Take My Hand by Lehane Dennis

Author:Lehane, Dennis [Lehane, Dennis]
Format: epub
Published: 2010-03-16T10:49:09.169000+00:00

“Beyond the hair-coloring and the goatee,” Erdham said as we watched Evandro’s photograph take on full color and total clarification on the LED screen, “he’s definitely had his hairline altered.”

“How?”

He held up the last photo taken of Evandro in prison. “See the scar from the shiv on his upper forehead?”

Bolton said, “Shit.”

“Now you don’t,” Erdham said and tapped his screen.

I looked at the photo Angie’d taken of Evandro exiting the Sunset Grill. The hairline was at least a half-inch lower than it had been when he left prison.

“Now I don’t think that’s necessarily part of a disguise,” Erdham said. “It’s too minimal. Most people would never notice the change.”

“He’s vain,” I said.

“Exactly.”

“What else?” Bolton said.

“See for yourself.”

I looked at the two photos. It was hard to get past the shock of white hair turning to dark brown at first, but gradually…

“His eyes,” Bolton said.

Erdham nodded. “Brown naturally, but green in the photo Mr. Kenzie’s partner took.”

Fields set down his phone. “Agent Bolton?”

“Yeah?” He turned away from us.

“His cheekbones,” I said, noticing my own reflection transposed over Evandro’s in the screen.

“You’re good at this,” Erdham said.

“No go at either his address or his place of work,” Fields was saying. “Landlord hasn’t seen him in two weeks, and his boss said he called in sick two days ago and hasn’t been seen since.”

“I want agents at both places yesterday.”

“They’re already on their way, sir.”

“What about the cheekbones?” Bolton said.

“Implants,” Erdham said. “That would be my guess. You see?” He punched a button three times and Evandro’s photo was magnified until we were staring at nothing but his calm green eyes, the top half of his nose, and his cheekbones. Erdham touched a pen to the left cheekbone. “The tissue here is much softer than it is in that photo. Hell, there’s almost no flesh in that one. But here…And see how the skin seems almost chapped, just a bit reddened? That’s because it isn’t used to being stretched out that far, like skin over a blister that’s on its way to the surface.”

“You’re a genius,” Bolton said.

“Definitely,” Erdham said and his eyes lit up behind his glasses like a little kid’s looking at birthday candles. “But he’s pretty damn smart, too. He didn’t go for big changes which would alarm his probation officer or a landlord. Except for the hair,” he said hurriedly, “and anyone would understand that. Instead, he went for subtle cosmetic changes. You could run this current photo through a computer, and unless you knew exactly what you were looking for, it might not match up with any of those prison photos.”

The RV tipped a bit as we made the turn onto 93 in Braintree, and Bolton and I palmed the roof for a moment.

“If he thought that far ahead,” I said, “then he knew we’d end up looking for him or at least for someone who looked like that.” I pointed at the computer screen.

“Absolutely,” Erdham said.

“So,” Bolton said, “he’s assuming he’ll be caught.”

“Seems to be the case,” Erdham said.

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