Chapter 7: What He Had Already Done
Paulson came back with a second detective, a woman named Reyes, and the four of us sat at the kitchen table where I had set out the good dishes six hours earlier.
The pot roast was still on the stove.
Nobody mentioned it.
Reyes pulled out a folder and set it on the table without opening it yet.
"We've been in contact with the Portland investigators," she said.
"The individual in custody has been identified as Daniel Reeves, twenty-nine, originally from Spokane.
He has used at least four different names in the last three years." She paused.
"Marcus Webb is one of them."
Tyler had his hands flat on the table.
He didn't move them.
"The pattern in the previous cases," Reyes continued, "involved building a close personal relationship with a college-age individual, gaining access to the family home, and targeting financial documents and transferable assets.
In one case, a trust account." She looked at Tyler.
"In another, a property deed."
"He knew about both of those," Tyler said.
"I told him."
"That's consistent with how he operates.
He doesn't ask directly.
He builds trust over months until the information comes naturally." She opened the folder.
"We'd like your permission to examine the basement storage unit tonight.
If he had time alone down there before the officers arrived—"
"He had maybe four minutes," I said.
"That can be enough."
I gave them permission.
Reyes and Paulson went downstairs with a third officer who had arrived while we were giving statements.
Tyler and I stayed at the table.
"Four names," Tyler said.
"Yes."
"He told me his parents were divorced.
That his mother lived in Tucson.
That he had a younger sister named Claire." He stopped.
"None of that was real."
"Probably not."
"Eight months." He pressed his fingers against his eyes.
"I thought I knew him."
"He was very practiced at being known."
"That doesn't make me feel better."
"I know.
It's not supposed to yet."
Reyes came back upstairs.
She was holding an evidence bag.
Inside it was a small folded piece of paper.
"This was on the floor near the storage unit," she said.
"The lock hadn't been opened, but this was on the ground underneath it."
She held the bag up so we could see.
It was a combination written in pencil on a torn piece of paper.
My combination.
Written in my handwriting.
From a note I kept in my bedside drawer upstairs.
Tyler looked at me.
"He's been here before," I said.
The table was very quiet.
"When?" Tyler said.
"When was he here before?"
May you like
Reyes set the evidence bag down gently.
"That's what we need to find out."
