Identity Theft and Discovery

• After reaching the bus station and cleaning up in the men’s room, Ricky felt like he was back in society, despite still feeling distant from his former self.
• He bought a bus ticket to Durham and ate a sandwich while covertly examining the wallet he stole.
• The wallet contained a Social Security card with the name Richard S. Lively, which Ricky liked as it made him feel alive.
• Besides the Social Security card, an expired Illinois driver’s license, a library card from a suburban system outside of St. Louis, Missouri, and a Triple A auto service card from the same state.
• The wallet also contained an Illinois driver's license, a library card, a Triple A card, and a hospital clinic ID, along with newspaper clippings.
• The hospital ID card indicated that Richard Lively was HIV positive.
• The newspaper clippings included an obituary for a 73-year-old woman (likely Richard Lively’s mother) and an article about layoffs at an auto parts plant.
• Richard Lively's mother was a county librarian and former school principal, and the plant closure in Guatemala led to his unemployment and alcoholism.
• Ricky memorized the details from the clippings, noting the sister of the deceased in Albuquerque, NM.
• He discarded the wallet but tore up and disposed of the hospital ID separately, feeling he knew enough.
• Ricky boarded his bus, leaving behind his past and stepping into his new identity as Richard Lively.
• He quickly obtained two part-time jobs: one at a Dairy Mart in the evening and another at a Stop and Shop in the morning, leaving his afternoons free.
• He opened a bank account using Richard Lively’s Social Security number, making it easier to navigate bureaucratic systems.
• Ricky obtained a replacement Social Security card, a New Hampshire driver’s license (with his own photo), and a post office box.
• Obtaining a copy of Richard Lively's birth certificate by mail.
• He joined a video rental club and the YMCA and welcomed catalogs to further solidify his new identity.
• Ricky acknowledged the questionable nature of stealing the identity of a sick and vulnerable man.
• Ricky found a room for rent at a house near the public library , owned by a woman named Mrs. Williams and her grandson Evan.
• Mrs. Williams was initially cautious but was intrigued by Ricky's story of seeking an advanced degree in criminology after a fabricated experience in Mexico.
• Despite her skepticism, she showed him the room, a converted attic with basic amenities.
• Mrs. Williams mentioned that she usually rented to students but was willing to consider Ricky.
• Ricky fabricated a story about searching for a cousin involved in the drug trade in Mexico to explain his interest in criminology and presence in Durham.
• They agreed on a month-to-month arrangement with a security deposit and the first month’s rent.
• Ricky’s life became routine, with work at the grocery store and a janitorial position at the university.
• He used Richard Lively’s identity to maintain a normal life, while secretly planning his revenge as Frederick Lazarus.
• The grocery store manager, who was in a twelve-step program himself, gave Ricky a list of church and civic center meeting locations after he said that he, too, was in such a program.
• The janitorial job provided him with a uniform, a locker, and a university ID, which gave him access to the computer system.
• He created an electronic identity named Odysseus for online access.
• Ricky created a second identity, Frederick Lazarus, with a fabricated history, including false IDs, a diploma, and a birth certificate.
• Richard Lively was to be safe and normal, while Frederick Lazarus was to be a dangerous persona aimed at seeking revenge on those who had ruined Ricky’s life.

The Winter Months

• As Richard Lively, Ricky attended basketball games, babysat for his landladies, and maintained a friendly demeanor at work.
• He volunteered at a suicide prevention hotline, using his skills to help troubled individuals, as a way to atone for his past failures with Claire Tyson.
• Frederick Lazarus was constructed as cold and fit, spending time at the gym, learning self-defense.
• Frederick Lazarus was physically transforming from a soft analyst into a lean fighting machine.
• He started combing his sandy hair back from his forehead, slicked aggressively, and started a beard.
• He took an icy pleasure in the exertion that he delivered to himself, especially when he realized that he was no longer breathing hard as he accelerated his pace.
• At a sporting goods store, he purchased a .380 Ruger semiautomatic handgun under the name Frederick Lazarus.
• Ricky obtained a handgun permit as Frederick Lazarus, bribing the clerk to ensure approval.
• Ricky practiced at the shooting range and considered purchasing a rifle.
• He was also able to obtain a diploma from the University of Iowa, class of 1970, and a birth certificate from a nonexistent hospital in Des Moines.

Computer Skills

• Ricky became proficient with computers, researching his family tree and discovering how easily his past could be accessed.
• He was able to see how Rumplestiltskin could easily acquire information from various family members online.
• He was able to ascertain that armed with names, it did not take much longer to come up with addresses
• Finding that his own name was listed as recently deceased by the family tree program.
• The computer allowed him to quickly gather information, unlike the slow process of psychoanalysis.
• From Zimmerman’s death by subway to his trip to see Dr. Lewis in Rhinebeck, through the clerk’s office at the hospital where he’d once seen Claire Tyson every step in the play had been scripted by Rumplestiltskin.
• He realized that every moment had been designed in advance, every moment had thrust him in directions that were clearly expected.
• He understood that he needed to be unpredictable as Frederick Lazarus.
• Using this persona, he studied the culture of revenge through books, plays, and true crime stories.
• Ricky learned about violence, mass murder, and the psychology of killers.
• He immersed himself in reading and research about crime and revenge, but kept it separate from his life as Richard Lively.
• As Richard Lively, he maintained a normal life, helping others and maintaining a friendly persona.
• Before making his first electronic sortie, Ricky warred within himself for some time.
• Who were you, Claire Tyson? was the thought that finally pushed him to make his first inquiry.

