117. Interview with William Fletcher: Part 4

30 August 2011

– You’ve got to understand, I’d just resigned like five minutes prior. And now I’m having doubts about this one last case. It was an aggravation.

– I did a quick search through the stuff we got in evidence that we took from Palmer’s place after the fire was put out.  Only a few things really, the biggest of which was a painting of some girl, found it in the bathtub with a curtain draped over it, like he’d been trying to save it from the fire.

– In the box, there’s two pill bottles, which I’m glad to see because it means there’s nothing too suspicious, though the name’s been scratched off the label. Odd, but no biggie.

– I was about to leave when I noticed Palmer’s half burnt wallet in there too. Rifle through it and there’s nothing much. No ID of any sort. No credit cards, no pictures, nothing but ten bucks cash, couple of coupons and business cards. So I look through the business cards and find, tucked in the middle of the small stack, one of those little emergency contact cards that come with wallets when you buy them.

– There’s two numbers on the card, one has a Boca area code with the name Cathy next to it. I assume that’s my belligerent little visitor from earlier.

– The other number though, it has a New York area code with Classic written next to it. So I dial the number out of curiosity. Phone’s ringing, ringing, ringing. I’m thinking nobody’s going to answer and then someone does, a guy’s voice.

– I ask him if this is Classic and he says who’s asking—New Yorkers, always got a attitude—so I pull the detective card on him and ask if he knows who Les Palmer is. The guy says he’s never heard of him and hangs up.

– My family and I left Boca a week later. To my credit, I told the chief he might want to put somebody else on the Palmer case to investigate a little more. Don’t know if he ever did, never really gave him a credible reason for it, just a gut feeling.

– Checked the Post a few weeks later and wasn’t nothing on it, so I’m guessing it never was reopened. County probably filed Palmer same way we all get filed away at some point.

– I don’t worry myself about it too much. I love being back up here, wouldn’t want to taint that with too much past.

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