On a Killer's Trail

by Susan Page Davis

  “Suppose it’s Mrs. Burton,” said Jimmy.

  “No way,” Neil said.

  Connor shook his head. “She’d be leaving Stephen and Sean behind. I can’t see her doing that.”

  “She got pretty plastered the day we searched the house,” Neil mused.

  “Think she’s an alcoholic?” asked Mike.

  “Maybe,” said Neil. “But she came to bail her son out the next morning. She was sober then.”

  “I was just thinking about why Burton would leave her and the boys,” said Connor.

  “All right,” said Mike. “Cherchez la femme. This Natalie DeWitt is probably not the one. But someone is. Check out every woman in his life. Whoever ‘Mrs. Parlin’ is, she’s out there somewhere.”

  “I suspect she’s long gone,” said Connor. “She picked him up at the restaurant, and they drove off into the sunset.”

  “You don’t suppose they’d lie low until the fifteenth, then show up at Kennedy and try to use the reservation to Paris?” Neil asked.

  “Alert the airline people,” Connor said. “They’d have to have passports under the assumed names. I’ll check that now.”

  He phoned the State Department, and Neil called the airline and asked them to keep an eye on the Parlin reservation and alert the Portland police immediately if it was canceled or if another reservation was made in that name.

  Connor was on hold. He hated to be on hold. Neil poured him a cup of coffee and put it at his elbow. “Thanks,” the captain murmured. “Check missing persons, would you?”

  On the computer, Neil checked the complaint records since the day Jim Burton had disappeared. One teenager had been reported missing. A man was missing during the ice storm, but had been found keeping warm at a friend’s house. That was all, other than Burton. People stayed close to home in winter.

  Connor came over to his desk. “Got it,” he said. “Joseph Parlin applied for a passport in August. They’ll send me a copy.”

  “How about the Mrs.?”

  “They’re not sure, since I didn’t have the first name. They’re searching for any female by the last name Parlin who applied since August first.”

  “What now?”

  “I’m going to call the French embassy and see if they applied for visas. They might have, if they plan to stay there long.”

  “Did you get an address from the State Department, where they mailed his passport?” Neil asked.

  “A P.O. box. Why don’t you and Tony go to the post office and check it out? Take the Burton and Parlin pictures. See if he’s still using the box.”

  “And if he is?”

  “We’ll get a warrant and check his mail.”

  ELEVEN

  At the post office, the postmaster took Tony and Neil back to the sorting area. Neil explained to him that the patron had rented the box under an assumed name. He showed him a photo of James Burton and the driver’s license photo of his alter ego, Joseph Parlin. The postmaster checked the record of the rental and gave him the street address the renter had given. It was the empty house in Westbrook.

  The postmaster checked the box. There were several flyers and a piece of first-class mail in the box.

  “I can’t give it to you,” he told Neil.

  “We’ll come back with a warrant.” Neil handed him his business card.

  “Call me immediately if anyone picks up the mail from Parlin’s box.”

  “Should we stake out the post office?” Tony asked Connor when they returned to the police station. “The clerks might not notice when the mail is picked up.”

  “Highly unlikely he’s hanging around and picking up his mail,” said Connor.

  “Someone might pick it up for him,” Neil said.

  Connor called the courthouse, then sent Tony for the warrant. “I’m still waiting to hear from the State Department,” he told Neil. When Tony came back, he still had no word, and it was lunchtime. The three of them went to the diner down the street. The inside of the restaurant was small and dim and made Neil claustrophobic, but it was close to the station and cheap, and the food was pretty good. He asked the blessing aloud, and Tony was tolerant enough to ignore it without looking terribly embarrassed. The guys seemed to be getting used to Connor’s and Neil’s penchant for prayer.

  The warrant had arrived when they returned, and Neil went back to the post office and retrieved Parlin’s mail. The first-class item was a six-month visa confirmation for Joseph and Doreen Parlin.

