Heart of Ice

Chapter Twenty

Gloria brought in three tins of assorted Christmas cookies—some she made and others she conceded were “filler”—as her countdown to the holiday kicked into high gear. She kept the Spokane radio station that played “holiday favorites” on low.

“Less than a week of shopping,” she said, with a good-natured smile. “Still time to get me something I can’t live without.”

“Someone here to see you, Sheriff,” she said, as Emily breezed in with latte in hand.

Emily looked down the hall, and mouthed, “Who?”

Gloria lip-synched back, “Wouldn’t say.”

The woman waiting outside of Emily’s office was a wisp; a good wind and she’d blow away. She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, barely a hundred pounds after a full meal. She had strawberry blond hair that she wore cropped at the shoulder; bangs framed her blue eyes. It looked as if she’d been crying. Her mouth was taut, frozen in a kind of grimace that appeared to indicate that her reason for being there was a painful one.

“I’m Sheriff Kenyon,” Emily said. “Gloria says you’re here to see me.” She waited for the woman to say something, before adding, “But she didn’t say why.”

The woman stood up. She wore boot-cut jeans with heels, a stylish sweater and blouse. The sweater was jade-colored and expensive. In her arms she held a gray coat that probably weighed more than she did.

“Sheriff, I’m not a gossip,” she said.

“Good. We don’t have much use for gossip, around here. Gossip works better for the newspaper, anyway.”

It was a lighthearted comment that was meant to relax, but it fell flat. Emily noticed for the first time that the small woman in front of her was shaking. Her hand holding her car key trembled noticeably.

“Are you all right?” She waved her inside. “Come in. Sit down.”

The woman took a seat across from Emily’s desk.

“I’m fine, and thank you.”

“Who are you?”

“Tricia Wilson.” She paused and looked nervously around the room.

She was afraid of something. Or someone.

“I used to be Patty Crawford.”

Emily’s eyes widened a little. While the last name rang alarm bells, the first meant absolutely nothing.

“I’m sorry. Are you a relative of Mandy’s?”

Her visitor shook her head and set down her black leather satchel. Emily noticed a large envelope protruding from the silver jaws of its clasp.

“Not exactly. More like a kindred spirit, I’d say. I know what it’s like to be married to Mitch Crawford. And I know now that I’m a lot luckier girl than Mandy is. I got away from that bastard alive.”

Emily tried to keep her face from betraying her feelings. She could have kicked herself right then. How stupid they’d been not to know that Mitch had been married before.

“We didn’t know how to reach you,” she said. She felt foolish for lying, but she hated not knowing something that she should have known.

Tricia stayed expressionless. “I’m sure. If you even knew I’d existed, you’d have had a hard time finding me. I’ve changed my name, my hair, my address. I never wanted to be found by anyone from my old life as Mitch’s wife. It was a complete and utter nightmare.”

Again, Emily waited. Waiting always brought better results than peppering a person for the details. Tricia Wilson had come to Cherrystone with a reason. She was the ex-wife. Emily knew she might be there to settle the score, to get some payback for a bad marriage. Maybe she’d been dumped by Mitch. Emily didn’t know. She wanted Tricia to do the talking.

They’d fill in the gaps later.

“I married Mitch when I was eighteen. He was ten years older. He was handsome. Fun. We had a lot of money. We had his parents’ place on the Oregon coast any weekend we wanted. He was the dream. Hell, we were living the dream.” She looked wistful as she remembered the good times.

Without taking her eyes off Tricia, Emily unbuttoned her coat and slid out of the arms.

“What happened? It sounds like things were good.”

“Things are always good in the beginning.”

Emily nodded, thinking of David and the early days of their marriage. Things had been good once between them.

“I feel stupid for even being here,” she said, making a movement that suggested she might get up and leave.

Emily put her hand on her desk, a gesture indicating to stay.

“But what happened? You’re here because you want to tell me something. Did you know Mandy?”

“No. But I know Mitch.”

“I’m sure you do. Tell me. Have you talked to him about Mandy?”

“Not at all. I haven’t spoken to him since the day we divorced.”

Tricia stopped herself again.

“Go on.”

“Sheriff Kenyon, I was afraid he’d kill me. I really was.”

Emily felt a rush of sympathy. She’s worked terrible abuse cases in Seattle. She’d seen women who shuddered with fear even when the man in question was safely behind bars.

“Did he hurt you?” she asked.

