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Instead, she called him. You wimp, she scolded herself.
“Sheriff Wallace here.”
“Sheriff Wallace, this is Greta Havorsford. I just finished a meeting with Lincoln County sheriff detective deputy Mitch Connors about the Toompas homicide from last year. There’ve been some developments I wanted to update you on.”
“I thought that case was shut down? Last I heard, they hadn’t gotten anywhere.”
“It wasn’t officially closed because it wasn’t solved. However, you’re right, the investigation wasn’t being actively pursued because of the lack of new information. As you know, I was our department’s liaison on the case because they found the body right on the county line, and the victim had links to Tillamook County. New information has come forward, and the case is being looked at again.”
“What new information?”
“It turns out Toompas ate dinner in Pacific City the night he was killed, and there’s evidence he carried out burglaries in Tillamook County, including one or more around Pacific City the same night. All of this raises the possibility that he was killed in Tillamook County and not Lincoln County, as originally believed.”
“What? Who says that?”
“Sorry, Sheriff. It’s not what any one person says, it’s just an obvious possibility, given the new information. As I told you before, I originally encouraged the Lincoln people to take the lead on the case, even though there was some question at the scene whether the body was more on the Tillamook side than the Lincoln. The obvious argument I gave was that Toompas lived in Lincoln County, and his car was found in Lincoln City with his blood, making it likely he was killed there. This new information raises questions about that, and Sheriff Harward might be giving you a call about dumping some of the future investigation more onto our lap. I thought I’d better give you a heads-up.”
She didn’t fib too much about how this came about. And so what if she didn’t mention that all the new information came from her?
“God damn it! This I don’t need! We haven’t had a homicide in the county in six or seven years!”
Five years! Greta mentally corrected him. Keep the number of years straight.
“I know, Chief. It’s a bitch, but what’re we going to do? If it does turn out to have been committed in Tillamook, then I was thinking we need to get out in front of it as fast as possible, so that it looks like we responded quickly and efficiently.”
“Shit, shit, shit.”
Wallace quit talking and was quiet. She didn’t disturb the silence.
Finally . . . “You’re right. If it did happen here, that will force us to be more involved, and we need to appear on top of it right from the start. I’ll wait for Harward to call me and see what he has to say, then I can decide what we need to do next. Keep me informed of any developments, and I’ll get back to you on our response. Oh, and Greta . . . I appreciate the heads-up.”
“No problem, Chief. Just trying to help.”
Wallace hung up.
By God, she thought, maybe I’m in the wrong line of work and should be a secret agent or something! That’s as long as he doesn’t find out my part in this. Plus, the call makes it unnecessary to meet face-to-face—altogether a major score.
She got right back on the phone, this time to Mitch Connors.
“Mitch, Greta. I just talked with Wallace. He’s prepped that the killing may have happened in Tillamook and that Sheriff Harward will be giving him a call.”
“Can I assume he wasn’t clear that all the new information comes from you?” His amused tone indicated it was a rhetorical question.
“Well . . . I didn’t see any need to overburden him with information at this time.”
“He’s going to find out eventually.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Anyway, you should talk with your boss now that mine is primed.”
“Okay, I’ll try to reach him today and then get back to you.”
“Fine, thanks. Talk to you later. Oh, another thing,” she added. “I’ll go ahead and write up details of what I found, so we’ll have something to refer to.”
“Sounds good.”
They broke off, and Greta finished the day with routine deputy responses. A farmer complaining about a neighbor’s pig getting loose and rooting in his cabbages—there was no sign of the pig, and the neighbor denied any porcine shenanigans. A local resident pulled over for no updated registration sticker on his license plate—she gave him a warning ticket and informed him he would need a law enforcement officer to confirm when the sticker was on the license plate. One speeding ticket for going fifty-five through a thirty-mile-per-hour school zone. A stop at a mom-and-pop grocery where someone had called in a complaint that they were selling cigarettes to minors. She told the owner of the complaint and gave a warning; he, of course, denied any such sale. And the big case of the day—a genuine arrest of a fortyish woman for shoplifting candy bars at a Pacific City Seven-Eleven. The desperate criminal might have gotten off with a warning and paying for the booty if it hadn’t been the third time she had done the same thing at the same store. This time the manager insisted on pressing charges, and Greta had to drive the woman to Tillamook City for formal booking, then have her husband pick her up. Both husband and wife were embarrassed enough that Greta hoped this particular crime spree was over.
By the time Greta called it a day and got home, it was almost six-thirty. She had left a note for herself: Call home. She had missed the Wednesday call again, having unconsciously checked it off, due to the call from Jeanine. It still wasn’t something to look forward to, yet somehow after the Christmas visit, she didn’t dread phoning home like before. The call was short and consisted of updates from her father and mother on their activities, her mother’s obligatory complaints about Heather and the current boyfriend, nothing from Heather because she wasn’t home, and then a good ten minutes with Jeanine, who confided quietly that she thought she was gearing up to having a boyfriend.
