Creep - Jennifer Hillier [101]
Tom Young was Ethan Wolfe.
The hair was different, the skin lighter, but the voice, the mannerisms . . . Morris would bet his life on it.
He grabbed his phone. Jerry answered on the first ring.
Morris didn’t bother with pleasantries. “We got a problem.”
CHAPTER : 33
“It was a bonehead thing to do,” Jerry said for the fourth time. “You’re getting way too involved in this. You shouldn’t have even talked to him.”
“You lectured me yesterday.”
“You’re quite possibly the most thickheaded person I’ve ever known. And that’s saying a lot ’cause I know a lot of people. The idea was for him not to know we’re watching him.” Jerry’s expression was pained. “When he can’t find the cuff link, he’ll know you took it.”
“Nah, he’ll probably think he lost it. Happens to me all the time.”
“Because you’re old.”
“So are you,” Morris finally snapped. “Quit busting my balls, it’s done now. What I want to know is, why get into disguise and pretend to interview for a job? What the hell’s the point?”
“Scoping you out, probably. Ballsy, but he’s good at it, too. You wouldn’t have put it together if it weren’t for the claustrophobia thing. Jesus, he took the cuff link right off your wrist.” Jerry whistled. “And brought it to the office like it’s some kind of trophy.”
“What does it all mean?”
“We might never know, but I do know you shouldn’t have talked to him. You should have kept your distance.”
Morris kept his eyes on the building in front of them. They’d been sitting outside Ethan Wolfe’s apartment for the past four hours and both men were getting irritable. Morris was starting to wonder why he’d insisted on tagging along. He should have been at work. So far Wolfe hadn’t gone anywhere interesting—besides the university for a few hours—but, according to Jerry, that was the way it went sometimes.
Morris felt nauseated in Jerry’s tiny car. He stretched his legs out as far as they could go, longing for the roominess of his Cadillac, and complained again that his head was actually touching the roof of the Honda.
“Oh, let it go already.” Jerry’s voice was gruff. “I get it, the car’s small. But might I remind you I normally do this alone? You invited yourself.”
Morris stifled a chuckle. He enjoyed getting a rise out of the private investigator. It provided some comic relief to what had so far been a dull day.
The background check Jerry ordered had turned up some interesting information about Ethan Wolfe. He was twenty-three, born in Omaha, Nebraska. His Social Security number showed a dozen past addresses all over the United States, with not one but two current residences. The first was a rental apartment in the university district, which he co-leased with a female named Abby Maddox, also twenty-three. The other was a house in Lake Stevens, ownership in Wolfe’s name only. No mortgage. He’d paid over half a million dollars for it.
Wolfe had been a ward of the State of Nebraska from age ten onward and had lived in several foster homes before he was released at the age of eighteen. His mother, Cheryl, had died in a house fire. There was no record of his father’s current location, but the man had spent a year in prison for assault and battery when the boy was two years old. His mother had been the victim.
Wolfe had attended three other colleges in addition to Puget Sound State, two in California and one in Oregon. Aside from his TA gig at PSSU, he’d never held another job of any kind. DMV records showed two speeding tickets in the last three years—both paid on time—and the ownership of one 1968 Triumph motorcycle.
There was also a sealed juvenile criminal record. There was no way to unseal it without a subpoena, and since Wolfe wasn’t under official investigation, Jerry wouldn’t be able to get one.
Not exactly the standard record of a twenty-three-year-old graduate student.
“Where do you think the money came from to buy the house?” Morris asked.
“Inheritance would be my guess.”
“What do you think he did to get the juvenile record?”
Jerry shrugged. “Could be anything. He grew up in a violent home,