Hunting Death

Chapter 20

"By all means Ms. Adams, you're more than welcome to show us his license, and while you're at it, be sure to dig out the one for Mr. Keith Welker as well. No doubt it's hidden around here somewhere."

Welker. He'd said, Welker. Shit. Keith dropped his head, trying to slow his breathing and heart rate before he lost control. He couldn't remember the last time rage consumed him like this. He wouldn't give into it though. He needed to maintain what little restraint remained.

Madison's tirade sputtered to a stop, she stood dumbfounded for a minute while her gaze followed Keith's path toward the waiting police cruiser.

"Madison," Keith called out as the young deputy lead him to his car. "Madison, I need you to call Al. Just call Al and tell him what happened. He'll handle the rest. Don't worry about me, just call Al."

Her eyes narrowed, clearly confused and at a loss for words, she nodded. Madison glared once more at Detective Crowley as he climbed into his truck, secretly wishing she could smack that smug look off his face, then she pulled out her cell phone and ran through her contacts, heading for the house as she dialed Al's number.

With absolutely no idea what was going on, Madison got a distinct impression that the truth would raise far more questions than it would answer.

Her conversation with Al was brief, no sooner did she get the words 'arrested' and 'falsifying documents' out before Al swore and told her he'd take care of it. She didn't even have enough time to tell him the little tidbit about Detective Crowley mentioning the name Welker.

Confused, Madison felt completely helpless, and yet, angry and curious all at the same time. Faced with an overwhelming urge to do something, she hurried into the clinic and found Keith's certification and college degree, pulling the certification frame off the wall first and opening it up.

She carefully pulled out the license, only to discover a second one hidden beneath it. It seemed Detective Crowley might have been right about one thing at least. And it certainly looked like a clever hiding spot, something she probably wouldn't have thought of herself.

It reminded her of how growing up, her mother would always put one school picture on top of the other, replacing the one before it in the frame. So simple, and yet, genius really.

At first glance, the two certificates looked identical, only after Madison looked closer did she notice the difference. On the top copy, they listed his last name as Walker, whereas on the bottom copy it had been spelled, Welker.

And while it seemed strange to her, it didn't overly concern Madison. People changed their names all the time. Her father's own ancestor changed his last name from Mellon to Melton to distance himself from his family. If Keith changed his last name, it would stand to reason then that they would issue him a new license with the updated spelling. Perhaps after the incident with Danielle last year he sensed a need for a semi-fresh start.

So far, this proved nothing in her mind, and she wondered if it wasn't some sort of mixup. The certificates in hand, she was nearly ready to head down to the station herself and shove them up that snarky detective's ass, when curiously, she noticed the date on his degree.

A conversation with Keith from the other day suddenly came to mind.

She'd asked him when he started working for her father. He told her 1998, which didn't make any sense to her, but she kind of figured he may have been pulling her leg and let it go.

According to the degree from the Maryland School of Veterinary Medicine, Keith Walker graduated in 2007. Which would concur with her original thought that Keith was somewhere in his mid-thirties. It also cemented the idea that he'd been joking about working for her father in 1998. Not that he couldn't have, but it would have made him a teenager.

Her hands shaking, not quite sure what she would find, Madison reached for the frame and carefully pulled the diploma out. As with the first one, there lay a second copy underneath, and like before, the spelling of his last name appeared different. What concerned her at this point though, was the date, 1997.

This degree had been issued to Keith Welker in 1997. Which didn't make any sense. Changing your name, okay, yeah, she could understand that, but manipulating the year you graduated? That didn't make any damn sense at all!

Her heart beating a mile a minute and her thoughts strewn out in multiple directions, Madison turned on the computer and began searching through personnel records. Keith Welker didn't exist, the only surname she came across in the employment records was the latter, Walker.

Damn. Madison wished she knew a good PI, someone to run his social security number or check his driver's license. Pulling up a search engine, she supposed Google would be the next best thing. Madison hesitated, not sure she wanted to know the truth, and as she slowly typed in the name Keith Welker, she hoped to God that Google didn't find anything.

Several links popped up, some writer out in California, a Nascar driver in Florida, a few partial matches, either the last name or the first. A hockey player in Chicago, the name of the villain in some fantasy movie series. She kept scrolling.

She found what she hoped she hadn't actually been looking for on the second page. An article made reference to a doctor in Bethesda, Maryland, who worked for the National Institute of Health, his experiments and research making vital strides towards the war on HIV/AIDS, and finding a cure. The article though dated recently, cited initial research from a paper written in the late seventies.

But that couldn't be right.

Madison flipped back to Google, typing a Ph.D. in front of Keith's name. A slew of new links and articles popped up, most of them dated more recently, again referencing the important work this doctor did for the Health Institute in the late 1970s. She scrolled through until she found a consensus record, opening it and closing her eyes as she did so.

She wanted, no, needed, to know the truth, biting her lower lip, she slowly opened one eye, and then the other, reading a consensus record from 1979. Dr. Keith Bradley Welker Ph.D. born to Macy and Joseph Welker in 1947. His parents listed as living at the time, his father a doctor, and his mother a seamstress, their names and occupations in line with what he'd told her in casual conversation.

She found a younger brother named James listed as well, though marked as deceased in 1975, the cause of death put down as complications from AIDS. And though he'd never told her how his brother died, Keith had said his brother James was dead.

Madison felt absolutely sick to her stomach by then. She had no idea what to believe.

If Keith, that is, the Keith she knew, was one and the same, that meant he would be... she quickly did the math, born in 1947, that would make him, what? seventy? That sounded insane! He'd said he looked younger than he actually was, and maybe she could have bought into him being forty-five since he'd graduated from vet school in the late nineties, but seventy?

Impossible.

There must have been some sort of reasonable explanation for all of this. Keith, if that even was his real name, had remained evasive as hell with her since they'd met, but how could she really be expected to believe he was seventy years old? And what, he'd just stopped aging?

Like he was immortal or something...