Shocking True Story

by Gregg Olsen

  She noticed my eyes on her jewelry.

  “Like it? My publisher gave it to me. It's one-of-a-kind. White gold and platinum. I don't even want to tell you what its worth.”

  Platinum. White gold. I cringed. My publisher only sent me a Christmas card, and that invariably arrived in mid-January. What was it with her book, anyway?

  “You're not staying here,” I said harshly, though I tempered my words with a smile. In case she was the Next Big Thing, I'd want to send her a copy of my next book for a blurb for the cover. I detested her, but I might need her.

  “Kevin, I'm so sorry for the piece on Inside Edition. Don't hate me. It's those damn producers. You know they cut here and cut there until they get the words they want out of your mouth.”

  I kept my foot planted firmly against the inside of the door.

  “Gee, Wanda-Lou, I recall you saying something about there being a 'desperation about Mr. Ryan.' Kind of hard to put those words in someone's mouth—unless you say them, of course,” I said.

  “Val home?” she asked, craning her neck to see past me. “Love to see her and the girls, too.”

  “We're eating dinner now.”

  “Great, I haven't eaten.” She pushed on the door hard enough to make me wince, and I let her inside. “Besides, you kind of owe me, anyway.”

  “How's that?” I asked, irritated that I hadn't slammed the door in her face when I had the chance. New dental veneers or not.

  “Your Love You to Death story. I sent the girl to you.”

  I didn't know what she was talking about.

  “Come again?”

  “The daughter and sister of those two Timberlake women at Riverstone. I met her at a book signing at the Tacoma Barnes & Noble. I met a lot of the lost and weird at the signing—sold almost one hundred books, though. Ninety-four, to be exact. I did the signing after I did that noon news spot,” she said as I followed her through the living room. “Still haven't got our couch recovered, huh?”

  “My couch. Not ours.” I was about to ask her more about her encounter with Jett, but Wanda-Lou plowed right into the kitchen and put her arms around my startled wife. I could see Valerie recoil like a frightened snake.

  “Val! Oh, Val! I hope we're still friends. Sorry for the nasty, nasty way Inside Edition turned out. Not my fault. I plead not guilty!”

  “I'm sure,” Valerie said, gently pushing away the new and improved Wanda-Lou.

  Wanda-Lou spun around to face Taylor and Hayley, looking them up and down. “Girls, you've grown! Lots of little changes happening, I see.”

  My daughters blushed and barely acknowledged our mealtime intruder. I could see the look in their eyes that I knew meant: Please Dad, don't let Wanda-Lou live with us again. We'll be good.

  “Wanda-Lou was telling me all about her friend, Jett Carter,” I said.

  “Her friend?” Val looked as surprised as I had been.

  Wanda-Lou slid a chair over and plucked a tomato wedge from Taylor's salad.

  “She's not a friend. She just wanted to meet you. Didn't she tell you?”

  I knew she hadn't. “Probably,” I said. “Guess it just slipped my mind.”

  “She's read all of your books, her mother was in prison, her sister, too.” Wanda-Lou stopped to regard Taylor's icy stare which meant: Keep off my plate! “She wanted to have you sign the books and hoped you'd be interested in hearing her story.”

  “I was,” I admitted reluctantly.

  “So it was all right that I gave her your address?”

  I shrugged. I remembered how Wanda-Lou had tricked me when she asked for our address and ended up using it as a road map for free lodging.

  “It's okay,” I mumbled.

  “Cute girl. She'd been wanting to meet you for some time.”

  “We like her. Just don't give out the address again, Wanda-Lou.”

  Valerie fixed another plate and set it in front of Wanda-Lou.

  “This reminds me of old times,” she gushed. “Here I am with the Ryans sitting at the table of my old place.”

  Over the next half hour, Wanda-Lou blabbed about her success. She was doing seminars for survivors of incest and those who lost cousins (“losing a cousin is like losing a limb off the family tree of your life”). Her second book was due out in five months. She dropped the word hardcover like an anvil on my foot. Her appearance on Inside Edition boosted A Cousin's Loss to the top fifty on the USA Today list.

