Envy

chapter 36

MOIRA WINDSOR NEVER TOLD ANYONE she was interviewing that she wasn’t exactly an employee of the Herald. She was a stringer, a freelance writer. She thought that particular term made it sound like no one would hire her, so she never mentioned it when she was out talking with sources.

After speaking with Kevin Ryan, whom she thought was a royal jerk in the way he just brushed her aside, the pretty twenty-three-year-old returned to her aunt’s house in Paradise Bay, just across the Hood Canal Bridge. The name of the place always made her wince a little when she told people where she lived. The view of the bay was lovely, but it was far from paradise. Her aunt was off snowbirding in Tucson, Arizona, and she’d left Moira to house-sit. The word house was a bit of a stretch. It was really more of a cabin with a woodstove for its sole heat source. Outside in the crusty snow were fourteen bird feeders, eight garden gnomes, and two bleach bottles cut and bent to allow the wind to spin them as they hung from the eaves.

Moira was sure that Ann Curry never had to live like this.

She lined up two bottles of sparkling water, turned on some background TV, and sat down at her computer to search for whatever she could find about the infamous Port Gamble crash. She’d grown up in Bremerton and had vague memories about it, but as a pudgy teenager back then she likely gave it two minutes of thought: Wow, that’s terrible! I feel sorry for those kids and their families!

And then she went back to her life and her dreams of getting out of naval-gray Bremerton, the county’s largest city.

With a cooking show playing in the background, she went onto the search engine and put in the words: Port Gamble + Daisy + Crash.

The host was talking about ways to cut calories out of her “nice spice” Indian cuisine, but as a former fatty, Moira wanted to fantasize about the real thing. Bring on the fat! She guzzled her sparkling water and looked longingly at a bottle of red wine.

Seventeen articles popped up. She clicked on the first one that had appeared on the Kitsap Sun site.

HOOD CANAL BRIDGE CRASH KILLS FIVE

A Port Gamble school bus being used by a Girl Scout Daisy Troop for an ill-fated picnic at Indian Island careened over the Hood Canal Bridge yesterday afternoon, killing the driver and four girls, ages 5-7. Three children and an adult were airlifted to area hospitals.

Motorists on the scene indicated that the draw span had been retracted when the bus crashed in heavy rain and wind. State engineers say retracting the span is done to relieve pressure on the bridge.

“They were right in front of me,” said Cindy Johnston of Bainbridge Island. “I was following them pretty closely because I could barely see. The rain was coming down so hard. In one second, the bus just disappeared.”

Sustained winds of 50 mph, with gusts of 65 mph, were reported in the region by the National Weather Service.

The Washington State Department of Transportation and the State Patrol are investigating.

MOIRA KNEW THAT THE CRASH had killed several people, but she thought it was only two. Four plus the bus driver … it was beyond tragic. She tried to process the depth of that kind of loss on a small town like Port Gamble. It had to have touched almost everyone who lived there.

She read the next article, which indicated that two children were recovered from the water as well as one child and an adult who’d been thrown from the bus to the bridge deck. The article also went on to say that the recovery of the North Kitsap School District’s short bus and the bodies would likely take several days as the depth of the water was three hundred feet or more.

She clicked on another article, one from the Daily Olympian.

ELECTRICAL FAILURE LED TO

FATAL HOOD CANAL CRASH

A spokesman for the Washington State Department of Transportation said today that the school bus crash killing five was a “tragic combination of the weather and an electrical fault that caused the span to open.”

It had not been opened by the bridge tender, as previously reported.

Among the dead were Christina Lee, 7; Sarah Benton, 6; Violet Caswell, 5; and Emma Perkins, also 5. Also killed was bus driver Margie Jones, 29. Jones, according to the North Kitsap School District records office, was an exemplary employee. She was completing her master’s degree in education and was working as an activity bus driver. She’d planned to teach next fall.

“She wanted nothing more than to do something for kids,” said Barry Jones, her husband of five years.

Three of the survivors remain hospitalized. One, a 30-yearold Port Gamble woman, has been released.

Moira activated a few more links, some showing photographs of a barge transporting an enormous crane to the crash site, another as it raised the short bus out of the water, and finally a close-up of an exhausted pair of state divers standing at the rail. Their haunted eyes and grim expressions said more than anything a reporter could write.

