Betrayal of Trust

Chapter 16

With Sheriff Tyler’s words of caution in mind, I approached Dr. Bonnie Epstein with my ID wallet in hand and my missile defense system fully operational.

“Excuse me, Dr. Epstein,” I said. “If you could give me a moment.”

She whirled around. She was nearly as tall as I am and wore her long dark hair in a frizzy style Mel and I refer to as the light-socket wave. She was dressed in a kind of orange jumpsuit with the word CORONER stenciled across the back. Unfortunately, in other jurisdictions, that same jumpsuit with slightly different stenciling probably works very well as jail inmate attire.

When we were face-to-face, I saw that the zipper on the front of the jumpsuit wasn’t zipped up far enough to cover completely some very impressive scenery. Bonnie Epstein had the kind of cleavage that encourages men to gaze longingly in that direction. I’m old enough to understand how entrapment works and smart enough to disregard the bait. Instead, I looked directly into Dr. Epstein’s glacially blue eyes.

Turning away from the loading process, she favored me with an appraising glance. “And you are?” she asked.

The question was asked in full push-back fashion. As soon as she opened her mouth, I knew she was from New York City. Other people with more East Coast experience could probably hear those three words and be able to identify the speaker’s exact borough, by being able to differentiate between the accent of someone from the Bronx, for example, or from Queens. All I could tell was NYC somewhere. That knowledge told me a lot about the culture clash between Sheriff Tyler and the coroner. It also made me glad that I had looked into her eyes and nowhere else.

“My name’s J. P. Beaumont,” I said, handing her my identification wallet. “I work for the attorney general’s Special Homicide Investigation Team.”

She studied my information and then handed it back. “It says here you work for S.H.I.T.”

I tried to take the long view of the situation. She was probably relatively new to the state. I had no idea how she had come to be in rural western Washington, which seems like the exact antithesis of New York City. I wondered if she had come here on purpose, or had she arrived unwillingly? It was possible that she had been dumped in Washington at the end of a marriage that hadn’t worked out to anyone’s satisfaction, but she was here now, and she needed to learn to play by western Washington rules.

The longer I work for Special Homicide, the less patience I have with that tired old S.H.I.T. joke. This morning in particular, without having had enough sleep, breakfast, or even my morning dose of Aleve, I was in no mood for joking around.

“I’d like to get a look at the victim before you haul her out of here.”

“And I’d like to win the grand prize on American Idol,” she said. “But you know how it goes-wish in one hand, crap in the other, and see which hand gets full first.”

“I’m with the attorney general’s office,” I said. “I’m here at his request. This case may be connected to a related homicide.”

“This is a Lewis County homicide. .” she began.

“It’s a Washington State homicide,” I corrected. “Ross Connors is the chief law enforcement officer in the state of Washington. He’s also my boss.”

Mel chose that moment to arrive. I don’t know how she got dressed and ready that fast, but she did.

“What did I miss?” she asked.

“Who’s this?” Dr. Epstein asked.

“My partner,” I said. “Melissa Soames. She works for the same guy I work for.”

“Is there a problem?” Mel wanted to know.

“Yes, there’s a problem,” Bonnie Epstein said. “This is my jurisdiction and my case. I don’t appreciate having people I don’t know come horning in on what I’m doing and second-guessing my every move. Now, if you’ll excuse me, we’ll go ahead and transport the victim to my morgue. Once I’ve completed the autopsy, I’ll be more than happy to give you and your boss the results. In the meantime you, your partner, and your boss will all have to take a number and wait.”

While the coroner was delivering this speech, Mel was reaching into her purse. As Dr. Epstein ended her tirade, Mel extracted one of the photos of Rachel Camber and passed it in front of the good doctor’s nose. Bonnie Epstein was quick, but not quite quick enough to cover the jolt of recognition that instantly passed across her face. Sheriff Tyler had noted the similarities between this new victim and Rachel, but the disparity in the timing of the two deaths had caused him to discount the connection. Dr. Epstein instantly assumed that the girl in the photo and the girl on her gurney were one and the same. Now so did we.

“If you know who she is, you have to tell me,” Epstein said, reaching for the photo. “As the coroner, it’s my job to identify the victim and notify the family.”

By then Mel had already slipped the photo back into her purse. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I understood you weren’t interested in working with Special Homicide on this. Cooperation is a two-way street.”

“But you’re interfering in the investigation of a homicide.”

“Yes,” Mel said. “There’s apparently a lot of that going around this morning. But I regret to inform you, Dr. Epstein, that before my partner and I can provide any information regarding the victim’s identity, you’ll need to go through official channels, too.”

