“Yeah,” Mary said. “I guess she just grew up. She decided she doesn’t want to be here anymore. So she left.”
“Nothing happened around here to make her want to leave?” Toni asked.
Before Mary could answer, Toni continued. “Usually, kids don’t just up and leave for no reason. Usually, something happens that makes them feel like they need to leave. It doesn’t always make sense to us as adults, but it does to them. Did something happen that made Isabel feel like she needed to leave?”
Mary looked at Toni. “What do you mean? Something like what?”
“Anything,” Toni said. “Anything at all that might have caused Isabel to feel like she needed to leave home.”
Mary hesitated and then shook her head. She didn’t say anything.
“Did the two of you get along?”
Mary closed her eyes tightly. Was she trying to hide something? She nodded. “Yeah, we got along fine. We’ve been through a lot together.”
“So you’d say the relationship between the two of you was good?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Did the two of you talk about things?” Toni asked. “I mean, if Isabel had a problem, would she come to you with it?”
Mary thought about this for a moment. “Well, first off-I work swing shift. I’m only home for two nights a week, so we never had the chance to talk too much. But other than that, yeah-I think we were okay.”
“So you don’t think she had any problems with you, right?”
Mary looked away for a moment, and then she shook her head and said, “I don’t think so. She had no reason to have any problems with me.”
“How about your husband? Did Isabel get along well with him?”
Mary didn’t answer, but I could see tears start to form in her eyes. Toni noticed, too, so she slowed down and changed directions.
“How long have you been married?” Toni asked.
“Almost five years,” Mary said.
“And during this time, have you always worked late?”
“Yeah, at Lynnwood Memorial in the admitting office.”
“Okay,” she said. “And your husband-does he work swing shift also?”
Mary shook her head. “No, he works days. He goes in at seven and gets off at four. He’s a mechanic at Auto Express.”
“So basically, he’s alone with Isabel almost every night,” Toni said.
Mary realized what Toni was getting at. She slowly started to nod her head.
“Did Isabel ever talk to you about any problems she might have had with your husband?” Toni said.
Mary shook her head. “No. She never said anything.”
Toni stared hard at her. “Would she have? Would she have said something?”
Mary thought for a few moments and then shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope so.”
“Well, let me ask a different question. What do you think? I mean, do you think it’s possible that something happened between Isabel and your husband? And if it did, could that something have caused Isabel to run away?”
Mary’s eyes filled with tears again, and she clenched her hands together tightly. She turned to look at me and then turned back to Toni. “I don’t think so,” she said.
“If you don’t think so,” Toni said, “why are you getting so emotional?”
“I don’t like what you’re implying.”
It was quiet for a few seconds. “It’s ugly,” I said. “And we’re sorry.”
“Look,” Toni said. “Mary-I don’t know what kind of relationship you have with your husband. But I’m asking you, for just a moment, to put it aside. Think only about Isabel for just a moment. She’s out there somewhere. She’s alone, and she needs your help like never before. She’s your daughter. Speaking completely honestly, do you think it’s possible that something happened between Isabel and your husband? Something that caused Isabel to leave?”
Mary looked up at the ceiling and thought for a second. “It’s possible, I suppose. Maybe.”
Toni nodded. “Okay, Mary. This won’t be easy for you to hear, but you’re Isabel’s mother, so you have the right to hear it. I want you to know that our client told us that Isabel specifically said that your husband raped her the night before her sixteenth birthday.”
Mary bit her lower lip and continued to look up at the ceiling. The tears now flowed down her face.
Toni continued. “We were told that Isabel said he raped her, and that that’s why she ran away.”
Mary dropped her head and stared at the floor. She shook her head silently.
“In your opinion,” Toni said, “could that have happened?”
Mary hesitated, then, after a few seconds, she slowly nodded her head. “I didn’t know,” she said quietly.
“You didn’t know, but did you suspect something like this was happening?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t even suspect,” she said. “I wasn’t suspicious. I never put things together. . But it fits.” She paused to take a deep, hitching breath. “She changed,” she continued. “Izzy changed.”
“How so?”
“She was more withdrawn-more inside herself. When she was a little girl, she was always happy and outgoing. She had lots of friends. She loves to sing-she used to sing all the time. The past few years, she’s more quiet. She stays up in her room. I thought it was because she was getting older-growing up.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t know,” she said quietly. “It’s happening too fast. I don’t know what to think.”
It was quiet for a few seconds, and then Toni said, “Mary, if this happened-and it sounds like it might have-or at least it could have. Anyway, if it happened, this is a very serious crime.”
“I didn’t know,” Mary said again.
“I understand,” Toni said. “And like we said earlier, we’re not here to see you get in trouble.”
“That’s right,” I said. “If Isabel didn’t confide in you, and if you didn’t have clear evidence as to what happened, I don’t think you have any legal worries. But that’s not really the issue with us anyway. The police and the district attorney worry about that kind of stuff. We’ve been asked to look into Isabel’s disappearance. I’m sure our client is more interested in finding Isabel than in the legal aspects of this case.”
