A Dangerous Love

Spencer stopped and they all faced each other. "What was that?"

"Mertz said she told him she didn't know who Yancey was or what he did. He couldn't understand why she would say that when she'd been living in his house so long. I had already searched for the name Yancey Giddon, but found nothing. Not even a birth date or social security number. I went to Lathum and told him what I had. I figured he'd be upset because I was still working on it. He was impressed that I had done so much on my own time and without breaking any rules - so impressed that he got me limited security access to do more sleuthing. I figured that if Giddon was using a pseudonym, he would have to either do his banking with his own name or fill out some kind of paperwork to do business under another name. I looked up pseudonym on-line to see how to do that. It had a lot of information about authors, which made me think of her term, temperamental - as in artists. Then I remembered her talking to me about the paintings on his walls. I looked up Andy Gordon and found lots of pictures of his paintings, but no pictures of him, and very little information about him. I thought that was odd. I finally searched the identity record in the US Copyright Office records for Andy Gordon and Yancey Giddon. That's where I found the connection. Andy Gordon and Yancey Giddon were the same person."

"But how did you know he wouldn't do something to her to keep his secret. She did say he was temperamental," Connie said.

"The day Mertz attacked her; I talked to Lisa and Giddon on her front porch. Giddon encouraged her to file a police report, and she refused. She didn't act like she was afraid of him. She acted like she was trying to protect him. Now, if I was trying to hide my identity, the last thing I would want her to do would be to file a police report while she was living under my roof. He did act hesitant about it, but his encouragement sounded sincere. That impressed me. It also told me he was willing to make a sacrifice for her protection. Lisa had time between when Howard left and Giddon arrived to call the police, but she didn't. It was Giddon who called me. No, he wasn't going to hurt her. It did cross my mind that Mertz might have something to worry about, though."

Spencer grunted. "I suspected him right from the start. That's why I sent Mertz."