Another article highlighted the joint memorial service held at Port Gamble’s church.

She recognized Kevin Ryan in one of the photos.

Finally, she thought, as her eyes scanned the computer screen and the next article. The names of the survivors.

VICTIMS’ NAMES RELEASED,

TWO IN COMA

The names of the survivors of the Hood Canal Bridge bus accident were released this afternoon. Sandra Berkley, 30, and her daughter, Katelyn, 5, were thrown from the bus as it went off the bridge. Ms. Berkley suffered cracked ribs and abrasions. She and her daughter were treated and released from Harrison Medical Center, Bremerton.

The two other victims, 5-year-old twin girls Hayley and Taylor Ryan, remain hospitalized. Their parents issued a statement yesterday.

“Our daughters are fighters. Please keep them in your prayers. Believe in miracles.”

The parents indicated that the girls are still in a coma. Visibly shaken, Adam Larsen, 34, spoke to reporters outside his home in historic Port Gamble.

“We are grieving for the families who have lost their children and for the bus driver’s family too. This touches all of us here. I doubt many of us will ever get over it.”

Larsen’s daughter, Starla, also 5, was a member of the Daisy troop. She, however, did not go on the outing due to minor illness.

The last site Moira visited was one called Kitsap Kalamities, a forum devoted to—as its banner indicated—“happenings of the rotten kind, right here in our own twisted backyard.”

There was nothing really new on the site. In fact, after skimming it, it was apparent that all of the content had been copied and pasted from other websites. Moira sniffed at that. It was the fate of journalism today. Why do any legwork when you can just cut and paste? Not her. Not Moira. She was going to do whatever it took to create something original. Notice-worthy. Star-making. And if her tip paid off, the Ryan girls were going to get her just where she needed to be.

Kitsap Kalamities was created by someone named Maxi Taxi using a Word Press blog. Moira clicked on the comments field and scrolled through the missives people posted, mostly of the “that sucks” or “your blog is Maxi Stupid” ilk. A few were more thoughtful.

One was very, very intriguing.

Scary? Different? Babies? Moira looked at the name of the online commenter. Sweet Data File 31. She typed it into Google, figuring that whoever used that handle had done so on more than one blog. Finding a person on the Internet was no different than going door to door asking for one little piece of information at a time. She likened it to digital legwork. One thing always led to another.

Moira sipped the dregs of her sparkling water and twisted the top of its understudy. She tipped it back and drank while her eyes studied the results of her search.

Sweet Data File 31 also posted on “More Than Words,” a site about slanguage and how words are evolving faster than ever.

Comments were closed on that site, so Moira moved on.

As the hands on the clock whirred around on her computer, which searched for more Sweet Data File 31 entries, the thought filled Moira’s brain: What’s scary? Does it have to do with something I have been leaked?

A farm-to-table site popped up, and its feature article, “Our Valley Is Green,” was local, from the Kitsap Peninsula.

Moira thought about it a moment and then posted a follow-up comment on the same thread.

She added her e-mail address and waited. She figured anyone lonely or self-righteous enough to post a comment like Sweet Data did would answer her comment. People like that always wanted to be in the paper. It was only a matter of time.

She looked over at the TV and saw that the chef was making some deep-fried apple dumplings. They looked so good she could feel her stomach trying to eat itself. She got up, went to the freezer, pulled out two Lean Cuisines (Butternut Squash Ravioli and Apple Cranberry Chicken), and headed for her aunt’s obnoxiously large microwave.

Next, she looked up Sandra Berkley’s number. She’d waited long enough to make the call. With the microwave beeping that her meal was ready, Moira quickly left a voice-mail message.

“Mrs. Berkley, Moira Windsor calling from the Herald. I’m a friend of Kevin Ryan’s and I’m working on a feature story about the ten-year anniversary of the Hood Canal crash and its aftermath. Of course, my heart goes out to you because of your recent loss. I’d like to talk to you for my story.”

Satisfied that she’d sounded kind, authentic, and deeply concerned, she ended the call with her phone number.

I was made for this job, she thought as she pierced a piping hot piece of cranberry chicken with a fork. Just made for it.