Lying in wait

11

As it turned out, I was nowhere near the Public Safety Building by the time Bonnie Elgin and Sue Danielson finished up with the prints and sketch.

About 9:15 A. M. Detective Stan Jacek came wandering back through the fifth-floor maze of cubicles and found me sitting at my desk, holding up my head and working on paper. Paper paper. Somebody needed to let Maxwell Cole know that not everybody at Seattle P.D. had a handy-dandy laptop computer at his or her disposal.

Stan hadn't slept any longer than I, and he was equally grouchy. "How can people stand living and working in a place like this?" he demanded irritably. "It took me ten minutes just to find a parking place."

I've never visited Stan Jacek's home turf up in Coupeville, but it's safe to assume that parking isn't that much of a problem in the downtown area of Island County's county seat on Whidbey Island.

"It's no big deal," I said. "All you have to do is be born in a parking place, and then you're set."

Detective Jacek wasn't up for that kind of early morning quip. "Very funny," he said. "You want to come for a ride or not?"

"Where to?"

He pulled out a notebook and thumbed through the scrawled-on, dog-eared pages. "Remember the letter we found in the Caddy parked out in front of the house last night?"

"The one signed ‘Mom'? What about it?"

"I finally managed to track that back to the woman up in Anchorage who wrote it," he answered. "She and her husband are flying into town later on today. She's willing to help as much as she can, but she doesn't have access to any of her daughter's more recent dental records. They'll bring along whatever they do have."

The condition of the dead woman's body had meant that dental records would be necessary to establish a positive I.D. My heart went out to those two unfortunate parents-to any parents-forced to set out on that kind of devastatingly awful mission. They might be hoping for the best, yet I'm sure they were dreading the worst.

"It's going to be rough on them," I said.

Jacek nodded. "I'll say. In the meantime, the mother gave me a line on their other daughter-Denise's older sister. Her name is Deanna Meadows. She lives down in Kent in a place called Fairwood. Ever heard of it?"

I shook my head, but then there are lots of places in the Puget Sound area that I've never heard of.

Jacek shrugged and continued, "It doesn't matter. I've got an appointment with her about forty-five minutes from now. I thought maybe you'd like to ride along."

For an answer, I stood up and put on my jacket. "Lead the way," I said.

We crossed Lake Washington on I-90 in fog so thick that the water was invisible. We might have been driving in a universe made of cotton balls. Detective Jacek was far too aggressive a driver for me to be able to doze off and catch forty winks. Instead, I stayed wide awake the whole time, gripping what I call the "Oh-shit bar," and thinking about all those fog-caused multicar pileups that happen every year on that long stretch of California freeway they call "the Grapevine."

I was relieved when we finally turned off Interstate 405 onto the Maple Valley Highway. Valley population and traffic has far outstripped the capacity of that piece of rural two-lane road, and it's certainly had its share of head-on collisions, but at least there Stan Jacek slowed down to a relatively sane sixty.

For all the ease of finding our way, we might just as well have been traveling in the middle of the night. The fog was that thick. But as we rose up out of the valley onto a plateau, the sun began to burn through the haze.

We meandered around a housing development that had been built around the perimeter of a golf course. For golf-course houses, the places were fairly modest. The new cedar shake roofs told me the development must be about twenty years old. The little kid tearing up the middle of the street on a Big Wheel was probably the child of a second generation of owners.

The house we stopped in front of was much newer construction than some of its neighbors. It was one of those new phony French-chateau places with a three-car garage that covered almost the whole front of the house except for a front porch three stories tall. The porch light was so far up on the wall that you'd need an extension ladder just to reach it and change the lightbulb. A brand-new white Infiniti, still wearing temporary plates, sat by itself inside one open garage door.

"Yuppies," I muttered to myself, thinking the people who lived there were probably ex-Californians who deserved to have to use a ladder just to change a lightbulb. "Definitely yuppies."

Detective Jacek must have thought I was saying something important. "Huh?" he asked, pulling his finger back from the doorbell without pressing the button. "What did you say?"

"Never mind," I told him. "It's nothing."

