Isabel's Run (6 page)

Toni nodded again. We drove north for ten minutes or so without talking, listening to more of the new Brandi Carlile album.

We had just passed the Edmonds ferry off-ramp at Highway 104 when Toni turned to me.

“Thank you,” she said.

I glanced at her. “For what?”

“Thanks for taking the time to look into this.”

I smiled. “For you? Anything.”

“That’s nice, but this job doesn’t pay, and I know we need some paying jobs.” I hadn’t gone over our financial picture with Toni, but it didn’t come as any great surprise that she’d been able to figure it out. She’s quick, and she doesn’t miss much.

I shrugged. “We’ll be fine,” I said. “We have some things coming up.”

She was quiet for a few seconds, and then she said, “Well, thanks, in any case. You don’t have to do this.”

I smiled. “I want to. It’s important to you. And if it’s important to you, it’s important to me. Besides, I’d probably be all over this anyway—runaway abused teenager and all. That’s not really something you can say no to. Let’s just do a little checking around and see if there’s anything there.”

* * * *

We got off the freeway at the Alderwood Mall Parkway exit in Lynnwood. I hung a quick left on 196th and three minutes later, we pulled up in front of Isabel’s house on 192nd Street. The neighborhood was a subdivision of single-family homes that looked to have the inexpensive, low-detail style that was prevalent in the early ’70s. Still, the landscape was mature and, for the most part, the homes were well kept. Isabel’s home at 4268 was one of a handful of exceptions—it was definitely in need of repair. The brown paint on the two-story home was faded to a grayish tan. The white trim was peeling. The door, also white, was worn and scuffed. The front lawn had more holes and weeds than lawn.

A light blue, ten-year-old Nissan sat next to an old pickup truck in the driveway. The primer-covered truck clearly hadn’t moved in quite some time—if the dirt and cracked windshield weren’t enough of a giveaway, the fact that both tires on the right side were flat was. The truck had a definite list and appeared to be banking like a motorcycle into a gentle right sweeper.

“Home, sweet home,” Toni said.

“It’s a shithole,” I agreed. “But I’ve seen worse.”

Toni nodded. “I believe it.”

We got out of the Jeep and walked to the front door. I rang the bell.

A few seconds later, an attractive woman opened the door. She was a couple of inches shorter than Toni, and she had dark, wavy hair. She was dressed in business clothes—royal blue blazer, a green skirt with a white top. She looked to be perhaps forty years old.

“Good afternoon, ma’am,” I said. “Are you Marisol Webber?” Kenny had looked up the property owner records before we left so that we had full names.

As soon as I spoke, the woman’s eyebrows arched, and she sucked in her breath.

She nodded. “Are you police?” she asked. “Are you here about Isabel? Did something happen to her?”

“No, ma’am,” I said, shaking my head. “We’re not the police.” I handed her my business card, and Toni did the same. “We’re private investigators,” I said. “But you’re right—we are here about Isabel. We wondered if we might be able to ask you a few questions about your daughter.”

“You’re not police?” she asked again. She studied our cards carefully. I shook my head. “No, ma’am.”

“We’re here because a friend of Isabel’s contacted us,” Toni said. “She said Isabel is missing, and she’s concerned about her. We were asked to look into things.”

“Who?” Marisol asked. “Who hired you?”

We didn’t want to reveal Kelli’s name to Isabel’s mother, and especially not to her stepfather. “I’m afraid we’re not able to say,” I said. “Our client asked to remain anonymous. At least for the time being. They want to protect their privacy, but they are very concerned about Isabel. I’m sure you understand.”

She looked at me, confused.

“Would you mind if we came in and asked you a few questions?” Toni said.

Marisol hesitated. She glanced up and down the street quickly. “Okay,” she said. “But just for a few minutes. I have to go to work.”

“Thank you,” Toni said.

Marisol led us inside to the living room. The home was clean and neat. Toni and I sat on an overstuffed, floral-print sofa. Marisol sat in a chair across from us.

“Marisol—,” I started to say.

“Please, call me Mary,” she said. “I’m not used to Marisol anymore.”

I smiled. “Okay, sorry, Mary.” I opened my notebook. “Can you start by confirming for us that Isabel is missing?”

She stared at me for a moment. “She’s not home, if that’s what you mean.”

I cocked my head. Word games? C’mon. “Alright. Let me ask it another way,” I said. “Do you know where Isabel is?”

She looked out the living room window for a second and gathered her thoughts before turning back to me. “She left,” she said. “Isabel ran away from home—maybe a month ago now.”

I nodded. “Thank you. That’s our understanding as well, but I needed to confirm it with you.”

“During that time, have you heard from her?” Toni asked.

“She called once and left a message on my voicemail,” Mary said. “She said she was okay and that she’d call back later.”

“When was that?” I asked.

“A couple of weeks ago.”

“And has she called back since then?”

Mary shook her head. “No. Not yet.”

“Does she have a cell phone?” I asked. I knew she did, but I wanted to hear what her mother had to say.

“Yes.”

“Have you tried calling her?”

“Yes, of course. It just goes to voicemail. Isabel doesn’t call me back.”

“Have you filed a missing person report with the police?” Toni asked.

Mary stared at her for a moment. “No,” she said.

“Why not?” Toni asked.

“I can’t control her,” Mary said. “She’s sixteen. She’s making her own decisions now.”

I arched an eyebrow and then shook my head. “I’m not sure the law’s going to look at it the same way you do,” I said. “Matter of fact, I’m pretty sure that the law would say you’re supposed to file a missing person report if your minor child disappears.”

She said nothing, and the quiet began to grow in intensity.

This interview was off to a bad start. Toni sensed this as well, so she stepped in.

“Mary,” she said, “we’re not here to cause you any trouble, believe me. All we want to do is to help Isabel. Let me ask you this. Why would Isabel leave? Did something happen?”

“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.