On the ride to the airport, I was also planning on checking in with my mom’s doctor.
I quietly slurped down more of my chowder and felt my face going red from the heat. I glanced again at the list of victims.
“So we have Julie Gilliam, with the cleft palate, whose dad is coming in tomorrow, correct?” I said.
“I’ll take that interview,” Shooter said. “We had a good rapport. I’m hoping I can pull more details out of him.”
“And we have Dog,” I continued, “whose baby teeth are getting compared to his hip bone. That leaves Amber, who is masquerading as her sister, Mavreen. She has effectively placed herself in protective custody. As long as she stays put, she’s safe.”
Cassie turned to me. “What’s she like?”
“Young. Scared.”
She shifted to Shooter instead. “Good drip?”
“No,” Shooter said. “Basic.”
I looked to Cassie. She was trying to decide if we should reinterview Amber, and I knew what she was thinking. Richie was handsome and close to Amber’s age. Plus, Shooter and I had conducted our interview in a moment of trauma. Now that Amber was reflecting more on Mavreen, new details might come up.
I turned to Richie. “Why don’t you drive out there tomorrow? And check with the State Department. Apparently Mavreen got a passport issued. Let’s see if she traveled anywhere before she died. If she did, who’s sitting beside her on the plane?”
“On it,” Richie said.
Shooter pulled out the pink phone we’d been given two hours earlier. “We also have Amber Isiah’s cell,” she said, rolling her whiteDuke sweatshirt back to her elbows. “Amber told us about these phone calls she’d get from Mavreen. I took a look at her history and contacts. Amber actually labeled the numbers. ‘Mavreen January.’ ‘Mavreen February.’ ‘Mavreen February #2.’”
“Those are times her sister reached out?” Cassie asked.
Shooter nodded. “And the numbers she called from. We could try to call them back, but every indication is that they were burners. So I’m not sure what the upside is to dialing them and possibly putting Amber in jeopardy when this guy sees the number. Thinks she’s out there and trying to reach him again.”
Richie paged through the numbers on the phone, but Cassie’s face was scrunched up. “Wait,” she said. “The guy in the sketch was calling Amber?”
“She called him first,” I said. “But yeah.”
“Does she know where he was when he made those calls? Like, was he at her sister’s place?”
“Her phone would list a city,” Shooter said. “But with burner apps and phones, you know that information is worthless, Cass.”
“Obvi,” Cassie said. “But did Amber ever know? I mean—his location?”
I squinted, curious where she was going with this. “The day Amber fled,” I said. “She told us a neighbor reported that a man came by her apartment. Same thing by her old work an hour later. We can assume it was this El Médico. Why?”
“The thing with a burner is, we know the number, right?” Cassie said, her arms crossed and her head tilted up in thought. “But we don’t know who owns it or where they are.”
“Or whether they’ll ever turn it on again,” Shooter said.
“Exactly,” Cassie replied, scribbling something on her napkin.“But the Bureau’s been doing a lot of data analysis lately on anonymized cell information. Layering it with stingrays.”
“What’s a stingray?” Richie asked.
A stingray, or IMSI catcher, was a surveillance device that mimicked a cell phone tower. Cassie explained to Richie that this device sent out signals as if it were a legitimate cell tower, the goal being to trick local phones into transmitting their locations and other data as they passed by.
I studied Cassie, not seeing the exact strategy she had in mind yet, but knowing her expertise at statistical analysis was near perfect.
“Tell us what you’re thinking,” I said.
“Well. Bear with me, y’all.” She stood up again, walking as she talked. “Do you think this guy has another phone? A real phone. Like, not a burner. His legit phone.”
“Sure,” I said. “Why not?” I wanted to hear where she was going with this.
