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She rubbed her chin. “As for most likely suspects . . . I can only think of three, maybe four that stand out for different reasons. All the others we questioned just didn’t seem to have enough of a connection to Toompas.”
“I’d give them a longer look,” Penderman said, “as much as possible, given your time constraint. One other thing. Canvassing the town is okay, but don’t just show people pictures of Toompas and his car, give them the pictures to keep. People can examine a picture and draw a blank, then later remember something if they have photos on hand.”
The rest of the hour they ate their breakfast and talked about the weather, family, and the news.
Penderman sat finishing his final cup of coffee and watched Greta leave. He wondered whether she would recognize the naïve young woman who had floundered her first few months out here. She was shaping up nicely, even if she was still a rookie when it came to serious crimes. He thought he’d helped get her going, though he imagined she would have worked it out on her own. Maybe it just would have taken a little longer. He’d had a number of rookies to break in back in Philly, and she stacked up well against any of them. No . . . more than that. He wouldn’t have minded having her for a regular partner once she got a little more experience.
His thoughts took a slightly different direction, as they segued from Greta’s past to a possible future. It had been a while since he’d spoken with Alice Blankenship about Greta. He wondered whether Her Honor the Mayor was still plotting and if Greta was still part of it. He was skeptical when Alice had told him her idea. Now, he thought it could work out, assuming Greta stayed long enough in Tillamook.
Taking Bruce’s advice, Greta returned home and printed out a hundred pictures each of Toompas and his car. As discussed with Plummer, she parked at the southern end of Ocean Drive and worked north. At nine o’clock, she knocked on the first door. She had printed out Google map images of sections so she could see aerial views of every house. She would check off those she visited where residents were at home. The others she would try again later.
As the name hinted, Ocean Drive ran parallel to the beach and, it could be argued, was actually on the beach. The houses on the western side of the street sat surrounded by sand and with minimum or no vegetation. On the eastern side, there was more trees and grass growing up through sand. The street itself, though paved, always had a thin layer of drifting sand blown by the onshore wind. Owners of the houses, particularly on the western side, were mainly retirees or absentee owners from Portland, keeping a house for an occasional getaway.
Her routine was simple.
“Hello, I’m Tillamook deputy sheriff Greta Havorsford. I’d like to ask you some questions.”
“Have you ever seen this person? Particularly around the neighborhood or anywhere else?”
“Have you ever seen this car?”
“Have you noticed any other person or car around the neighborhood regularly that might seem suspicious?”
She left a copy of the pictures and asked that they show them to other household members who weren’t home at the moment and to look at the pictures again later. She left her card and asked them to call her if anything occurred to them.
There were the expected responses—why was she asking the questions, who was the man, were they in danger, what did the man do? She tried to assure them that the man was not dangerous and that it was part of an ongoing investigation, blah, blah, blah.
As she moved up the street, she checked off houses with residents at home and circled those with no one at home. If no one answered, she taped her card to the front door, with a written note to call her.
By the time she got to Kiwanda Drive, which connected Ocean Drive to Cape Kiwanda Drive, she had finished all twenty-nine houses. Twenty-two had someone at home. No one made any connection to Toompas or his car. It was noon. She had to meet Simpson at La Fiesta at twelve-thirty, so she walked back down Ocean Drive to her vehicle and sat in it with the windows open. The sea air blew through the cab, as she glanced over the few notes she had taken. She then climbed the low, salt tolerant grass–covered dune and looked out at the ocean. She found it increasingly calming, and she wondered whether she would ever want to live anywhere that didn’t have such a view. Missouri, where a long distance view meant flat farmland stretching to a few buildings or a stand of trees, seemed almost foreign to her now.
She glanced at her watch. Five minutes to go for the appointment with Simpson.
She was two minutes late. He sat at a booth by the front window. She slid in opposite him.
“Greta,” he greeted.
“Robert,” she responded, always feeling odd to use a phony name.
I wonder what it is? she thought. Mike, Matt . . . what about Dirk or something else out of a bad novel or movie? Somehow he doesn’t seem like a Harold and certainly no nickname like Jimmy or Jimbo.
“Thanks for meeting. I just wanted to run two things by you. One, I wanted to reach out for a different view of the Toompas case.”
On the short drive, she’d decided to push Bruce’s caution slightly to one side with Simpson, for now. On the off chance he had been involved, maybe telling him where she was in the case might shake something loose. And anyway, they were in a public place. She chided herself for indulging in too much melodrama.
“No problem. I’ve read up on the case in the papers. Not much information there, I’m afraid.”
“No, not much was released, and frankly, we never had much information. However, there have been some changes.”
She outlined that they now had fixed Toompas’s activities on the night of his death and how it pointed toward his committing one or more home break-ins that night.
Simpson listened attentively and asked a few questions. “Though not exactly my main line of expertise, my first gut reaction would be to go back over all the previous information and look at it again in this new light. I’d do the same with anyone who had a plausible connection. I assume you’ll be adding to those now that you think he was burglarizing. He might have had accomplices, and he had to be selling whatever he took somewhere.”
“All those are being looked into. We’ve also started door-to-door questioning throughout Pacific City with photos of Toompas and his car, in case someone remembers seeing him around.”
Simpson nodded sympathetically. “A reasonable move. Most people have no idea that much of police work is either sifting through paper records or hoofing it on the ground, trying to find connections.”
They paused while a waitress took their orders for lunch. A combo plate for Simpson—taco, chili relleno, beans, and rice—and a salad for Greta. A beer for Simpson and water for Greta. Just as the waitress turned to leave, Greta changed her order slightly, adding a beer.
