26
When I arrived in town it was late afternoon. I was tired but I decided, nonetheless, to stop into Chief Jessup’s office for a little chat. When I walked through the door Fordham got to his feet to greet me. He’d been sitting at his desk in the outer office. Jessup was in his private office doing some reading and Madge, the receptionist, was on the phone.
“Mr. Parmenter,” Fordham said standing. “What can we do for you?”
Fordham gave the impression of a very polite young man. Could it be that Kat had it all wrong? Maybe. But in my law enforcement career I had seen my share of stone cold killers who looked and sounded like they had just come from a church choir rehearsal. Early impressions were famously inaccurate as judges of character. To come to any real determination about Fordham I would have to get him off by himself and rattle his cage with what Kat knew, or thought she knew, about him - see how he reacted to a frontal assault on his character. “Just wanted a word with the Chief,” I answered.
“Come on through, Mr. Parmenter,” Jessup called.
When I entered his small office he pointed at a chair. “So, how is the trial going?” he asked.
“Not all that well to be honest,” I said, closing his office door. “The prosecutor is making Croop look like a saint and Callie like a crazed lunatic.”
Jessup played idly with his mustache. “Yeah, Mandlin is no slouch in the courtroom. He plays to win and he don’t much care who gets hurt in the process.” Jessup stared at me for a few seconds. “Was there something you wanted to talk about?”
I hadn’t thought through how I might come around to the real purpose of my visit which was, quite simply, to find out if Jessup had any tangible reason to suspect that Kat knew something about Charlene Lamont’s disappearance. “Uh, not really. Well, there was one thing.”
“Oh?”
“How well do you know Kat Stedman?” I asked, my voice low enough not to be overheard by Fordham.
Whatever Jessup might have been expecting it certainly wasn’t an enquiry about Kat. “Why would you be wanting to know that?”
It was ad lib time. I decided, on the spur of the moment, to keep it as close to the truth as possible without really giving anything away. “Well, I’ve gotten to know Kat a little bit, eating at the diner for almost all my meals. And she just seems to get a little antsy whenever the conversation comes around to her friend, Charlene’s, disappearance.”
“Interesting you should say that,” he said. “I got exactly the same feeling myself.”
“You’ve questioned her?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
“And?”
“I’m really not at liberty to discuss the details with you.”
I had to tread carefully here. The last thing I wanted to do was tip Jessup to the fact that Kat suspected Fordham of anything but I couldn’t help but wonder just what Jessup had deduced from his interrogation of Kat. I decided to take a slightly different tack. “I got the feeling when you were on the stand the other day that you might have wanted to say something more when you were asked about Croop being an exemplary officer.”
Jessup smiled inwardly. “You picked up on that, huh?”
I raised my eyebrows.
“When you’ve been in this racket for as long as I have,” he said, “you get a nose for things. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. With Croop it was nothing I could put my finger on but I always felt he was just a little off in some way. When the stuff about him stalking your wife came out I was mad as hell, don’t get me wrong, but I wasn’t, if I was one hundred percent honest about it, completely surprised either.”
This was good. I wanted Jessup thinking just the way he was. I found it interesting, though, that he didn’t seem to have the same intuition or ‘nose for things’ as concerned Fordham. “So you don’t think, like Mandlin is suggesting, that the flash drive was planted in Croop’s garage?”
“I hope to hell it was and that it can be proven so. That last thing I want is for one of my officers to be tagged as a weirdo freak.” He let his words resonate for a moment and then realized what it would mean to Callie’s case. “I know it won’t help your wife if that turns out to be the case.”
“Yeah, exactly what Mandlin is counting on.”
“I’m sure it will all work out in the end,” Jessup offered.
I stood to leave, none the wiser for my visit and certainly not comforted by it. “Well, I’ve taken up enough of your time, Chief.”
“Just remember you’re no longer an officer of the law. If you learn something about this case, or any other case for that matter, you pass it on to me. Understood?”
“Yes, of course, Chief. Perfectly understood.”
Not bloody likely.
As I walked past Madge and Fordham on my way out Fordham called “Have a good day, sir.” I looked at him to nod an acknowledgement of his farewell and I was struck by an odd feeling that I had just caught him in the first tell. He was smiling just a little too enthusiastically. In ordinary circumstances I most likely wouldn’t have given it much of a thought. But with what Kat had revealed to me still ringing in my ears his slightly too boisterous grin could be read as disrespectful, maybe even mocking.
