The Shadow's Edge (7 page)

             
                                                                                   
10

              In the annals of Colville’s lengthy history a police officer had never been killed during the course of his duties. Although it was still unclear whether or not Reserve Officer John Croop had technically been on duty at the time of his murder, in Kyle Jessup’s mind it was not a particularly relevant point. He sat in his office wearing a menacing scowl with RJ Fordham seated across from him. “I don’t get it,” he seethed. “What was Croop doing out there on Thornhill Road anyway? And what possible reason would Callie Parmenter have to kill him? With his own gun yet! And then, of all things, she kidnaps Mitch Fuller? It just don’t make sense to me.”

             
“Well, there isn’t much doubt about it, Chief,” Fordham replied. “The State boys found Croop’s blood right where Callie’s pickup was parked. It seems pretty clear she did the deed.”

             
Jessup ignored Fordham’s comment. “He’s in uniform, out of town, two hours before he’s supposed to report for duty. Why is that?”

             
“Maybe they had a thing going,” Fordham offered. “Lover’s quarrel turned bad. He’s in uniform so he can go right to work when they’re done.”

             
“A lover’s meeting? Why way out there?” But, the truth was, Jessup was inclined to think Fordham might be right. “The Staties are going through his place this afternoon. We should know more before long.”

             
“Chief,” Fordham said, “maybe I should be there when they do the search.”

             
Jessup sucked his teeth while he thought about Fordham’s suggestion. “Maybe not a bad idea,” he said. “I’ll call Waring and set it up. By the way, I been trying to reach Jack Parmenter. Seems he’s cleared his things out of the hotel.”

             
“The State boys cleared him of any involvement in Croop’s death,” Fordham pointed out. “He’s not under any---”

             
“I don’t care about that. I wanna know where he is.”

             
“Okay, Chief, I’ll see what I can find out.”

                                                                                    *              *

              Trooper Don Waring pulled his cruiser up to John Croop’s small bungalow to find RJ Fordham waiting for him. “Chief Jessup tells me you’re going to give me an assist here,” Waring said, approaching Fordham as he exited his vehicle.

             
“Right.

             
In truth, a twenty year veteran of the Maine State Police, Waring would have preferred to do this alone. Croop’s murder fell within the scope of the State Police and it was only as a courtesy to the local Police Chief that their involvement in the search had been okayed. “Let’s do it.”

             
Waring removed a set of keys from his pocket that had been taken from Croop’s corpse and unlocked the front door. They entered a room containing little in the way of conventional furniture but with an abundance of computer equipment throughout. The room was in considerable disarray. Croop hadn’t been much for housekeeping. “I’ll get started in here, if you want to take the bedroom.”

             
“I don’t mind doing the computer stuff if you’d prefer to move around,” Fordham offered.

             
Waring looked at Fordham impatiently. “I’ve got it.”

             
“Sure, okay.” 

             
Waring pulled a chair up to the desk and began rummaging through a thick stack of file folders beside the computer. In less than a minute he had found enough to spark some serious questions about Croop’s activities. A folder containing at least two hundred photographs sat near the top of the pile. The pictures it contained were all of the same woman, innocently engaged in routine activities like shopping, getting out of her vehicle, entering and leaving stores, talking with people she met on the street. All had obviously been taken clandestinely.

             
And all were of Callie Parmenter.

             
“Officer Fordham,” Waring called. “Come in here.”

             
When Fordham came into the room Waring showed him what he’d found. “Looks like your Mr. Croop was not all he appeared to be.”

             
Fordham paled.

             
“I’m going out to the car for a minute,” Waring said. “We’re going to have to box all this stuff up. Including the computer.”

             
                                                                      *              *             

              “That’s what I’m telling you, Chief,” Fordham reported later. “Hundreds of pictures of Callie. And she didn’t know they were being taken.”

             
Jessup looked defeated. “After all the goddamn effort I put into getting the town council to okay the hiring of a reserve officer and the son-of-a-bitch turns out to be a fucking stalker? Jesus.”

             
Fordham stood nervously waiting for his boss to finish venting.

             
Jessup stared at his desktop. “Where the hell is Mitch Fuller? That’s what I want an answer to. What did he have to do with anything?”

             
Fordham pursed his lips, hesitant to offer up any opinions.

             
Jessup glared at him, waiting for an answer.

             
“Well,” Fordham reluctantly offered, “the way I see it Mitch was an innocent bystander who got in the way. Maybe after Callie shot Croop she figured she had to get rid of a witness.”

             
“Yeah? So where is he?”

             
Fordham looked lost. He was out of ideas.

