She had only an aunt. Tracy wrote, Penny Orr.
Orr claimed that she’d been estranged from Andrea since Andrea’s move from San Bernardino to Portland; that she didn’t even know Andrea had gotten married.
So she’d said.
As far as Tracy knew from the Pierce County file, nobody had followed through to determine if Penny Orr was telling the truth. Nobody had pulled Andrea’s phone records or e-mail—primarily because Stan Fields didn’t think she was still alive. He thought Graham had killed her. If Andrea was alive, if she’d orchestrated the disappearance of her trust, she’d also likely not used her cell phone or her e-mail account to do it.
Tracy sat back, considering Andrea Strickland and Penny Orr. Both, in a sense, had been abandoned under traumatic circumstances and, as Tracy had deduced between Devin Chambers and her sister, blood created a strong bond difficult to ignore or to break. As crazy as it seemed to even consider Penny Orr, Tracy could not dismiss it. For one, who was left? A random person Andrea had paid? Too risky. The person could run to the media first chance they got, seeking their fifteen minutes of fame. Alan Townsend? Maybe.
During their interview, Orr had told Tracy she felt guilty about what had happened to Andrea while under her roof. Could helping Andrea to start a new life have been Orr’s way to cleanse herself of her own perceived sins?
What did Tracy really know about Penny Orr?
Nothing.
She went back to her cubicle, hit the space bar on the keyboard, and brought her monitor to life. She logged on to the Internet, pulled up the website they used to conduct LexisNexis searches, and input information to run Penny Orr through the system. The search provided a history of the person’s past employers, former addresses, relatives, and prior criminal history.
The history for Penny Orr was short. She’d moved twice, from the San Bernardino home address to a townhome, to the apartment complex. She’d had one sister, deceased. She had no prior criminal history. She’d had one employer.
Tracy’s stomach fluttered.
Penny Orr had spent thirty years working for the San Bernardino County Assessor. Sensing something, Tracy opened another Internet page and searched for the Assessor’s website. Pulling it up, she clicked her way through the pages until she came to a page announcing that, effective January 3, 2011, the offices of the County Assessor, County Recorder, and County Clerk had been consolidated. To the left of that announcement was a light-blue drop-down menu for the departments’ various services, including a link to obtain certified copies of a birth certificate.
CHAPTER 31
The following morning, Tracy prepared for the pushback she was certain she would receive from Johnny Nolasco. She’d spoken to Kins on the telephone the night before and told him what she’d found. He agreed it was a lead worth pursuing. Unfortunately, he was in the Lipinsky trial, the start of which had been delayed, and he would remain in court for at least the remainder of the week, likely longer.
“Her aunt would have had access to certified copies of birth certificates,” Tracy told Nolasco as she made her case in his office. She handed him a birth certificate for Lynn Hoff. Hoff had been born in San Bernardino. Her birth date was the same year as Andrea Strickland. “We know Andrea used a certified copy of Lynn Hoff’s birth certificate to obtain her Washington State driver’s license, and that allowed her to open the bank accounts. This is how she got it.”
“So who’s Lynn Hoff?” Nolasco asked.
“I don’t know and it doesn’t matter. Andrea and her aunt weren’t going to steal Lynn Hoff’s identity or her finances; they were just borrowing her identity to get the driver’s license, hide the money, and ultimately disappear. Lynn Hoff would have never known.”
“Is there a record of someone putting in a request for Lynn Hoff’s birth certificate?”
“That’s my point; the aunt wouldn’t have to put in a request; she’s one of the people who the request would have ordinarily gone through. She found a certificate of a woman born the same year as Andrea. She certified it. And if she did that, she’s also likely the person who helped Andrea off the mountain. She has to have been the person—there is no one else.”
“Sounds too easy.”
“Exactly. You told me not to complicate things, that sometimes these things aren’t as difficult as I make them,” she said, stroking his ego. “This is a simple theory, but it makes sense and it answers several questions.”
“Assuming you’re right, and Andrea Strickland is alive, it’s not our case. That’s Pierce County’s case. Send them the information to pursue it.”
“It gives us a link to Devin Chambers, which is our case.”