Betrayal of Trust

Chapter 15

It was verging on twilight when we trailed Ardith Broward’s Goldwing into the yard of a house that could have been a carbon copy of others we had seen along Highway 12, with one major difference. This one had been recently painted. Someone had taken a Weed Eater and mowed down the grass and weeds around the house. Partially visible behind the house was a redwood kids’ play structure, complete with a canvas cover. I don’t know how much those things cost in dollars and cents, but I helped my son-in-law put one together a couple of years ago. Believe me, when they say, “Some assembly required,” they mean it.

A shirtless guy in greasy jeans was crouched, wrench in hand, next to another Goldwing. The idea that Kenneth Broward was a shade-tree mechanic gave him a leg up in my book. Behind him in a rutted driveway stood a beaten-up Toyota minivan that they probably used when they were hauling kids or groceries around, but with the price of gasoline, I suspected using the Goldwings was as much a cost-saving strategy as it was a philosophical statement.

Despite an evening full of circling mosquitoes, four towheaded kids clambered down from the play structure. Barefoot and carefree, they came bounding across the yard to greet their mother, yelling, “Mom’s home. Mom’s home.”

A pair of spotted mongrel dogs galloped happily after the kids, barking like crazy.

Ardith Broward may not have won any Mother of the Year awards, but her kids and dogs seemed happy enough to see her. Ditto for Kenny. He stood up and wiped his greasy hands on his already greasy pant legs. He started toward her, smiling, until he saw first Deputy Timmons’s patrol car and then ours pulling into the yard behind Ardith’s Goldwing. The smile disappeared. He stopped, turned around, picked up a rag of some kind, and then came back again, still wiping his hands.

Ardith parked her bike next to his. She leaped off it, tossed her helmet on the ground beside it, and then threw herself into Kenny’s arms with enough force that she almost knocked him off his feet. It wasn’t how we would have delivered the bad news. Ardith did the job her way, leaving us nothing to do but watch.

Ardith was not a small woman-five eleven or so. Kenny was a good head taller than she was. He was broad-shouldered. As far as I could see and unlike his wife, he had no tattoos at all. He and Deputy Timmons were probably a good five years younger than Ardith. For a moment I found myself wondering what Kenny saw in her. Then I remembered Mel and started wondering what she saw in me. Sometimes you’re better off just not going there.

Still holding Ardith, he said something to the circling kids. Without a word of argument, the oldest one, a boy of about eleven, herded the younger ones into the house, taking the dogs with them. Ken helped Ardith, still sobbing, over to the edge of the porch and eased her down onto it. Then he turned to Deputy Timmons.

“Who’s that?” he asked, nodding in our direction.

“They’re homicide cops,” Deputy Timmons said. “They work for the attorney general.”

Kenny took my badge wallet, examined it for a moment, and then handed it back. “So it’s true then, what Ardith just said? Rachel is dead?”

“Yes,” I answered. “That’s what we believe. She appears to have fallen victim to what kids call the choking game. They tie a rope or something around their necks long enough to cut off the supply of oxygen to their brains in the mistaken belief that it’s some kind of high. Unfortunately, some kids die of it.”

“What’s this she’s saying about a video? There’s a video? Somebody filmed this?”

Mel was already reaching for her iPhone. Ken Broward stood absolutely still the whole time the video was playing. By the time it was over, his face was ashen. He turned away and bolted around the side of the house, where we heard him puking his guts out.

I don’t suppose puking would hold up in a court of law as a declaration of innocence, but it was pretty damned convincing as far as I was concerned. Kenny’s face was still ghostly white when he came back to the front of the house. He sat down next to Ardith, put a hand on her shoulder, and pulled her close.

“Who the hell would do such a thing?” he demanded, more angry than grief-stricken. “Who?”

“That’s what we were hoping you could tell us,” Mel said smoothly. “You told Deputy Timmons that Rachel left the house on Sunday afternoon. That she rode off with a friend and was planning to spend the night.”

