by D J Monroe
“She’s had a long time to grieve,” Creed said quietly.
“Yes, she has,” Nate agreed. “And she’s a strong lady.”
They were quiet for a while. Creed’s thoughts strayed back to his teenaged years and the realization that he was attracted to other boys. It had taken him a whole year to even admit it to himself and then he didn’t even know what to do about it.
“She must have been so confused,” Creed said, breaking the silence.
“They both were, probably,” Nate said.
Again, silence descended in the car while Nate looked for a parking spot. He found one about a block away from the police station in front of a boutique dress shop.
“At least we have someone with a motive for hurting Tammy now.”
Nate nodded. “Her boyfriend.”
“Yeah. Butch Kender has a garage over on Baltimore Street,” Creed said.
“That breakup must have been a real blow to his ego,” he added as they climbed out of the car. Nate stopped abruptly and put out a hand. “What if she told him the real reason she was breaking up with him?”
Creed thought about that while he walked around the car and stepped up onto the sidewalk. “You mean what if she told him she was in love with another girl?”
“Yeah.”
“I doubt she would have but THAT would have certainly set him off.”
“Make him angry enough to kill her?”
Creed shrugged. “Maybe. Times were different then. It’ll be interesting to hear what he has to say about Tammy and the night she went missing.”
“Listen to us, sounding like a couple of private investigators,” Nate said with a laugh and locked his car with a little chirping sound.
“A new stream of revenue,” Creed said, grinning back at him.
“Not on this case, Watson.”
The police station had been housed in a low brick building that looked like it had at one time been a department store for the past twenty years. Leading the way, Creed pushed the heavy, glass door open. They came face to face with a heavy set, silver-haired police officer sitting at a small desk just inside the entrance. Creed recognized Officer Chip Nelson right away.
“Hello, Creed,” he said, a smile brightening his face. “How’s your mama?”
“Officer Nelson,” Creed said, shaking the older man’s hand. “Thank you for asking. She’s holding her own.”
“Good to hear,” he said and turned his gaze to Nate. “If I was a betting man, I’d bet you’re Everett Palmer’s boy.”
“You’d win that bet,” Nate said, shaking the officer’s hand as well. “Nate Palmer.”
He nodded. “I was sorry to hear of your grandpa’s passing. He was a good man.”
“Thank you, sir. It was a blow to the family.”
“I’m sure it was,” he said sounding sincere. “You back in town for good?”
“No, sir. I’m just getting grandpa’s house ready to sell then I’ll be going back to-to the city.”
He nodded as if he understood completely and turned his attention back to Creed. “Now, I’ll bet you’re here to see Bobby.”
“We are,” Creed answered. “He’s expecting us.”
Officer Nelson picked up the receiver of the phone on his desk. Before he could make the call, Creed saw his brother in law making his way through the maze of empty desks that served as the squad room. With his light brown hair and blue eyes, Bobby looked more like a Boy Scout leader than a police officer. He shared Julia’s perpetually happy, upbeat disposition.
“There’s Bobby now,” Creed said, waving at his brother-in-law.
“Good to see you,” Bobby said with a smile that said he was genuinely happy to see them. “Seems I’m never home when you come out to the house.”
“I know. You’re always working,” Creed said.
“Life of a cop,” Bobby said, extending a hand toward Nate. “Bobby Asher.”
“This is a friend of mine, Nate Palmer,” Creed said introducing the two men.
“Nice to meet you,” Bobby said and the two men shook hands.
“You as well,” Nate said.
“Nate’s grandfather passed a few months ago and I’m helping him clean out the house to get it ready to sell,” Creed explained.
“So Julia told me,” Bobby said, looking from Creed to Nate. “Never thought anyone but a Palmer would be living in that big house. She’s a beauty.”
“Thank you.”
“So you’ve uncovered a little mystery?” Bobby asked, hands on his lean hips.
“Yes. My aunt, Tammy Palmer, went missing in nineteen seventy-three. We stumbled across the newspaper clippings-”
“I remember that case,” Chip Nelson said.
“Were you working then?” Bobby asked.
“No, I didn’t join the force until about ten years later but it was all in the news. I’ll bet this community spent more than a year hunting for her,” he replied.
“Nate thought it might be interesting to write a book about the case,” Creed told them. He could almost feel Nate cringe at the little lie
“Which is why you’re here,” Bobby said with a grin. “You don’t want to spend all day standing around talking to us. Come on. Let’s go down into the dungeon and I’ll show you what we found,” Bobby said, motioning for them to follow him through the squad room.
“I wasn’t sure if we would have access to all the files or not,” Creed said, following Bobby.
“Since it’s a closed case, the Sarge said it was okay to share it with you,” Bobby said over his shoulder.
“We certainly appreciate your help on this,” Nate said.
“Oh, not a problem,” Bobby said and then paused with one hand on a heavy door. “Now, wouldn’t it be something if you guys cracked the case after all this time,” Bobby said.
“That would be something alright,” Creed agreed.
