“Did you speak to her after she left?”
“Yes. She kept her word, said she’d settled in Portland, and assured me she was fine. She called a couple of times after that, but not too much.” Orr paused. “I really tried to do what was right for Andrea, and for my sister.”
“I’m sure you did.”
“When I found out my husband had been abusing her, I felt like I’d failed them both. I guess Andrea was just too emotionally scarred, and living here reminded her of those scars. I was part of those bad memories. I just think she needed to get away.”
“I’m sure you did your best,” Tracy said.
“I tried,” Orr said.
“Did Andrea gain control of her trust fund when she turned eighteen?”
“No. At twenty-one she got say over the use of the interest. My sister and brother-in-law originally set it up to pay for Andrea’s college. When they died, the rest of their estate rolled into that trust, but it had restrictions. It could only be used for Andrea’s well-being.”
“Were you the trustee?”
“No, there was a professional trustee. It was very complicated. When she lived with me, I had the trustee roll the interest back into the trust. I never touched a dime. I wanted that to be hers, something good that came out of such a tragedy. Do you know what happened to it?”
“That’s one of the things we’re trying to find out. It appears Andrea was in the process of hiding it.”
“From who?”
“We think her husband. We think that was one source of tension in their marriage. Apparently, he wanted to use the trust to pay off his business debts and Andrea had refused.”
“The trust wouldn’t allow that,” Orr said.
“I think that was the reason for the tension.”
“So you think he might have killed her to try to get control of the money?”
“We don’t know,” Tracy said. She changed the subject. “Penny, have you ever heard the name Lynn Hoff?”
Orr’s face scrunched in thought. “I don’t think so. Who is she?”
“It appears to be the alias Andrea was using when she was in hiding. Sometimes people will use a name familiar to them, maybe a childhood friend who died, or a relative.”
“No,” Orr said. “It isn’t familiar. Maybe a character from a book?”
“Maybe. Did Andrea have any close friends when she lived here—high school friends?”
Orr shook her head. “Not really.” She shrugged. “At least no one that I’m aware of. She didn’t like school. Andrea wasn’t dumb. Don’t misinterpret what I’m saying. She had her father’s intellect, and she was curious about things. I think that’s why she liked to read all the time. She retained everything she read on a subject. At the parent-teacher conferences, the teachers would all say the same thing. Andrea was extremely bright, off the charts in some areas, but she didn’t apply herself.” Orr shrugged again. “What was I supposed to do, punish her?” She wiped her tears and made a face as if the thought were ridiculous. “She’d been punished enough.”
Tracy gave Orr a moment to regain her composure. Then she asked, “I take it she didn’t have any boyfriends?”
“No.”
“And no enemies.”
“Not that she ever spoke of. She just mostly kept to herself.”
“You didn’t know she’d gotten married.”
Orr frowned. “No.”
“You never met her husband?”
“No. But he doesn’t sound like a very good man.”
“Did Andrea ever mention the name Devin Chambers?”
“Devin Chambers? No. Who is he?”
“She, actually. She appears to have been a friend of Andrea’s in Portland.”
Orr smiled but it had a sad quality to it. “I’m glad she had someone. She had so much sadness in her life, so much pain.”
Tracy thought of Sarah often, of her being subjected to the demented mind of a psychopath the last days of her life. The thought still caused a visceral reaction, and brought a dark cloud of bitterness and anger, but she realized something else, something that had never happened before on any of her other cases. She was starting to realize this case wasn’t personal because of the victim’s similarities to Sarah. It was personal because of Andrea Strickland’s similarities to Tracy. Tracy had also had a wonderful life shattered by tragedy. She, too, had been the daughter of a doctor, living in a beautiful house with a mother and sister she loved. Just as suddenly, her sister had been abducted, and her father soon thereafter shot himself. Her husband left, and everything she had thought would be her life changed forever. For years she had medicated her depression by working out and shooting often, but every once in a while she sat in her apartment, depressed, and wondered why the world had crapped on her.
“Did your ex-husband know about Andrea’s trust?”
“Yes,” Orr said, “but he’s dead, Detective. He died three years ago of colon cancer.”
“What about her trustee? What kind of man is he?”
“He’s a wonderful man. If he had wanted to cheat Andrea he could have done it easily.”
“Can you think of anyone else who knew about the trust?”