Into the Dark

46

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Private investigator Milt Thorsen was working in the basement office of his northwest Calgary home, occupied with the case on his computer monitor.

His wife, Jean, watched over him from the framed photo he’d hung on the wall after she passed away two years ago. The kids were grown and long gone. He lived alone with Tippy, Jean’s cat, which he’d intended to give away, but had never had the heart.

As he scrolled through files, Tippy hopped into his lap.

“Scram, I’m busy.”

Thorsen nudged her away and resumed examining the life of Robert John Bowen, a subcontract job for Julie Glidden, an investigator from Los Angeles. The case had begun as a straight-up search to confirm the location of Bowen’s ex-wife, Cynthia, to establish whether she’d remained romantically involved with him after he’d remarried. Should’ve been easy, but it presented complications, including a Canadian aspect.

That’s why Julie had turned to Thorsen.

He’d been a Calgary cop for twenty-eight years. He’d worked in Homicide, Major Crimes and Intelligence before retiring to start his one-man P.I. agency. Thorsen’s reputation as a detective was well-known, Julie told him when they first met in Washington, D.C. at an international investigators’ conference.

He turned to the red flags Julie had noted in her search.

A verification of education showed nothing. Where the heck did Bowen go to school? Some databases showed different dates of birth for Bowen. Thorsen, like all investigators, knew that data entry errors were always possible but discrepancies indicated areas of concern.

A troubling picture was taking shape.

Robert Bowen’s records all appeared to dead-end in the U.S. around 2010, as if he didn’t exist prior to that date. How did he maintain his pilot’s license? Thorsen wondered. The TSA in the U.S. was supposed to be tough on screening and security of the certification of airline pilots.

Did he fall through the cracks?

When Bowen married his wife, Claire, in Mexico, he supplied his divorce decree. According to his current spouse, it was supposedly from Montana. A check with Mexican officials was futile. They could not supply a copy for verification and claimed they were unable to locate it. Did he actually supply one? Was it genuine? Or did he bribe a Mexican official? Because a check with all counties and court records in Montana revealed no marriage or divorce for a Robert John Bowen to a woman named Cynthia.

An update in the file from Julie indicated that new information had recently arisen when Bowen revealed that he and his first wife had lived in Canada and were married there.

Thorsen removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes and dug into his work. He paged through the handwritten list in his notebook, an old detective habit he’d kept.

Since Julie had contacted him on Bowen, he’d already initiated much of the same probing in Canada as she had done in the U.S.

He’d checked through a range of databases, criminal, civil, court and social. He’d made calls through his network of sources.

Thorsen’s detective radar was giving him a vibe about Bowen.

His life on paper appears to start in 2010. So what was he up to before then? Sure, it’s common for divorces to be dripping with acrimony. People want to start fresh and scrape the past from their lives. Amputate all links to their ex. But for Bowen and his professional certification, there are huge security issues. Maybe he cleared everything with the TSA, with all the government and industry security gatekeepers?

Thorsen shrugged, replaced his glasses and reviewed his queries.

Like Julie, he’d also initiated a second name check and had contacted his sources in all provinces and territories for legal name changes. He’d submitted Robert John Bowen for them to check. In Canada, legal name changes are published unless there’s an overriding concern about personal safety.

Ontario, the largest province, had nothing on Bowen for Thorsen. Neither did Quebec, British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan. Then a friend in Edmonton, Alberta’s capital, sent an email.

Stand by, Milt, I think I have something for you.

“Hear that, Tip? We could have something?”

The cat yawned, still nursing hurt feelings at being rejected.

“Get over it,” Thorsen said as a new email from Edmonton arrived.

He opened it to a page from the provincial government’s Alberta Gazette, going to the official record for the department of Vital Statistics: Notice of Change of Personal Name for November 2009.

Thorsen scrolled through the page.

“There it is.”

Elliott, Leon Richard to Bowen, Robert John

“Bingo,” Thorsen said. “Gotcha. Now we have some real work to do with Mr. Leon Richard Elliott.”

He reached for his phone.