Slow Kill - Michael Mcgarrity [33]
Kerney looked up from the file and asked Forester about the ex-chief who’d given Chase his initial assignment.
“Ed Ramsey?” Forester replied. “He retired about five years ago, just after I joined the force.”
“Where is he now?”
“Teaching at the FBI Academy. Management, or something like that.”
Kerney shook his head, smiled at Forester, and patted the folder. “Man, if I’d been Chase, I would have dropped this baby in somebody’s lap the first chance I got. Somebody like you.”
Forester chuckled. “Then I’m sure glad you’re not running the show here, Chief. Cap says he’d rather not have us wasting our time on it. Besides, Clifford Spalding likes to deal directly with him.”
Forester’s choice of words suggested that he didn’t yet know that Spalding was dead. “But Alice doesn’t seem to mind whom she talks to in the department,” he said.
“Yeah, but then, she’s crazy,” Forester said. “Crazy Alice, we call her.”
Kerney handed the file to Forester and stood. Asking more questions about Chase might raise a red flag. “Thanks for letting me have a look-see,” he said.
“Learn anything helpful, Chief?”
“Yeah, it’s time to stop spinning my wheels and go home.”
Kerney left police headquarters telling himself to put the riddle of George Spalding aside for a time and think about something else, anything else. He walked past the rental car in the direction of State Street, turned the corner at the busy boulevard, and joined the tourists wandering along the crowded sidewalk.
A red light held Kerney up at an intersection and soon a throng of people waiting to cross the street surrounded him. The walk sign flashed and Kerney stood his ground as pedestrians surged around him. Chase had mentioned an old newspaper photograph of a traffic accident that had triggered Alice Spalding’s search for her son.
Although noted in the case file, the newspaper photograph wasn’t in the record. Kerney changed directions and walked down a less busy side street. Chase had told him that one of the victims in the news photo resembled George Spalding, which meant that he must have seen the picture.
Also missing from the record was any documentation of the attempt Chase said had been made to identify the man. Supposedly, a highway patrol officer and an EMT who’d responded to the accident had been queried about the victim. But there was nothing in the file that noted their names, any statements taken from them, the true identity of the man Alice had believed to be her son, or even the date and place of the accident.
Additionally, there was no mention of Debbie Calderwood in the file. Was there another record? Perhaps one that Chase kept in his office?
As Kerney strolled back toward the car, another inconsistency surfaced in his mind. Chase said Alice always called in her sightings. But when Kerney had first met Alice, she mistook him for Chase. Did Chase visit Alice periodically? If so, why?
Kerney stopped in front of the old courthouse, where a group of tourists led by a guide were getting the scoop on the historic building and the fabulous view of the bay from the bell tower. He called Penelope Parker on his cell phone.
“Does Captain Chase stay in close contact with Alice?” he asked when she answered.
“Not so much since she got sick,” Parker replied.
Kerney moved out of the way as the tour group hurried inside. “And before that?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” Parker said. “Alice relied on him heavily. He would even visit her to report in person.”
“On a regular basis?”
“Monthly, I’d say.”
“Did she know Chase was passing on what she told him to Clifford?”
“Alice never would have stood for that,” Parker said.
“Did Chase give her verbal or written reports?”
“Only verbal, as far as I know. It’s interesting that you should mention Captain Chase. He called here after you left this morning, asking questions about you and what you were up to. I told him what we’d talked about.”
“You did the right thing,” Kerney said, responding to the anxiety in Parker ’s voice.
“Oh, good. I was worried that perhaps I had caused you