Practice to Deceive

said he’d been arrested for first-degree arson for burning down his medical supply business in the early nineties. I think he’s still wanted for that in Florida. He’s such a creepy man that I think the police here should be aware of him.”
    “Do you know where he’s living?”
    “The last time I talked to him, he said he was moving to Whidbey Island, and he was moving things from his storage unit in Renton.”
    Mike Birchfield had asked all the personnel assigned to the South Precinct to see if any of them had contacted an Eddie Navarre between December 26 and 31. A deputy working that weekend night shift, said that he had been dispatched to answer a complaint about someone in a van who was trespassing on a homeowner’s land.
    “This guy—Navarre—was sleeping in his van. I gave him a verbal warning about trespassing and asked him to leave the property. He was cooperative.”
    With more information on the Chrysler van, Birchfield had sent out a request through WASIC (Washington State Information Center) and NCIC (National Crime Information Center) to be on the lookout for Eddie Navarre.
    There were no recent hits. Birchfield had found that Navarre had a lengthy rap sheet that began in the 1970s and continued to 2000.
    Neither he nor Plumberg could help but wonder if Eddie Navarre with his job selling franchises for juice bars might be the “headhunter” that Russel Douglas had mentioned during a holiday dinner with his extended family. Navarre was a persuasive con man. And Russ Douglas longed to have success and a larger paycheck. Even though he had just been upgraded to a new division at Tetra Tech, he might have been interested enough in Navarre’s get-rich-quick franchises to meet with him.
    If he was, that could have been the reason Russel had driven to a lonely location with which he was unfamiliar.
    How he might have met Navarre was problematic. His family had heard of a headhunter, but they had never heard Navarre’s name. Neither his Washington State friends nor the people he kept in touch with at the University of Phoenix were familiar with the name.
    Plumberg drove to the mainland to retrace his and Birchfield’s steps and seek out possible information they had not come across before. He took with him an enlarged photo of Douglas, along with two photos of Eddie Navarre that he had received from the Scottsdale, Arizona, Police Department. Navarre was still a strong “person of interest,” and the detective hoped to find someone who could help him link the two men.
    He went to the Fred Meyer store in Renton where store director Rick Nestegaard set up interviews with employees who might have waited on Russel. Would any of them recall seeing Eddie Navarre with him?
    A clerk in the toy department quickly recognized Russ’s photo. “He used to come in a lot to look at Hot Wheels cars.”
    “When was this?” Plumberg asked.
    “Not recently.”
    “Could it have been six to eight months ago?”
    “Yes. I remember he was very athletic looking, but I haven’t seen him for a long time.”
    Shown Navarre’s picture, she shook her head. “I’ve never seen this one.”
    A woman working in the health food section of Fred Meyer recalled someone who looked like the murder victim. He often bought nutrition supplements and lotions for his face and skin.
    “When did you last see him?”
    “Maybe about a month ago.”
    “He died last December,” Plumberg said.
    “It could have been that long ago. I’m not sure.”
    The clerk didn’t recognize Eddie Navarre at all. Mark Plumberg went from store to store: Safeway, Starbucks, another Fred Meyer store, back to Gold’s Gym, showing photographs of the victim and the suspect to employees. Many recalled Russel Douglas—but no one was familiar with Eddie Navarre.
    It seemed that the Island County detective had better news when he showed the photos to the manager at the Mission Ridge Apartments and she nodded vigorously. She thought Russ had often been with an older man, who was “creepy.” When Plumberg asked about Navarre, she immediately recognized the name.
    “He applied to get an apartment—but he had a criminal history and we didn’t rent to him.”
    It seemed like a breakthrough after almost seven months! The apartment manager said she would check her records to find out more about Navarre.
    And she did. There had been someone by that name who wanted to move in, and he did have a criminal record. But this applicant was African American,