“Give me the attorney general’s name and number,” Dr. Epstein said. “I’ll give him a call.”

Shaking her head, Mel dug in her purse. I knew exactly where this was going and how it was going to turn out.

“Unfortunately,” Mel said, “there aren’t any shortcuts. Before you can talk to the AG, you’ll need to speak with our immediate supervisor. Here’s his name and number.” Mel handed Dr. Epstein a business card.

“Come on, Beau,” Mel said. “We’ve got places to go and things to do.”

We were almost back to our separate cars before Dr. Epstein looked down at the card in her hand. I saw her lips move as she read the words printed there. “Harry I. Ball.” She looked up and glared at us. “Is this some kind of joke?” she yelled.

“No,” Mel called back. “It’s not a joke.”

But of course it was-a very old S.H.I.T. squad joke, and being able to turn it loose on Dr. Epstein made the whole morning seem a little brighter. I realized that old jokes are just fine as long as you personally aren’t the butt of them.

When we reached our vehicles, I was going to tell Mel thank you, but she was already on the phone with Barbara Galvin back at the Squad B office in Bellevue.

“That’s right,” she was saying. “Her name is Dr. Epstein. She’s a royal pain in the butt. She’s going to want to talk to Harry about our helping her identify her homicide victim. The longer you can stall her, the better.”

There was a pause. “What are we going to do in the meantime?” Mel looked at me and grinned. “With any kind of luck, Mr. Beaumont here is going to buy his partner some breakfast.”

We drove back to the Harrison exit and ate a farmer’s breakfast at the Country Cousin, one of I-5’s longtime roadhouse destinations. My only regret was that it was breakfast time-far too early for the Country Cousin’s signature fried chicken. I had to make do with chicken-fried steak instead.

School was out everywhere, so the main dining room was crowded with vacationers traveling with hordes of noisy ankle-biters, none of whom, it seemed, were ever required to stay in their seats during mealtimes. By begging, we managed to be seated in an otherwise empty section of the restaurant. Not only was it quieter, I felt we could discuss the complexities of our two co-joined cases without someone at a nearby table listening to our every word.

In the old days, we would have come up with a couple of quarters and dragged a single copy of some dead-tree newspaper into the restaurant with us. Instead, we brought in our computers, fired up our air cards, and read online versions, both of us scanning quickly to see how much of the Josh Deeson story was now common knowledge.

Finished reading, Mel closed her computer, sipped her coffee, and looked thoughtful. “If Rachel Camber didn’t die until twelve hours ago, the snuff film was a fake,” she said at last.

“So it would appear,” I said. “And an effective one at that. The first time someone made it look like someone had killed Rachel Camber. The second time they really did kill her, and not here, either,” I added. “Sheriff Tyler’s pretty sure she was murdered elsewhere and then dumped in the retention pond.”

“Yes,” Mel said. “And the ‘here’ in question happens to be partway between Olympia and Packwood, but why would someone pull a stunt like pretending to kill someone?” Mel asked. “And what does any of it have to do with Josh Deeson?”

“Our first order of business,” I said, “is making the connection between Josh and Rachel. But let me ask you this: Did you notice what happened when you showed Rachel’s photo to Dr. Epstein?”

Mel shrugged. “Yes, the minute she saw it, she knew who it was. I could see in her face that she recognized her-that the girl in the photo was the same person the diver had just dragged out of the mud puddle.”

“Exactly,” I said. “That’s my opinion, too. Now think back to when we showed Josh Deeson that video when we were up in his room. Do you remember his reaction?”

“Sure,” Mel said. “He was shocked by what he was seeing, just like everyone else who sees it is shocked.”

“What else?”

“He claimed he didn’t know the dead girl-that he had no idea who she was.”

“Do you think he was telling the truth?”

While the waitress brought our platters of food and poured more coffee, Mel considered the question.

“Yes, I do,” she said finally.

“So do I, as a matter of fact,” I agreed once the waitress left us alone. “Josh was just a kid. If he had known who the dead girl was at the time we showed him the video, we would have seen some sign of recognition on his face, just as we both did on Dr. Epstein’s face a little while ago. Doctors are trained to keep from revealing their thoughts and feelings. Josh had no such training. If he had known who Rachel was, he would have ratted himself out.”

“But I still don’t understand what we’re dealing with here,” Mel said. “If Josh had no idea who the girl was, what was the point of sending him that video? Shock value, maybe, or some kind of joke? Maybe whoever’s behind it was hoping that someone at school, like a teacher or an administrator, would find the offending video on Josh’s phone. That would probably have been enough to land him in all kinds of hot water. He might even have been expelled. Imagine how the media would have jumped on that. The only fly in that ointment is that Governor Longmire was the one who found the video, not someone from school. And instead of being expelled from school, now Josh is dead.”

