The Girl in the Woods (16 page)

W
ith their mother in booking at the Kitsap County jail, Ruby and Micah were led into separate interview rooms in a kind of divide-and-conquer technique that investigators employed when talking to witnesses who might lie in order to protect each other or another family member. Jennifer’s children were in a bind. They had no other family in the area. Their stepfather was dead. And, of course, their mother was in custody. Teenagers, in general, hate any kind of inconvenience. This was very, very inconvenient.

Family ties were frequently like steel at first, but in time, Kendall Stark and other cops knew that steel could rust, then crumble.

“What do you want me to do?” Birdy asked as she looked in through the two-way mirror that separated Micah’s room from the hall. His sister’s room had no such window. Micah laid his head on his folded arms on top of the table. The teenager was either very tired, or completely distraught. He might have just been bored.

“You’ll tell the kids what the autopsy results were. You’re free to answer their questions, of course. Be yourself,” Kendall said, opening the door and leading Birdy inside.

Micah lifted his head right away. “I’m thirsty,” he said.

Kendall introduced herself and Birdy.

“I’ll get you something in a moment. Let’s go over a few details first.” She and Kendall sat facing the boy, who leaned back as he verified his age, address, and who his mother was.

“You keep calling me Micah Roberts. That’s really not my name. My last name is Lake. Just wanted you to know that. Ted never adopted me or my sister. It was my mom’s idea to use his name.”

“Why didn’t he adopt you?” Kendall asked. “Was there a reason for that?”

The boy seemed uncertain, picking at his words. “Not really. I mean, my mom always rushed things. I think he would have adopted me and Ruby. He was a cool guy.”

“You got along with him?” Kendall asked.

Micah jangled his house keys, picking at each one with his fingertips while Kendall spoke. “Yeah.”

“Your mom too? She got along with him?”

He folded his arms across his chest and sat there silently.

“Was something going on with your mom and stepfather?”

He put the keys in his pocket. “Ruby said you’d try to blame Mom. My mom loved Ted. I know you don’t think she did. But you’re wrong about her.” His eyes puddled a little and he looked away. There was no way that kid was going to cry in front of two women.

Not in a zillion years.

“Look,” Kendall said. “I know this is hard. You’ve been through a lot. I understand.”

“You couldn’t understand,” he said. “This was our mom’s big ‘let’s start over’ move away from Arizona and all the crap down there. I didn’t want to come. Ruby didn’t want to come. Mom told us that if we didn’t like it we could go back. But we liked it. At least I did. Ruby hated the cold weather here.”

The boy was struggling and Birdy’s heart went out to him. In some ways, he reminded her of Elan and how he’d just transplanted himself in a new environment, a new school. No kid likes to start over.

“I’m sure it was quite a change,” she said. “It takes some getting used to.”

Micah rubbed his eyes with his sleeve.

“Let’s talk about the morning Ted died.”

Micah pulled himself together. “Wow,” he said. “That’s hard. I was asleep. I didn’t even know what had happened until my sister came and woke me.”

“When was that, do you know what time?” Kendall asked.

“I didn’t look at the clock. I didn’t get out of bed. Ted was always puking and I just didn’t care.”

“Was it nighttime or morning?”

“I don’t know. Still dark. But it seems like it is always dark here.”

“You didn’t get up, though. Is that because you didn’t like him?”

He shook his head. “I told you
I
did.”

“Right, but you didn’t get up when he was in trouble.”

“I didn’t get up because I thought it was more of the same. I didn’t think he was dead or dying.”

“All right,” Kendall said.

“I’m thirsty,” he said. “My mouth feels like it’s full of cotton balls.”

Kendall stood. “Let me get you a drink. We have a pop machine down the hall.”

“Mountain Dew?” he asked, suddenly happy at the prospect of getting something to drink.

“Sorry. Coke all right?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. Thanks.”

Kendall went out and disappeared down the hall.

“I know you’re going through a lot, Micah,” Birdy said. “I’m sorry. So is the detective.”

“She doesn’t seem sorry. She’s blaming my mom for everything. You know, my mom isn’t as bad as you guys make her out to be,” he said.