             
                                                                                   
11

              When my cell phone finally chirped Bix and I had been camped out in the pickup for three hours. It was dark, I was hungry, and my ass was as numb as a frozen pizza. My first assumption that it was Mai Ling calling to let me know Callie had stopped by, however, proved unlikely when it chirped a second time. “Yeah,” I said.

             
“Jack, it’s me,” Miles responded.

             
“Miles. I’m still waiting. Nothing so far.”

             
“Might have some information ta make the wait a little easier,” he said. “The State cops were around here for a good part a the day goin’ through Callie’s stuff. One of ‘em is a fella I know pretty well, name a Virgil Tull. He confided somethin’ very interestin’.”

             
“I’m listening.”

             
“Seems Croop was a stalker. They were able to trace the calls Callie was gettin’ here to his cell phone and, get this, he had a shitload a pictures of ‘er at his house. All taken without ‘er knowledge.”

             
My steadily increasing pessimism suddenly did an about turn. If Croop was stalking Callie it meant there was at least a possibility the shooting had been justified. At the
very
least it was an indication she had some reason for being in a confrontation with him. It was entirely possible she didn’t know about the blatant stalking and would, therefore, have no reason to think she might have a case against Croop. It certainly might explain why she would have run rather than face up to the situation. The question of Fuller’s involvement still mystified me, though. Where was he? And how did he fit in to what had gone down with Croop?

             
“You still there, Jack?”

             
“Yeah, just thinking things through. It definitely puts a new slant on what might have happened.”

             
“Ya got that right,” Miles agreed.

             
“I don’t think there’s much use waiting around here any longer tonight. There’s an Econo Lodge up the road. I’m going to get a room and come back in the morning.”

             
“Keep in touch, Jack.”

             
“I will.”

              The guy at the motel gave me the room furthest from the street and didn’t bat an eye when I told him I had a dog with me. Dinner consisted of a pizza I picked up from a joint next door. Back at the room I tore off a slice for Bix and mixed it in with his dry kibble. He seemed to like it well enough but I’m not sure it was a wise move. The moment he finished he headed for the door and stood waiting anxiously to be let out. I took him out behind the motel for his business and he didn’t seem at all happy with the results of that particular call to nature. He spent the rest of the evening making regular visits to his water dish.

             
At eleven twenty I’d been dozing for fifteen minutes or so when my cell phone chirped. Once.

             
It would take at least ten minutes to get dressed and make it to Cheng’s Grocery but I had to try. I left Bix in the room and burned over to Union as fast as I thought possible without killing myself. I ran into the store only to find Mai Ling with a solemn look on her face. “She leave already,” I was told.

             
“Did you see which way she went?”

             
“She went that way,” Mai Ling deadpanned, pointing at the door.

             
If the circumstances had been different I would have assumed she was joking but such appeared not to be the case. “I mean after she went
out
the door,” I said exuding patience. “Did you see which direction she went?”

             
“No,” she answered, shaking her head. “I too busy to see.”

             
Busy? With what?
“Did she say anything to you?” I asked.

             
“She say hello and goodbye.”

             
It was like this little woman was going out of her way to be obtuse for some unfathomable reason. “What did she buy?”

             
“She buy sandwiches, lots of bottled water, some bags of chips.” There was a hint of something else to come.

             
I stood waiting. “Yes? … Anything else?”

             
“Map. She buy map.”

              The inference was quite clear. Callie had loaded up with enough supplies to get out of town, to places unknown. She was, of course, familiar with most of Maine, and much of the eastern seaboard for that matter, so the map (which Mai Ling eventually divulged had been of the entire eastern United States) might well be to help her escape to some faraway destination. Or maybe not. It was impossible to know.

             
I drove around the area for half an hour, scouring streets in the hope of spotting Mitch Fuller’s pickup. But to no avail. Eventually, I gave up and went back to the Econo Lodge.

             
I spent a sleepless night tormented by thoughts of where Callie was, what she was doing, and what she was thinking - whether she had a plan and, if she did, wishing she could trust me enough to confide in me about it.

             
                                                                                   
12

             
Kyle Jessup was only peripherally involved in the investigation into John Croop’s murder and Mitch Fuller’s disappearance but that didn’t mean he wasn’t interested in what was happening or that he didn’t take an active role in keeping apprised of developments in the case. The State cops, and Don Waring in particular, had been advised they’d be getting regular calls from Jessup demanding to know what progress was being made.

             
The call Jessup made on the morning two days after the events in question transpired offered up a surprising bit of news.

