Get to that little grove, she thought. Then hike back to the pickup. Do these two things without being seen.
She could do this.
All she needed was a little luck.
7
If the shots Callie had fired had happened a little later in the year they probably wouldn’t have drawn anyone’s attention. But in this part of Maine hunting season was ten days off. If you were foolish enough to try getting the season off to an early start there were plenty of people who would report you for it.
Mitch Fuller was just finishing his mid-morning coffee when he heard the two shots that ended John Croop’s life. Soon after, he placed a call to the Colville Police Department.
Madge took the call and passed it along to Fordham. Jessup was out of the office on another matter.
“Officer Fordham.”
“This is Mitch Fuller, out on Thornhill Road.”
“Yes, Mr. Fuller. What can I do for you?”
“I just heard a couple shots near my place. Sounds like somebody’s getting a head start on hunting season. Thought you’d want to know.”
“Okay, thank you, sir. We’ll look into it.”
“Anything important?” Madge asked.
“Probably not. Gonna take a run out to Thornhill Road. Mitch Fuller reported hearing gunshots. Anything urgent comes up before the Chief comes in, give Croop a call.”
“The Chief already called him last night to confirm he should come in this afternoon. Friday night and all.”
“Okay then. Later.”
“Be careful out there.”
“Always am,” Fordham responded. He donned his hat, grabbed the keys to his department cruiser and strode out.
As fate would have it the little valley with the grove of trees that Callie had in mind for hiding Croop and his car just happened to be located on Mitch Fuller’s land. The road Callie took was located on the southernmost border of his property which meant, for the most part, it remained out of Fuller’s sight. But his curiosity had been aroused by the shots he’d heard. He was pretty sure they had originated from somewhere southwest of his home and that could very well mean whoever fired them was either on his property or damn close to it. He decided that rather than wait for Fordham to show up he’d take a little look around on his own. He got in his pickup and, within two minutes, had spotted a car on the road separating his farm from the old Crandall place, and going like hell, too.
He took chase.
Callie spotted Mitch Fuller’s truck beating a path in her direction. Oh, Jesus, she groaned. Shit, shit, shit. She was nearly frantic. What the hell was she going to do now? There seemed little point in stopping to confront Fuller so she kept her foot hard to the gas pedal. A moment later she slid to a stop in the little grove of trees that had been her destination and waited for Fuller to reach her. She had absolutely no idea what she was going to do when he got to her.
It didn’t take long. Before she had been able to formulate any kind of plan Fuller had pulled to a stop ten yards behind her. She watched in her rearview mirror as Fuller got out of his truck and cautiously approached her. Her heart sank even lower when she saw he was pointing a twelve gauge shotgun in her general direction.
“You in the car,” he called out. “What the hell you think you’re doin’?”
Callie slowly emerged from Croop’s vehicle, her hands in clear sight. “Mitch,” she called out in answer, “it’s Callie. Callie Parmenter.”
“Callie?” Fuller lowered the shotgun. “Geez, girl, what’s goin’ on?”
Callie walked toward Fuller with her only thought to keep him from seeing Croop’s body folded up in the back seat of his car. “Mitch … there’s been a problem … um, I don’t uh …”
“You alright, Callie?” Fuller was bewildered and it showed. “Say, ain’t this John Croop’s car?” He continued past Callie and peered through the driver’s side window.
Callie stood nervously behind Fuller and watched as his mind grappled with the sight of Croop’s bloodied corpse. “Oh, Lord,” he groaned. “What … what the hell happened here?”
Without any more thought than she had given to shooting Croop, Callie snatched Fuller’s shotgun from his grip. As he watched in horror she brought the shotgun barrel up and pointed it at his chest.
Fuller turned as white as a bed sheet and raised his arms skyward.
“You shouldn’t have looked in the car, Mitch,” Callie mumbled. “You should have minded your own business.”
“Listen … whatever happened here,” Fuller choked, “I’m sure it wasn’t your fault. Let’s---”
“Be quiet. Don’t talk.”
Fuller swallowed a large lump in his throat. “Callie … I called the police when I heard them shots. Fordham is on his way out here right now.”
Callie had known Mitch Fuller for twenty years. Had known his late wife and his three kids, too. He was a decent enough guy as far as she knew. But he now stood in the way of her freedom; he was a problem that needed to be eliminated.
She pulled back the hammer on the twelve gauge.
“Callie, what are you doing?” Fuller stammered. “Please …” He backed away from her with a stricken look on his face.
At that moment they heard a vehicle turning off Thornhill Road, then bumping along the rough driveway up to Fuller’s farm.
Fordham.
Protected in the gulley as they were, they remained out of sight.
“If you make a sound,” Callie threatened, “I’ll kill you. Then I’ll have to kill RJ, too.”
Fuller had absolutely no idea what had gotten into this woman’s head but he didn’t doubt for a second that her threat was real. He nodded solemnly, held his breath, and recited a silent prayer.
A quick look confirmed Fuller’s truck was gone but Fordham knocked on the front door anyway and called out, “Mr. Fuller, you there? Officer Fordham here… Mr. Fuller?”
