by J. A. Jance
“Ms. Broward,” Mel said softly, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but we have reason to believe your daughter is dead. That’s the real reason Rachel didn’t come home today.”
Ardith dropped her half-smoked cigarette and ground it into the dirt.
“Dead?” she repeated in disbelief. “You’re saying Rachel is dead?”
Mel and I both nodded.
“Where?” Ardith demanded.
“That’s the thing,” I said. “We don’t know where. That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
“If you don’t know where Rachel is, how do you know she’s dead?” Ardith asked.
“There’s a video clip,” Mel said.
“What do you mean, a clip, like on America’s Funniest Videos or something?”
“Yes,” Mel said. “It’s like one of those film clips, but it’s not funny.”
“You mean someone took pictures while they were doing it, while they were killing her?”
Mel nodded.
Stricken, Ardith staggered backward until she banged into the side of the Dumpster. The blow sent a cloud of flies bursting skyward from the top of the garbage heap. The woman’s ruddy face had gone pale.
“Show me,” she said.
“Really, Ms. Broward, I’m not sure. .”
“Show me!” Ardith exclaimed. “I’m not going to believe Rachel’s dead until I see it with my own eyes.”
Mel pulled out one of the photos Todd had made. “This photo was taken from the clip. Does this look like your daughter?”
Ardith barely glanced at the photo. “I want to see the video,” she insisted.
Mel shot me a questioning look. The clip was a terrible thing to show to the victim’s mother.
“Really, Ms. Broward,” I began. “It’s really not a good idea. .”
“Show me!”
With a resigned sigh, Mel reached into her pocket and removed her iPhone. I had every reason to believe that we were somewhere in that supposed five percent of the country where AT amp;T doesn’t reach, but Mel had loaded the clip onto her phone. No connection was needed. Mel messed around with the screen for a moment or two. Then, once the clip began playing, she held it up for Ardith to see.
Had it been in bright sunlight, the tiny images might have been a little hazy, but it was close enough to dusk now that they were clear. As Ardith watched in apparent shock and horror, one of her hands went helplessly to her own throat as if in the vain hope of loosening the scarf’s deadly hold on her daughter’s neck. When the clip was over, Ardith squeezed her eyes shut. Her body slid down alongside the Dumpster as though her legs had lost the ability to hold her upright. She came to a stop only when she was seated flat on the ground with her legs splayed out in front of her.
“Oh, no,” she said. “No, no, no. I had no idea that’s what was happening. I mean, I saw the bruises-”
“What bruises?” Mel asked sharply
“On Rachel’s neck,” Ardith said. “The second time she ran away. When she came back home, she kept wearing this one black turtleneck sweater over and over. Then, one night, I came into the kitchen when she was doing the dishes and wearing a regular top. That’s when I saw the bruising on her neck. I asked her about it. She said it happened at school during gym when some of the kids were playing around.”
“Kids may call it playing,” I explained. “It’s sometimes called the choking game. Kids do it because they’re operating under the mistaken impression that if they do it long enough that they pass out, they’ll get high.”
“Does Kenny know?” Ardith asked.
Mel shook her head. “We came to tell you first.”
Ardith dried her eyes on the hem of her tank top and then struggled to get up. Deputy Timmons and I each grabbed a hand and levered her back to her feet.
“I’ll go close up,” she said. “It may take me a few minutes to throw these guys out, but then we’ve got to go tell Kenny. It’ll break his heart. He loved that girl like she was his own.”
Mel cut me a look that said “Yeah, right,” but she didn’t say it aloud.
“Do you want us to wait for you, or do you want us to go on ahead?” I asked.
“Wait for me,” she said. “I should be the one to tell him and the other kids, not you.”
And so we waited. And it didn’t take long for the guys inside to spill out onto the wooden walkway, where they stood around in a subdued group, talking quietly among themselves. The last customer to emerge was the big guy who had taken over bartending duties while Ardith went outside with us.
