“Have you checked with the cop shop in Homer?”
“I gave them a call, and they mostly gave me the runaround.”
“Have you looked into NamUs?” I asked.
“What’s that?” Jared returned.
For someone who was about to be teaching criminal justice at the college level, it seemed to me that NamUs shouldn’t have been a mystery to him. “The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System,” I said. “It’s an open-sourced program that allows law enforcement and even family members to upload personal information on missing loved ones so it can be compared to unidentified remains.”
Jared shook his head. “Never heard of it,” he said.
“That would be my first step. I’d start by entering every detail I could about Christopher Danielson into their database. Providing a sample of your own DNA would also be helpful.”
“I see,” Jared said.
“Is your DNA in CODIS?” I asked.
CODIS is the Combined DNA Index System. Fortunately, that piece of law-enforcement jargon was something Jared did recognize. He probably also understood the thinking behind my question. If Chris had grown up to be a clone of his biological father, there was a good chance he had ended up in enough trouble with the law to be marking time in a prison cell someplace where his DNA would have been collected at the time he was incarcerated. The same possibility might have occurred to Jared, but he didn’t mention it in his reply.
“I’m pretty sure Monroe PD took a sample of my DNA for elimination purposes when I first joined up,” he said. “That might have been uploaded into CODIS, but I’m not sure.”
Not necessarily, I thought. What I said was, “We should check and find out.”
“Does that mean you’ll help me?” he asked.
“Not so fast,” I admonished. “You still haven’t explained why you came to me for help.”
“I watch a lot of true crime on TV,” he replied. “Last fall I saw that 48 Hours episode about Justice for All getting an exoneration for that guy from down in Seattle who spent sixteen years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. You weren’t interviewed for that show, but as soon as the name Beaumont was mentioned as part of the case, I knew it had to be you.”
He was right on that score. I had indeed been involved in the Mateo Vega wrongful-conviction situation. At the time I had made it clear to the folks at Justice for All that I didn’t want my participation in the case to become public knowledge. Good luck with that. Having my name mentioned on national TV was exactly what I hadn’t had in mind.
I nodded. “You’re right. I didn’t want my involvement made public, but as they say, no good deed goes unpunished.”
“But that’s why I thought of you when Gram asked if I’d try to find Chris for her. At least you’re someone I used to know.”
“I am that,” I agreed.
“So will you help me, then?” Jared asked.
“I guess so,” I agreed.
Jared’s face brightened. Reaching across the coffee table, he took my hand and pumped it. “Thank you so much, Mr. Beaumont.”
“You’re welcome, Father Danielson, but wouldn’t it be easier if, for now, we stuck to Beau and Jared?”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I’d like that.”
I pried Sarah’s head off my lap, got up, and went in search of my iPad. “Okay,” I said once I returned to the sofa. “Now it’s time to go to work. Tell me everything you can about your brother.”
“Before we do that, don’t I need to put you on retainer or something?” Jared asked.
“No,” I answered. “Whatever the bill turns out to be, it’s marked paid in full. Your mother already took care of it.”
Chapter 4
If you’re dealing with a missing-persons case, what’s needed is information. “All right,” I said, “let’s start with the basics. Do you happen to have a recent photo of Chris?”
When Jared had entered the house, he’d placed his satchel on the floor near the end of the couch. Now he opened it and pulled out a volume of some kind. When he passed it over to me, it turned out to be a copy of the 2006 high-school yearbook for Homer High School, The Log. If the school mascot was the Mariners, then calling their yearbook a log made perfect sense. Since Ballard, Washington, used to be the shake-shingle capital of America, the Ballard High yearbook is called The Shingle.
Inscriptions inside the book were addressed to someone named Edwina. “Who’s she?” I asked.