Nodding, I picked up my phone. I scanned through my call history until I found Todd Hatcher’s number. When I dialed it, Julie answered.

“You missed him,” she told me. “He had an early-morning breakfast meeting in Olympia today. He said if you called I should tell you that he’s tracking on the ISPs and that he expects to have some additional information for you by the end of the day.”

There was a click on my phone that meant a new call was coming in. I checked, saw that the caller was Harry, and let that one go to voice mail.

“Okay,” I said to Julie. “Just tell him we’re waiting to hear from him.”

By then Mel’s phone was ringing. “Hi, Harry,” she said. “What’s up?” She glanced at me, smiled, bit off a mouthful of toast, and then chewed while Harry gave her an ear-splitting blast.

“Yes,” Mel said finally when she could get a word in edgewise. “She struck us that way, too. Pushy.”

Harry went off on another rant. Mel calmly bit off another hunk of toast. “Absolutely,” she said finally. “That’s the impression we got from Sheriff Tyler-that the murder happened elsewhere. This is just a dump site.”

There was another long pause during which Mel listened to Harry while sipping her coffee and pouring herself another cup from the carafe the waitress had left on the table. I couldn’t help noticing that the knuckles on the back of her hand provided an interesting study in bar-brawl-worthy bruises.

“Yes,” Mel said brightly, nodding in my direction, as though expecting my wholehearted agreement. “Of course. We’ll be glad to give her the message. Sure thing, and we’ll keep you posted, too.”

Mel ended the call.

“What message?” I asked. “For whom?”

“For Dr. Epstein,” Mel said. “Who else? This case now involves three separate jurisdictions. Dr. Epstein called and gave Harry a ration, so Harry called Ross to pass it on, and Ross called Sheriff Tyler. Upshot is, what goes around comes around. Special Homicide is now in charge of this investigation. You and I are primary.”

“What are we supposed to do, spend the whole day sitting around Chehalis with our hands in our pockets waiting for Dr. Epstein to get around to doing an autopsy so we can witness same?”

“No,” Mel said with a grin. “It’s much better than that. Ross is faxing Sheriff Tyler an order expressly forbidding Dr. Epstein from performing the autopsy and remanding the custody of the Centralia victim to the King County medical examiner’s office in Seattle. You and I are expected to drive to Packwood, give Rachel’s folks the bad news, and then bring them to Chehalis, where we’ll ask them to identify the remains as is and before the body is transported to Seattle.”

“As is?” I asked. “You mean without cleaning her up at all?”

Mel nodded. “As is,” she confirmed.

“That’ll be hard on them,” I said.

“Yes, it will be, but Ross believes it’s the only way we can be confident that all potential trace evidence is properly preserved. He’s heard some things about sloppy workmanship and corner cutting in Dr. Epstein’s morgue, and this case is too important to risk bumbling it. Once the ID is complete, King County will send someone down to take charge of the body. They’ll transport it, examine it for evidence, and perform the autopsy. The fax should be in Sheriff Tyler’s hands sometime in the next twenty minutes. Dr. Epstein will not be pleased.”

Mel’s deadpan comment caught me with a mouthful of not-quite-swallowed coffee. “Pleased!” I sputtered. “The woman is going to have a cow!”

“Yes, she will,” Mel agreed with a grin. “And I’m only too happy to help facilitate the delivery.”

“So we wait for the fax.”

Mel nodded again. “In addition to that, Ross is making arrangements with a Lewis County judge to issue a search warrant for the Browards’ place in Packwood, as well as their telephone records.”

“Do we need a warrant?” I asked. “Once they know Rachel is dead, chances are they’ll give us permission to search her room anyway.”

“That’s true,” Mel said. “You and I don’t think the Browards are involved in what happened, but Ross wants to cover that base just in case. He’d rather we go there armed with a warrant than without one.”

Mel and I left the restaurant in both cars. That made for a slight detour in our plan for the day, but overall we were working the same program. First Mel and I would take the Mercedes to Packwood, where we would give Ardith and Kenny Broward the bad news and bring them to Chehalis for the official ID ordeal.

