J. Jance - Betrayal of Trust

“Would Ron Miller’s film partner happen to be a guy named Owen Wetmore, by any chance?” I asked.

Ross shot me a look and nodded. He didn’t ask me how I knew that, and I didn’t tell him.

“Does Owen drive a green pickup truck?” I asked.

Ross nodded. “As a matter of fact, he does-a dark green Chevy Silverado.”

Inside the room, Mel moved the pizza box aside and pushed a blue-lined notepad in front of Gizzy. “Write it all down,” she said, handing her a pen. “When you’re finished, sign it.”

“All of it?” Gizzy asked faintly.

“All of it,” Mel told her.

Mel stood up and stretched. Then she picked up another piece of pizza, came to the door, and knocked on it. We let her out.

Gizzy Longmire wrote her life-and-death essay for the better part of an hour. By the time she finally finished it, signed it, and handed it over to Mel, Joan Hoyt had already obtained a search warrant for the Ronald Miller residence on North Cooper Point Road. After dropping Giselle off at Olympia PD for booking, we went there, too, where officers from the Washington State Patrol, along with the arson detectives from Olympia, were already in the process of executing the search warrant. On the sidelines an outraged Ronald Miller, Senior, and his rudely awakened attorney ranted and raved to no effect. They might be able to run roughshod over any and all comers in a courtroom, but crime scenes are cops’ turf, not theirs.

And that’s what this was. As soon as we stepped into the caretaker’s cottage I knew we had found the place where Rachel Camber had played her fictional role as well as her real one. The soiled mattress on the narrow cot in one corner of the room told the story of her imprisonment and death, as did the very expensive video equipment that still stood in the center of the room.

Ron Miller may have staged more than one phony snuff video, but someone had failed to give him the memo that, in real life, death isn’t a pretty picture. When a body stops working, there are consequences in terms of bodily functions. Nothing in Ron Miller’s life experience had taught him the necessity of cleaning up his own crap, and he hadn’t done so in this case, either.

It took hours to process the scene. The same Washington State Patrol crime scene team that had come to Josh Deeson’s bedroom appeared for a return engagement. They took photos dogged by Mel, who took her own photos while I cataloged each and every shot. By the time we finally left there to return to the Red Lion, the sky was starting to lighten. It was only four-thirty, but morning comes early in the Pacific Northwest at the start of summer.

We went back to our room and stripped off our clothing. Mel removed her makeup, and we both fell into bed. Mel was asleep instantly-the sleep of the just, as we call it. It took two Aleves and the better part of forty-five minutes before I was able to fall asleep, still hearing Ron’s words echoing in my head: “You and who else, old man?”

Much later it was the sound of Mel’s key in the lock that woke me. She came into the sun-filled room carrying a tray loaded with a coffeepot, two cups, two salad plates with silverware, a pair of napkins, and an enormous bowl of cut-up fresh fruit-several different kinds of melon, raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries.

“Ready to sit up and take nourishment?” she asked. She looked great.

“What time is it?”

“Twelve-thirty.”

“I guess we missed checkout time.”

“I guess so,” she agreed. “But we don’t have much time. Ross expects us at Josh Deeson’s funeral, which starts at two. He wants us there for the funeral and for the press conference afterward.”

Ross is our boss, and an order is an order. I took two Aleves. I drank coffee. I ate fruit. Then I crawled out of bed, limped into the bathroom, and took a long hot shower.

Josh’s simple service was accompanied by mountains of floral arrangements and was conducted in the open air on the lawn outside the governor’s mansion. It was pretty much a standard funeral service. When the minister opened the microphone for comments, I was surprised to see Zoe Longmire slip out of her spot next to her mother and make her way to the podium.

Her words were simple and heartfelt. “Josh lived with our family,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t know him better. I’ll miss him.”

It was graceful. It was charming. It set the tone, and I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised because Zoe, like Gizzy, is her mother’s daughter.

Once Zoe sat down, a pimply-faced kid who said his name was Chipper Lawson stood up and talked about how Josh Deeson had helped him learn to play chess and that he was grateful. It cheered me to know that Josh had had at least one friend at Olympia High, someone who wasn’t Sam Dysart. And I made a note to myself to pass Chipper’s name along to the Sex Crimes guys in Olympia. If Dysart had made a habit of targeting socially needy kids, Chipper would have been another likely target.

There were several kids present, some of whom I recognized as having been at the scene of the Janie’s House fire. The only one of those that I knew by name was Greg Alexander. Dressed in a white shirt and tie, he stood to one side after the graveside service, talking quietly with Zoe.

Of all the kids we had met in the past few days, Greg seemed the most upright. Considering his troubled family background, I knew he was coming from a long way behind go, but somehow I sensed that he was going to make something of himself no matter what.

Giselle had been arrested the night before, but because she had not yet been formally charged, her name had not made it into the papers. I would assume that people at the service were puzzled by her absence, but no one mentioned it in my hearing.

It was late in the afternoon when we finally trooped back to the governor’s mansion where, flanked by Gerry Willis, Ross Connors, and Lieutenant Governor Roger Sikes, Governor Marsha Longmire stood in the shade of the mansion’s front portico and faced an army of microphones and cameras.

The press release announcing the briefing had given no indication of what was about to happen and didn’t contain any advance notice of the governor’s remarks. All it said was that she would be making an important announcement and that she would take no questions.

I watched Marsha Gray Longmire take her place behind the microphones with her customary grace and with her head held high. She waited for silence, then cleared her throat and began to speak.

“As you know, our family has been beset by tragedies this week, not only by the death of our ward, my husband’s grandson, Josh Deeson, but also by learning that our daughter Giselle has been taken into custody here in Olympia due to her part in some illegal activities that went on without her parents’ knowledge or approval. We are deeply saddened by the harm that her actions may have inflicted on other people and other families.

“In view of that, I can no longer function in this office. I thereby resign the post of governor, effective immediately. I have presented my letter of resignation to Attorney General Ross Connors and have notified Lieutenant Governor Sikes of my intention. My family will be moving out of the governor’s mansion as soon as those details can be arranged. In the meantime, I hope you will respect our need for privacy as we deal with these appalling events. Thank you.”

With that, she turned away. Then both she and Gerry Willis disappeared through the mansion’s massive front doors, closing them firmly. By the time the group of stunned journalists rumbled to life, she was gone, and newly installed Governor Roger Sikes, with Ross Connors’s capable help, was left to deal with the media fallout.