13
The call that woke me early the next morning was, once again, from Miles. “Just talked with Tull,” he said without preamble. “Mitch Fuller showed up in South Paris yesterday. He’s okay.”
“Thank Christ for that,” I sighed. “Do you know what he had to say?”
“Some. By the time he came on the scene Croop was already dead. Callie was half crazy. Fuller thought she was gonna kill ‘im at first, too, but thankfully she had a change a heart. She took him out in the wilderness and set ‘im free, then took off for parts unknown.”
“I don’t know what to do next, Miles. Callie bought a bunch of supplies late last night and I think she’s taken off again. She bought a map of the eastern seaboard. She could be headed anywhere.”
“Damn,” he said. “You gonna come back here?”
“Unless somebody has a better idea, I don’t know what else to do. I’m worried if we don’t find her soon she’ll do something to make matters much worse. As things stand right now there’s a chance she might walk away from all this without too much blowback.”
“I wish I could think of something to help, Jack.”
“Did she know anyone here in Lewiston that you’re aware of? Anyone at all?”
“Not that I can think of, no. There was one woman she was in touch with for awhile when we first brought ‘er here from Florida. She was part of a support group for women who had lost children, that kinda thing. Callie never wanted to be a part of it but they did talk a few times on the phone. Far as I know, though, she hasn’t talked ta this woman in almost seven years.”
“Do you know her name?”
“No … I don’t think I ever heard ‘er name. I doubt that she’d---”
“It’s a lead, Miles. Right now it’s all we’ve got. I’ll see what I can come up with.”
“Good luck, Jack.”
I checked the phone book beside my bed to see if there was a support group listing. There was one, a group called Caring Companions, that met every Wednesday and there was a contact name and phone number. It was too early yet to be calling anyone so I made note of the contact info. I’d call after I’d gotten cleaned up and put some food in me.
Lauren Faeber took my call to the sound of a house full of screaming kids. She ran a daycare operation called Toddler Town in an upscale area of Lewiston, at least that was the impression one got from her ad. I knew from the map at the back of the phone book it was far removed from where Callie had made her appearances at Cheng’s Grocery. “Toddler Town Daycare,” she shouted into the phone.”
“Hello,” I said loudly enough to hopefully be heard. “I was wondering if I could talk to someone about the Caring Companions support group?”
“Yes. How can I help you, sir?”
“Is it possible that I could stop by to see you? I have a few questions that would probably be easier to deal with in person.”
“Yeah, no problem,” she answered, “but can it wait till this evening? I’ve got my hands full here till five thirty.”
“Sure,” I said. “Any time at all is fine.”
“Okay. I’ll give you my address.”
“That’s okay, I’ve got your ad from the phone book. I can find it.”
“No, that’s the Daycare,” she clarified. “The support group meets on the other side of town, near my home. It’s on Fir Street, just off Union. Do you know the area?”
“Yes,” I said hardly able to believe my ears. “I think I do.”
I waited until I figured she’d be done with dinner before calling on Lauren. Her home was easy to find - it was within a stone’s throw of where I had been parked for the better part of a day. It was a restored two and a half storey, century-old structure - what was known as an American Four-square - and probably the nicest home within a six block area. When I knocked on the door I was greeted by a tall, dark complexioned woman about forty who looked like she weighed around eighty pounds. My first thought was that the daycare kids probably ran her so hard they had made her anorexic. “Hello,” I said, “I’m Jack Parmenter. I believe I spoke to you earlier about the support group?”
“Hi,” she said. “Come on in. I’m Lauren. Please excuse the mess. I haven’t had a chance to get to the cleaning yet. Busy these days.”
The sound of children running and yelling in various parts of the house was harder to ignore. “Not a problem,” I assured her.
“Have a seat, Mr. Parmenter. Can I get you anything?”
“No, nothing. Thank you.”
She sat opposite me, perched delicately on a divan. “So, how can I help you? You wanted some information on the support group meetings? I should say right up front, our group is really just for women. I’m sorry if you got the wrong impression from the---”
“It’s, uh, not for me exactly,” I said.
“Oh … your wife? You’ve lost a child?”
“Yes, we have. But it was a long time ago. The thing is … I don’t really know how to say this without sounding a bit loony I’m afraid. My wife, Callie Parmenter, is missing. It came to my attention that she might have been in contact with you seven years ago and I was wondering if she might have contacted you again recently.”