Bobby led them through the steel gray door and they started down a steep flight of concrete stairs. It was nearly dark in the stairwell. A single bare bulb hung overhead at the first landing and their shadows flitted around like ghosts.
“I’m excited to hear what you make of it and so will some of the other officers who have retired. For some of them it was a defining point in their career. They retired knowing it had never really been solved,” Bobby said, his voice echoing off the concrete walls.
At the bottom of the stairs was another heavy, metal door which Bobby pushed open flicked the light switch on the wall nearby with his free hand and invited them in. This room was small, lit by a single bare bulb which threw more harsh shadows on the floor. A table was situated in the center of the room. Two file type boxes sat on one end, both labeled with Tammy Palmer’s name.
“There is it?” Nate asked.
“We didn’t have a whole lot to go on,” Bobby said, moving to the table and resting one hand on the closest box. “I guess the Tammy Palmer missing persons case was probably the case this department has ever had.”
“And the case is closed,” Nate said.
Bobby shrugged. “From what I’ve been told, they ended up calling it a runaway teen and let it go at that. At least the lead officer on the case did. Most everyone knew that wasn’t the case.”
“We don’t think that’s what happened either,” Nate told him.
“And you’re going to try to solve it?” Bobby asked. “And then turn it into a book.”
“If we can,” Creed told him, noting that Nate couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of the boxes.
“Well, good luck with that,” Bobby said, clapping Creed on the shoulder. Then he glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to get out on patrol. You’ve got my cell so call me if you need anything.”
“Will do,” Creed said.
“And remember, nothing leaves this room.”
“Got it,” Creed said holding up his legal pad. “I’ll be taking notes.”
They watched him leave and then turned back to each other.
“Wow,” N
ate said.
“Do you know where to start?” Creed asked.
“Not really. Let’s just hope the files are in some kind of order so we’re not jumping back and forth on the timeline.”
They stood there for a moment longer looking at the boxes. Creed had the distinct feeling that once they opened those boxes, started to dig in, they were going to find more than they bargained for. Yet, he held back, waiting, more than happy to let Nate to make the first move.
Finally, Nate reached for the closest box and removed the lid. It was stuffed with manila file folders, the handwritten names on the tabs faded to gray. Edges of papers, yellowed with age, stuck up here and there.
“It looks like there’s an initial folder and then folders with other people’s names on them,” Nate said, running his fingers across the tops of the folders.
“Maybe interview notes?” Creed guessed, peering over his shoulder. His nose itched and he sneezed.
“I guess the only thing to do is just dive in and see what we can uncover.”
“That sounds like a plan,” Creed said, glad they were finally getting started.
Tammy’s presence, if indeed it was Tammy, had grown stronger every day since he’d come to the Palmer house. Ever since he’d gotten up that morning, he’d been constantly aware of it hovering over his shoulder, urging him forward. It had been particularly strong while they were talking to Kathy and he wondered if she felt it, too. Both she and Nate would have laughed him out of Dairy Rite if he’d asked.
Now, that energy seemed to hold back, almost as if she was afraid of what they might find in those files. Of course, he shared none of this with his skeptical partner.
Nate pulled out a plastic chair and sat down at the end of the table. He took a deep breath, reached into the box and took out the folder marked ‘Evidence’.
Twenty-Two: Suspects Abound
Nate was very aware of Creed sitting so close to him pen at the ready. But that was only part of the reason his hands trembled slightly when he opened the folder. He felt as if he’d just stepped off a cliff, as if what he found in these files were going to send him on a journey to find out what had happened to his aunt that summer night in nineteen seventy-three.
A journey he wasn’t prepared for and one he only hoped he could finish.
The folder contained a thick white envelope and several typed documents that looked, to Nate’s untrained eye, like police reports. He started with the envelope, running his thumb under the flap and black and white pictures began spilling out onto the table.
The first ones were several pictures of her shoe on the stairs, taken from different angles.
“That’s her shoe,” Creed said, peering over his shoulder.
“Correct,” Nate said. He shuffled those aside and picked up another one. “And this looks like- He held a very dark, very grainy photo and squinted at it.
Creed leaned in even closer and looked at it, too. “Her glasses,” he said, pointing. “See the reflection of the flash in the lenses.”
“You’re right,” Nate said, touching the photo with his finger. “There is the little marker identifying where it was found.”
“Yes, I see it,” Creed said. “But we already know all that was left behind was one shoe and her broken glasses.”
“And her camera.”
“And her camera,” Creed echoed. “I wish I’d brought it with me.”
“What about a purse?” Nate asked. “Girls don’t go anywhere without their purse.”
Nate began shuffling through the rest of the photos. They were faded, the edges curling. Each one was dated and time stamped. The date Tammy disappeared. Besides the shoe on the stairs and her broken glasses, there were more pictures taken inside of the Petersen’s home.
“Scene of the crime,” Nate said, almost to himself.
Beside him, Creed nodded.
Nate studied the pictures of the missing latch from the screen door and where it lay on the tiled entry. Those had been taken from different angles as well.