Tricia started to cry and reached for her purse. Emily looked around for a tissue, and she’d assumed that Tricia was doing the same. Instead, she produced a large gray envelope and scooted it on top of Emily’s desk.

“Open it. I want you to see. I’ve never let anyone see this before.”

Emily undid the little brass clasp and reached inside. She found three Polaroid photographs.

The first showed a very young Patty Crawford facing the camera. She had a black eye that a prizefighter might have bragged about. Her cheeks were streaked with tears; her hair pulled back over one shoulder. She looked fearful that at any second there could be another attack.

“Oh, my,” she said, looking up. “Mitch did this to you?”

Tricia dabbed at her eyes with a tissue she’d retrieved from the bottom of her purse.

“Yes,” she said.

The next image was similar to the first, but not nearly as brutal. Emily hated that she’d even made a judgment about the severity of the injury. No injury was acceptable. It was clear that this was a different incident than the first photograph. Tricia’s hair was longer, and styled differently. Her gaze was less fearful, almost resigned.

Emily glanced up for a second, then picked up the next photograph. She found herself suppressing a gasp.

The final image was the most brutal. Tricia was naked from the waist up. It looked as if there was a large gash on her forehead. She had two softball-sized bruises across her rib cage. The framing of the photo was askew, as it had been in the other two, indicating more than likely that Tricia had taken the photos of herself.

“Dear God,” Emily said, “what did the police say?”

Tricia avoided Emily’s eyes. She kept her sightline fixed on the floor. Or the tissue in her hand.

“I didn’t tell. I couldn’t.”

“But the photos? You must have taken them to prove what had happened?”

“This is very difficult. I know now that none of this makes sense. But at the time I only took them so that in case he killed me, someone would know it wasn’t my fault. That he’d done this to me.”

She was sobbing now, and Emily got up and shut the door. She took the seat next to Tricia and put her hand on her shoulder.

“I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve this, Tricia.”

“That’s not why I’m crying. I’m so damned embarrassed and ashamed that I didn’t do anything. But I was so afraid of him. He told me over and over that if I told anyone what he’d done that he’d kill me and go have a big fat breakfast to celebrate. He told me that people would stop asking about me fifteen minutes after I’d been gone.”

“Tell me about the photos.”

“If I’d have been smart, there would have been more of them. He used me like a punching bag—and I’m not kidding—from the wedding night on. He said when I danced with a friend from high school that I looked like a whore. I should have known he was a control freak. Everyone else did.”

Emily knew that something within Tricia’s past had led her to choose a man like Mitch Crawford. Maybe her father had knocked around her mother. Maybe she’d been abused by a family member. It no longer took a psychologist to ferret out the reasons why some women made the poorest choices in a mate.

Sometimes a deadly choice.

Emily tapped a finger on the worst of the images.

“I’ve seen photos like this and I’ve talked to the women who’ve lived through the worst kind of abuse, and I know that you’re like so many of them. You’re a survivor. You did the right thing by coming here today.”

Tricia twisted her Kleenex and balled up the sodden tissue.

“I got away from the bastard. All I can wonder is, you know, if I had said something, maybe Mandy wouldn’t, you know…”

“Wouldn’t what?”

“Be gone. Be dead.”

“What makes you think Mandy Crawford is dead?”

“OK. I don’t know that she’s dead, but I’ll never forget what Mitch told me after our divorce.” She stopped and eyed Emily. Her look was pleading and sad.

“What did he say to you?”

“He said, ‘I never make the same mistake twice.’”

“And you take that to mean?”

“At first, I thought it meant that he’d never get married. Now, I think he meant that if he ever found himself with a wife that didn’t bow to his every whim, he’d kill her. The man was not complicated, in the way that a pit bull isn’t complicated. They might look cute when they are puppies, but they grow up to rip the face off a ten-year-old. He’s like that. Everyone thought he was a charismatic do-gooder. He ran his dad’s lot in Portland like he was running for office.”

“But he wasn’t like that at home,” Emily said, more of a statement than a question.

“Oh, to be fair—and that’s how sick I think I still am, giving him the benefit of the doubt at all—but in the beginning we were happy. I thought that when he questioned what I was wearing, how friendly I was, or whatever, that he was just jealous. You know, that he cared about me.”

“Does anyone know about the photos?”

“You mean, does Mitch?”

“That’s right, that’s what I mean.”