Birdy shifted in her chair. “Poisoning someone is a pretty serious crime.”

“She didn’t do it. She’s not like that.”

“If she didn’t, then someone else did.”

“He was depressed. He was sick. He wasn’t getting any better. He told me one time that he knew that every one of us would be better off without him.”

Kendall returned with a can of Diet Coke.

“Sorry,” she said. “No
real
Coke.”

Micah took the can and flipped the top. “It’s okay. Better than nothing.”

“Why didn’t you get up?” Kendall asked. “The night your stepfather died. I don’t understand.”

He swallowed his drink in a big gulp. “Look, it isn’t nice to say so, but the truth was he was always puking. Ted was a drunk. I didn’t see any need. I just wanted to get some sleep.”

There was callousness to his words, beyond what was said. How he said it. The kid didn’t really care at all.

“So he died at night,” Kendall said. “Your stepfather. It wasn’t in the morning, was it?”

Micah just sat there. “I don’t know when he died. Can I go back to school now?”

 

 

A few minutes later, both the forensic pathologist and the detective took seats in the small interview room where Ruby Lake had spilled the contents of her purse to pass the time. She’d sorted her cosmetics and was in the middle of texting and scrolling through her Facebook account—looking every bit the teenage dream that she most undeniably was. She was pretty like her mother. Maybe prettier. Her teeth were blindingly white—a service the tanning salon offered on its upsell chart. Her lightly tanned skin amplified the brightness of her smile, the blue of her eyes. Her hair was long, blond and streaked, as though the sun had done its job.

“I know why I’m here,” she said, looking up after hitting the
SEND
button.

“Right,” Kendall said after introducing Birdy. “Because your stepfather died of poisoning and we’re investigating the case as a homicide.”

“Whatever,” she said.

“And you know that your mother has been arrested,” Kendall said.

She didn’t answer. She looked down at her phone.

“I need you to put that away,” Kendall said.

Ruby sighed. “I thought this was a free country.”

“It is,” Kendall said, “but I need you to focus on what we’re doing here. Not on your phone.”

Ruby rolled her eyes upward. “I didn’t mean
that
. I meant charging my mom for murder. That’s what. Like you have just railroaded her like she’s guilty because he’s dead and she’s married to him.”

“You’re half right. He is dead and she was married to him. But he died of poisoning.”

Birdy spoke up. “That’s right, Ruby. Your stepfather had been poisoned by doses of ethylene glycol over a period of time.”

“My mom wouldn’t even know how to pronounce that, let alone poison him with it.”

“It’s in antifreeze,” Birdy said. “It’s used to keep cars running in the winter.”

“We’re from Arizona. I doubt my mom’s ever heard of it. And besides, if anyone killed my dad it was that bitch Molly next door. That’s who.”

“You mean Molly O’Rourke?” Kendall asked. “What has she got to do with this?”

Ruby looked back at her phone, but then slipped it into her purse. She scooped up the rest of the stuff that had occupied her time while she was waiting for the interview.

“She hated that Mom married Ted,” she finally said. “I don’t like throwing shade on anyone. So you should ask her. She wanted him for herself. She acts all nice, but I’ve seen that kind of girl down at the salon. They think the world owes them something and when they don’t get it, they do the crazy.”

“Your stepfather died because he was poisoned,” Birdy said. “How would Molly poison him?”

Ruby fiddled with the back of an earring. “Look, you don’t get it. Do you? She was always bringing stuff over. Cake. Cookies. She made a big show of it. Always acting like she cared so much for Ted, but my mom knew what she was all about.”

“Seems like both you and your mother are acute judges of character,” Kendall said.

Ruby held her ground. “We’re not stupid if that’s what you mean.”

“No one is saying that. It’s just that I find it hard to believe that your neighbor had the kind of access to your house to poison your stepfather.”

“She had a key.”

“She did?”

“Yeah. Ted gave her one long before we moved up here. He had some fern that needed watering whenever he was away doing whatever he did for the navy. Secret shit. Molly came over all the time.”