The thing about having a suspect to concentrate on is that you are able to observe everyday actions in a new light. Such as the too animated smile that alerted me to the fact that perhaps RJ Fordham was not what he seemed on the surface. If I took the time to look for them, who knew what other tells I might discover?
27
It was Thursday and the next day was a national holiday. At the resumption of trial on the upcoming Monday Darrow intended to put Callie on the stand and we were all very nervous about how it would go.
The evidence I had planted at Croop’s place on Beaver Lake Road had turned out to be a total waste of time. If the hair strands had been found at all it looked as though, whether through incompetence or design, they were never identified. Without that evidence coming into play I held little hope that the jury would side with Callie’s explanation for what had happened with Croop. I racked my brain trying to come up with a way to awaken the authorities to the existence of this crucial ‘proof’ of Callie’s innocence. But as hard as I tried I could think of no remotely believable rationale for its sudden emergence. The only person who could possibly know the police were sitting on this vital information was the person who had planted it. It was a catch twenty-two if ever I had faced one.
Then, slowly, an idea emerged. What if I enlisted Fordham’s help to free Callie? What if I told him I knew what he had done to Charlene but that I would keep it to myself as long as he found a way to get the hair strands found in Croop’s place brought to the jury’s attention? He just might cooperate. For one thing, he’d be diverting attention away from his own guilt in the crime. And he wouldn’t have to worry about me talking because if I did I’d have to admit culpability in just as serious a crime – covering up one murder and planting evidence in another. It just might work, provided I presented it to Fordham in a way he found impossible to find fault with. The plan would fall apart, of course, if Fordham didn’t believe I had real proof of his guilt in Charlene’s murder.
So, what it came down to was this: I had to find proof that Fordham had killed Charlene. Or I had to make him believe I had found it.
I didn’t have time for option number one.
Fordham lived in a house he rented from one of the county’s more affluent citizens, a guy named Yuri Kirov, who also owned an impressive estate about a mile from Colville. The source of Kirov’s wealth was open to dispute but he was never around long enough to satisfy anyone’s curiosity about the matter. Very private and mysterious. He was known to spend a good deal of time in Detroit and Los Angeles where he also owned impressive properties, or so the rumor went according to Kat anyway.
The rental property was a high end beauty and sat on a large lot, well secluded by tall shrubbery. Way beyond anything Fordham would normally have been able to afford on his small town cop’s salary.
I sat slouched in my pickup across the street from the place waiting for him to get home from work. There was a two-year-old BMW parked at the end of his long driveway that was probably worth more than many of the houses on other streets in town.
So, I wondered, what else was RJ involved in besides murdering young women? But, hell, maybe I was jumping the gun here. I didn’t know for a fact that RJ had killed anyone. It was possible Kat Stedman was wackier than bat shit and that everything she had told me was complete nonsense. Somehow, though, I doubted that was the case. In any event, the only way I was going to find out was to confront RJ with ‘the truth’ and see where it led.
When he arrived he parked his patrol car beside the Beemer and ran into the house. I decided to give him a few minutes to get settled before pounding on his door. Just about the time I was ready to make my move Fordham came out the front door, jumped in the luxury ride, and sped off.
I had nothing better to do, so I followed him.
We went northwest to Rumford which I expected was his destination, it being where Kat had told me he’d gone to school. But he didn’t stop there.
From Rumford we took Route 26 northwest to the Canadian border. Luckily there were a few cars between mine and Fordham’s and we passed through Customs and into
Quebec with him blissfully unaware of my presence behind him. From the border crossing Fordham went north and didn’t stop until he hit a city called Sherbrooke. He took a series of turns and eventually arrived on Rue Dufferin where a lot of well-tended red brick buildings lined the street on both sides. He finally pulled up in front of a large two-storey home situated between two much larger brick buildings. The area seemed commercial in nature with the building Fordham was entering being somewhat out of character. I watched as he knocked at the door and was greeted by an exquisitely dressed dark-haired woman who looked to be in her forties. Her attire was very formal but, at the same time, sexy as hell. Unless I missed my guess, the place was what was once euphemistically referred to as a house of ill repute.
It seemed Fordham had driven for two and a half hours, burning up a hundred and thirty miles of highway, in order to get his ashes hauled.