“Of course he does. He gave me fifty thousand dollars to get out of his life and give him the photos and the negatives.”

“But you have copies.”

“That’s right. I was an abused wife. I wasn’t completely stupid.”

“Of course not,” Emily said. “You know that this will come out, now.”

“Yes. But I’m glad about it. Even if it means that he’ll sue me for the hush money. That’s what I think of it—hush money. I really don’t care. I don’t want to leave feeling like I sold myself for fifty thousand dollars. You see, Sheriff,” her emotions once more causing her words to fracture, “I have a daughter now. I don’t want what happened to me, to my mother, to happen to Abby. I’m over it, but I don’t know what residual damage might linger.”

Emily knew that the cycle was learned and often generational. Predators like Mitch Crawford went after women who fit a certain type. She had never thought of Mandy Crawford, on the rare occasions when she saw her, as a passive woman. She seemed so outgoing. So confident.

It had been a mask.

It occurred to Emily just then that both the Crawfords wore masks of a sort. He pretended to be the consummate charmer; she was the adoring wife.

But neither was true.

“Tricia, you know what you’ll have to do. If Mitch killed his wife, we might need you to testify.”

Emily’s words seemed to embolden Tricia. She leaned forward across the desk. She tapped a painted nail on the stack of photographs.

“I’ve been waiting for this for years. I’d like to pay back the SOB for all he’s done to me. I only hope,” she said, her demeanor softening, “that I’m not too late—that Mandy is still alive.”

Emily studied Tricia, now fully composed.

“Is there anything else?” she asked.

“Yeah. He was screwing the help at his office here in Cherrystone. I heard he got the girl pregnant. He’s such a pig.”

“Who told you that?”

Tricia looked down at the photos, letting her eyes linger on the gruesome images. “A friend,” she said. “I still have a few, you know.”

After Tricia left, Emily fanned out the photos on Jason’s desk. She told him about her story of being battered by Mitch and how she’d heard that he was up to his old tricks, sleeping around with the help.

“Holy crap!” he said. “Mitch Crawford did that? He’s going down.”

“I like it when you’re direct, Jason. But let’s see. I’m going to check on her story about Darla. Let’s see if she had Mitch’s baby.”

A phone call to the dealership confirmed it was Darla Montague’s day off and Emily drove over to the Cortina Apartments on Sycamore. She found Darla’s apartment right away—the car with the omnipresent car seat and a decal of breaching Orcas were obvious beacons. Darla had a SAVE THE WHALES poster, coffee mug, and pencil holder at her desk.

Darla looked crestfallen when she opened the door and saw the sheriff. No reassuring words or warm smile could placate her.

“Please don’t tell my baby’s daddy,” Darla said as Emily confronted her with what Patty Crawford, a.k.a. Tricia Wilson, had indicated earlier that day in her office. The twenty-two-year-old with the baby in her arms started to cry. “I don’t want my parents to know, either.”

Emily felt for the young woman. She saw her as the type who probably meant well, but through her own gullibility was constantly a victim of circumstance. She was working as a receptionist at the car dealership, she had a baby, and she was worried about what her parents would think of the fact that she’d slept with the boss.

“Is the baby Mitch’s?” Emily asked as she took a seat on a sofa half-covered in folded diapers and baby blankets.

Darla, in a rocker, held her son tighter. “Oh, no. I didn’t do anything with Mitch until after the baby was born. I swear it.”

“I see,” Emily said, more of an acknowledgment than an acceptance of Darla’s story. “Tell me what happened.”

“You mean about how we did it?”

“No. No, Darla. Not how you did it, if you’re referring to the sex act itself. What I’d like to know is what was the extent of the relationship? How involved were you, really?”

Darla became quiet. She turned around with her back toward Emily, her baby boy facing the sheriff. She looked out the window.

“This is really embarrassing,” she said. “We only did it one or two times.”

“Was it one or two?”

“OK, two times.”

“All right. Now when did this happen?”

“This summer. After my son was born. I’d come back to work, from my extended leave. And you know, I was feeling bad about myself. I felt fat. My boyfriend called me a cow. Can you believe that? I just had his son and he called me a cow?”

Emily felt strongly about a two-parent family, but this baby daddy of Darla’s was a piece of garbage.

She shifted the subject back to the concern at hand. “I’m sorry, but what happened with Mitch?”