Lauren’s reaction to this was complete and, I was certain, genuine surprise. “Gee, I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know anybody by that name. There’s certainly been no one by that name at our meetings recently. But, you know, if she was in contact with us seven years ago that would have been my mom. She used to run the meetings before her stroke.”
“I see. Does your mother live near here?”
“Right here as a matter of fact. We converted the rear of the main floor into an apartment for her. She has her own entrance at the back.”
The possibilities were beginning to sound almost too good to be true. “Do you think it would be possible for me to talk to your mother? Is she well enough to have visitors?”
“Oh, yeah, for sure. She recovered from the stroke really well. Just moves a little slower these days. She’s had a friend staying with her for a day or so, though. I’d have to check with her to make sure she’s up to seeing you.”
There was a quickening of my pulse. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble I’d really appreciate it,” I said.
“Okay, well, sit tight. I’ll go and ask her.”
A minute later she was back. She had a concerned look on her face and the friendliness she had been exuding was gone. “Mr. Parmenter … are you telling me everything? When I mentioned your name to my mother she became quite upset.”
“Ms. Faeber,” I said as non-threateningly as I could, “unless I’m mistaken, the friend staying with your mother is my wife.”
Lauren took a moment to reflect on this. “Well, either way,” she said, “she’s gone. Left last night.”
“Does your mother have any idea where she might have gone?”
“No, Mr. Parmenter,” Lauren’s mother said from the doorway behind me. I have no idea where Callie went I’m afraid.” She walked carefully into the room and sat beside her daughter. Like her daughter she was an extremely slender woman, probably in her mid-sixties. “I tried to convince her to do the smart thing, to turn herself in to the authorities---”
“Mom,” Lauren said, shocked. “What’s going on?”
“Callie and her husband here lost their daughter seven years ago,” she explained. “I spoke with Callie several times shortly after the tragedy and, occasionally, over the years since then. She never wanted to take part in the support group meetings but she seemed to find some comfort in talking to me every so often. We became quite good friends in a way. When she … got into trouble recently she came to see me. I tried to make her see the foolishness in running away from her problems but she couldn’t face up to what she had done. When I finally insisted, she left. I’m so sorry, Mr. Parmenter. I fear I didn’t handle things very well.”
“Did she give you any indication where she might go from here?” I asked, the desperation in my voice all too obvious.
“Not really,” she answered. “But she spoke often of your home in Florida. Very sentimental about your lives there before all the misfortune that befell you. If I had to guess I’d say she might go back there.”
It didn’t make a lot of sense to me that Callie would return to Florida. Our home had been sold, there was nothing left there for her to gain comfort from. I stood, ready to leave. “Thank you for trying to help her,” I said. I wrote my cell phone number of a piece of notepaper and handed it to her. “Please call me if you hear from her again.”
“Of course,” she said.
“Well, I’d best be going.”
“Mr. Parmenter,” the older woman said. “I don’t know exactly what caused your wife to do what she did. I expect she may have been assaulted … possibly raped by this man, on a previous occasion. It’s entirely possible she killed him to prevent a reoccurrence. You need to find her quickly. I don’t fear that she’s a danger to others so much as she is to herself.”
I couldn’t have agreed more.
14
With the news that Billy Lamont had yet to hear from his missing wife, Kyle Jessup was now inclined to give some thought to revisiting the circumstances of her disappearance. Ever since the details of Croop’s secret doings had been revealed Jessup had had a bad feeling in his gut. If Croop was a stalker it seemed entirely within the bounds of reason that his stalking might have escalated to something more serious before an infatuation with Callie Parmenter ever developed.
Jessup knew that Kat Stedman, his favorite waitress at Mollie’s Diner - although he was aware his fondness was not necessarily reciprocated - had been a close friend of Charlene’s. Maybe a little talk with Kat was in order.
“RJ,” he called. “Come in here for a minute.”
Fordham appeared in Jessup’s doorway. “Yeah, Chief?”
“You know if Kat’s working at the diner today.”
“Most likely, yeah.”
“I’m thinking it’s time I had a little talk with her about Charlene Lamont.”
Fordham was surprised. “I thought we decided Charlene was just---”
“I know what we thought,” Jessup snapped. “Now maybe I’m thinking something different. Get over there and find out when she’s off work. Tell her I want to see her before she goes home.”