  “Doreen?” asked Connor, when Neil took it to him. “Any Doreens in his life?”

  “Not that I know of,” Neil said. “Another assumed name. I was hoping she’d use her real first name.”

  “We’re missing something,” Connor insisted. “This woman had to build a false identity, just like Burton did.”

  Tony said, “Do you think they went so far as to get a fake marriage license?”

  “No,” said Connor, “but she’d need a driver’s license, or at least a birth certificate and Social Security number, or she’d never get a passport.”

  “Do you know that she has a passport?” Neil asked.

  “She must. They got the visa confirmation and booked the plane tickets to Paris.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Cherchez la femme, like Mike said. There’s a woman who’s close to him. We’ve got to find her. I’ll check the DMV for women named Parlin who’ve applied for a driver’s license. You two get a list of every woman Burton associated with through the shelter. Ask Mrs. Burton about friends, neighbors, anyone they socialized with.”

  “That sort of backfired the last time,” Neil reminded him.

  “Maybe not. I’ve put in a request for an undercover unit to tail Natalie DeWitt tonight. Meanwhile, let’s scrutinize the other women he knew.”

  Neil said, “Okay, but do me a favor. Send someone else to Mrs. Burton this time. I think she hates me.”

  Lance and Jimmy got that assignment. Tony and Neil went to the animal shelter. Roberta Palmer gave them a list of all the employees and another of volunteers.

  “Is this complete?” Neil asked. “Are there any others who used to work here or volunteer here, but have quit in the past six months?”

  “You’re asking for a lot,” she said, but she went to work on it. Tony started questioning the women who were working in the office that day, and Neil talked to the ones working in the kennel.

  “The vet is here today,” said Amelia Weston, who was in charge of the kennels during the workday. “We’re really busy.”

  Neil tried not to get in the way. As she carried puppies to the veterinarian for their vaccinations, he questioned her about her relationship with Burton and watched her closely. Her calm demeanor convinced him she’d never heard the name Joseph Parlin before. He asked her if she thought it was possible Jim Burton had a girlfriend.

  “After what he did, I’d say anything’s possible,” she replied. “He knows how badly we need a new facility.”

  “Do you think he might have had a liaison with someone who worked here?”

  “Can’t think who, unless it was one of the volunteers. None of the regular staff has a mystery man in her life that I know of.”

  “How about the volunteers?” Neil asked, holding out the list to her.

  “Well, the college students come in on Monday,” Amelia said.

  “College students?”

  “Yes, these three girls.”

  “Think one of them might have cozied up to the boss?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought so, but really, who can say? I don’t think anything could shock me worse than Jim walking off with that money.”

  Neil called the dean’s office at the university, but classes wouldn’t resume until the next Monday. Most of the students were away from campus for vacation.

  Connor had no word from the State Department when they returned to the office, but he had found three women named Parlin who had obtained new Maine driver’s licenses since July. He showed the photos to his
men. One was a sixty-year-old, gray-haired woman who had moved to Maine from New York.

  “I think we can rule her out,” Tony said. “Burton was rubbing elbows with coeds at the shelter.”

  “Okay, look at this next picture,” said Connor. “This girl just got her license for the first time. We are really hoping it’s not her, because she’s only seventeen.”

  Tony and Neil shook their heads. “There are a couple of high school girls on the list of volunteers at the shelter, but we haven’t seen them yet,” Neil said.

  “Okay, this one had a Maine license and moved out of state for a while, then came back in October. What do you think?”

  She was forty-one. Her hair was pulled back, and she wore glasses with chunky, dark frames. Hard to say whether she was pretty or not.

  “Never seen her,” said Tony.

  “I don’t know,” Neil said cautiously. “Can you take the dorky glasses off her and give her a different hairstyle?”

  “I’ll try with the computer. If that doesn’t work for you, maybe the sketch artist can.”

  “What’s her name?” Neil asked.

  “Rena Parlin. Address in Gorham,” Connor said.