  “Did any of your titles get a bounce?” she asked. “Any publicity is good publicity, you know.”

  I knew the theory. I knew it all too well. I had been besieged by bad publicity since the day Mrs. Parker was poisoned and stabbed.

  “Big bounce,” I lied. “Murder Cruise sold out at the chains.”

  “Oh, Kevin, that's fabulous! You just might make it in hardcover yet. I'm so proud of you. I've always hoped that you'd enjoy the same kind of success I have. I owe all of mine to you.”

  Her words stung. She was proud of me? I wanted to stab her with my fork, but I knew that she'd just use it as another example of my violent temper that caused her to be in fear for her safety during the ten years she would say she lived with us as a prisoner in our basement.

  “Thanks, Wanda-Lou, for the vote of confidence. It really means a lot to all of us. Speaking of which, I almost forgot tonight is curriculum night at the school. We have to get out of here. Sorry.”

  Wanda-Lou picked a piece of lettuce out of her appliance-white, bonded teeth.

  “Gee. I guess I better go...to a motel or somewhere. My seminar's in Traverston tomorrow....”

  “Try the Blue Water Inn in Kingston,” Val said, turning off lights and ushering us all out the front door. “Rooms are clean. Rates reasonable.”

  Wanda-Lou fished in her purse as I locked the door. “I brought your key back,” she said. She placed a single house key into the palm of my hand.

  I regarded her with skepticism. “Didn't know you had one.”

  “Val had it made for me. She was so sweet to me.”

  As we drove off for ice cream and not for the fictitious curriculum night, we all hoped that was the last we'd seen of Wanda-Lou Webster. Deep down I knew fate would continue to be cruel in that regard. Wanda-Lou Webster was probably going to make millions. She was the one on the USA Today list! Not me. I could have killed her.

  “Val, you'll be glad to know Wanda-Lou returned her house key.”

  Valerie looked puzzled.

  “The one you had made for her.”

  “I did no such thing. I couldn't stand the woman and you know it. I wouldn't give her a key to our out house if we had one.”

  ♦

  ICE CREAM EATEN AND CAVITIES INCUBATING, the girls were in bed and Val and I were getting ready for the end of yet another day that had somehow evolved into something beyond our control. Wanda-Lou had that peculiar effect on all of us. I drew my wife a hot bath until the water ran cold. I shook in some Calgon and nearly gagged at the cloying lilac scent that drifted through the hot moist air.

  “God, how much did you put in?” Val said as she stared at water so purple it almost looked indigo.

  “Too much, huh?”

  “A lighter touch on the lilac, Kevin, and Calgon will still take me away.”

  She slipped into the water and she was right where I wanted her—trapped. I sat on the floor.

  “I've been thinking about what Wanda-Lou said about Jett.”

  “Me, too. Don't tell me you think she's one of those crime groupies?”

  I didn't think that at all. I had grown fond of Jett. We all had. She had that horrible mother and rotten sister, and as far as I knew, she had no one but us.

  “No. But, you know, as much as I know about her family, seems like I should know more about her.”

  “Like what?” Val eyed a legal thriller she had been reading and I knew I was losing her interest.

  I slid the paperback out of reach. “After we talk, you can read.”

  Val slumped lower into
the purple water. “I know she's just twenty-one, but it seems like there should be more going on in her life. More I could learn about.”

  “Maybe there is. Maybe she has a boyfriend? Maybe she's been divorced?”

  I shook my head. I didn't think so.

  “I feel bad that she didn't tell me she got our address from Wanda-Lou Webster.”

  “You're the investigative crime reporter. Do a little digging on her. See what you come up with.”

  I picked up a washcloth and dipped it into the water.

  “Want me to wash your back?”

  Val shook her head. “No. I want you to give me my book.”

  ♦

  I CALLED MY FRIEND AT THE DEPARTMENT OF Motor Vehicles in Olympia. Brandon and I had gone to college together and whenever I needed a name checked through the system, he did so over the phone. There was nothing illegal about it; it only expedited a process available to anyone with five dollars and a name. We chatted about old times while he waited for access into the state's database. A couple of minutes later he had a hit.

