And Now She's Gone(99)
Gray asked, “How did they meet?”
“Hell if I know. Tommy was a big-ass nerd who played video games all damn day and worked on fishing boats at night. I didn’t know her. Don’t nobody in our family know her, and I doubt that Tommy really knew her. But he always fell for bad girls. This time, I guess he fell for the worst girl.”
Gray could only say, “Yeah. I’m so sorry about that.”
“I do know that there ain’t no statues of limitations on murder, know what I’m saying? And I’m glad you trying to track her—Hey, you know what? Hold on.”
In Myracle Hampton’s world, footsteps tapped at pavement. A creak of a door and then a slam. Quiet. “Okay, that’s better. You need to call the detective in charge of Tommy’s case. I ain’t talked to him in a few months—he got sick of me cuz I was blowing up his phone sixty times a day. His name is Jake Days. He ain’t found that bitch yet, but he still hella cool.”
Gray scribbled Detective Days’s number into her notes. “I’ll do my best.” The second time saying this in less than an hour. Those promises were all gathering in her belly, and their frayed endings were twisting around her lungs.
When had Isabel Lincoln requested a copy of Elyse Miller’s birth certificate?
Alabama Department of Public Health kept all vital records—birth, death, marriage—and that office was located more than 150 miles away, in Montgomery. Anyone could request a copy of a certificate, but to obtain a certified print, that person needed to have legal authority and be able to verify their identity. Isabel had known the answers to those questions.
She texted Clarissa, hoping that the millennial had forgiven her. Hey! Do you know anyone in Social Security?
The women wearing Mardi Gras colors had reached the Escalade and had joined hands. The one in gold turned her face toward heaven and prayed for peace, joy, and favor. Words poured from her lips and rode on the breeze sweeping through Gray’s car, and Gray hoped that she’d been infected by this prayer and that God would grant her peace, joy, and favor, too.
Clarissa texted:
Burt Polasek info attached. AND YES I’M STILL MAD.
All Gray cared about was the time in which Elyse Miller had requested a replacement Social Security card. Gray read Burt Polasek the number from the picture she’d taken of the card found in the cabin up in Idyllwild.
Burt tapped and pecked at a computer keyboard. “Looks like she requested a card a while ago, twenty-five years ago—Oh.”
“What?”
“We issued an entirely new number,” Burt said, “because Elyse Miller never had an old number. She didn’t have to replace anything.”
“Right,” Gray said. “Because the real Elyse Lorraine Miller had been a two-year-old when she died in 1975, and her parents probably hadn’t thought that their toddler needed a number then.”
“Uh-huh…”
“How did she find that poor little girl’s identity in the first place?”
“Scouring newspaper obituaries and Social Security death annexes,” Burt Polasek said. “It takes some skill, but it happens all the time. A dead baby is the perfect identity to steal.”
“Did she have to explain her request for a Social Security card?” Gray asked.
“It says here”—Burt Polasek tapped keys—“she never had a physical card and she needed one for college.”
“And she did what to obtain a physical card?”
“All she needed was a certified birth certificate and a form of identification, like a driver’s license.”
“So she got a copy of the birth certificate for Elyse Miller, used it to get a driver’s license as Elyse Miller, and used all of that to get a Social Security card as Elyse Miller.”
Burt said, “Probably.”
“Has she paid into the system as Elyse Miller?” Gray asked.
“Yes, she worked under that name, but then…”
“She had her name legally changed. I know that she’s now Isabel Lincoln.”
“Ah. Okay.”
“Any background on this?” Gray read off Isabel’s Social Security number as one plump raindrop and then another struck the Chevrolet’s windshield.
Burt tapped the keyboard again. “Isabel Lincoln started paying Social Security five years ago. And according to our system—Wait. What Social Security number do you have?”
Gray repeated the number.
He said, “Hmm.”
“What?”
“Her address?”
“Forty-three forty-three Don Lorenzo Drive.”
“I have an address on Seventy-Seventh Avenue in Inglewood. Her parents are…”
“Christopher and Hope—”
“Lincoln, yes. They’re dead. But, according to my records … so is Isabel.”
54
How was Isabel Lincoln dead?
Ice filled Gray’s veins. “And how long ago did Isabel die? I don’t understand.”
Burt Polasek said, “Well … technically she’s still alive, but she went missing in ‘ninety-five. She was fifteen. Since her body hasn’t been found, she was declared dead.”
“Another child,” Gray said, shaking her head. “That address in Inglewood…” Bobby the Blood lived on Seventy-Seventh, in that red-roofed white house. “Can you check to see if there’s a Robert living there?”