With four people in the car, my Mercedes was a better choice for that part of the trip than Mel’s Cayman, and the two hours going and coming would provide ample opportunity for us to do a long informal interview. After the ID, I would drive the Browards back home to Packwood, and Mel would drive herself there in the Cayman. That would leave her free to execute the search warrant and then spend the remainder of the day backtracking on Rachel’s Packwood friends while I drove to Olympia to start the same process with friends, acquaintances, and classmates of Josh Deeson.

At the Lewis County Sheriff’s Department we waited in a small lobby just outside Sheriff Tyler’s office while he finished up with what his secretary told us was an important phone call. When he finally emerged, he was carrying several pages of faxed documents and grinning from ear to ear.

“You two really know how to make my day,” he said, handing the paperwork over to Mel. “It’s about time someone put that woman in her place. Call me after you finish IDing the victim. If it turns out to be Rachel, Judge Andrews will sign off on the search warrant and you’ll be able to take that back to Packwood with you.”

“Will do,” Mel said.

I thought we’d be able to walk from the sheriff’s office to the morgue. No such luck. The morgue was nowhere near the rest of the Lewis County government complex. Instead, it was up a steep hill and in the basement of a local hospital. We used both cars for the drive there as well.

Standing in the hospital parking lot and looking out over downtown Chehalis, I realized that it wasn’t nearly as hot as it had been the previous two days. A low-pressure system had blown in off the ocean the night before. Instead of clear blue skies overhead, there was a pleasant cover of gray with a hint of moisture in the air. My favorite kind of Seattle summer day-gray and cool and damp with no rain.

Mel got out of the Cayman armed with her paperwork. We both knew what was written there would send Dr. Epstein into a spasm. I’m sorry to admit it, but I was actually looking forward to this confrontation.

Mel must have caught the slight grin on my face. “What’s so funny?” she asked.

“I hate to think about how many guys in Homicide used to sit around talking and dreaming about leaving Seattle PD behind and finding themselves a nice little job in some quiet burg where they’d be immune from politics. But that’s what this whole thing is with Dr. Epstein-a lesson in small-town politics.”

“Yes,” Mel said. “And if you ask me, small-town politics are worse. They’re more personal because everybody knows everybody else.”

Two minutes later we were ushered into Dr. Epstein’s office. She wasn’t happy to see us.

“We haven’t started yet,” she said brusquely. “I told you I’d call when I had the autopsy results.”

Mel smiled and put the fax down on Dr. Epstein’s shiny wooden desk. “No,” she said. “I’m afraid we’ll be the ones calling you.”

Mel seldom gets mad at me, and it’s a good thing. When she’s mad, she can be a ring-tailed bitch. Dr. Bonnie Epstein had done the unforgivable and had made Mel Soames mad.

As Dr. Epstein read through the fax, her cheeks flushed deep red.

“Ross Connors can’t do this!” she declared at last, spinning the papers away from her. They fluttered off the edge of her desk and landed on the floor. I reached down, collected them, reassembled them, and turned them into a neat stack.

“Yes, I’m afraid he can,” Mel said. “I believe we mentioned that to you earlier this morning. He’s the chief law enforcement officer in this state. What he says goes.”

“Who’s his boss, then?” Dr. Epstein wanted to know. “The governor? I’ll call her next.”

“Go right ahead,” Mel said. “But I have a feeling the governor is a little busy this morning. I doubt she’ll be taking calls from anyone, let alone you.”

“But-”

Mel continued as if Dr. Epstein hadn’t opened her mouth. “Mr. Beaumont and I are on our way to Packwood to pick up Rachel’s parents so they can come and do the official ID. You’re to instruct your people to unzip the bag for them, or you can do it yourself, but that’s it. You’re to do nothing else with the remains, especially no cleaning. The M.E. in Seattle will be responsible for collecting and processing all evidence.”

“Rachel?” Dr. Epstein asked, plucking that single word out of what Mel had said. “That’s her name, Rachel?”

“Yes,” Mel said. “That’s most likely our victim’s name-Rachel Camber of Packwood.”

Our victim, I noted. With those two words she laid out the ground rules and took possession of the case.

Dr. Epstein didn’t go down without a fight. “It’s my job to notify the victim’s family,” she objected. “What was that name again, Camber? How do you spell that?”

“C-A-M-B-E-R,” Mel said, carefully calling out the letters one by one.

About then, I found myself feeling a little sorry for Dr. Epstein. She wrote the letters down quickly, without any idea that Mel Soames was cheerfully handing her a dead-end deal.

Given the circumstances, it seemed likely that Dr. Epstein might try to beat us to the punch and contact Rachel’s parents before Mel and I had a chance to do so.

We both knew that wasn’t going to happen. Ardith Broward hadn’t been Ardith Camber for a very long time.