Deanna Meadows turned out to be a woman in her early-to-mid-thirties. She wore a thick terry-cloth bathrobe. Her carrot-colored hair was pulled up on top of her head with a dark blue band of some kind. It looked as though she had started out wearing makeup, because two twin trails of drowned mascara still lingered on her cheeks. There was nothing besides the dead mascara to cover the fine sprinkling of freckles on her cheeks. She had been crying. When she opened the door, she was still sniffling.

Detective Jacek introduced himself and showed her his I.D. Deanna nodded. "I remember. You're the one I talked to earlier."

"And this is Detective Beaumont of the Seattle Police Department. He's working on this case as well."

Deanna Meadows led us into a spacious living room. Looking beyond the living room and out through the dining-room picture window, I could see one of the fairways on the golf course outside. That smooth expanse of green, evenly mowed-and-manicured grass provided a backyard that was long on lush and low on homeowner-driven maintenance. The thought crossed my mind that maybe not having to spend every Saturday pushing around a lawn mower outweighed the hazard of an occasional golf ball bouncing in through a window and landing on the dining-room table.

"I'm sorry things are in such a mess," Deanna Meadows apologized.

Mess? I didn't see much mess. A few scattered newspapers were strewn around on the floor. There were two coffee cups sitting on an end table along with a pile of soggy, crumpled tissues. Other than that, the room was spotlessly clean, with no sign of kiddy-type debris anywhere. Unless there was an ever-vigilant nanny stowed somewhere upstairs, it was safe to assume that Deanna Meadows and her unnamed husband-she was wearing a wedding band-were childless.

Deanna motioned for Jack and me to sit down on the green-and-white living-room couch. "Coffee?" she asked.

We both accepted gratefully. While she hurried off to the kitchen to make it, I examined the two rooms that were visible from where I sat. They were furnished in a tasteful, uniformly comfortable style. The house seemed like some kind of safe haven in which Detective Jacek and I, along with our ugly reason for being there, provided the only jarring notes.

Deanna Meadows was talking when she came back into the dining room, shouldering open the swinging door between that room and the kitchen.

"I was on the phone with my aunt just before you got here," she said. She paused long enough to pass us mugs of coffee and to offer cream and sugar.

"Aunt Mary is my mother's sister. I was all right for a while, but as soon as she started talking about Denise, it set me off all over again. I don't know what's the matter with me. I just can't seem to stop crying. It's hard to believe that it's happened-that she's really dead."

Sipping his coffee, Detective Jacek nodded sympathetically. "I'm sure this is all very difficult for you-and having us show up so soon like this must seem pretty heartless. But in order to solve cases we have to gather information as quickly as we can."

Deanna nodded. "I know," she said. "Mom told me. I promised her I'd do whatever I could to help."

"What can you tell us about your sister?" Stan Jacek asked. "Her neighbors up on Camano Island knew her name and recognized her on sight, but she doesn't seem to have sought out friendships with any of them. No one could tell us much about her background-about where she came from and all that sort of thing."

Deanna blew her nose. "I'll tell you what I can, but I have to watch the time," she said. "My folks left Anchorage by plane this morning. They're due in at Sea-Tac two hours from now. I'll have to leave before too long to go pick them up."

"That's where you're from-Alaska?"

Deanna nodded. "Not originally. My folks moved up there from Dayton, Ohio, during the oil rush. They liked it so much they never left."

"What do your parents do?" I asked.

"My father used to be a minister," she said. "Now he's the chief administrator in a convalescent home."

"That's a big change."

Deanna Meadows shrugged. "He pretty much had to do it. Dad just couldn't bring himself to stand up in front of people and preach Sunday sermons when his own family life was in such disarray."

"How so?" I asked.

"Because of Denise," Deanna answered, with more than a trace of bitterness in her voice. "It was always because of Denise. Isn't that why you're here?"

"I'm not sure," Jacek said. "Maybe you'd better tell us."

It took a while for Deanna Meadows to answer. "I guess you've heard all the bad talk about preachers' kids," she said at last. "About how awful they are."

"I've heard rumors to that effect," Jacek agreed, "but from what I hear, teachers' kids are just as bad…or maybe even a little worse."