Last of all came Ardith. She emerged clad head to toe in leather and carrying a helmet. She climbed onto one of the Goldwings, started it up and headed out, with Deputy Timmons and Mel and me trailing after her.
“I didn’t think she’d ride a motorcycle, too,” Mel said.
“I didn’t, either,” I agreed. “That woman is full of surprises.”
Chapter 15
It was verging on twilight when we trailed Ardith Broward’s Goldwing into the yard of a house that could have been a carbon copy of others we had seen along Highway 12, with one major difference. This one had been recently painted. Someone had taken a Weed Eater and mowed down the grass and weeds around the house. Partially visible behind the house was a redwood kids’ play structure, complete with a canvas cover. I don’t know how much those things cost in dollars and cents, but I helped my son-in-law put one together a couple of years ago. Believe me, when they say, “Some assembly required,” they mean it.
A shirtless guy in greasy jeans was crouched, wrench in hand, next to another Goldwing. The idea that Kenneth Broward was a shade-tree mechanic gave him a leg up in my book. Behind him in a rutted driveway stood a beaten-up Toyota minivan that they probably used when they were hauling kids or groceries around, but with the price of gasoline, I suspected using the Goldwings was as much a cost-saving strategy as it was a philosophical statement.
Despite an evening full of circling mosquitoes, four towheaded kids clambered down from the play structure. Barefoot and carefree, they came bounding across the yard to greet their mother, yelling, “Mom’s home. Mom’s home.”
A pair of spotted mongrel dogs galloped happily after the kids, barking like crazy.
Ardith Broward may not have won any Mother of the Year awards, but her kids and dogs seemed happy enough to see her. Ditto for Kenny. He stood up and wiped his greasy hands on his already greasy pant legs. He started toward her, smiling, until he saw first Deputy Timmons’s patrol car and then ours pulling into the yard behind Ardith’s Goldwing. The smile disappeared. He stopped, turned around, picked up a rag of some kind, and then came back again, still wiping his hands.
Ardith parked her bike next to his. She leaped off it, tossed her helmet on the ground beside it, and then threw herself into Kenny’s arms with enough force that she almost knocked him off his feet. It wasn’t how we would have delivered the bad news. Ardith did the job her way, leaving us nothing to do but watch.
Ardith was not a small woman-five eleven or so. Kenny was a good head taller than she was. He was broad-shouldered. As far as I could see and unlike his wife, he had no tattoos at all. He and Deputy Timmons were probably a good five years younger than Ardith. For a moment I found myself wondering what Kenny saw in her. Then I remembered Mel and started wondering what she saw in me. Sometimes you’re better off just not going there.
Still holding Ardith, he said something to the circling kids. Without a word of argument, the oldest one, a boy of about eleven, herded the younger ones into the house, taking the dogs with them. Ken helped Ardith, still sobbing, over to the edge of the porch and eased her down onto it. Then he turned to Deputy Timmons.
“Who’s that?” he asked, nodding in our direction.
“They’re homicide cops,” Deputy Timmons said. “They work for the attorney general.”
Kenny took my badge wallet, examined it for a moment, and then handed it back. “So it’s true then, what Ardith just said? Ra
chel is dead?”
“Yes,” I answered. “That’s what we believe. She appears to have fallen victim to what kids call the choking game. They tie a rope or something around their necks long enough to cut off the supply of oxygen to their brains in the mistaken belief that it’s some kind of high. Unfortunately, some kids die of it.”
“What’s this she’s saying about a video? There’s a video? Somebody filmed this?”
Mel was already reaching for her iPhone. Ken Broward stood absolutely still the whole time the video was playing. By the time it was over, his face was ashen. He turned away and bolted around the side of the house, where we heard him puking his guts out.
I don’t suppose puking would hold up in a court of law as a declaration of innocence, but it was pretty damned convincing as far as I was concerned. Kenny’s face was still ghostly white when he came back to the front of the house. He sat down next to Ardith, put a hand on her shoulder, and pulled her close.