  “Rena. That’s awfully close to Doreen.”

  “That’s what I thought. And the plane ticket said ‘R. Parlin.’ She’s our best bet so far.”

  Neil set about calling women on the lists of shelter workers and volunteers. He felt as if they were moving backward in the investigation, although Tony did tentatively rule out the two high school volunteers.

  Late in the afternoon, Connor got a fax from the State Department. It was a copy of Doreen Parlin’s passport application, and included a dark, smeary copy of a tiny photo.

  “That’s awful,” Neil said. “Can’t tell a thing.”

  Connor called them again. His contact had left for the day.

  “Go home and get a dose of Adrienne and those beautiful kids,” Neil told him.

  “I will,” Connor said. “I just keep seeing Jim Burton and his girlfriend driving along in a convertible, laughing and getting farther and farther away.”

  Connor’s calls to the State Department finally paid off the next day. A copy of Doreen Parlin’s passport photo came in electronically at 11:30 a.m. Same glasses as the Rena Parlin driver’s license. Her hair was short.

  “She cut her hair,” said Tony.

  Lance scowled at the photo. “Could be a wig.”

  “Rena/Doreen,” Neil said, comparing the two pictures. “Definitely the same woman.”

  “The question is, where have we seen her before?” Connor brought up the program they used to build sketches of suspects and keyed in the face shape, eyes, nose, mouth and eyebrows. No glasses. Then he tried to fill in the gaps. He showed the results to his men. The same woman with a short, curly perm; with long, straight hair; and with a bouncy flip.

  “No use,” said Tony.

  “I think I have seen her,” Neil said.

  Connor sat with his chin on his hands, staring at the screen.

  “Can we take lunch?” Tony asked.

  “Sure.” He didn’t look up.

  “You going to eat?” Neil asked.

  “I’m taking my lunch hour late, to meet Adrienne at the pediatrician’s office.”

  “I’ll bring you something,” Neil offered.

  “I’m okay.” Connor still stared at the monitor.

  Neil and Tony went to the diner. Neil ate hurriedly and ordered a BLT and milk for Connor.

  “What’s the rush?” Tony asked.

  “Connor’s in overdrive. Take your time. I just need to get back there.”

  He picked up the bag, paid for the food and walked quickly back to the station. Connor met him on the stairs.

  “Neil! Come on!”

  “Where?”

  “The animal shelter.”

  Neil turned around and went with him to the garage. “I’ll drive, you eat.” He handed Connor the bag and unlocked his truck. “Who are we after?” he asked, turning onto Franklin Street from the parking lot.

  “Roberta Palmer.”

  “No way.”

  “Yes. It’s her.”

  “Can’t be.”

  “It is. I don’t know how she did it, but she did. The glasses and makeup and a wig, I guess. Maybe caps on her front teeth.”

  “But Burton left over a week ago,” Neil protested.

  “And now who is in charge of the huge fund-raiser? Who is giving the orders at the shelter and collecting the money from advance sales on tickets and putting it in the bank every afternoon?”

  “Roberta Palmer. I still don’t believe it. She helped us.”

  “Sure she did. As long as we believe she had a businesslike relationship with Burton and was shocked when he left with the money, she’ll help you investigate anyone else connected with the shelter.”

  “All right, eat.”

  “Not hungry.”

  “Call Adrienne, at least. You’re going to miss her appointment.”

  “Oh, man, I can’t do that. It’s Hailey’s first checkup.” Connor looked at his watch. “If we’re quick, I can still make it to the doctor’s.”

  “We’d better call for backup to take Ms. Palmer in,” Neil said.

  “Let’s make sure she’s there first. She may be out to lunch.”

  When Neil had parked at the shelter, Connor held out the driver’s license and passport photos to him.

  Neil looked closely at the pictures, and began to see it. “Okay, it’s her. But the nose isn’t right somehow.”

  “It’s the glasses. Makes her nose look thinner. Maybe her makeup contributes to that, too. But it’s her. Come on.”