             
“Mitch Fuller turned up,” Waring reported. “Walked into the South Paris Police Department at five o’clock this morning. He was tired, hungry, and pissed off but, otherwise, unharmed.”

             
“I’ll be damned,” Jessup retorted. “What’d he have to say?”

             
“Not a lot of nice things about Callie Parmenter,” Waring said, “who is now, by the way, the uncontested suspect in the murder of John Croop. Fuller says the whole thing came together when he heard shots near his place and decided to take a look around before waiting for your Officer Fordham to show up. He came across Callie Parmenter in Croop’s car in that grove of trees. Saw Croop’s body in the back seat but before he knew it she had relieved him of his shotgun. Says it looked like she was all set to end his existence on this earth when she underwent a sudden change of heart. Tied him up, put him in the back of his pickup with a tarp over him, drove him out in the wilderness west of Route 232 between South Paris and Rumford, and turned him loose. Appears she wanted to give herself the day’s head start it would take Fuller to walk to civilization.”

             
“This changes things a mite,” Jessup proffered.

             
“It might,” Waring agreed. “At this point she’s wanted for killing a man that was clearly stalking her. Might turn out she had no choice in the matter. Won’t know that till we can talk to her.”

             
“Any leads yet on where she might be?”

             
“Not a one at this moment I’m afraid.”

             
“Keep me posted?”

             
“Goes without saying, Chief.” Like he had a choice.

              Later, Jessup sat in his office and, across from him, his sounding board, RJ Fordham. “I been thinking,” Jessup volunteered.

             
Fordham stayed quiet. He knew by now that unnecessary comments were generally not well tolerated and that his opinions were best appreciated when they were asked for.

             
“Maybe we oughta talk to Billy Lamont. See if there’s anything new on Charlene’s whereabouts.”

             
Fordham looked surprised. “What are you thinking, Chief?”
              “Nothing special. But if there’s even a slim chance that whatever happened to Charlene is tied to Croop let’s find it out now.”

             
“Billy’s probably over at the garage as we speak. He’s working part-time for Lou in the service bay last I saw.”

             
“Pay him a little visit. See what he’s got to say.”

              Fordham pulled in beside the service bay at Lou Pinetti’s Gulf station on the turnoff into town. Calls into Lou’s were always a little prickly for Fordham. He had dated Lou’s daughter, Janice, for a few weeks a year ago and it had, unfortunately, ended on a less than amenable note. Not his fault things hadn’t worked out, of course. A woman should know how to show a little appreciation for a nice evening out after all. But Janice didn’t quite seem to grasp that concept. No biggy in his mind but there was definitely a little frost in the air whenever they ran into each other. Lou was her dad. What else was there to say?

             
“Hey, Billy,” Fordham said, finding Lamont bent over the engine cavity of a Jeep Wrangler. Lamont was ten years or so older than Fordham but they looked enough alike to be brothers. The biggest difference being Lamont had rougher edges, a fire in his eyes that told how easy he was to rile, especially when fuelled by a six pack of beer.

             
Lamont glanced briefly at Fordham. “RJ. What’s happening?”

             
“Not much.”

             
“You boys got any word on Callie Parmenter yet?”

             
“We’re working on it,” Fordham said importantly. “Which brings me to the reason I wanted to talk to you.”
              “Oh, yeah?”

             
“Is Charlene still off the radar?”

             
Lamont put down the ratchet wrench he’d been using to pry loose a stubborn bolt. “And why the sudden interest in Charlene? You guys didn’t seem to give a shit when I reported her missing.”

             
“Yeah, well, things change. The chief wanted to know if there was anything new. Maybe you had heard from her.”

             
“Nope. Not a word.” Lamont picked up the wrench and returned his attention to the Jeep. “You want my opinion,” he said, “something bad happened. I know me and Charlene had our differences but we weren’t even fighting when she disappeared. There’s no way she would have just up and took off like that.”

             
“Did she know John Croop?”

             
Lamont’s attention was suddenly right back on Fordham. “Why do you ask?”

             
“Just turning over stones, Billy. Never know what we might find.”

             
“She didn’t exactly know him but it was pretty obvious to me that Croop would have liked to know
her
.”

             
“What makes you think that?”

             
“The way he’d look at her when he didn’t think anybody was watching him. Shit like that.”

             
“He ever do anything more than look?”

             
“Not as far as I know. But it sure as hell ain’t impossible, is it?”

             
“Maybe not,” Fordham responded. “Well, I’ll be going. You take care, Billy.”

             
Lamont wiped the back of his greasy hand across his forehead and then leaned into his work. “Yeah, right.”