“Well, Mr. Crawford, err, Mitch, said that my boyfriend was a jerk to call me names. He said that he thought I was pretty. He said that I had potential. Real potential. And then, you, know, one thing led to another.”

Emily felt sorry for Darla. Potential? Honestly, what didn’t work when it came to getting a lonely girl into bed?

“No,” she said, “I don’t know. Tell me.”

“OK, it was after closing and he told me to come into his office. My son was at my mom’s so I didn’t have to rush out. It was a Friday night. I was going to go out to party. Anyway, he told me he was lonely. He said Mandy was cold to him. Then, well, then he kissed me and we had sex.”

“In his office?”

Darla turned around, tears streaming down her face. “Yeah, and I’m not proud about it.”

“Did he say he was in love with you?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“But he wanted to see you again, didn’t he?”

“I guess I’m not explaining myself very well. He said that I was pretty and we had sex two times. I don’t think he ever said he wanted a relationship with me. He just told me that his wife was cold to him and I was fun.”

“Did you know Mandy?”

By then, Darla’s tears were uncontrollable and her baby started to cry, too. “I’d seen her come into the dealership a few times. She was nice enough. I mean, she pretty much acted like she was put out having to come into the dealership. She never stayed long and she didn’t seem to appreciate how hard her husband worked.”

It passed through Emily’s mind that Darla Montague was probably the most naive person she’d ever met. Youth alone wasn’t the reason she’d gotten involved with a charismatic man. She had also felt sorry for him. Maybe, she thought, Darla had hoped that he’d fall in love with her.

Yet he only wanted her for one thing.

“I have to leave now. My mom invited us to dinner.” She balanced the baby against her shoulder and looked for her purse and car keys.

“All right,” Emily said, starting toward the door. “We can talk more later.”

Darla dug her keys out of the space between cushions on the sofa. She looked nervously at Emily. “OK. Please don’t tell my mom. Please don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t say anything to your mother. But I do have to tell the prosecutor. If we get to the point where there is a need for you to testify, you best tell your mom, OK?”

Darla wanted to buy some time. “But that will be a long way off, right?”

“I hope not. But, yes, you have some time.”

Right then, Emily wanted to give Jenna’s former classmate some motherly advice. But she resisted telling her that she’d be all right, that this would pass, that they’d all laugh about it someday. Because she knew she wouldn’t. Darla Montague had been stupid beyond stupid. It was best for her to live with that and let it sink in.

Emily left Darla’s apartment and its baby smells with more questions than answers. Chief among them was whether Darla’s relationship with Mitch had anything whatsoever to do with the fact that Mandy was missing. She seemed to be a truthful young woman, one more worried about what her mother might think about her affair with her boss than being involved in a potential criminal matter. One question that gnawed at her was the source of the tip that led her to Darla. Who inside the dealership had it in for Mitchell Crawford? Judging by his reputation, she imagined that the line of people with a score to settle might a long one.

A very long one.

Emily looked out the window. The streets of Cherrystone glittered with ice.

“Jenna, where are you?” she said aloud.

She looked at her watch. It was half past the hour. Jenna’s plane had landed long ago and she was due on the Inland Empire Airport Shuttle an hour ago. Emily chatted on the phone with Chris a while—he was doing things around the condo that he hoped to sell in a slowing Seattle real estate market.

“I’m worried. Something could have happened to her.”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” he said. “Jeesh, Em, you act like you’re going to put out an APB on your daughter because she’s a half hour late.”

“Don’t think I wouldn’t. And she’s forty-five minutes late.”

Chris laughed and asked Emily if she needed him to bring anything from Seattle when he came for Christmas.

“Chestnuts,” she said.

“Really?”

“Yes, fresh ones.”

He promised he would, though he didn’t have any clue as to where he’d find them.

“Pike Place Market,” she said. Just as she was about to tell him which stall to zero in on at the venerable farmers’ market in downtown Seattle, a pair of headlights pierced the darkness in front of her house.

The van had arrived.

“She’s here,” Emily said.

“OK. Tell her I’m looking forward to chilling with her tomorrow.”

“Chilling?”

“Hanging. Whatever. Love you, Em.”

“I love you, too.”

She snapped her phone shut and spun around in time to swing open the door for Jenna.

“Merry Christmas, Mom!”

Forgetting the nightmare of the Mandy Crawford investigation as she drank in her daughter with a hug that meant to convey all of her love and shake off the cold night air, Emily knew it would be a great Christmas.

Jenna was home.