by Gregg Olsen
I wish she’d had an abortion. I wish Mia’s mom had had one too.
“What do you mean she made you do it?” Carter asks.
“She kept talking about it,” Luke says, a trail of mucus dropping down from his nose, his eyes raining tears all over the table’s pitted surface. “She kept pushing. Saying that we were too tied down and that being a mom was killing the authentic her. Something like that. At first I didn’t pay attention to her. She can be kind of a bitch about stuff. I thought it would just go away.”
“But it didn’t, Luke. Did it?” I ask. I try to keep my tone even, professional. I loathe Luke Tomlinson, but I intend to bring down his wife. I need him for that right now.
He knows it.
“If it wasn’t your affair with Sam,” Carter interjects, “then what?”
“It wasn’t an affair,” he says, some defensiveness creeping into his blubbery confession. “It was sex. Don’t make a big deal out of it.”
Brooklyn shared a similar point of view when she and Debbie Manning showed up at my house, but I don’t bring it up. Maybe I am old-fashioned.
“What did Mia have on you?” I ask, pulling Luke back to the motivation for an unspeakable crime.
He looks at Thom, and the lawyer nods.
“I’d been stealing stuff from work,” Luke says. “Selling it. Mia was going to blab to my boss. I like my job. I like where I work. Lots of flexibility to come and go.”
And to sext and send penis pics to guys and girls, I think.
“What kind of stuff?” Carter asks.
Luke sniffles and wipes his running nose on his county jail jumpsuit. “Cigarettes, mostly,” he says. “That’s my focus area at work. I handle the tobacco accounts. I’d go into the system, change the quantity on the invoice. Stupid tobacco companies got notification that they’d shorted our buy. Fell for it too.”
“Then you’d sell the cigarettes?” Carter asks.
“Of course,” Luke, much more composed, says to us. “I’m not that stupid. I’m not a smoker.”
“Whose idea was it to copycat the hot-car case you saw on TV?” I ask.
“Mia’s,” he says. “She was the first to look it up. She told me that it would be painless. That Ally would just fall asleep.” He starts to break down again.
“But she didn’t,” I say.
“No. She didn’t,” Luke tells us, crumpling his hands on the table. “When I went back to my car after lunch, Ally was alive. She was crying. She looked right at me. I panicked. I thought maybe I should get her out of there, but all I kept thinking was that if I did, Mia would tell. I’d lose my job. I was really good at it.”
I think of that row of employee-of-the-month award photos outside of the conference room where we interviewed Luke’s coworkers. Luke had won the award three times. I wonder if WinCo will want him to give those plaques back. Something tells me they will.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Monday, August 28
I study Mia. When people find out what I do for a living, they often ask me for insider stuff on what makes a criminal. There’s no easy answer for that. It’s a mix of nature and nurture. I’ve seen it in my own family. Stacy and I were raised in the same environment. She turned out to be a killer. I, a cop.
Ally’s mother is slumped in a chair in a room that will approximate the size of the cell that I’m certain will be her home. If I hadn’t seen her on the video, I would have doubted a mother could be so indifferent, so depraved, when it came to her child. Stacy and Mia are alike. Stacy never would have killed Emma; there would be nothing to gain. But she’d kill Cy, Emma’s father, a hurt to a child that could never be erased.
If Emma knew what her mother did.
“She doesn’t want to talk,” Carter says. “Lawyered up already.”
My eyes turn from Mia to my partner.
“That’s all right,” I say. “I’m going to do the talking.”
“You should leave it be,” he says, putting his hand on my shoulder. It’s a light touch. A gentle one. It’s meant to remind me that I can go too far. It tells me that he cares about me. He’ll be good with Emma. If it comes to that.
“I’m going in,” I say, opening the door and shutting it behind me. I know Carter is watching through the window.
Mia gives me a sideways glance.
“I told the officers I am not going to talk. I have a lawyer.”
“I know,” I say. “I’m not here to listen. I’m here to talk to you.”
“Then talk and leave,” she says.
I sit down. She’s wearing a fragrance. It smells sweet, like honeysuckle. It’s a pretty scent for such a monster.
Mia props her chin up with her arm planted on the table. It’s as if she’s in class, barely able to stay awake. So bored. So annoyed that she’s in trouble. There is a brittleness that I see in her cold stare. I know that look well. I’ve seen it in my sister’s eyes a thousand times.
“Mia, you are going away for a long time,” I say. “You understand that, right?”
“Look, Detective, I’m not going to engage with you. You don’t have anything on me. Everyone knows that my husband killed our daughter. The public is on my side. Enough said.”
With that she takes her elbow off the table and pushes back in her metal chair. The feet scrape the floor as she pushes away from me. Around her neck is a necklace that is at once familiar. It’s half of a gold coin suspended by a thick serpentine chain. It’s the other half of the necklace that Brooklyn was wearing. I think about what Debbie said to me at the door.
“She’s mixed up. Cut her some slack. Her parents died in a car crash when she was six. She’s got a good heart.”
“What is your relationship with Brooklyn?”
“She was the day care provider,” she says. “She worked for Debbie. That’s it.”
