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“Here’s what I have. First, Toompas ate dinner in Pacific City the night he was killed.” She explained her investigation of the receipts.
“Second, a house in Pacific City had a .357 Magnum and, I suspect, dumdum ammunition, stolen in the same time frame, although the exact date is unknown.”
“We didn’t find a .357 in Toompas’s car or trailer,” countered Connors.
“No, but we did find the dumdums. Though I promised I wouldn’t tell where the lead came from, I got confirmation that Snyder was known to use them with the .357 he says was stolen from his garage.
“Then there’s the flamingo. It’s confirmed that the one in the trunk is the same one stolen the night of October 9th.”
“Really? A stolen flamingo? I see where you’re going, but why would Toompas steal a single pink flamingo?”
“How would I know?” Greta said with some annoyance. “Maybe he’s a reclusive birdwatcher. Maybe he has a pink fetish. Maybe he just grabbed it on an impulse. The fact is, he did take it and on the same night.”
Connors sat back, his put-upon patience at dealing with the annoying deputy from an adjacent county having morphed into actual interest.
“Okay, so summarize it all.”
“Howie Toompas drove to Pacific City the evening of October 9th. He ate dinner at Doris’s Bakery and Cafe, coming in a few minutes before closing and leaving just after 9:22 p.m. Sometime in the next few hours he broke into the Snyder garage and stole a .357 Magnum and ammunition. He also stole a pink flamingo from the front yard of Mrs. Pastorini’s. Sometime after that, he was killed, his body dumped at the Lincoln/Tillamook border, his car driven to Lincoln City, wiped clean of fingerprints, and left at the beach parking lot.”
Connors had listened intensely. “There are a number of holes in this scenario.”
“Holes, yes . . . but it gives a better picture of that night. And you’re right, what we don’t know is how he spent his time between about 9:30 p.m. and the thefts. I assume he waited some hours to let people go to sleep. Was the Snyder house the only one he hit that night, or were there others? And then the crucial questions. What happened to him between the Snyder garage break-in and his death? Who killed him and why?”
Connors drummed the fingers of his left hand on the tabletop, mulling over her summary.
“I’ll want to think about this some more, but it sounds like you’ve done some impressive investigation on this, Greta. My compliments.”
She blushed at his avuncular tone, and her face went from pale to pink to red.
“Of course, as I said, we still don’t know who killed him.”
“No, and it’s still possible we never will. At least, if all this holds up, we know something—which is a hell of a lot more than we did before.”
Connors paused and gave her a questioning look. “You realize that this increases the likelihood he was killed in Tillamook County and not Lincoln. In fact, maybe where we found the body and the car was a deliberate attempt to divert suspicion from where he was killed. We’ll need to bring Sheriff Wallace in on this, and he won’t be a happy camper.”
Oh, shit, thought Greta. Mitch is right. Wallace will have kittens. His campaign mantra about Tillamook County being so safe because of his sterling leadership as sheriff will be out the window. Not that I hear anyone of substance plans to run against him.
“I guess to every life a little rain must all. And being where we are, more rain than most.” Her tone was flippant only because she tried to make it sound that way.
“Just as long as you’re ready for his reaction. I suggest you try to think of ways to soften the blow. You know, the crime was only solved because of his leadership in developing such a competent staff . . . how the county is safer with a desperate killer caught—assuming we find ou
t who did it—or anything else you can dream up.”
She gave up the pretense. “Okay. I admit I didn’t think about Wallace. To hell with him. It’s a crime, and his goddamn reelection campaign just won’t look quite as rosy,” she said with a snort. “Let’s get back to the real world of crime fighting for the moment. As you say, if my scenario is right, then where do we go next?”
Connors chewed on his lip for a moment. “That we’ll have to think about. Let’s get the four of us originally assigned to the investigation together. For one thing, we need to go over all the evidence and interviews again to see if anything looks different from this new perspective. Maybe we missed the relevance, which will pop out when we re-examine everything. However, our first act is to notify our bosses what’s up.”
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll give Wallace a call this afternoon.”
“Something else. Once my boss learns the homicide might have taken place in Tillamook County, he’ll want Wallace to add more resources to a renewed investigation.”
“Good luck with that,” Greta said. “Let me think about it a little before you broach this with Sheriff Harward. I want to consider how to break the news to Wallace.”
“I’ll wait to hear from you, but it should be soon.”
“Later today or early tomorrow.”
Greta mulled over whether to call Wallace to update the sheriff on the Toompas developments or arrange a face-to-face. As much as she preferred to avoid any meeting with Wallace, this one seemed unavoidable and likely to be unpleasant. Still, it was the professional thing to do—face him head on and stand her ground on the case.