Mary nodded.
I continued. “But that said, there’s a few things that need to happen now-a few things you should do to protect yourself.”
She looked at me.
“First off, you need to file a missing person report right away. Do you understand?”
“Okay.”
“You’ll do that with the Lynnwood Police Department,” Toni said.
Mary nodded.
“Even if your husband doesn’t want to. Do it on your own. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“It’s important, because we’ll be talking to the police tomorrow or the next day as part of our investigation. You don’t want them to hear from us that Isabel is missing. They should hear this from you. Today. Got it?”
“Yes.”
Let me ask you something,” I said. “Is your husband-Tracey’s his name, right?”
She nodded.
“Is he physically abusive towards you? Has he ever hit you?”
Mary’s face contorted and she started crying again. She nodded.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I understand,” I said. “Then we’ll need to be very careful. Will he become violent if he knows you talked to us?”
She shook her head. “Probably not just for talking,” she said. “He doesn’t do it very often.” She paused and then added, “I sure can’t tell him what we talked about, though.”
“No, you don’t want to do that. If he or anyone else asks, you tell ‘em we stopped by to ask some questions about Isabel, but you didn’t tell us anything other than she’s gone and you don’t know anything else. Okay?”
She nodded. It was silent for a moment, and then she sa
id, “He’s not a bad person, you know.”
I looked at her, shocked at what I’d heard. “Who’s that?” I asked. “You mean the guy that beats you up and raped your fifteen-year-old daughter? That guy? Come on, Mary. You’re going to sit here and say he’s not a bad person?”
Toni put her hand on my arm to get me to back off a little.
Mary looked at me.
I made sure I was well under control before I continued. “Don’t kid yourself,” I said. “Bad people don’t come with a sign stapled to their chest. You admit the guy’s violent around you. That’s bad enough. But if he molested or raped your own daughter? If he did that-and she says he did-then Mary, I think he’s a monster.” I paused and then said, “Think about it. I look in your eyes, and I can see that you’re scared of the guy. Terrified, really. Am I right?”
She looked at me without speaking. Her eyes said I was right.
“Well, scared as you are-remember-you’re an adult. You’re a grown woman. Imagine how it must feel to a little girl-a fifteen-year-old girl-knowing she has nowhere to go, no one to turn to.”
Mary stared at me. Her face was red and puffy from crying.
“I’m willing to apply the innocent-until-proven-guilty rule to the guy. I don’t know him. And I don’t know Isabel well enough to know if she’s telling the truth or not. But you do, don’t you? You know.”
She continued to look at me.
“You do for sure,” I continued. “And I can see in your eyes that you believe her. You believe your daughter.”
It was quiet for a few seconds, and then she asked, “If he did something-something to Isabel-what will happen to him?”
“Listen,” I said. “If it can be proven that your husband raped your fifteen year old daughter-that’s called second-degree rape in Washington state. It’s a class A felony. He could go to prison for ten years or more, and he’ll have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.” I paused and then added, “And if you ask me, that’s damn lenient. There’s nothing he can do to pay back what he took from your daughter.”
She sniffed and thought about this for a second. Then she said, “What if it can’t be proven?”
I thought about this for a second. “Then I guess life goes on,” I said. “Even if it can’t be proven, you’ll still know the truth. You’ll have to decide what you want to do-whether or not you want to live with the guy. But it will be your choice.”
She nodded. I felt sorry for her. She went to work every day. She was doing her best to provide for her family. Unwittingly, she’d allowed a monster into her home. She’d have to come to grips with that and, I hoped, do the right thing. But it would be hard to come to grips with and even harder to confront.
“Would you mind showing us Isabel’s room?” Toni asked.
Mary nodded. “Okay.” She gestured toward the stairs. “It’s upstairs.”
We followed her upstairs and down the hall. Isabel’s room was on the front side of the house.
“She kept it a little cluttered,” Mary said as she led us through the doorway. We looked around and surveyed the room.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Toni said. “It looks just like a teenage girl’s bedroom’s supposed to look.”
A large Justin Bieber poster was on one wall; a Selena Gomez poster on another. Isabel’s dresser held several bottles of inexpensive perfume. A bulletin board was mounted on the wall next to the dresser mirror.
Toni and I noticed a strip of four pictures on the bulletin board-the kind of photos you get from a booth at a mall. Kelli Blair and another dark-haired girl were posing in them-clowning around. Other than the posters, these were the only photos in the room.
“Is this Isabel?” I asked, pointing to the pictures.
Mary nodded. “Yes. Isabel’s the one on the left. That was earlier this year I think.”
Isabel was a pretty girl. In the photo, she and Kelli were cracking up-looked like they’d been having a great time.
“Who’s this other girl?” I asked. Seemed like a natural question, and I wanted to keep Kelli’s relationship with us hidden.
“That’s Isabel’s friend Kelli,” Mary said. “She lives nearby.”
“Do you know her last name?” I asked.
