“I’ll be in touch,” Ellie said. “One last question: Do you know a man named Kevin Kerney?”
Claudia knitted her brows. “I’ve heard that name before. Who is he?”
“I thought you could tell me.”
She left the mansion convinced that notions of normal behavior-if there was such a thing-simply didn’t apply to the very rich.
Captain Chase was out of the office attending an all-day meeting, but at the front counter a detective who was helping a young Hispanic woman amend a stolen property report from a recent burglary took a moment to buzz Kerney through the door to the restricted area. From there a uniformed officer took him to the cold case office, a windowless room with two desks and a big chart on the wall that tracked the status of the cases under review. George Spalding’s name wasn’t on it.
At one of the desks, a young man sat in front of a computer screen scrolling through a file. A name-plate on the shelf above the desk read DET. JUDE FORESTER.
Forester had an eager, intelligent look about him, which was offset by dark circles under his eyes and a skin condition that turned his forehead bright pink.
Kerney explained he’d like to take a look at the George Spalding case file, and Forester gave him a quizzical look.
“Why bother with that piece of garbage?” he asked, gesturing at an empty chair.
“Professional curiosity,” Kerney said as he sat. “There are some New Mexico connections that interest me.”
“Well, actually, we don’t really work it as an active case.”
“So I understand,” Kerney said. “How is it handled?”
“You know about the situation?”
“Your captain filled me in,” Kerney replied.
“Then he probably told you we do nothing more than take down the information Alice Spalding gives us and forward it to him. He takes it from there.”
“Where does he take it?” Kerney asked.
“He talks to Alice and then gives the ex-husband a heads-up on the situation.”
“Talks to Alice about what?”
“Just to reassure her that we’ve looked at whatever she told us and there is nothing to report. Of course, we really don’t do squat.”
“Do you have the case record?”
“Do I ever,” Forester said with a laugh. He opened a desk drawer, removed a thick file folder, and put it in Kerney’s hands. “Have at it, Chief,” he said, grinning. “You can use the other desk.”
Kerney spent an hour paging through the file. Most of what Chase had talked about was documented in the record. A U.S. Army report described the helicopter accident in Vietnam that had caused George Spalding’s death. The chopper had gone down for unknown reasons, probably due to mechanical defects. There was nothing in it that spoke about a secret mission or hush-hush duty, as Penelope Parker had mentioned.
Kerney had been in-country during the same time as George Spalding. He wondered if he’d ever met the man.
According to the rescue and inspection team sent to the crash site, only two passengers, who’d been thrown free upon impact, had survived. Everyone else-four people-had been fried to a crisp when the bird exploded.
He scanned the missing person reports that Alice Spalding had called in to the department over the years. In the material he found an old memorandum from a former police chief assigning Detective Chase to the investigation.
Kerney thought that a bit unusual, but not completely out of the realm of possibility. Perhaps Clifford Spalding had taken his initial request for special handling straight to the top.
It was also curious that Chase had remained involved with the case over the years. Why did he find it necessary to be the primary contact with Alice and Clifford Spalding? Why hadn’t Chase passed the job on to somebody else as he rose through the ranks? After all, it was supposedly nothing but a big nuisance.
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.”