Fordham tried the door. Locked. He walked around back. He saw nothing unusual and certainly no signs of trouble. He got back in his cruiser and drove back onto the main road. Once there he drove the quarter mile or so until he was opposite the blue pickup. Miles Wilson’s rig if he wasn’t mistaken. He got out, walked across the road, and glanced inside the cab. Everything appeared normal enough. It was a little odd that the vehicle had been left out here with the keys in it but it certainly wasn’t breaking any laws that he knew of. He got back in his vehicle and drove back to town.
By the time Fordham got to the office, Jessup had arrived.
“How’d it go out there?” Jessup asked. “Madge tells me Mitch Fuller reported hearing some shots out by his place.”
“Didn’t see anybody out there. Mitch wasn’t home when I stopped in to talk to him.”
Jessup looked surprised at this. “That’s a little strange. By the way, you heard anything from Croop?” he asked.
“No,” Fordham answered. “Why?”
“I talked to him yesterday to confirm he was supposed to come in around noon today. He hasn’t showed up and Madge says he’s not answering his phone. You want to stop over to his place and see if eveything’s okay?”
“Sure, Chief.” Fordham did a one eighty, left the office, and drove off.
Madge stood at the door to Jessup’s office. “It’s almost one o’clock, Chief. Mind if I grab some lunch?”
“No, you go ahead.” Jessup sat back in his chair, propped his feet up on his desk, and lit a smoke.
Not long after that, Fordham called. “No sign of Croop or his car, Chief,” he reported.
Jessup took a contemplative pull on his cigarette. “What the hell?” he muttered. Croop was generally a pretty reliable guy.
No sooner had he hung up the phone than Jack Parmenter arrived to report his wife was missing.
8
Two days later …
After Betty stammered out the message from Jessup that he wanted to see me as soon as possible I didn’t waste any time beating a path to town. On the way I kept asking
myself what ‘news about Callie’ might mean. It could, of course, be interpreted a number of ways, and not all of them were good.
I arrived at Jessup’s office to find the usually placid workplace a frenzy of activity. There were several Virginia State Police cars parked on the street and uniformed and plain-clothes officers milling around inside the building. When Jessup saw me enter he took me by the arm and steered me into his private office and closed the door.
I knew all this activity did not bode well for good news and I tried to brace myself for the worst when I asked, “Have you found my wife?”
“No,” Jessup barked. It didn’t take a genius to see he was in a state of considerable agitation. “An hour ago we got a call from Mitch Fuller’s neighbor – the guy married to the young lady you spoke with yesterday as a matter of fact. He was doing some fence work at the rear of his property where it borders on the Fuller place. Noticed a car parked in a strange spot on Fuller’s property and decided to check it out. He found the body of my reserve officer, John Croop, lying in the back seat with two bullet holes in his chest. Dead.”
The effect of hearing this news was roughly the equivalent of being struck in the chest with a bat. I stood speechless, trying to imagine how this could possibly involve Callie.
“Croop,” Jessup continued, “has been absent since yesterday, the very time your wife was reported as missing. He was found within six hundred yards of where we found her abandoned vehicle. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how this looks.”
Obviously Croop’s car and Miles’ pickup were accounted for, leaving Callie on foot. “But if Callie’s involved, where is she?” I wondered.
“A fair question,” Jessup responded. “One possible answer is in Mitch Fuller’s pickup. He and his vehicle are also missing.”
Before I could begin to process what this might mean a Virginia State Trooper knocked on Jessup’s office door and then opened it. “Our people at the scene just phoned to say they’ve found some evidence we should see. We’re heading back out there now.”
“I’ll be right behind you,” Jessup replied.
“Can I come with you, Chief?” I asked.
“No,” he said sharply. “It’s a murder scene. In case you need reminding, you are no longer a police officer.” Then he pointed a finger at me. “And you are not to go anywhere but the hotel until I get back.” He hurried out, leaving me to ponder events on my own.
What the hell was going on?
Callie could be another victim. She could be the perpetrator. Or neither.
I was in my hotel room about an hour later, attempting without success to make sense of the little I had so far learned about events out on Thornhill Road, when I heard a hard knocking at the door followed by a stern voice calling out, “Maine State Police.”
When I opened the door two very large uniformed officers stood there with their hands poised near their holsters. “Mr. Parmenter?” the one on the right said.
“Yes.”
“Come with us please.”
This didn’t sound quite right. “Am I under arrest?”
“We’ve been told to bring you to the Colville Police Department. That’s all.”
“So I’m not under arrest?”
“Sir,” the cop on the left said, “we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Which is it going to be?”
Both these guys looked like they could qualify as offensive linemen on a pro football team.
I chose the easy way.
I was delivered to a Maine State Police Sergeant named Terese Manochet who was waiting for me in Chief Jessup’s private office. Manochet was a fiftyish, confident type who did not believe in wasting time or words. She was leaning against Jessup’s desk and I sat facing her while the two troopers stationed themselves directly behind me.
“Okay, Mr. Parmenter,” she said, “we need to verify something. Where exactly were you between 10 a.m. and noon yesterday?”