“You don’t like Molly very much, do you?” Birdy cut in.

In a change in emotion that surprised both the women, Ruby started to cry. She’d been tough. She wasn’t going to let anyone push her around. The mask that she wore to be cool, detached, had shattered.

“I don’t like that you’re blaming my mom for something she didn’t do. My mom has made some mistakes in her life—like we never should have moved up here—but she’s not a bad person. She’s had some really hard times and now you’re blaming her for something she didn’t do. I think it sucks. I think both of you suck.”

Kendall ignored the last comment.

“Do you have any relatives here?” she asked. “You and your brother are underage. We need to make arrangements for either a family member or CPS to take you in.”

Ruby shook her head. “I’m eighteen. At least I will be next week.”

Kendall looked down at the report. Ruby was turning eighteen the following week. Maybe she wouldn’t have to involve Child Protective Services. In a way, that brought a little relief. Kendall hated splitting up family members who had already suffered the trauma of a homicide, an arrest, and the media coverage that made life harder than those who’d never been in the center of a murder investigation could possibly understand.

“I’ll see what I can do, pending your mother’s release. If she makes bond.”

Ruby met the detective’s gaze straight on. “We don’t have any money.”

“The Red Cross can help,” Birdy said.

The girl ignored Birdy. “We’ll manage somehow,” she said. “We’ve been through crap before.”

“We’re going to need to get your fingerprints, Ruby.”

Ruby pushed back from the table. “Why? I didn’t have anything to do with this.”

“We need them for exclusionary purposes. We know you lived there and it is likely that your prints are all over everything. We have to match your prints so that we can identify which ones belong there, and which ones don’t.”

Ruby sighed. “My mom lived there too. Her prints. Micah’s prints. We’re all over the place. So what if they are on your evidence?”

“I understand it’s confusing and difficult.”

“You should be getting Molly’s prints,” Ruby said. “That’s who. If there’s some poison in the house at all you should look for hers on the bottle.”

“We’ll do just that,” Kendall said.

Ruby got up. She’d had enough. “Where’s my brother?”

“He’s done,” Birdy said. “He’s waiting for you.”

Kendall opened the door and Ruby went out first.

“When can we see our mom?” she asked, as they walked down the hall toward the reception area where Micah was waiting.

“She’s still being processed,” Kendall said. “She’ll be arraigned this afternoon.”

“She doesn’t have a lawyer.”

“We’ll get her one.”

“She’s innocent. She really is.”

“I know you believe that,” Kendall said. “But we’ve already found her fingerprints on the poison.”

Micah stood and went toward his sister, but the two didn’t embrace.

“Ruby, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I told them about Molly. They’ll see. They’ve made a big mistake.”

 

 

The next morning, Birdy texted Elan’s phone number to Kendall and got on an airplane for Phoenix’s Sky Harbor airport. She smiled at the idea of the name, that a landlocked region could have a harbor. She’d grown up all around water. It was everywhere. As she sipped coffee and nibbled on a bagel she bought from the airplane’s food cart, she thought of all the stories of regret that had come her way. Molly felt regret for not saving Ted. Tess was full of remorse and regret for not doing more to confront her tormenter, Brenda Nevins. Even Jennifer expressed regret for letting Ted’s sickness progress to his demise.

All were sorry for something.

And yet, she knew that one of them was twice as sorry—the one who brought her to Arizona and an exhumation.

Sorry she killed twice.

B
irdy Waterman perched herself on a barstool at the Pinnacle Peak Hotel’s restaurant, Proof Canteen. There was room outside on the terrace, but the heat of day kept her close to the AC. On the drive from the airport and to her destination off East Crescent Moon Drive, she marveled at the landscape that she’d only seen once before—at the Big Thunder Mountain Railway attraction in Disneyland when her family went there the year before her father, Mackie, died. Back then the images of the Southwest were as fake to her as that Disneyland ride. She’d grown up in the Pacific Northwest, all green, drippy, and mossy. The very concept of a landscape of wind-worn red rock boulders and the sentinels of saguaro seemed almost too foreign, too fantastic to be factual.