“Yes,” Ken said. “That’s right. She told me her name was Janie. That she knew her from school.”

“Last name?”

Ken just shook his head. “You know how kids are. They never mention last names, ever.” He paused, shook his head, and wiped his eyes. “I should have asked. She just told me she was leaving, going to Janie’s house, and that was it.”

Ardith reached over and patted his knee with a small comforting gesture that reminded me of the way Governor Longmire had patted Gerard Willis’s knee for much the same reason.

“What did she take with her?” I asked.

“Just her backpack,” Kenny answered. “I don’t really know what was in it. Overnight stuff, I guess.”

“Did she seem upset about anything? Was she angry?”

Kenny shook his head. “Not at all. She said she’d be home on Monday to look after the younger kids so I could go to work on Tuesday. Harlan’s eleven,” Kenny said. “We don’t mind leaving him in charge of the little ones for a couple of hours, but for all day. .”

Mel aimed a questioning look in Ardith’s direction.

“I got the chance to pull a couple of double shifts,” Ardith said with a shrug. “We need the money real bad.”

“But you didn’t report her missing when she didn’t come home on Monday.”

“We had a fight about it,” Ardith said. “Kenny thought somethin’ was wrong. I thought she was just actin’ up or actin’ stupid. I told him she was just askin’ for trouble, but I didn’t mean. .”

Ardith swallowed hard and looked like she wished she could take back not only the words but also the thought.

“Of course not,” Mel said kindly.

I thought it was a good idea to change the focus a little.

“Do you ever remember her mentioning having a friend or acquaintance named Josh?” I asked. “He’s from Olympia.”

Ken and Ardith Broward shook their heads in definitive unison.

“Rachel doesn’t have any friends in Olympia,” Ken declared. “How would she? And who’s Josh?”

“A boy from Olympia,” I answered. “That’s where we found the video-on Josh’s cell phone.”

“Ask him about it, then,” Ken said. “He should know where he got it.”

“We can’t,” Mel said.

“Why not?”

“Because he’s dead. He committed suicide last night.”

“So there you are,” Ken said. “The cowardly little creep did this to Rachel and then committed suicide to keep from having to face the consequences.”

“He actually said he didn’t do it,” Mel said. “At least, that’s what his suicide note led us to believe.”

“How?” Ken asked.

“How what?”

“How did he kill himself?”

“With a rope,” Mel said. “He knotted some of his grandfather’s ties together and hanged himself on the closet door in his room.”

“Was that part of this same choking-game garbage?” Ken asked. “Maybe he didn’t intend to die, either.”

I had seen the kicked-over chair and the knotted ties that had been tied together in a fashion that meant they wouldn’t give way. And I had seen the expertly crafted noose. No, Josh’s death hadn’t been an inadvertent consequence of the choking game. But suddenly I was seeing the scarf again. The scarf around Rachel’s neck had been inexpertly knotted.

When I tuned back into the conversation, Mel had her notebook out and was making a list that included the names of as many of Rachel’s friends as her mother and stepfather were able to provide. There was no question of using Rachel’s cell phone directory or history to reconstruct Rachel’s social network because Rachel didn’t have a cell phone. Neither did either one of her parents. The Broward household was evidently one of the last of the breed when it came to having only landline telephone service.

By the time Mel finished writing and closed her notebook, Ardith was staring at her. “What are we supposed to do now?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“She’s dead,” Ardith said huskily. “You know that, and we know that, but only because we saw it happen on the video; but if there’s no body, how do we have a funeral? What do we tell the other kids? What do we tell our friends? I don’t want to have to tell them about it. I don’t want them to see it.”

Ardith had aimed her questions toward Mel, and I was happy to have that particular ball dropped in her court.

“That’s up to you,” Mel answered finally, “but if Rachel were mine I believe I’d say that she ran away, that she’s missing and presumed dead. You don’t have to say anything more than that. You don’t owe people detailed explanations about what’s happened.”