I sat in my truck imagining how much fun Fordham was about to have while I sat out here having no fun at all. Within fifteen minutes, however, Fordham emerged from the house. He jumped in the Beemer and sped off in the direction of the border.
Why, I wondered, would Fordham drive all this way to visit a house of prostitution and then not stay to use it?
I felt no particular need to stay on Fordham’s tail for the return to Colville. He had a tendency to push the speed limit so I let him go.
I was on a lonely stretch of highway about ten miles north of the border when I saw break lights come on well ahead of me. From that distance I couldn’t tell if they belonged to the Beemer but, to be cautious, I slowed, staying well back. It had started to shower lightly and, in the darkness, it was impossible to see details but for a few seconds the car’s interior lights came on and it appeared someone had gotten on board. The car took off but didn’t resume full speed. Then the brake lights came on again and shortly after that the driver made a hard right onto a dirt road leading into an area of thick trees. When he made the turn I saw that it was, indeed, Fordham’s BMW. There was only one explanation for what I was seeing and it wasn’t a good one.
Thirty seconds later I took the turn onto the same road, high beams blazing and horn blaring. I was about two hundred yards behind him and gaining fast when the Beemer’s passenger door flew open. A woman was flung from the car, falling to her hands and knees. The Beemer did a fast about turn and headed straight at me. The road wasn’t wide enough for him to get by me unless I pulled over but, given the state of mind he was probably in, I didn’t hesitate to give him the space he needed. He roared by me, facing straight ahead. I doubted that he would have known who I was. He wasn’t familiar with my pickup and with rain streaming down my driver’s side window I could have been anybody.
When I got to the woman she was hysterical, screaming for me to stay away from her. In all the frenzy that had taken place she appeared totally unaware of what had transpired.
“It’s okay, ma’am,” I called out, staying back enough not to threaten her. “I was behind the car that picked you up and I saw what looked like a kidnapping so I followed the vehicle down this road. He’s gone now. Everything’s okay. I have a cell phone. I’ll call the police.”
Whatever she heard in my voice must have been enough to convince her I was one of the good guys. She limped toward me. “Oh my God,” she moaned over and over. “I think he was going to kill me!” She spoke flawless English but with a noticeable French accent.
The girl was young, perhaps seventeen or eighteen. She had dark hair worn almost to her waist and was dressed in a peasant blouse and jeans with a light cotton jacket. The fall had torn the knee in her jeans but, other than that, she didn’t appear to be badly damaged.
I tried to phone 911 but got no response. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t get a signal. I’ll drive you to the nearest hospital.”
“No, I don’t want to go to a hospital,” she said.
She seemed pretty adamant about it. “You’re limping. You should have your leg looked at.”
“No, it’s okay,” she said. “If you could give me a ride to my friend’s place. It’s just up the road about five kilometers. That would be great.”
“Okay, let’s get you in my truck.” I helped her climb up into the cab of the pickup. She was badly shaken for sure but I couldn’t see that she had suffered any serious injury. “What about reporting this to the police?”
“I just want to forget it,” she said. “I don’t want any trouble with the police.”
“But—”
“Please,” she pleaded, “just the ride. I’ll be fine.”
I figured she had her own reasons for not wanting to talk to the authorities and, if the truth were told, I was just as glad. If she had insisted on reporting the matter it would have taken up a bunch of my time and there was no way I was going to tell the police anything about what I knew. “Okay,” I said, “if that’s what you want.”
We got back on the main road and within ten minutes had arrived at a small lodge owned by a married couple the girl knew who had promised her a job for a few months. The girl evidently didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize this opportunity.
“Thank you so much for everything you did,” she said turning to me. “You probably saved my life.”
“I hope everything turns out okay for you,” I said. “Take care of yourself.”
“You haven’t even told me your name.”
“It’s … Tom,” I said. “Tom Evans.” I figured the less she knew about me the better.
She reached out and took my hand and gave it a squeeze. “I’m Gina.”
Well, if I had wanted confirmation that RJ Fordham had the potential to be a killer, I now had it. It had turned out to be a worthwhile journey for me after all and a most beneficial one for that young girl, too. How many other women had fallen victim to this bastard? I wondered.
I spent the time on the drive back to Colville formulating a plan. If it worked, I figured I would probably get my wife back. If it didn’t … well, I wasn’t going to think about that.
It had to work.