“Dinner’s ready,” Angela said. Angela had cooked a feast to buoy their spirits and to keep herself busy. She’d had David set the table in the dining room.
“I’ve brought wine,” Calhoun said. He opened his parcel and pulled out two bottles of Chianti.
Five minutes later they were sitting down to a fine meal of chicken with chevre, one of Angela’s favorite dishes.
“Where’s Nikki?” Calhoun asked.
“She’s not hungry,” Angela said.
“She doing okay?” Calhoun asked.
“Her stomach’s a bit upset,” Angela said. “But considering what we put her through, it’s to be expected. The main thing is that she has no fever and her lungs are perfectly clear.”
David winced but didn’t say anything.
“What do we do now that we have the list of people with tattoos?” she asked.
“We proceed in two ways,” Calhoun said. “First we run a background computer check on each person. That’s the easy part. Second, I start interviewing them. There are certain things we need to find out, like where each person’s tattoo is located and whether they mind showing it off. The tattoo that got scratched by Hodges must be the worse for wear and tear, and it has to be located someplace where it could have been scratched in a struggle. If someone has a little heart on their butt, we’re not going to be too interested.”
“What do you think is the most promising location?” Angela asked. “On the forearm?”
“I’d say so,” Calhoun said. “The forearm, and maybe the wrist. I suppose we shouldn’t rule out the back of the hand although that’s not a common place for professional tattoos. The tattoo we’re dealing with has to have been done by a professional. Professionals are the only ones who use the heavy metal pigments.”
“How do we run a background computer check?” Angela asked.
“All we need is the social security number and the birth date,” Calhoun said. “We should be able to get those through the hospital.” Calhoun looked at David. David nodded. “Once we have that information the rest is easy. It’s staggering what information can be obtained from the hundreds of data banks that exist. Whole companies are set up in the information business. For a nominal fee you’d be surprised what you can find out.”
“You mean these companies can tap into private data banks?” Angela asked.
“Absolutely,” Calhoun said. “Most people don’t realize it, but anybody with a computer and a modem can get an amazing amount of information on anybody.”
“What kind of information would people be looking for?” Angela asked.
“Anything and everything,” Calhoun said. “Financial history, criminal records, job history, consumer purchasing history, phone use, mail order stuff, personal ads. It’s like a fishing trip. But interesting stuff turns up. It always does, even if you have a group of twenty-five people who are ostensibly the most normal people in a community. You’d be shocked. And with a group of twenty-five people with tattoos, it will be very interesting. They will not be, quote, ‘normal,’ believe me.”
“Did you do this when you were a state policeman?” Angela asked.
“All the time,” Calhoun said. “Whenever we had a bunch of suspects we’d run a background computer check, and we always got some dirt. And in this case if David is right and the killer is committing euthanasia, I can’t imagine what we’d run across. He or she would have to be screwed up. We’d find other crusades, like saving animals from shelters and being arrested for having nine hundred dogs in their house. I guarantee we’ll come across lots of screwy, weird stuff. We’ll need to get hold of some computer jock to help us tap into the data banks.”
“I have an old boyfriend at MIT,” Angela said. “He’s been in graduate school forever but I know he’s a computer genius.”
“Who’s that?” David asked. He hadn’t heard about this old boyfriend before.
“His name is Robert Scali,” Angela said. To Calhoun she asked: “Do you think he would be able to help us?”
“So why have I never heard of this guy?” David asked.
“I haven’t told you every little detail of my life,” Angela said. “I dated him for a short time freshman year at Brown.”