“Missing and presumed dead.” Ardith repeated the words slowly, as if trying them out on her lips and on her heart. “I’m not sure I can say that.”

Then she dissolved into tears once more. Surprisingly enough, the belligerent bartender from the Bike Inn didn’t seem nearly as belligerent now, not to us and not to Kenny Broward, either.

“We’ll have to try, honey bun,” Ken said, holding her close. “We’ll just have to try.”

After we gleaned all the information we could from Ken and Ardith, Ken summoned Rachel’s younger brother, eleven-year-old Harlan, to see if he was able to add anything to what the parents had already told us. He wasn’t. Or, if he knew something about Rachel’s mysterious friend, Janie, he wasn’t ready to spill the beans. When we finally left to head back into town, we had Deputy Timmons lead the way to the home of Conrad Philips, the high school principal.

There were only three hundred or so students in White Pass’s combination junior and senior high school. Conrad Philips knew them all. According to him, Rachel had been far more trouble in junior high than she was now as a high school sophomore. He chalked her behavioral turnaround to Ken Broward’s arrival on the scene. He didn’t have much good to say about Ardith, but he had a lot of good to say about Kenny.

Unlike Rachel Camber’s parental units, Conrad Philips was able to provide not only last names for the kids at his school but also phone numbers and addresses. He also gave us a rundown of the various cliques at the school. It was late by the time we finished talking to him, but we came away with an armload of information about Rachel and her friends, none of which could be tracked down until Wednesday morning. We thanked Deputy Timmons for his help, told him good-bye, and headed for the barn in Olympia.

Mel was uncharacteristically quiet as we drove back down Highway 12 toward I-5. I was busy watching for stray wildlife crossing the road. She was evidently mulling over our Lewis County interviews.

“I guess I was wrong about Kenny Broward,” she said finally. “I was so ready to believe that the stepfather would be a bad guy.”

It’s odd to be involved with and married to a woman who will come right out and admit it when she’s wrong-odd, and more than a little refreshing.

“Does that make you guilty of sexual profiling?” I asked.

“Yup,” she said. “Now, what’s there to eat around here? I’m starving.”

We ended up with Subway sandwiches from a combination gas station/restaurant at an exit south of Chehalis. Over our sandwiches and coffee, we strategized.

“There has to be some connection between Josh and Rachel,” I told Mel. “Once we find that, we’ll be close to pulling the whole thing together.”

“Right,” she agreed. “We need to go at it from both ends. How about if I come back to Packwood tomorrow and start working my way through the girls whose names Conrad Philips gave us. You can work the Olympia end.”

Talking to Josh’s fellow summer-school students was the place to start, but I didn’t expect to find a bunch of exemplary students enrolled there.

“Right,” I said. “You get the regular kids from Packwood while I’m stuck with the juvenile-delinquent types who are about to flunk out of school.”

“Want to trade?” Mel asked.

“No,” I said. “That was just pro forma grumbling. You’ll do better with the girls and I’ll do better with the rough and tough boys.”

“I wonder if Todd’s made any progress on tracking down the source of that file,” Mel said.

We both looked at our watches. It was long past midnight. Even though we knew Todd worked all hours, it wasn’t fair to call in the middle of the night and risk waking Julie.

“We’ll check with him in the morning,” I said. “Let’s go.”

We made it back to the Dreaded Red Lion, as Mel and Harry I. Ball both call it, without incident. We rode up in the elevator. I stripped off my clothing and fell into bed. Two cups of late-night coffee had absolutely no impact on my ability to fall asleep. I took a pair of Aleves and was out cold before Mel ever emerged from the bathroom. I probably could have slept for several more hours, but the jangling landline telephone in our room jarred me awake minutes after 6:00 A.M.

“Just had a call from Sheriff Tyler down in Lewis County,” Ross Connors said without preamble. “They’re in the process of recovering a body from a water-retention pond north of Centralia. Looks to be a young female.”