She notices my eyes fixed on the necklace.
“So we were friends. We all were. Me. Brooklyn. Luke. I can’t expect you to understand.”
I’ve heard that song before.
“Try me,” I say.
“We’re poly,” she says.
My confused expression invites her to tell me more.
“Polyamorous,” she says, clearly enjoying the disclosure. I must look like a disapproving harpy to her at that moment. “You might think of it as group sex,” she says with a know-it-all cadence, “but it’s not. It’s deeper than that. We enjoy each other. Brooklyn’s my girl.”
“Brooklyn is underage,” I say. It’s all I can come up with.
“So? She knows what she’s doing.”
“Like you,” I say.
Now she looks puzzled.
“When you pushed your weak-ass husband into killing your baby, you knew exactly what you were doing.”
“Whatever,” she says.
I leave the interview room and the creature that birthed a beautiful baby but decided that she valued her freedom over the life of her child.
“What did she say?” Carter asks me.
“I don’t even know this town anymore,” I say.
“Huh?”
“Never mind,” I tell him. “I have another monster to fight right now.”
“Stacy,” he says.
I put my arms around Carter and hold him for a minute. He hugs me back. It’s gentle. It’s kind. It’s the kind of hug that I need at that moment.
“Thank you,” I whisper in his ear, my lips so close that it’s almost a kiss. “Carrie Anne is keeping Emma overnight. I’ll be back tomorrow. I hope.”
He doesn’t say anything. Only a quick nod to indicate that he understands and he’s there to support me.
And then I leave. I know that Ally’s murder will be avenged. It gives me but a beat of comfort.
Right now I’m going to deal with my sister.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Monday, August 28
Ocean Shores, ironically, especially to me, was supposed to be a gambling mecca. My parents bought property there and put up a two-bedroom
cabin that we used on and off before Mom left us. Dad was sure that he was going to make a killing in real estate, but it never happened. Hollywood people came. I remember how excited my mom was when singer Pat Boone encouraged her dreams of stardom at a celebrity golf tournament meet and greet. Developers promised so much. Like they always do. And then, like a losing slot machine after midnight, every bit of hope about what Ocean Shores could be was gone.
The Washington coast is no Pismo Beach.
I text Stacy to meet me there at seven.
Me: Emma is excited to see you. I told her the truth.
Stacy: Surprised.
Me: I know.
Stacy: I don’t like to wait. Don’t make me.
I want to send back something about how no one makes her wait because they are afraid of her, but I don’t.
As I drive, a thought also rolls around in my agitated brain.
Am I doing this for me? Or for Emma?
My gun is resting on the passenger seat, mocking me. Challenging me.
Emma is undoubtedly watching Home Shopping Network now, Carrie Anne’s favorite, which runs most of the day in her stuffed-to-the-gills-with-kids-and-toys-and-games living room. There may be no place in the world better for her to be right now. I imagine the happy look on her face. A sleepover! She’s had a good dinner. She’s surrounded by people who love her. That’s what I want. I want her to grow up that way.
As I drive down our street, I hear the drumbeat of the Pacific. It too seems to be urging me on, reminding me with each wave: If you kill Stacy, and are lucky enough to get away with it, you will be free. Emma will be free. The world will be a safer place.
Lucky. That word reverberates in my mind. I can’t shake it. I’m a gambler in a group program that teaches that luck isn’t real. There’s no anointing of one person over another with a gift of luck.
Stacy’s rental car is parked outside our cabin, which looks to me like a pale blue shack picked up by a hurricane and plopped among driftwood and mops of sea grass. Her car looks so out of place. I park behind her and put my gun in my purse.
I’m a cop. I know how to do this. Get rid of the body. Clean up the mess. Never tell anyone what I’ve done. Not Carter. Especially not Carter. I’ll just tell everyone that my sister has gone away. Like she always does. While there is no such thing as a perfect murder, some murders are better than others. Depending on whether you are the victim or the perpetrator, of course.
The door swings open, and my sister stands there with a big smile that melts into her angry face upon seeing that Emma is nowhere to be found.
“Where is my Emma?” she asks.
“She didn’t feel well,” I mutter, unable to really find my voice. “She doesn’t want to see you.”
Stacy gives me a hard stare, so I breeze past her and survey the living room. Memories flood in instantly. There were some good times here. The best times of our childhood. It is as if the space is haunted by our memories, the echoes of our voices as girls. The renters who just moved out took good care of the place, leaving our old table and chairs. We sat at that very table as a family. That was a long, long time ago.
“You never told her, Nic,” Stacy says. “God, you are so weak. I should have never given you the option. Stupid me. Remember, fool me once . . .”
I nod. “Shame on you.”
“Fool me twice,” she says.
“Shame on me,” I say.
Stacy is a master at blame. She always has been. She always had the power in our relationship. I’d let her win when we were kids because I adored my little sister. As an adult, I let her win because I knew that winning was more important to her than it was to me. I was so stupid to look the other way. I wonder if I had stood up to her when she was a young girl or an adult, if things might be different.
If she might be different.
I pull out the gun and point it at her.
Her eyes bulge. “Oh God,” she says. “Get real. Put that away.”