" Some of them are," Deanna asserted, placing careful emphasis on the word "some." "Not all, but some."

"So you're saying your sister went haywire?"

"She didn't go haywire; she always was haywire, but I don't think anyone realized it at first. As a little kid, she was so pretty. She got good grades and was smart as a whip-a lot smarter than I ever was. They tested her at school once. Her scores were off the charts. Genius-level I.Q. But she had this dark side to her, mean almost.

"As far as Denise was concerned, rules didn't exist. Not for her, anyway. Only for other people. The first time she got busted for soliciting, she was thirteen years old. She told my parents she was going to a slumber party with some of her friends from school. Instead, she was downtown trying to hustle visiting businessmen."

"Thirteen's pretty young," Stan Jacek agreed. Deanna Meadows; to make it easier for her to continue. I knew I'd seen hookers in Seattle who hadn't seen their twelfth birthdays yet, and I'm pretty sure Jacek had, too. Maybe even in Coupeville.

"What happened?" I asked.

"The cops called my parents. Dad went down to juvie to get her; to bail her out. On the way home, he asked her what she was thinking of; how come she did it. She said she did it for the money, because she didn't get enough allowance. She told him she'd figured out that she could make more by the hour screwing-although she called it something much worse than screwing-than he did after twenty years of being a minister."

"That must have been hard on him," Jacek said.

Deanna laughed a harsh, raw, humorless laugh. " Hard is hardly the word for it!" she exclaimed. "Denise killed something in my father when she told him that-robbed him of something important-his dignity. He took it personally. Having Denise act like that made him feel like his whole life was a fraud, a joke. He must have thought he had failed his entire family."

There was a long pause while Deanna Meadows gazed off into the middle distance and collected her frayed emotions. When she spoke again, I could hear the unvarnished bitterness behind her words.

"Of course, I was there and doing all right. While Denise was out raising hell, I was busy finishing up my last year in high school and getting good grades, but that didn't seem to matter. It didn't count. I don't think anybody even noticed. That's what they say. The squeaky wheel is always the one that gets the oil."

"What happened after your father brought Denise home?" Jacek asked.

Deanna shrugged. "He must have written his letter of resignation that very night and turned it in the next day. He never preached another sermon. I used to love his sermons. He and Mom were both hurting, but Denise didn't give a damn. My parents tried to pick up some of the pieces-tried to glue them back together. They did all the things parents do, like going to counseling and all that, but it didn't work. Nothing worked. Denise didn't want to get better because she didn't think there was anything wrong with her.

"Eventually, my parents just gave up. They had to. They ran out of time and energy and money all at the same time. They couldn't afford to keep of fighting. By then, my father had gone back to school to get a degree in hospital administration, and my mother was working as a receptionist in a doctor's office. Denise ran away for good when she was fourteen. I was already down here, going to school on a scholarship. I met a guy here at school. Gary's the best thing that ever happened to me. We ended up falling in love and getting married."

"And Denise?"

"She dropped out of sight completely. No one heard from her for years and years. Then, about a year and a half ago, out of a clear blue sky, she turned back up. Someone rang my doorbell one morning, and when I opened the door, there she was. ‘Hi,' she says with this big grin on her face, as though nothing had ever happened, like the years in between the last time I saw her and right then didn't exist.

"‘It's your baby sister,' she says. ‘Remember me?'"

Deanna closed her eyes as if remembering for a moment before she continued. "I was so shocked, I could hardly believe it. I mean, we all thought she was dead, but there she was, big as life."

"You let her in?"

"Of course I did. Wouldn't you if your long-lost sister showed up when you'd spent years thinking she was dead and buried? Not only was she alive, she looked like a million dollars.

"She was all dolled up-healthy and tan. She's a brunette, not a redhead like me, so her skin always turns-turned golden brown whenever she went out in the sun. She looked like one of the models you see in commercials for Caribbean cruises."

"And?"

"She came in for a while. We sat down and talked." Deanna Meadows frowned. "I guess I'm naive. I thought maybe she had changed. I hoped she had done the same thing I did-that she had grown up and become a responsible adult. But she hadn't. She said her boyfriend-she called him Gabby or Gebby-something like that-had just given her a new car, one of those little Cadillac convertibles. White and black with a white leather interior. Anyway, she had decided to take the car out for a spin and look me up while she was at it. I still don't know how she found me."