This whole process was pissing me off to a huge degree but I knew better than to let it show. The best way to deal with these people was to answer their questions quickly, honestly, and without rancor. “I was on a Greyhound bus out of Augusta from approximately 10:15 a.m. until it arrived here in Colville at … I believe approximately 11:45. When I got off the bus I walked to Mollie’s Diner where I had lunch. I finished in about twenty minutes. A waitress named Kat served me who I’m sure will be able to confirm this.”
Manochet stared intently at me during my response. “Do you have a bus ticket stub we could see?”
Ticket stubs were not the kind of thing I was in the habit of hanging on to but fortunately I had not yet had the opportunity to change what I’d been wearing yesterday and the stub was still in my shirt pocket. I dug it out and handed it to her.
She looked briefly at the stub, handed it to one of the troopers, and nodded her head at him. He immediately left.
“Sit tight, Mr. Parmenter,” Manochet said. “We’ll be back to you shortly.” She walked out leaving me alone with trooper number two.
It took longer than it should have for trooper number one to return with confirmation of my alibi. At least it seemed that way to me. Time tends to pass very slowly when you’re waiting out something like that.
When the process of establishing my innocence in the murder of Officer Croop was finally completed Sergeant Manochet was gracious enough to offer a curt apology. “Sorry for the down and dirty,” she said. “We have to cover all bases.”
I nodded my understanding. I’d been there, done that – six or seven hundred times in fact. “Anything yet on my wife or this Fuller guy?”
“Not yet,” she replied. “I imagine you’ll be among the first to hear when we find them.”
I had to at least respect her confidence. There was no ‘if’, only ‘when’.
So what was the relationship between Callie and Croop, I pondered as I drove back to the Wilsons. Was he the caller of whom Miles had spoken? The way things were shaping up it looked liked Callie may have killed him but, if that was so, what in the name of hell was her reason? If it was a justifiable shooting – which, of course, I was praying it was – why would she run? Was it possible that Fuller had killed Croop and then abducted Callie? Maybe that’s why Croop was on the scene. He had come across Callie and Fuller arguing and tried to intervene, getting himself killed in the process. It made as much sense as any other scenario I could conjure up.
When I sat down with Miles and Betty I brought them up to speed on all that had happened. They were every bit as mystified as I was by events.
“Tell me about Croop,” I said. “What kind of guy was he?”
Miles shrugged. “I never really knew him. He moved here about - what was it, Betty, two, three years ago?”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “About three years, I think.”
“Was he married?” I asked.
“No, a bachelor,” Miles stated. “A good lookin’ fella, lots a ladies in town givin’ him the eye all the time.”
“Is it possible he was the one calling Callie for the past couple of weeks?”
“I suppose. Callie always took the calls so I don’t know, but coulda been. ”
“What about Fuller?” I asked, deciding to run my theory past them. “Do you think it’s possible that he and Callie might have been arguing about something and Croop came along, intervened, and was subsequently killed by Fuller?”
Miles made a doubtful grimace, indicating extreme skepticism. “I’ve known Mitch for thirty years,” he said. “Fine man. The type to help anyone he felt needed it. Can’t believe he’d be involved in anything illegal, much less the murder of a police officer.”
“Maybe an unintentional thing?” I proffered.
Miles shook his head. “I just don’t see it as a credible possibility, Jack.”
That tended to shoot a big hole in my theory and pretty much put us back at square one.
Was Callie alive? And if she was, why would she run?
Before leav
ing the Wilsons this time I remembered to grab my duffle bag. When I walked outside to the pickup, Bix trailed along behind me. When I climbed in and looked down at him, he stared dolefully back at me with those unfathomable eyes of his.
I leaned over and opened the passenger door. Bix shot around the truck and jumped in beside me. I pulled the door closed and glanced at the house where Miles stood watching. After I fired up the motor he nodded his approval.
I raised my hand in a tacit parting gesture and drove away.
9
It was hard to believe, when I awoke early the next morning, that I had arrived in Colville only forty-two hours earlier. Given all that had happened it seemed like weeks had gone by. While I stared at the ceiling wondering what I could possibly do to unravel the mystery of my wife’s inexplicable disappearance, the phone beside my bed rang.
“Hello,” I said, convinced it could only be bad news.
It was Miles, proving me wrong. “She called here, Jack. She wouldn’t tell me anythin’ but she wants to talk to ya. I gave her yer number at the hotel. Expect a call real soon.” He hung up before I could say a word.
A couple of minutes later my phone rang again. I was poised over it with my hand resting on the cradle and snatched it up before the ring had completed. “Callie?”
There was a long silence. Then, as if it was emanating from a small child, I heard her say, “Yes, Jack. It’s me.” She sounded beaten, on the verge of a breakdown. And scared, too.
She also sounded far away, like a call from overseas back in the days when you could actually tell about those things. “Callie … honey. Where are you? Are you okay?”
“I’m in trouble, Jack. I need help. Can you … help me?”
“Yes, honey. Yes, I can help you. Just tell me where you are. I’ll come to you right now.”
The Shadow's Edge Page 5