She thought for a second and then said, “Sorry. I don’t”
“Well, maybe we can get it at school. Would you mind if we borrowed this picture and made some copies?”
“No, I don’t mind.”
I unpinned the photo strip and stuck it in my notebook. The pictures served two purposes. First, we needed a good picture of Isabel to show around if we were going to be looking for her. Second, I’d just as soon leave no reminders of Kelli in Isabel’s room-reminders for her stepfather to glom onto.
We had what we needed, so we headed back downstairs.
At that moment, a shiny white Ford F150 pulled up in front of the house.
“Company,” Toni said.
“Oh my God,” Mary said. “It’s Tracey. He’s home from work.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s not a problem. Somebody was bound to come looking for Isabel, right? That’s us. We’ll stand here like we were just getting ready to leave. You’ve got our cards. Stash them in your purse there, and call us anytime you want. After today, we won’t be back in contact with you unless we absolutely have to. If we do need to get ahold of you, we’ll call you while you’re at work. If you can’t talk, we’ll leave a number and you can call us on a break or something.”
She nodded. “Find her,” she said. “Please.”
I nodded. “We will.”
I watched through the living room window as Isabel’s stepfather got out of his truck and started walking toward the house.
Tracey Webber was tall-maybe a couple of inches taller than me, and I’m six one. He was a big guy, and he had a bit of a belly-but there was a lot of muscle there, too. My guess is he weighed two-thirty or so. He wore black work boots, dark blue mechanics pants and a matching shirt with his name stitched on the left breast in silver cursive. The shirt was un-tucked, and both shirt and pants had grease stains-some looked recent; some looked like they’d been there awhile. He was dirty and sweaty and he looked like he’d had a long day. He stopped as he came through the door and checked us out. He had the confident big-guy swagger of a man who’d been through many scraps and knew he could take care of himself. He also had a mean face.
“Hi, honey,” Mary said as she walked over to greet him. She stopped short of hugging him when she saw up close how grimy he was.
Webber said nothing and looked past Mary toward us. “Honey, these people are private investigators,” Mary said, anticipating his questions before he had a chance to voice them. “They’ve stopped by to ask some questions about Isabel.”
He seemed to consider this for a second, before he said, “Why?”
The fact that his sixteen-year-old stepdaughter had been missing a month wasn’t a big deal for him, I guess. Either that, or he already knew why and was just playing dumb.
“Mr. Webber,” I said, “I’m Danny Logan. This is my associate Toni Blair.” He looked us over. I should say, he glanced at me briefly but took his time checking Toni out. This was something I’d gotten used to, but I didn’t like the look in his eyes. Still, I’m a professional-I bottled it up. “We’ve been retained to look into Isabel’s disappearance,” I said. True-not counting the retainer part.
When I mentioned Isabel’s name, he turned back and looked at me, a little more carefully now. His cold, penetrating blue eyes sized me up. So far, my thirty-second snap judgment was that Tracey Webber was a purely physical guy-someone not too burdened by cerebral concerns. I’m usually pretty accurate with these assessments.
“What’s to look into?” he said, breaking eye contact with me and moving to the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room. “She ran away. Been gone a month now, and it don’t look like she’s coming back.” He set his keys on the counter and looked back at us. “Want a
beer?”
“No, thanks,” I said. He walked around the bar into the kitchen, where he got a bottle of Rainier Beer from the refrigerator. He twisted the top off and left it on the counter. He took a long pull from the bottle before turning around.
“Who’d you say you’re working for?” he asked, as he walked back into the living room.
“We didn’t say,” I said. “Our client wishes to remain confidential.”
“Hmm,” he snorted. “That’s pretty chickenshit. What’re they hiding from?”
I smiled. “A pretty fair number of our clients wish to keep their identities hidden. You shouldn’t read anything into that,” I said. I wanted to try to take control of the conversation. “We were just about to leave, but since you’re home, would you mind if we ask you a few questions? We talked to your wife for a few minutes, but she wasn’t able to shed much light on the situation, since evidently she works swing shift and isn’t home much.”
He looked at Mary, then back at me. “Let’s do it,” he said, confidently. He took a long drink from his beer-probably draining half the bottle. “Think I’ll have a seat. Been standin’ all day long.”
“By all means,” I said. He plopped himself onto a bar stool and took another shot from his beer bottle, draining it all the way. Then he smacked it down on the bar. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked up at me. I halfway expected him to belch, but he didn’t.
“Fire away, Chief,” he said.
“Okay. As I said, we’re trying to figure out where Isabel went. If we can find her, we’re hoping we can talk her into coming back home.”
“Hmmm,” he snorted. “Good luck with that.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Seems to me she’s been acting like she couldn’t wait to get away from here for the past two years or so.”
“What makes you think that? Has she run away before?”
He shook his head. “Nah. She never ran before. She just comes home from school and then scoots on up to her room and closes the door. She acts like she don’t want nothing to do with this family.”
Can’t imagine why not. “Understood,” I said. “Teenagers can be a handful.”
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