Page 44 of Crash and Burn

First, she looked for sites where she could input the plate itself.

“Well, shit,” Sebastian said, as he looked over her shoulder. Her screen had popped up. Sure enough, the plate belonged to a silver sedan.

“Looks like a Toyota in this picture,” she pointed at the screen. Her own hadn’t been clear, it wasn’t her best photographic effort.

“I think it was.” He looked up as though trying to remember. “I was more concerned with memorizing the plate, though.”

“Actual DMV records should be harder to come by,” she said. Sure enough, it was difficult to get a picture of the owner or even a name as to who the car was registered to.

“What about the VIN?” Sebastian asked, and when she looked at him oddly he said “Vehicle ID number, if you can get that from the plate, you might get the owner or even the seller from the VIN, maybe even a list of recent repairs.”

He was typing on his own keyboard, looking up similar information. But after fifteen minutes with no results, she asked, “What about arrests?”

The more she thought about it, the more she liked it. She snapped her fingers as she realized it could work. He was grinning at her enthusiasm, but she said, “Arrests are in the newspaper. They’re public knowledge. If we search and we search for a silver Toyota sedan, then if he got pulled over in the car … we should be able to find a name!”

Thirty minutes later, though, she was still looking. Sebastian was typing in short bursts himself but hadn’t had any eureka moments either. They sat side by side, punching keys, scrolling through screens of data, and occasionally swearing.

“What about Blue River Killer suspects?” Sebastian asked as he hit keys again. Five minutes later, he said, “Look at this,” and turned his screen to face her. “What about this guy?”

Maggie frowned. The picture didn’t mean anything to her. He was older, brown hair cut short, but clearly turning white. She hadn’t thought about him being old, but if he’d been killing for twenty years, he would have had to start as a teenager to be any younger than she was. This was probably the right age range for him, she realized.

So she looked a little closer … but then she read his name and her heart twisted as she realized she’d seen it before.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Maggie clicked buttons frantically on her own laptop, her elbow threatening to bump his but she didn't care. “Remember I told you I found something?”

Sebastian looked at her with trepidation in his eyes, as though he was growing more concerned. He was right to be concerned.

“I went through Abbie's records—the ones we photographed. They seemed incredibly incomplete though it's plausible that the boardinghouse was just never full. I don't know which it is.”

Sebastian leaned back a little in the chair, now thinking, no longer hunched over his own keyboard. “I don't remember. I mean, I was a kid for a lot of it. I can ask my mom.”

“That would be great!” Maggie’s thoughts twisted. She hadn’t even considered that some of the locals could be references. They would know a lot about Abbie’s boarders and maybe help sort this out. But then she wondered if she could get to meet Sebastian’s parents herself. She had, after all, just had her tongue down the man's throat. The two of them had confessed that they were interested in each other, but … where would that lead?

Unfortunately, right now, there seemed to be a killer associated with her house, which was definitely the more pressing issue. She waited a moment, while Sebastian went through the pleasantries with his mom. It warmed Maggie’s heart that they talked with an easy camaraderie.

“Really?” he said, “Interesting. What years do you think it was most full?” He motioned to Maggie for paper and pencil. She pushed her notepad over toward him and he jotted down a few decades. Then he thanked his mom and hung up.

Setting his phone down, he rotated the pad around so she could read it upright. “This is when my mom remembers the place was hopping. Otherwise, she doesn't remember Sabbie keeping the place full. Sometimes she thought it was maybe just one or two people.”

“And always men?” Maggie asked.

He nodded. “My mother always explained that it was an old-fashioned thing. There were boarding houses for men and boarding houses for women. But they were always run by women.”

Maggie nodded. “So here's what I found when I looked earlier. This one particular man boarded here, repeatedly.”

“He stayed a long time?”

“Overall, Yes. But he was in and out. He left for a while—months or even a few years—but he came back and boarded with her again. And he was always in thesame room.”

“Let me guess which one,” Sebastian said wryly.

She nodded back, glad he didn’t think she was silly. “He probably requested it.”

This time she turned her laptop around to face him as she flipped through pictures and pointed to the ones that were important.

The third picture was one of Sabbie’s crappy napkin rental agreements. “My guess is, by the time they signed this she felt she knew him, which is why they had this crappy rental arrangement.”

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