighteenth and go from there. Maybe we’ll get lucky and there will only be one.”
“I think Mr. Thomas’s assessment of Angie Vance is accurate,” Dillon said, “at least from what I can tell without talking to her. She was seeking both validation and attention from men. Seeing from early on that she was receiving both when she had sex with them, she kept looking for someone to give her what she needed. Not finding it, she moved on.”
“And that’s why she dated older men?”
He nodded. “Boys her age didn’t give her the approval or affection she needed. Not that she got it from older men, but they were more mature than eighteen-year-old college kids.”
Carina’s cell phone rang. “It’s Will,” she said as she answered it. “Any news?”
“We have three MyJournal members banned by Angie on either January eighteenth or nineteenth. Patrick is working with the company to get any information they have about them. Patrick is all over it, and we might have something tonight or tomorrow. He’s also going to set up a way to track the three members online so if they post to any MyJournal page, we’ll know instantly.”
“Fabulous. Maybe we can find out who his next victim is before he gets to her.”
SEVENTEEN
BECAUSE KILLERS OFTEN ATTEND or observe the memorial services of their victims, the chief gave Will and Carina additional resources to cover the event. It took them an hour to debrief the team and formulate a plan for Angie’s memorial service. Then they went upstairs to talk to Patrick.
Carina introduced Nick to her brother. “The Kincaid family seems to run San Diego,” Nick said with a smile.
“You haven’t even met half of them,” Carina said. “But Patrick’s my favorite.”
The young cop smirked. “She only says that when she wants something.” He rolled his chair across his small office and picked up a printout. “But maybe I really will be your favorite now. I got details on all three banned members. I printed out their MyJournal pages. No personal information-they didn’t use their real names. One has an e-mail address, and I ran it through the database and hit on a name and physical address.” He handed them another page. “Damon Bader lives in Detroit, Michigan.”
“What are the chances he came to San Diego to track down Angie and kill her?” Carina asked half- seriously.
“Next to none. I called the e-crimes unit and they did some preliminary work. The guy has a record, all misdemeanors, and works as a sanitation engineer. Twice divorced, two kids, and he’s fifty-six.”
Didn’t fit the profile, but they had to cover their bases. “We should check the airlines just in case he’s been out here recently,” Carina said. “And talk to his employer about any recent time off.”
“Consider it done,” Patrick said.
“The other two?”
“The first has the screen name ‘Bondage,’ and I read some of his comments on other pages. Probably the world’s biggest liar, but he claims to have done some wild stuff. If he’s for real, he’s a major contender for us. The other screen name is ‘Scout.’ Again, checked him out. Some heavy stuff, but nothing that popped as threatening. Both were banned on the eighteenth by Angie.”
“This is great,” Carina said, “but can’t we find out where they live?”
Patrick shook his head. “MyJournal is a free site. There’s no verification process. Just create a login and password and you have a profile page. Bondage lists his hometown as USA, and Scout doesn’t list a hometown. The only way I can narrow them down is to trace their comments through the MyJournal server to a local Internet service provider. Then, with a warrant, we can get the payment information from the ISP and locate them that way. But the MyJournal attornies are sticklers about privacy law. I’ve already put a call in to their security chief. It’s
