Full Tilt

28

Rampart, New York

Lori Koller, the woman on the phone from Utica, was uneasy.

“You’re certain you sold your van to the man in the photograph, Carl Nelson?” asked Ed.

“Yes. Only he said his name was John Feeney from Rochester. But I swear that’s him in the picture. Please don’t give out my name.”

“No, ma’am. Now, you posted your van on a buy-and-sell site. He responded, paid cash, and this was four months ago?”

“Yes.”

“How did he take the van away? Did he have a friend with him?”

“No, he had a pickup truck pulling a trailer.”

“Okay, good. Now, I’ve got your contact information. Someone’s going to be in touch with you real soon.”

“Who?”

“Likely someone from the Utica police, or state police or the FBI. They’ll take a statement from you and we’re going to need the VIN and-”

“The VIN?”

“It’s the Vehicle Identification Number. It’ll be on your papers. We’ll need your documents to verify the registration history for the vehicle. We’ll also want all your maintenance records, showing what kind of tires you had on the vehicle. Do you still have the records, or the name of the shop where you had your van serviced?”

“I do.”

“Do you have a recent photo of the van?”

“The one I used on the site.”

“Can you send it to me?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, someone will be in touch shortly.”

“Please don’t give my name to the public. I’m a little scared.”

“No, ma’am.”

After hanging up, Brennan called Utica police, the state police, the FBI and then he alerted his lieutenant.

“This one’s good,” Brennan told him before he began submitting details of the lead into the case data file.

Since the news conference and public appeal, the investigators had received more than one hundred tips, but most of the callers were vague: “I think it’s my new neighbor. He’s creepy.” Or, “I met this guy at a bar, who said he knew a guy, who thinks he knows where Carl Nelson is, but I can’t remember the bar-I was pretty loaded.”

The Utica lead was different. It was solid and could be supported by official records. It held the potential to be physical evidence that would stand up in court. It also fit with the theory that Nelson had used a second vehicle to leave the area. At the scene, they’d found tire impressions that didn’t come from his pickup truck or the car belonging to the teens who’d discovered the fire.

It would be a major break if we could match the impressions with the Utica van. Once the information was verified, details about the van and its link to the case would be submitted to regional, state and national crime databases, like the National Crime Information Center and Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. Bulletins for the van would go to every law enforcement agency in the country.

An email arrived from Lori Koller containing photos of the van. Brennan was reviewing them when Dickson returned to the office after following up on the search warrants executed at the MRKT DataFlow Call Center.

“Not much there. I talked to one coworker, Mark Rupp, who swears he saw Nelson online at work looking at real estate websites and taking notes. But the preliminary search of Nelson’s computer found nothing, so that one dead-ended.”

The warrants also included Nelson’s personnel file, where Dickson had followed up.

“We dug up his CV and it’s just what we figured,” he said. “Ten years ago when they hired him, the company’s background check determined Nelson was clean. Nelson said he was from Houston. Turns out he never lived at the address he gave and we now suspect the references he gave were bogus. He likely answered the checks himself. As for activity on his credit card, banking and phone records, we’ve still got nothing. Ed, this guy’s invisible.”

“Maybe not for long-take a look. A woman in Utica just called. She’s certain she sold her van to Nelson a few months ago.”

The detectives studied the photos on Brennan’s monitor. Several views of a silver Chevy 2013 Class B camper van.

“Bit by bit we’re gaining on him, Paul. Bit by bit.”