“So what did your guy find?” Faz asked.
“He ran the name through the usual channels and came up with the same Washington State driver’s license you found. He also ran a credit report and found the name associated with an apartment complex in Oklahoma, along with utility records and a request for installation of a phone in that name for that address.”
“I’m assuming that was a false trail,” Faz said.
“Turned out it was.”
“So the person knew what they were doing?” Del asked.
“Hell, you can read it in books now or watch YouTube,” Nikolic said. “Internet is going to put us all out of business eventually. Computers will take over the world. But yeah, the person had clearly done some research or knew what they were doing.”
“The skip tracer gave the client this information?” Faz asked.
“He did. The client then said the person might be using a second alias,” Nikolic said. He glanced down at his notes in a spiral notebook. “Devin Chambers. He told my guy he might want to start in Portland, Oregon.”
“Devin Chambers?” Del said.
“That’s the name the client gave him.”
“Isn’t she Strickland’s friend?” Del said to Faz.
“What did he find?” Faz asked Nik.
“He ran the name through the system and came up with a driver’s license and an apartment in Portland. My guy takes a drive down to Portland and talks to the neighbors. She’d lived there, but the tenants said they hadn’t seen her in a few weeks. Two said she told them she was taking an extended trip out of the country.”
“Did she keep the lease?” Faz asked.
“It was month to month. When she didn’t pay, the landlord went through the channels and evicted her.”
“What did the landlord do with all her possessions?”
“Put everything in storage. She never came back for it.”
“So she didn’t care about it?” Faz said.
“Doesn’t appear she did.”
Faz gave that some thought. He asked, “Did Chambers tell any of the tenants where she was going?”
“One thought she said Europe, a long-overdue backpacking trip. She asked one of her neighbors to collect her mail while she was gone. Neighbor still had a big stack of it.”
“She didn’t ask the neighbor to forward it?” Faz said.
“Nope.”
He looked to Del. “Sounds like she didn’t intend to come back, but she didn’t want it to look that way.”
“Definitely,” Del said.
Nikolic checked his notebook again. “The skip tracer tracked down a relative in New Jersey, a married sister—Allison McCabe.” He spelled the last name. “He called her, said he was the building manager, and told her he had Devin Chambers’s furniture, personal belongings, and a stack of mail but didn’t know where to forward it.”
“What did the sister tell him?”
Nikolic smiled. “She said she hadn’t had any contact with her sister in several years and didn’t know what to tell him. The sister didn’t want anything to do with her. He pressed her a bit and learned Devin Chambers has a fondness for prescription drugs and a related money-management problem. She’d apparently borrowed money from the sister in the past and never repaid it. The sister got tired of it and cut her off. According to my guy, a lot of the mail collected was from creditors and collection agencies, past due.”
“Disappearing takes money,” Faz said.
Del looked to Faz. “The trust fund.”
“I’m thinking the same thing,” Faz said. “Just wondering if the skip tracer knew. If Chambers and Andrea were pals, maybe Andrea was helping her out.”
Del shook his head. “Then why wouldn’t she just give her the money to pay her bills? That seems a lot simpler solution than both of them running.”
“Except Andrea needed to get away,” Faz said. “Needed people to think she died.”
“Sounds like Chambers had reason to disappear also,” Del said.
“Maybe they worked out a deal.” Faz looked to Nikolic. “Your guy find anything else?”
“He had a woman in his office call up Chambers’s last employer and ask for the person who did the payroll. She pretended to be Chambers and said she hadn’t received her final check and just wanted to confirm the forwarding address they had for her.”
“Did they have one?” Faz asked.
Nikolic nodded. “A drop box inside a Bartell’s drugstore in Renton, Washington, but the name on the box wasn’t Devin Chambers.” Another big smile. “It was Lynn Hoff.”
“No shit,” Faz said.
“No shit. So the skip tracer has the same woman call the pharmacy, pretend to be Lynn Hoff, and asks if they have her insurance information on her profile. The pharmacy technician rattles off the same PO box. The woman asks if her doctor had called in her most recent prescription and the tech says they have nothing since they filled a prescription for oxycodone a week earlier.”
“Confirming Lynn Hoff was still in the area. And your guy passed all this on to the client with the guerilla e-mail account?” Faz asked.