“I can’t keep thinking that you’ll come back and take her, Stacy. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. But no matter what comes out of your mouth, I can never believe you. You don’t know how to tell the truth.”
I see fear in her eyes. I like that look on her. She wears it better than that J.Crew getup she’s wearing now.
“You poisoned my dog. You killed two husbands. You killed a stranger, a kid no less. He was just there to cut the lawn.”
“We’ve gone over that,” she says. “That was an accident.”
“God, Stacy, you have to be stopped. Something’s wrong with you.”
She backs away as I twist the dead bolt lock on the door.
“What are you going to do?” she asks, looking less fearful and sizing me up the way that she always did. “Shoot me then burn down this place? They’ll find me. You know they will.”
She’s right.
“Too obvious,” I say. “The cabin is in Dad’s name. They’ll come to me. I’m not as good of a liar as you are. Come to think of it, I don’t think anyone could be.”
“You are jealous of everything about me, Nicole,” Stacy says. “Even my ability to tell a lie.”
I reach for the handcuffs in my pocket. While holding the gun on my sister, I throw the cuffs on the table.
“Put those on,” I say.
She gives me her coldest, most defiant look. “I won’t,” she says.
I fire the gun into the floor, leaving a sizable bullet hole.
Stacy’s startled. So am I.
“Put those on now,” I tell her. My voice is hard, commanding.
She fidgets and looks at me. “Look,” she says, “I’ll just leave town. I promise.”
I’m not giving you an inch, I think. I’m not that stupid.
“On,” I say. “Now.”
She picks up the cuffs and snaps them onto each wrist. That look of fear is back on her face. I really don’t like how any of this feels. I imagine telling the GA group about this and having them all applaud and tell me that I’m getting better.
“Facing the demons,” one would invariably say.
Stacy is a demon. Yet, in that moment, in our family’s old beach cabin, I must be too. I haven’t thought this out, because deep down I never believed it would get this far. I never considered for one second that Stacy wanted Emma. Not really. Not the way I do. I thought she’d leave town. That she’d come to Hoquiam just to play with me like a cat does with a nearly dead sparrow, making me feel less than her and reminding me of where we came from.
And how I’m still here.
“You’re right, Stacy. We can’t do this here.”
“They’ll find my car,” she says.
I nod. “I know.”
I think of that scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and the munchkins are gathered around as the Wicked Witch of the West sinks into the beginnings of the yellow brick road. If you look closely, you can see the trapdoor rise up in a perfect square before the witch descends. I’m sinking now. I’m the witch. The trapdoor is open.
“I can’t kill you,” I finally say.
Stacy’s fear dissolves instantly. Suddenly she’s sugar in water. I’m the spoon.
“I didn’t think you could. Take these off,” she says, holding up her hands and rattling the chain between the two handcuffs.
I shake my head. “No, Stacy,” I say, “you’re right. I’m too weak to do what needs to be done. I can’t kill you.”
“I know that,” she says. “Now let me go. Take me to Emma.”
“That’s not going to happen,” I say. “Let’s go to the car. My car.”
“What are you going to do?” she asks as I keep the barrel of my gun between her shoulder blades, inching her forward to the passenger side of the car. The Pacific glows pink from the sunset. The hue washes over both of us, making me think of something beautiful in the middle of all this ugliness enveloping my sister and me.
I unlock the door. The sky is darkening.
“I’m turning us in,” I
tell her as I fasten the seat belt over her and go around to the driver’s side and get in my car.
She looks confused. Not afraid. Surprised, even. “What do you mean you’re turning us in?”
“You’re responsible for Cy’s death,” I say.
“So what? He was a pornographer.”
“Was he?” I say as I put the car into gear.
“He and that boyfriend of yours were up to their necks in that little girl’s murder.”
“Her name was Kelsey Chase,” I say.
“You said us,” she says. “What do you mean us?”
I glance at her. How is it that she can pick and choose what bothers her? The rest of us can’t shake it off.
“Tomas Vargas,” I say. “That’s on me as much as it’s on you. Maybe I can live with Cy’s death. Julian’s too. Not an innocent teenager’s.”
Stacy turns to look out the passenger window. “How many times do I have to tell you that was an accident?”
“It was,” I say. “A terrible accident. One that never would have happened if I hadn’t trusted you. You played me. Like always.”
“Calm down,” she says.
The funny thing is, I am calm.
“I was going to kill you, Stacy. Really. I was. I thought that was the best course, because that meant I’d be able to live my life, take care of your daughter. Break the chains of weirdness that made both of us who we are.”
From the corner of my eye, I notice how my sister is struggling silently with the cuffs.
“You’re an idiot, Nicole,” she says. “If you confess to what you knew about the propane explosion, you’ll go to prison too.”
I nod. “Probably. Though not as long as you. But, yes, probably.”
“I am not going to prison.”
I hear her voice as a girl just then: I am not going to school!
The two-lane highway winds along the Pacific, and as I look out over the water, I wonder when I will see it again. Or Emma. When will I see her again? Will Carter be able to explain to her that I was trying to do the right thing for her?