Finding Claire's Children

• As Richard Lively, Ricky found himself energized by a connection with anonymous but troubled individuals and wanted to find out what had happened to Claire Tyson.
• All the years spent as Dr. Starks, dedicated to the proposition that unearthing truth from deep within was a valuable enterprise, would take hold of him and Frederick Lazarus would demand his own dues, as the vehicle for his assault. to uncover the identities of Rumplestiltskin, and his partners, Merlin and Virgil, he would be unable to stop.
• This is what Ricky knew: Twenty years earlier a woman died in New York City and her three children were turned over to the state for adoption. Because of that fact alone, he’d been forced to kill himself.
• Her name and death erased from electronic records.
• He searched electronic telephone books for the north of Florida. That had been where she had come from.
• Ricky printed out the names of potential relatives and the addresses of every high school in the area.
• He ordered a fake Florida driver’s license and retired military identification card from one of the novelty identification outlets on the Internet. The documents were to be sent to Frederick Lazarus’s Mailboxes Etc. box number. But the name on the identification was Rick Tyson.
• He made up a fictional cancer treatment center, and on invented stationery wrote a “to whom it may concern” letter, explaining that Mr. Tyson’s child was a Hodgkin’s disease patient in need of a bone marrow match, and any assistance in tracing various family members, whose marrow DNA carried an increased chance of match success, would be appreciated and possibly even lifesaving.
• He made himself an airplane reservation, made arrangements with his landladies and with his boss at the university maintenance department, switching around some workdays and hours to give himself a block of time, then he stopped in at the second hand clothing store and purchased himself a simple, extremely cheap summer-weight black suit.
• Everyone went to church. The trouble was, it still didn’t stop folks from beating their wives or abusing their children the remaining days of the week, Ricky thought, which he was relatively certain that Jesus disapproved of, if He had an opinion at all.
• The VA Hospital had two flagstaffs, displaying the Stars and Stripes and the flag of the State of Florida side by side, both of which hung limply in the unseasonable late spring heat.
• Late in the evening of the day before he was to depart, wearing his janitor’s shirt and work pants, he let himself into the theater department at the university to get an item he needed for his outfit.

Pensacola, Florida

• Ricky traveled to Pensacola, Florida, to investigate Claire Tyson’s past, posing as a relative.
• Checking into a cheap motel and equipped with a detailed street map.
• Found tract housing near the sprawling naval base.
• Finding that it was no better, no worse than any of the other blocks.
• The tract housing near the sprawling naval base had a certain uniformity
• It seemed to Ricky, driving through, that each block had a quality to it that seemed to define the aspirations of the inhabitants.
• He found the street where Claire Tyson’s family lived and shuddered.
• Driving past houses of hope and houses of limited dreams.
• Approaching the front door. A yellow dog, chained to a wall, confined by a steel fence to the tiny, square backyard, started to bark furiously as he walked up the driveway.
• He approached the residence on Claire Tyson’s family street, encountering a young black woman named Charlene, who currently lived there with her child.
• Charlene initially suspected Ricky was there to repossess items but was willing to talk in exchange for money.
• From Charlene, Ricky learned that the previous resident, Mr. Tyson, had been evicted and was now in a VA nursing home.
• Her husband was described ship out in the Gulf of Arabia.
• Charlene shared that Mr. Tyson, Claire's father, was evicted due to financial problems and was now in the VA.
• He learned about the Tyson family from Charlene, who had heard stories from neighbors.
• Charlene mentioned that Mr. Tyson was an unpopular figure in the neighborhood, with rumors of evil deeds as well as having fought his dog while gambling.
• Gave Ricky information about the lawyer who now collected Mr. Tyson’s rental payments.
• Ricky left Charlene with money, feeling sympathy for the old man.

High School

• Ricky visited Claire's high school and spoke to the principal, who remembered Claire as a troubled but talented student.
• He spoke to her of what her life had become, and what it could become. He painted a word picture with his voice of a future free from the sorrows and doubts that had driven her to the state she was in. He wove hope into every thread of what he said, and when the two of them greeted the first dawn light, she had put aside the threatened overdose and made an appointment with a clinic physician.
• The principal confirmed Claire's difficult family life, including potential sexual abuse and her relationship with Daniel Collins.
• She was the only child of a difficult couple. Living on the edge of poverty. The father was a tyrant. Perhaps worse…” she said.
• She displayed many of the classic signs of sexual abuse.
• Claire went from being ashamed about one thing right to the next. The problem was that she was bright. Wonderful on the stage. She could play any part, from Shakespeare to Guys and Dolls.”
• Daniel Collins. Football and baseball, but never a star. Smart enough, but didn’t apply himself in the classroom.
• Ricky obtained Daniel Collin's family's address from the principal.
• As such, he also put on his faux priest outfit.

Veteran's Hospital

• Before heading to the VA Hospital, Ricky stopped at his motel and changed into the black suit. He also took with him the item that he’d borrowed from the property room of the theater department back at the university in New Hampshire, fitted it around his neck and admired himself in the mirror.
• Ricky, posing as a priest, visited the VA hospital to find Mr. Tyson, Claire's father.
• The VA Hospital had two flagstaffs, displaying the Stars and Stripes and the flag of the State of Florida side by side, both of which hung limply in the unseasonable late spring heat.
• The hospital felt bleak and depressing, filled with old men waiting to die.
• Ricky spoke to the receptionist, claiming to be visiting on behalf of Mr. Tyson's estranged daughter.
• He found that Mr. Tyson was in the hospice unit and had terminal lung cancer.
• She grimaced slightly, as the name came up on her screen. “That’s unusual,” she said. “His records show no living relatives. No next of kin at all.”