“Rachel Camber,” I said.

“That would be my guess,” Ross said. “I want you and Mel there on the double.”

“What?” Mel asked sleepily.

“It looks like Ardith Broward is going to get her wish and have a body to bury after all.”

Mel sat up in bed. “They found her? Where?”

“The Lewis County Sheriff’s Department is in the process of dredging the body of a young female out of a retention pond north of Centralia. Sheriff Tyler thinks it’s probably Rachel. Ross wants both of us there ASAP, so give me first crack at the bathroom. I’ll take my car; you take yours.”

The term “on the double” is more applicable in terms of my getting up and out than it is to Mel. Fortunately, the ice-pack treatment we had applied to her hand had helped enough that she’d be able to drive herself once she was ready to go. I was back on the freeway and headed south with a cardboard cup of hotel-lobby coffee in hand less than fifteen minutes after Ross rousted me from a dead sleep.

Just north of the Harrison exit in Centralia lies an unnamed body of mostly muddy water that supposedly keeps pollutants from a nearby abandoned gravel quarry from getting into the water table. As I came around the long freeway curve at Ford’s Prairie, I caught sight of a clutch of emergency vehicles gathered at the far north end of the pond. I exited I-5 and made my way there as best I could with the GPS bleating plaintively, claiming that I was “off road” and in an area where “turn by turn directions” were not possible.

Once on the scene, I found several Lewis County Sheriff’s vehicles along with an ambulance and a Lewis County coroner’s meat wagon. A guy still wearing a dripping wet suit was in the process of helping two other people load a zippered body bag onto a gurney. There was a parking place next to the coroner’s van. I guess it’s simply the nature of the beast, but relations between the attorney general’s office and the Lewis County coroner haven’t always been any more cordial than relations with Larry Mowat, the coroner’s counterpart up in Thurston County. When I saw Sheriff Tyler standing outside one of his patrol cars, I approached him instead of going to the coroner directly.

“How’s it going?” I asked.

“Not well,” Tyler said. “We’ve got ourselves another dead girl. This one looks a lot like Rachel Camber, but I doubt it’s her. Mid-teens, brown hair. Sounds like the same MO.”

“Bruising on her neck?”

Tyler nodded. “And dead before she went into the water. We located a spot about a hundred yards south of here where we think she was rolled out of a vehicle and dumped.”

“So she wasn’t killed here?”

“No sign of it.”

“How long has she been dead?”

Tyler shrugged. “So far we don’t have an exact time of death, but the coroner’s initial estimate is that this victim has been dead for less than twelve hours. That means she was still alive yesterday afternoon when you were in my office showing me the video of Rachel being strangled.”

Sheriff Tyler continued. “Same age, same victimology, and same MO, but this has to be a different girl unless Bonnie’s way off about the time of death.”

“Bonnie?” I asked.

“That’ll be Bonnie Epstein, the new Lewis County coroner,” Sheriff Tyler said. “Dr. Bonnie Epstein.”

Tyler’s emphasis on the doctor part was designed to get my attention.

“Do you think she’d mind if I take a look before they haul the body away?” I asked.

Tyler shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said. “But you should know that Dr. Epstein doesn’t take kindly to having people looking over her shoulder.”

“In other words, do so at my own risk. Does Dr. Epstein realize Special Homicide is involved?”

“If she does, it’s not because I’ve told her,” Tyler said. “And I also failed to mention that this incident might well be related to Josh Deeson’s death up in Olympia, which, in case you’re interested, is front-page news all over the state this morning.”

The suicide of the governor’s grandson was bound to be big news. It also meant that Mel’s and my ability to conduct our operation under the radar was about to come to a screeching halt.

I looked back toward the coroner’s van and saw they were getting ready to load the gurney into the back of the vehicle.

“I guess I’ll go try my luck.”

Tyler smiled and shook his head. “You do that,” he said. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”