It was real. The splendor of the desert was all around her.

She sipped a glass of Oak Creek Amber Ale and ordered the chicken and waffles—because in all her life she’d never had the opportunity to have the dish that sounded like half breakfast and half dinner, but not brunchy at all. It came with a bourbon syrup and bacon brittle that tasted sublime with the crispy-skinned chicken.

“Not exactly diet food,” she said to a server, who hovered nearby. It was late and she was the only patron. A couple—newlyweds probably—nuzzled next to a mesquite-fueled chimera outside as the sunset poured pink and orange over Pinnacle Peak.

“Nope. But you’re on vacation. Live a little.”

“Not hardly,” Birdy said. “Here for work.”

The server, a handsome man in his fifties, nodded and smiled. “Me too. What’s your line?”

Birdy didn’t often tell strangers what she did for a living. Some people reacted with affected horror and it was embarrassing. But the bar was quiet and she didn’t see the harm.

“The case I’m working on,” she said, picking at the smoky and sweet brittle, “involved one of the people who used to work here.”

“I’ve been here a long time,” he said. “What’s his name?”

“Oh not the victim. The person we have locked up in Washington is a woman.”

He sat down. “That’s something. Who is she?”

“Jennifer Roberts.”

He scanned his memory.

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Jennifer Lake. That was her name when she lived down here.”

The man stood up. “No shit? Jenny Lake?”

Birdy’s eyes widened a little. “You know her?”

“
Know
her? Hell, I dated her. Half the guys who worked here did. And the other half were gay. If you get my meaning.”

“I guess I do,” she said.

“It wasn’t that she was a slut, though she was pretty good at what she did. She was kind of a sad girl, really.”

“Oh? I don’t understand.”

“She was always looking for Mr. Right. She kept getting Mr. Right Now. Girls who try too hard sometimes aren’t able to get the job done.”

“She wasn’t a prostitute or anything?” Birdy asked, the thought just popping into her head as the beer left her a little looser than she liked.

He looked around. “Hell no. This isn’t that kind of place. She wasn’t that kind of a girl. I mean she was easy on the eyes always wearing her favorite color pink. She called it ‘Sugar Bowl Pink’ after that ice cream in Old Town. She was easy in every way possible, but she just couldn’t close the deal. Not until she married Don Lake.”

“Did you know him too?” She looked at his nametag and added a quick, “Eddie?”

He noticed how she’d seen his nametag and he hated how people were so familiar with others because of a piece of plastic affixed to a uniform.

“Yeah,” he said. “Don ran our catering for a while. Got fired though.”

“Why was that?”

“He was doing jobs on the side. He was doing really well too. Probably a good thing he got fired because then he got his ass in gear and opened a place of his own. Big success too. The Brass Cactus was a moneymaker. Jenny worked up front. Had a couple of kids. And then, poof, like snow in the Sonoran it was gone.”

“What happened?”

“He died. Simple as that. He had a heart attack on the links at Troon. She sold the restaurant. After that, I don’t know what she did. I thought I heard she got married, but don’t think that lasted too long. Anyway she had a big place over by the mountain. Never saw her again.”

He pointed to her beer glass but she shook her head.

“You can’t fly on one wing,” he said.

“Got to drive to my hotel,” she said.

“You’re not staying here?”

Birdy smiled. “You kidding? I’m a county employee. I’m staying at a little place down the road called the Comfort Inn.”

He grinned back knowingly. “Luxury at an affordable rate.”

“That’s right.”

“So what’s Jenny in jail for up in your neck of the woods?”

“Murder,” Birdy said. “Her husband was killed.”

Eddie smirked a little. “Playing golf?”

Birdy opened her purse and retrieved her wallet. “Nope. He’d been ill. He was poisoned. Google it when I leave. There have been a few stories in the paper up there. Roberts is her last name. Husband was Ted.”

She gave him her county Visa card.

“You know Don Lake’s twin brother lives here in Scottsdale,” Eddie said. “He hated her. You ought to give him a call. Might help with what you’re doing.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I’m not really that kind of investigator. Remember, I deal mostly with dead people.”