  Jett L. Carter, 1771 Beverly Street, Apt. 2-E, Timberlake, Washington.

  I already knew that, of course.

  “Brand, you got a previous for her?”

  “Just a second...Yeah. Here it is: 21 Maplewood, Winters, Washington.”

  “Anything else you can tell me?”

  “Yeah, the driver's license was issued in June of this year.”

  The date was odd. “She told me her birthday was in January.”

  “It is in January. January 4. The weird thing is this is the state's first issuance to her as a driver. The previous issuance was only a state ID card.”

  I verified the address once more.

  “It makes sense, I guess,” I said. “She'd been in and out of foster homes since she was eleven.”

  Brandon put me on hold. I listened to a commercial for the state's tourism board extolling the “Wonders of Washington” until he came back on the line.

  “Hey, Kevin, foster care ends at the age of eighteen. The address in Winters isn't a foster home.”

  Chapter Forty

  Thursday, October 31

  WINTERS, WASHINGTON, WAS EAST of the Cascade Range, the rugged spine of mountains that cuts the Evergreen State in two like a giant, inverted saw blade. On the west side of the mountains was rain and a bulging population of millions. On the east side was irrigated land and a vast community primarily consisting of wheat and apple growers. Winters was a tiny town known for beer gardens in the summer and alpine skiing in the winter. Winters had tried to make a go of it as Bavarian-themed town ala Solvang in California, but the idea never caught fire. A bank, a restaurant and a garage were the only buildings to convert to gingerbread and tole. Even so, on busy weekends beer-gutted men in lederhosen mingled with tourists and oompa bands.

  Val took the day off and agreed to go along—if we “didn't have to rush and could enjoy the drive.” She brought her digital Nikon along and a camera bag full of no-longer-useful lens filters, relics from days when special effects were taken with the camera and not through the magic of Photoshop. The seasons moved more quickly in the Cascade foothills than they did in the Puget Sound lowlands. Vine maples had already burnished their green with bronze and red. Alders had turned yellow and dropped most of their leaves. More people packed cameras than guns when they went hunting this time of year.

  We told the girls we were going on a photo safari for one of Val's clients and that we'd be home later that evening. Cecile would come over to keep them company after school. She was not, by any stretch of the imagination, babysitting. Cecile was our girls' friend. She could never be their sitter.

  We always paid Cecile in private.

  ♦

  WE ARRIVED IN WINTERS JUST AFTER NOON and pulled into a spot in front of Der Edelweiss, which outside of its name was no more Bavarian than a Taco Bell. It had rained all morning of the drive and we had seen nothing but windshield wipers sloughing off the spray. Every pothole was filled with nougat-colored water. Val and I scurried in, dodging raindrops and puddles, and seated ourselves in a booth along the creek side of the restaurant. I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and Val asked for a German Caesar. A woman of about fifty wearing a sunny yellow pinafore and clogs took our order.

  “What makes it a German Caesar?” I asked.

  “There's a wurst tucked inside.”

  “I didn't realize that,” Val piped up. “I'll have the German Caesar without the sausage, okay?”

  “We aim to please,” she said without a trace of sincerity before disappearing into the kitchen.

  After the food arrived, I asked the waitress if she could tell us how to get to 21 Maplewood.

  “Maplewood? You want Maplewood Road?” She impatiently shifted her weight from one clog to another and put away her order pad. We wanted directions. Not a strudel.

  “I think so,” I said, ignoring her attitude. “The address didn't specify road or avenue or anything. Just 21 Maplewood.”

  “Are you going to visit someone?”

  “Not really.”

  The waitress tilted her head sadly. It was very slight, the kind of movement a person makes in empathy. I could see that her blue eyes, full of compassion, had rested in bags deep and weathered like single robin's eggs in twin nests. I imagined it was a practiced emotion for the woman.

  “We get a lot of you folks in here, it's all right. Our hearts go out to you.”

  I wondered if she was referring to their food as I looked down at my congealing sandwich.