“I think the broken latch was the only evidence that even hinted at a disturbance,” Creed said, making a note on his legal pad.
Nate flipped through several more pictures, taken throughout the house and stopped at one that looked like a den with a fireplace. “There’s her camera,” he said, holding the picture up so they could look at it at the same time.
“Just sitting there on the hearth,” Creed whispered.
“Yep.”
“It’s almost like it recorded what happened,” Creed said, his voice growing soft.
“Almost,” Nate said and then glanced at Creed. “Except for the important part.”
Creed cocked his head to the side, grinned and held up both hands in surrender.
Nate set the pictures aside and began reading down through the report. “There’s nothing here that we didn’t read in the paper,” he said.
“Okay,” Creed said, reaching for the pictures while Nate scanned the paperwork. He looked through each one carefully again and again. “I’m just going through these, looking for anything we might have missed,” he explained to Nate.
“Good idea, Watson,” Nate said, glancing up from the report. He winked at Creed. His hands were steady now that they’d finally dived into this and he felt more and more confident with each passing moment.
Creed smiled at Nate’s use of his new nickname.
Nate chuckled and returned to reading his report. “This just gives us a list of suspects, describes the crime scene and what they found there,” Nate finally said. “Which we sort of already knew. They thought she was a runaway because they never found her purse.”
“If someone took her, would they have been smart enough to bury her purse with her? Sort of a smoke screen,” Creed said.
“That would make sense,” Nate agreed. “But why leave her shoe, her glasses and her camera behind?”
After a moment, Creed said, “Let’s look at the interview notes,” he suggested. “Maybe there’s something there.”
Nate placed the photos back in the envelope and returned it to the folder. Then he pushed that aside and reached back into the box. The second folder looked like it had numerous interviews inside and had the word ‘School’ written on the tab.
Nate opened it on the table in front of him and quickly glanced through the documents he found there. It contained a thin stack of reports, informal interviews with Tammy’s classmates. They were mostly just one page for each person the police had spoken to. Each one had the interviewee’s name at the top, the date and time and the names of everyone present.
“Brief and to the point,” Nate muttered.
Reading quickly, Nate skimmed the reports, passing each one to Creed once he’d finished. Tammy appeared to be popular in a quiet, unassuming way. All of the students began by saying that they liked Tammy. Smart, fun, happy, kind, were words used to describe her. Most everyone thought she and Butch didn’t look like they belonged together.
The third time he saw Dr. Petersen’s name mentioned by the girls in Tammy’s class, Nate stopped, a little shiver of anticipation running up his spine. He handed that report to Creed. “Here’s something interesting.”
Creed took the report, read through it and nodded. “Dr. Petersen?”
Nate nodded.
“It sounds like several of her female classmates were not real fond of him,” Creed said.
“I saw that,” Nate said, wishing he could copy these reports and highlight the statements each of these girls made about the good doctor.
“This makes the third one that said he made them feel ‘creepy’ and they didn’t like the way he hugged them,” Creed said, making notes on his pad.
“And all of them said they stopped babysitting for him because of that.”
“Their parents were in the room at the time of this interview,” Creed reminded him. “If they didn’t know about the way their daughters felt before, they knew after that interview.”
“I wonder
if they did anything about it?” Nate asked, scanning another classmate interview.
“He was a big shot in the community, probably the only doctor in town at the time,” Creed said.
“And I think he won a bunch of humanitarian awards from the city,” Nate said.
“So, these accusations would have been swept under the rug.”
“Different time,” Nate said. “And to be honest, they weren’t really accusing him of anything just-” Nate stopped.
“What?” Creed asked.
“Listen to this,” he said and began to read. “Mildred Skinner told the police officer, during the interview that Dr. Petersen tried to kiss her one night when he walked her home after babysitting.”
“Holy cow,” Creed whispered and their eyes met. “Now that’s an accusation.”
“She told the officer she tried to warn Tammy not to work for the Petersen’s again.”
“Evidently Tammy didn’t believe her or wasn’t concerned about what the others said,” Nate said.
“The doctor was at some sort of banquet with his wife all evening,” Creed reminded him. “Probably half the town was there.”
“Still, it would be interesting to talk to this Mildred Skinner about that now, if we can.”
“I’ll add her name to the list of people to try and track down,” Creed said, reaching for his pen.
“When did the Petersen’s move away?” Nate wondered aloud.
“We can probably find out,” Creed said, making another note on his pad.
“I wonder if they moved because of Mildred’s accusations or because of the whole situation.”
“We can probably find that out, too if we dig deep enough,” Creed said. “If he’ll even talk to us.”
“He’d be, what, in his seventies now,” Nate guessed.
“I think so.”
“I didn’t see Kathy’s interview in with these,” Nate said, gathering the reports and glancing through them one more time. “Maybe they went more in depth with her interview since she was Tammy’s best friend.”
“If they did, she should have her own folder,” Creed said.
Nate replaced that folder and spotted Kathy’s next in the box.