She looked down to sign the bill that he’d coiled neatly in a jelly jar, a charming nod to the western theme of the restaurant and bar.

Across the top of the slip, the server had written a phone number and a name—Dan Lake.

 

 

Birdy surveyed her room at the Comfort Inn. It was clean, but hardly luxurious. A tired painting of a Navajo woman holding a water jar hung over the bedspread with a faded chevron design. She turned up the AC and phoned Elan.

“You all right?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m having pizza tonight because someone assumes that’s all I’ll eat.”

“Someone is sorry about that,” she said, vowing not to mention that she had chicken and waffles and bacon brittle. That would rub it in too, too much.

“Hey, Aunt Birdy, the ‘S’ has really hit the fan at school. My friend Micah told me about how you arrested his mom and then questioned him and his sister about the murder of his dad.”

Birdy sat on the edge of the bed. “Stepdad,” she said. “I didn’t arrest her. Kendall did. I didn’t know you knew those two.”

“He’s new,” Elan said. “I’m new. We’ve hung out a few times. I don’t know him, but when he found out you’re my aunt he really laid into me about what a bitch you and Kendall were.”

She kicked off her shoes. “Actually, I thought we were pretty nice.”

“I kind of told him that. I mean, I know that you are a really good person.”

“Wow,” she said. “Are you trying to make me cry?”

“Nope. But I just wanted you to know I have your back.”

Birdy was touched by the sweetness in her nephew’s voice. It wasn’t out of her head that he was still dealing with something back in Neah Bay and she needed to get to the bottom of it. But that would have to be later.

“Me too, Elan,” she said. “I’m on your team too.”

“All right,” he said. “Have fun down there digging up the dead guy.”

Birdy smiled. “You know I will.”

 

 

The TV in the women’s section of the Kitsap County jail almost never knew a time of day when it wasn’t playing some talk show. Such shows provided comfort and solidarity. Most were about how rotten men had been to the women in their lives. Many of the inmates sat there bobbing their heads in unison as some cad tried to sweet-talk his girlfriend or wife.

“Heard that before,” one gal from Sunnyslope said. “My old man cheated on me, big time. And I fell for it. Hook, line, and sinker, that’s me.”

“Yeah, we should be out on a fishing boat, you and me,” said the other, a woman arrested in Bremerton for soliciting a police officer.

Jennifer Roberts wasn’t like the other two women in the TV room. She could have been. She probably started in the same place—born in a family with little means. A childhood of ups and downs, mostly downs. Yet, she got out of there. She climbed out of the gutter and made something of herself.

She owed it all to a movie she’d seen when she was ten years old. She’d seen a mention of the film on the TV guide section of the
Kitsap Sun
and made a note not to miss it.

“You gals mind if we turn the channel?” she asked, breezing into the room. “There’s a movie on that I really want to watch.”

“Can’t it wait? We’re about to find out if this slut has picked the right guy as the father of her baby or if she’s going to have another paternity test done.”

“Yeah, like number four,” Sunnyslope said.

“Please,” Jennifer said. “I just have to see this movie.”

The first woman looked at the other. Jennifer Roberts was completely irritating, but she was interesting and they relented.

“Thanks,” she said. She picked up the remote and flipped it to the movie channel showing
An Officer and a Gentleman
.

It was her second favorite scene. Her favorite, of course, was when Zack Mayo played by Richard Gere carried Paula Pokrifki played by Debra Winger in his arms in his dress whites. This was the scene where Paula stood her ground. She still wanted her man, but not at any price. She wasn’t some dumb whore. She was trying to be a comfort to him. To show him love. That he was worth it—and by extension both of them were.

Sunnyslope looked over at Jennifer.

“Did you find your officer?”

Jennifer nodded. “Yes, that’s why I moved up here to Washington.”

“Then why’d you off him?” Sunnyslope asked.

“I didn’t,” Jennifer said. “I didn’t do it.”

“Yeah,” the other woman said, “and I didn’t offer a cop a blow job.”