“Who the hell would do such a thing?” he demanded, more angry than grief-stricken. “Who?”
“That’s what we were hoping you could tell us,” Mel said smoothly. “You told Deputy Timmons that Rachel left the house on Sunday afternoon. That she rode off with a friend and was planning to spend the night.”
“Yes,” Ken said. “That’s right. She told me her name was Janie. That she knew her from school.”
“Last name?”
Ken just shook his head. “You know how kids are. They never mention last names, ever.” He paused, shook his head, and wiped his eyes. “I should have asked. She just told me she was leaving, going to Janie’s house, and that was it.”
Ardith reached over and patted his knee with a small comforting gesture that reminded me of the way Governor Longmire had patted Gerard Willis’s knee for much the same reason.
“What did she take with her?” I asked.
“Just her backpack,” Kenny answered. “I don’t really know what was in it. Overnight stuff, I guess.”
“Did she seem upset about anything? Was she angry?”
Kenny shook his head. “Not at all. She said she’d be home on Monday to look after the younger kids so I could go to work on Tuesday. Harlan’s eleven,” Kenny said. “We don’t mind leaving him in charge of the little ones for a couple of hours, but for all day. .”
Mel aimed a questioning look in Ardith’s direction.
“I got the chance to pull a couple of double shifts,” Ardith said with a shrug. “We need the money real bad.”
“But you didn’t report her missing when she didn’t come home on Monday.”
“We had a fight about it,” Ardith said. “Kenny thought somethin’ was wrong. I thought she was just actin’ up or actin’ stupid. I told him she was just askin’ for trouble, but I didn’t mean. .”
Ardith swallowed hard and looked like she wished she could take back not only the words but also the thought.
“Of course not,” Mel said kindly.
I thought it was a good idea to change the focus a little.
“Do you ever remember her mentioning having a friend or acquaintance named Josh?” I asked. “He’s from Olympia.”
Ken and Ardith Broward shook their heads in definitive unison.
“Rachel doesn’t have any friends in Olympia,” Ken declared. “How would she? And who’s Josh?”
“A boy from Olympia,” I answered. “That’s where we found the video-on Josh’s cell phone.”
“Ask him about it, then,” Ken said. “He should know where he got it.”
“We can’t,” Mel said.
“Why not?”
“Because he’s dead. He committed suicide last night.”
“So there you are,” Ken said. “The cowardly little creep did this to Rachel and then committed suicide to keep from having to face the consequences.”
“He actually said he didn’t do it,” Mel said. “At least, that’s what his suicide note led us to believe.”
“How?” Ken asked.
“How what?”
“How did he kill himself?”
“With a rope,” Mel said. “He knotted some of his grandfather’s ties together and hanged himself on the closet door in his room.”
“Was that part of this same choking-game garbage?” Ken asked. “Maybe he didn’t intend to die, either.”
I had seen the kicked-over chair and the knotted ties that had been tied together in a fashion that meant they wouldn’t give way. And I had seen the expertly crafted noose. No, Josh’s death hadn’t been an inadvertent consequence of the choking game. But suddenly I was seeing the scarf again. The scarf around Rachel’s neck had been inexpertly knotted.
When I tuned back into the conversation, Mel had her notebook out and was making a list that included the names of as many of Rachel’s friends as her mother and stepfather were able to provide. There was no question of using Rachel’s cell phone directory or history to reconstruct Rachel’s social network because Rachel didn’t have a cell phone. Neither did either one of her parents. The Broward household was evidently one of the last of the breed when it came to having only landline telephone service.
By the time Mel finished writing and closed her notebook, Ardith was staring at her. “What are we supposed to do now?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“She’s dead,” Ardith said huskily. “You know that, and we know that, but only because we saw it happen on the video; but if there’s no body, how do we have a funeral? What do we tell the other kids? What do we tell our friends? I don’t want to have to tell them about it. I don’t want them to see it.”
Ardith had aimed her questions toward Mel, and I was happy to have that particular ball dropped in her court.
