Page 12 of 3rd Tango
Click.
A bright red lighthouse fills my screen and I zoom in on it. It’s cute and resides in the great state of New York along the Hudson River. The little red lighthouse from my childhood. The same painting we saw at the festival.
I click to the next. “Gayle took trips to Virginia during the summer of ’95 and the Fed says three bodies were discovered in the area where he stayed.”
“Okay. How is this relevant to you digging around her website?”
I hold up the page of notes I took when Charlie relayed her conversation with Alfonzo. “Marie told us she paints places she’s visited. Charlie wants me to see if the Virginia cabin where Gayle stayed comes up in any of them.”
“You think it’ll be that easy?”
He has a point. “Probably not, but we need to start somewhere.”
I click through a series of paintings. Lighthouse after lighthouse after lighthouse, each with its own charm, but for the love of God, how many could someone paint?
For the next thirty minutes, I call out the names of them along with the dates listed in their description. Jerome uses his phone to do internet searches, rattling off locations and basic facts. By the end of the session we have a list of thirteen states.
And Virginia is most definitely one of them.
“The dates don’t match,” I say. “Not even close.”
According to Marie’s brief write up under the Virginia paintings, she visited those particular lighthouses in 2007, 2010, and 2014.
“Are you really surprised by that?”
I treat it as a rhetorical question and don’t bother answering. Serial killers, I’ve learned, are often brilliant. Anyone who would allow their girlfriend to publicly post dates and locations of their kills deserves to be imprisoned just for being stupid.
Therefore, I surmise, this is probably a useless endeavor.
I set my laptop aside and rest my head back while Jerome studies the notes we’ve made.
“How long has this guy lived across the street?”
“He moved here in the early nineties. At first, it was idle curiosity because he really only went out at night. The more free time my mother had, the worse it got. When we were in school? Forget it. She sat in that window all day. It was maddening. My friends thought she was crazy.”
A small smile plays on Jerome’s soft lips. Gosh, he’s cute. I battle my urge to touch him. To run my fingers over his solid jaw and supple mouth. One day, I will sculpt him.
“I’m no detective,” he says, “but couldn’t Charlie look at when Gayle first moved in? He probably has a mortgage. Those require loan applications. Maybe what he did for a living back then might tell us something.”
It’s a good thought, but Mom was way ahead of him so I slowly shake my head. “Tried that. The house is a rental.”
“Come on. It’s been twenty years.”
“It has, indeed. An older couple lived there when we were kids. The husband died and the wife soon after. The remaining family members were fighting over the will and wound up renting to Gayle while they sorted it all out. Once the estate was settled, one of those home rental companies bought it. Since Gayle had been living there and paying rent regularly, they only required him to sign a new lease and leave an extra month’s deposit in case he skipped.”
Jerome’s bottom lip rolls out. “Wow. Gotta say, she’s good if she got all that on him.”
His appreciation of her analytical skills ignites a burst of pride. “She loves research. It made her an excellent reporter. I think that’s where Charlie gets her investigative skills.”
Jerome ponders this for a moment then shrugs. “Still, it’s a long time to be a renter.”
“Which only fuels my mother’s suspicion. It’s easier to hide an identity when there are no credit apps involved.”
“Maybe he’s not a serial killer.”
“Ya think?”
I laugh, but Jerome’s narrowed stare tells me he doesn’t share my humor.
