J. Jance - Betrayal of Trust

“Too bad,” Ross said. “I was hoping you’d find something that would help us.”

“So was I,” I said.

I could hear a public address system talking in the background.

“Oops,” Ross said. “They just called my flight. I need to go.”

He hung up. I stripped off my shorts, T-shirt, and flip-flops in favor of something a little more official-looking. If Mel and I were going to drive to Packwood that night to tell some poor unsuspecting parents that their precious daughter had most likely been murdered, then I wanted to look the part. That difficult assignment requires a certain amount of gravitas. In my book, it also requires a sports jacket and a tie, no exceptions. For those kinds of occasions, Mel favors a tailored suit and low heels. It’s what we do.

Once we were both properly put together, we refreshed Mel’s ice pack and rode down to the car. Mel insisted on bringing along our computers and our air cards in case we had any waiting time on our hands later.

I happen to know that Packwood is in the far reaches of Lewis County, within ten miles or so of Mount Rainier and right up against the edge of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. I thought the likelihood of our having an Internet connection from way out there was slim to none, but I packed up the computers without a word of complaint and carted them down to the car.

Mel is one of those women who are capable of and usually prefer to open and close doors all by themselves. This time she kept the ice on her hand and made no remark about my dashing around the car and playing the role of gentleman. And once we were belted in and headed toward the freeway, she did absolutely zero backseat driving. None.

It occurred to me, somewhere along the way between Olympia and Chehalis, that her taking a swing that had connected with Dr. Larry Mowat’s front tooth might turn out to be an excellent thing in terms of our own personal domestic tranquillity.

Ross Connors, the Washington State Attorney general, weighs in as a statewide elected official. That makes those of us who have the privilege of working for him employees of a statewide elected official. Over the years I’ve learned that some places are a lot more welcoming to people who work for Special Homicide than others.

It turned out that, as far as the Lewis County Sheriff’s Department was concerned, Ross Connors was golden. Since Mel and I worked for him, so were we. We arrived in Chehalis well after five, but Sheriff Louis Tyler was waiting for us with the light on and the welcome mat out. He asked for the nurse practitioner from the Lewis County Jail to come over and take a look at Mel’s injured hand. Then we all settled in to wait for Deputy David Timmons to arrive from Packwood.

But there was more to Sheriff Tyler’s hospitality than just good manners. “You’re Special Homicide,” he said. “So what’s your interest in a fifteen-year-old runaway from my jurisdiction?”

It was a reasonable question that merited a straight answer.

“We think there’s a good possibility that Rachel is dead,” I said. “And we have reason to believe that her death might be related to the possible suicide of a boy in Olympia, a kid named Josh Deeson, one of whose guardians happens to be Governor Marsha Longmire.”

Sheriff Tyler thought about that for a long moment before he nodded. “Hold on,” he said, “I’ll be right back.”

He returned a few minutes later carrying a stack of paper folders.

“This is the third time Rachel Camber has run away. If you look at these, they may give you some idea of why.”

He shoved the file folders across his desk. Mel took one off the stack. I took another. I ended up with the mother’s file-Ardith Louise Haskell Camber Mills Stapleton. Unfortunately there was a mug shot. Think of any frowsy blonde you’ve ever seen in one of the domestic-violence clips on Cops -several missing teeth, stringy hair, and a nose that showed evidence of having been broken numerous times. Not an American beauty. The birth date listed made her thirty-two, although she looked decades older than that. And if she had a whole series of ex-husbands and a fifteen-year-old runaway daughter in the background, it was simple to do the math. Babies having babies is seldom a good idea, although Kelly and Jeremy, my daughter and son-in-law, seem to be exceptions to that rule.

I thumbed through the file. Ardith had arrests and convictions for DUI, domestic violence, drunk and disorderly, and disturbing the peace. She had been charged with child neglect, but there was no conviction on that one.

“And the men are?” Mel asked.

“Husbands and ex-husbands,” Tyler said. “She marries them, they beat her up, they leave her with a kid or two, and then she gets a divorce and moves on.”

“How many kids?” Mel asked.

“Six, I believe, but don’t quote me,” Tyler said.

“How does she support them all?” Mel asked.

“Let’s say she doesn’t get much child support from her exes,” Tyler said. “She works as a bartender in a low-life bar in Randle. She also may get some government help. The current man in her life is Ken Broward, who signed on after her last arrest. Kenny used to make a decent living driving log trucks. He’s been off work for months. They called him and wanted him to come back today. He couldn’t on account of not being able to locate Rachel. He needed her to look after the younger kids. He’s the one who turned in the missing persons report.”

“Not the mother,” Mel said.

“No,” Sheriff Tyler said. “Not the mother.”

Mel and I traded glances and folders. I gave her the thick one on Ardith, and she gave me the ones that dealt with the parade of lowlifes in Ardith’s life. I thumbed through them.

“Nothing on Ken Broward?” I asked.

“Not so far as I know,” Sheriff Tyler said. “From what I’ve been able to learn about him, Ken’s a straight arrow. Ardith’s lucky to have him, and Ardith’s kids are even luckier.”

“Except for Rachel,” Mel said. “Rachel’s definitely not better off. Maybe we should show Sheriff Tyler that video. He should know what we’re up against. He’ll know if there have been any other cases of that around here.”

Mel had loaded the clip onto her iPhone. She started it playing and then handed the phone to Sheriff Tyler. He watched it through with no comment other than a tightening of the muscles along his jawline. When the clip finished, he handed the phone back to Mel.

“Choking game,” he said quietly. “We’ve had a few instances of that around here, mostly with junior high school kids. By the time kids are Rachel’s age, they find other ways to get high, like stealing their parents’ prescription drugs or raiding their parents’ liquor cabinets.”

“Any deaths?” I asked.

He grimaced. “What do you call landing in a vegetative state at age twelve? Close but no cigar? Her name is Kim Hope from Pe Ell. Hope-that’s a hell of a name for a kid like that because, as near as I can tell, she doesn’t have any. She’s on a ventilator and a feeding tube and stuck in a nursing home for the rest of her life because her parents don’t believe in pulling the plug no matter what. But I’m guessing there are times in the middle of the night when her parents find themselves wishing she had been found and cut down a few minutes later, when it was all over. The other choking game victim, Richey Kincaid from Toledo, was lucky. He came away with nothing but rope burns around his neck. His mother heard him making a strange noise and came to check on him. Kim’s mother heard a noise, too, but she was doing something else and didn’t pay attention until it was too late.”

“No one else was implicated in either case?” I asked.