Jacek leaned forward in his chair. "Was Gabby or Gebby the boyfriend's first or last name?" he asked.

Deanna frowned. "I don't know. I don't think she ever said. I did ask her if she and her boyfriend were, like, engaged or something. She just laughed and said she'd never marry him because he was too old for her."

"Did she tell you anything else about him?"

"Not really, because she didn't stay for very long after that. And I was glad when she left. I didn't like being around her. It was almost like getting over being sick and then having a relapse. I felt like the whole time she was here she was making fun of everything I stood for and believed in. I think that's how my father must have felt, too, that time in the car."

Deanna Meadows started crying again. For the next few minutes, there was nothing for Jacek or me to do until Deanna Meadows got herself back under control.

"It's so hard to understand," she said finally, when she could talk again. "I loved her once. Denise was so cute when she was little. I used to like to dress her up and show her off to my friends like she was some kind of living, breathing doll. Much better than a Barbie. But then she changed, and I never knew how or why.

"Part of me still loves her, I guess. Part of me still misses the little girl she once was, but part of me hates her, too. For what she did to my parents. For what she did to me. I think I've hated her for a long time. If she's dead, I'm sorry. At least I cry like I'm sorry, but still…"

Once again Deanna broke off and couldn't continue. I understood. There's very little distance between love and hate, and often death obliterates the distance between the two entirely. They fuse into a paralyzing turmoil of opposing emotions, one that's almost impossible to bear.

"So after she left your house that day, did you see her again?" Jacek asked gently.

Deanna shook her head. "No," she said. "I never saw her again, but I told my parents where to find her. I felt like they needed to know she was okay-that their daughter wasn't lying dead in a ditch somewhere."

Detective Jacek nodded. "That's how we found you and your mother both," he explained. "Through a letter your mother had written to Denise at the Camano Island house."

As soon as he mentioned the word mother Deanna glanced down at her watch. "Oh, my God," she wailed. "It's late. I've got to go get dressed and put on some makeup."

"Just a couple more questions, if you don't mind," Detective Jacek said. "When Denise was here, did she say anything more that you can remember about her boyfriend?"

"No, not really. Just that he had plenty of money and that he was willing to spend it on her."

"Would your sister have been involved in something illegal?" Jacek asked.

"Of course," Deanna answered at once. "Prostitution is illegal, isn't it? At least most places."

"I mean besides that. It looks as though her house may have been searched before it was burned, as though someone was looking for something."

"You mean like drugs?" Deanna asked.

"Possibly," Jacek answered.

Deanna drew a sharp breath. "The guy on the TV news said something about a ‘torture killing.'" Deanna's tear-reddened eyes focused directly on Jacek's. "What exactly does that mean?"

Detective Jacek sighed. "I'm sorry that turned up on the news. It wasn't supposed to."

"Are you saying someone tortured her because they wanted her to tell them where something was hidden, like cocaine or something?"

"That's one possibility," Jacek said. "Whatever the killer was looking for, either your sister knew where it was or she didn't. Either she told them or she didn't. We can't tell which."

"But even if she did know where and what it was, even if she told them where to find it, whoever it was still went ahead and killed her anyway."

"Yes," Detective Jacek agreed. "That's also possible."

"You said ‘they.' Do you think there was more than one?"

"No. Not necessarily. That's just a manner of speaking. He. She. They."

Deanna Meadows leaned forward in her chair, her eyes searching Detective Jacek's face. "Tell me," she said. "Exactly how bad is it? I need to know so I can tell my parents so they can be prepared."

Detective Jacek put down his coffee cup and stood up. "It's pretty bad, Mrs. Meadows," he answered. "If I were you, I'd tell your folks to plan on a closed-casket service."

The statement was simple, brief, and to the point, but it answered the question. It told Deanna Meadows what she needed to know.

I had to give Stan Jacek plenty of credit for the diplomatic way he pulled that one off. I don't think I could have handled it better myself.