  They went in, and a woman who was typing looked up. “Detective Alexander. May I help you?”

  “I’d like to speak to Miss Palmer.”

  “Roberta left for the day.”

  “Did she say why?” Neil asked.

  “She wasn’t feeling well.”

  “When did she leave?”

  “About half an hour ago.”

  “And her home address is…?”

  “Is it urgent?”

  “Yes,” Neil said, feeling Connor’s energy beside him.

  Connor walked to Roberta’s desk, picked up a phone book and opened it.

  “We need to see her right away,” Neil said.

  “Well, I…She lives in Woodfords.”

  Connor snapped an address out, reading it from the phone book.

  “Yes,” said the typist, “that’s it.”

  Connor was out the door, and Neil followed.

  “I’m dropping you at the doctor’s office,” Neil said. “It’s not that far.”

  “We’ll lose her.”

  “No. She doesn’t know we’re onto her.”

  “Then why did she leave work early?”

  “Maybe she’s really sick,” Neil said.

  “Right.” Connor’s sarcasm made him wince.

  “I’ll call Tony and have him meet me.”

  “Go to Woodfords.”

  “You can’t stand Adrienne up,” Neil insisted.

  Connor pulled his cell phone out and punched two buttons. He smiled when she answered. “Hey, gorgeous. Afraid I’m not going to make it this time. I know. I’m sorry.”

  “I can have you there in three minutes,” Neil said.

  “Go—to—Woodfords,” Connor ground out. Neil got the message.

  Ten minutes later, they pulled in at a green duplex with peeling paint. The driveway on Roberta’s side was empty, and no one came to the door.

  Connor went to the other side, and a woman holding a baby opened the door. He showed his badge.

  “I’m looking for Roberta Palmer.”

  “She works at the animal shelter,” the woman said.

  “Yes, but she’s not there today. Have you seen her?”

  “Not since she left this morning.”

  They got back in the truck, and Neil steered a course straight for the doctor�
��s office without saying anything.

  “The bank,” said Connor.

  “Huh?”

  “The bank where they put the ticket money. She’s withdrawing it as we speak.”

  Neil hit the brakes. “What bank did they use?”

  “It’s the same one Burton lifted the building fund from.” Connor closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. “Central Bank. Yeah, that’s it. Let’s put the light on.” Connor reached to the dashboard and turned on the blue light. Neil drove to the bank. They left the truck at the curb in a no-parking spot, strobe light still going.

  Neil looked all around as they went in. “She’s not here, Connor.”

  “That means we’re too late.” Connor bypassed the lines and said to a teller, “I’m Captain Larson with the Portland P.D. I need to see the manager immediately.”

  She waved him toward the opposite end of the building, and Connor turned and strode along a line of small private offices with glass walls. The last one was larger than the others. The manager was talking with a client. Connor knocked and opened the door.

  “Sir, I’m Captain Larson with the Portland P.D. I’m sorry to interrupt you, but we’ve got an emergency here.”

  Donald Sharpe came quickly out of the office, excusing himself to the client.

  “The Animal Protection Society may have been robbed again,” Connor said. “They have their account here still?”

  “Yes. We’ve been very careful about security since the embezzlement.”

  “Really? Would you just check for me and see if the account has had any activity today?”

  Sharpe looked at him keenly, then went to a vacant teller’s station and began tapping at the computer keyboard.

  Sharpe’s face turned red. He called a teller to him and brought her out to where the detectives waited.

  “Follow me,” he said, and led them down a set of stairs and into a conference room. He turned and faced the teller. “Mrs. Jordan, the Animal Protection Society’s savings account was emptied a few minutes ago. You gave them cash.”

  “Minutes?” said Connor. “Minutes?”

  “At twelve twenty-three,” said Sharpe.

  Neil and Connor both looked at their watches.

  “Back to Woodfords, Neil.” Connor was out the door and up the stairs.