  “Turn right out of the parking lot go three miles out of town and turn left on Maplewood,” she explained. “You won't miss it.”

  Another rain-drenched couple came inside and the waitress left us to eat.

  “Now I'm intrigued,” Val said.

  “Now, I'm still hungry,” I said. The sandwich was cold and I pulled it apart with my hands, eating it in tolerable bits. The German Caesar, sans wurst, looked much better. It was hard for anyone to mess up Romaine and croutons. Val scooted it in the middle of the table and invited me to have at it.

  We drove the three miles out of town, leaving Winters and its oompa band, behind. A small green highway marker pointed the left turn to MAPLEWOOD HOME.

  “Maplewood Home?” Valerie read the sign.

  “As in Maplewood Looney Bin,” I said.

  We drove up a small hill past rows of half-dead cottonwoods. If there was a maple anywhere within the expanse of the property, it was a seedling. Four small buildings erupted from a lawn-covered plateau. A flock of crows picked at the remnants of someone's picnic lunch, their stark, inky blackness peppering the green of the lawn. We parked and followed the signs to the office.

  A young man with a badge that indicated his name was David R. looked up from a spotless, white Formica counter.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “I hope so. We're trying to verify some information about a former resident of Maplewood.”

  “I can't tell you anything about residents. Sorry.”

  “Can't you confirm if a person lived here?”

  “Nope.”

  “Can't you tell us anything?” I asked, frustration building in my voice as it grew a little too loud for the office.

  David R. shrugged. “Maplewood is a private home for the troubled and less fortunate. We are funded by private donations and have had a long tradition of providing excellent long- and short-term care to many children of Washington State.”

  His delivery was flat and disinterested, like a kind of rehearsed speech given because he was required to do so.

  I took a deep breath. Relax. Be smart. “Can you tell us if a person was an employee here?”

  The look on David R's face made it clear he was no dummy. He knew we were attempting to get around the rules. A slight smile formed on his lips.

  “Only yes or no,” he said.

  “Great, now we're getting somewhere. The name is Jett L. Carter.”

&n
bsp; Oddly, the clerk didn't have to look up her name. He seemed to know instantly. He picked at his niblet teeth.

  “Never an employee,” he said.

  “How long have you been here?” I asked.

  “What's it to you?”

  “Just want to find out a little information, that's all.”

  Valerie smiled at the clerk.

  “Miss Carter has applied to be our nanny and we're just running a check on her,” she said. “Can't be too careful.”

  The man remained stony. If my wife's warm smile couldn't melt his reserve, then I doubted anything could. “I can't say anything about her. State law, you know.”

  Val tried once more. “Let's put it this way, would you hire her to take care of your children? Do you have children, sir?”

  “Any other applicants?” he finally asked, giving an answer the only way he could. The guy was by-the-book.

  “None we're considering,” she said.

  The clerk stared at his computer terminal. “You're not hearing it from me. But I'd run an ad or something. Would be wise.”

  ♦

  A WOMAN IN A WHITE SMOCK with almost blue hair ran out to the car just as we started to pull away. We had seen her in the office, lurking among the file cabinets behind David R., so Val instinctively reached for her purse, in case she had left it on the counter. It was next to her feet on the car floor.

  “Folks, I hope I'm not intruding,” the elderly woman said. Light rain fell on her starched, white uniform.

  “Can we help you?” I asked.

  “I think I could help you.” Her face was lined with years and worry. Her hands were gnarled and grey like the driftwood limbs Taylor and Hayley liked to gather and decorate with wiggly eyes.

  “I'm probably out of line talking to you folks about your potential nanny, but no one has ever asked about Jett Carter.”

  “Do you know her?” Val asked.

  “Can I sit in your car? I'll tell you where to drive.”

  Lynette Watson was a semi-retired nurse's aide who had worked at Maplewood since it opened in the mid-1960s. The brick and stucco buildings had been a Catholic girls school in the years before the state purchased it as a foundling home. Mrs. Watson was hired on to work with the babies, many of whom were Hispanic, orphaned when an apple processing plant blew up in an explosion caused by fermenting applesauce in 1968.