Fordham wasn’t happy with the order but he was smart enough to keep it to himself.
* *
Virgil Tull was fifty-three, an even twenty years younger than Miles, and just a youngster of five when Miles first became a police officer. Their families had been friends, had lived three houses from each other in Bangor until Miles’ folks sold out and moved into a retirement home back in the late seventies. Emulating Miles was a large part of why Tull had ended up as a State trooper. Now a sergeant with the Maine State Police, Tull had no qualms about keeping Miles apprised of developments in the investigation into the murder of John Croop. When Miles called to ask for an update Tull was happy to oblige.
“We found Mitch Fuller’s pickup,” he reported after their usual greetings. “Keys were in it, under the front seat. Pretty clear she left it without intending to come back.”
“Where was it?”
“In a shopping center parking lot in Lewiston.”
“Learn anythin’ from it?”
“Not a thing.”
“Appreciate the info, Virgil.”
* *
After Kat got Jessup’s message from Fordham her day was pretty much ruined. The thought of meeting with ‘the man’ left her in a state of near panic. What she
didn’t
know about Charlene Lamont could fill a book but there were a few things she
did
know. Things that made her very uncomfortable. Things she didn’t think would be wise to talk to Jessup about – or anybody else for that matter.
But she’d been summoned.
When Jessup saw Kat enter the outer office he made a point of studying some papers on his desk, pretending to be unaware of her presence. Madge came to his office door. “Ms. Stedman is here to see you, Chief.”
He nodded without looking up. “Send her in.”
“Have a seat, Ms. Stedman,” he mumbled when she appeared in his office. He kept his eyes on the papers before him until he felt she was suitably unnerved. When he looked up at her he stared hard into her eyes – eyes he found to be particularly attractive. “I was wondering what you might be able to tell me about Charlene Lamont’s sudden departure from Colville,” he said finally. “You being good friends and all.”
“I don’t know anything more than anybody else about that, Chief,” she answered tensely.
Jessup sat back in his chair, his eyes never leaving hers. “Let me tell you a little something about myself, Ms. Stedman. I’ve been a lawman for a good number of years. One of my greatest assets throughout my career as a police officer has always been a rather uncanny ability to tell when someone is lying to me. I am sorry to have to say that in my considered opinion you, Ms. Stedman, are lying to me. And I have to ask myself … Why? Why would you lie if you knew something about your friend’s disappearance?”
This had been pure speculation on Jessup’s part. He was on a hunting expedition, rattling some bushes to see what might fly out. And, lo and behold, based on the look on his visitor’s face at this moment he had a strong intuition it had paid off.
Kat sat very still, trying without much success to meet Jessup’s gaze. She could feel her cheeks burning.
Jessup hated to see her so unnerved. There was something about this woman he found very appealing and it gave him no pleasure to make her uncomfortable. In a gentle voice he said, “If there’s something bothering you, I’m here to help you.”
“ … There’s nothing bothering me. I just don’t know anything about Charlene.”
The giveaway was the hesitation when she spoke. She was lying all right. He knew it.
And she knew he knew it.
“All right,” he said. “If you should decide you’d like to talk to me you know where to find me.”
* *
“So how did the meeting go with Kat Stedman?” Fordham asked the next morning.
Jessup noticed his deputy seemed a little nervous. Maybe he needed to ease up on the boy a bit. Jessup knew he could be a bit intimidating at times. “Something’s up with her,” he said. “I don’t know what it is but she’s scared I can tell you that. I think she knows, or at least suspects, what happened to Charlene Lamont. What I don’t get is, if it involves Croop, what’s she scared of? He sure as hell ain’t no threat to her – not anymore.”
* *
The meeting with Jessup left Kat shaken worse than she could ever remember. She knew she hadn’t handled herself well under his scrutiny. But what was she supposed to do? Her son, Devon, had warned her about the dangers of living in Colville and she knew he was no fool. Still, it was hard to believe the things he had feared could have any real foundation in truth. Now, with Jessup starting to question whether the circumstances surrounding Charlene’s sudden departure had been so ordinary, her son’s fears were becoming more plausible.
If what Devon feared was true, it meant she would need to tread very carefully.
Maybe she should just leave, find somewhere else to live. It was a thought.