“That’s up to you,” Mel answered finally, “but if Rachel were mine I believe I’d say that she ran away, that she’s missing and presumed dead. You don’t have to say anything more than that. You don’t owe people detailed explanations about what’s happened.”
“Missing and presumed dead.” Ardith repeated the words slowly, as if trying them out on her lips and on her heart. “I’m not sure I can say that.”
Then she dissolved into tears once more. Surprisingly enough, the belligerent bartender from the Bike Inn didn’t seem nearly as belligerent now, not to us and not to Kenny Broward, either.
“We’ll have to try, honey bun,” Ken said, holding her close. “We’ll just have to try.”
After we gleaned all the information we could from Ken and Ardith, Ken summoned Rachel’s younger brother, eleven-year-old Harlan, to see if he was able to add anything to what the parents had already told us. He wasn’t. Or, if he knew something about Rachel’s mysterious friend, Janie, he wasn’t ready to spill the beans. When we finally left to head back into town, we had Deputy Timmons lead the way to the home of Conrad Philips, the high school principal.
There were only three hundred or so students in White Pass’s combination junior and senior high school. Conrad Philips knew them all. According to him, Rachel had been far more trouble in junior high than she was now as a high school sophomore. He chalked her behavioral turnaround to Ken Broward’s arrival on the scene. He didn’t have much good to say about Ardith, but he had a lot of good to say about Kenny.
Unlike Rachel Camber’s parental units, Conrad Philips was able to provide not only last names for the kids at his school but also phone numbers and addresses. He also gave us a rundown of the various cliques at the school. It was late by the time we finished talking to him, but we came away with an armload of information about Rachel and her friends, none of which could be tracked down until Wednesday morning. We thanked Deputy Timmons for his help, told him good-bye, and headed for the barn in Olympia.
Mel was uncharacteristically quiet as we drove back down Highway 12 toward I-5. I was busy watching for stray wildlife crossing the road. She was evidently mulling over our Lewis County interviews.
“I guess I was wrong about Kenny Broward,” she said finally. �
��I was so ready to believe that the stepfather would be a bad guy.”
It’s odd to be involved with and married to a woman who will come right out and admit it when she’s wrong-odd, and more than a little refreshing.
“Does that make you guilty of sexual profiling?” I asked.
“Yup,” she said. “Now, what’s there to eat around here? I’m starving.”
We ended up with Subway sandwiches from a combination gas station/restaurant at an exit south of Chehalis. Over our sandwiches and coffee, we strategized.
“There has to be some connection between Josh and Rachel,” I told Mel. “Once we find that, we’ll be close to pulling the whole thing together.”
“Right,” she agreed. “We need to go at it from both ends. How about if I come back to Packwood tomorrow and start working my way through the girls whose names Conrad Philips gave us. You can work the Olympia end.”
Talking to Josh’s fellow summer-school students was the place to start, but I didn’t expect to find a bunch of exemplary students enrolled there.
“Right,” I said. “You get the regular kids from Packwood while I’m stuck with the juvenile-delinquent types who are about to flunk out of school.”
“Want to trade?” Mel asked.
“No,” I said. “That was just pro forma grumbling. You’ll do better with the girls and I’ll do better with the rough and tough boys.”
“I wonder if Todd’s made any progress on tracking down the source of that file,” Mel said.
We both looked at our watches. It was long past midnight. Even though we knew Todd worked all hours, it wasn’t fair to call in the middle of the night and risk waking Julie.
“We’ll check with him in the morning,” I said. “Let’s go.”
We made it back to the Dreaded Red Lion, as Mel and Harry I. Ball both call it, without incident. We rode up in the elevator. I stripped off my clothing and fell into bed. Two cups of late-night coffee had absolutely no impact on my ability to fall asleep. I took a pair of Aleves and was out cold before Mel ever emerged from the bathroom. I probably could have slept for several more hours, but the jangling landline telephone in our room jarred me awake minutes after 6:00 A.M.
