Now That She's Gone (24 page)

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-THREE

I
t's a five-hour drive from Port Orchard to Spokane, long enough to justify a plane ticket, but Kendall decided that she needed the time alone to process everything that had been going on. The drive would do her good. She arranged for a sitter to take Cody to school and pick him up.

“I'll be home late,” she said.

“Butter noodles?” the young woman asked.

Cody liked one thing. Make that two. Popcorn and butter noodles.

“Grate some cheese on top. He needs more protein and he's doing a good job of expanding his horizons.”

She kissed her sleeping son goodbye and headed out in the dawn of a new day. Seagulls hovered over the inlet in front of her house in Harper and she caught the second boat out of Southworth, grateful that it didn't include a stop at Vashon Island—an inconvenience that irritated many leaving the Kitsap Peninsula. She listened to the news as she looked over the bow of the boat as it chugged across Puget Sound to the dock in West Seattle. She thought of that first date with Steven so many years ago. They took his car over to a concert in Seattle, but it broke down and they had to hitch a ride back. They'd laughed about it back then. Today, busy as everyone is, there was no time for the unexpected. Every moment had to be programmed to the
n
th degree.

She longed for Steven to come home.

It was too early to call him, so she texted a short note.

Going to Spokane to work cold case. Cody's with Marsha. Missing you.

She pushed
SEND
.

As the cars rumbled off over the pier deck, she thought of all that had happened in the past few days. Katy's case had been supplanted by Juliana's. Juliana's had been supplanted by the drama of the disappearace of Brenda Nevins and Janie Thomas from the prison. In the wake of all the tragedy, the murders, the fire, the horrible
Spirit Hunters
TV show, there was the distinct feeling that the world was spinning out of control.

Kendall got on the interstate and absorbed the glorious view of Seattle's skyline, the football and baseball stadiums, and drove east, thinking of everything and nothing at the same time. Everything had been smudged, blurred, altered. She crossed over the mountain pass at Snoqualmie and the landscape shifted from green Douglas firs to the burnished brown grasslands and verdant farmlands of the eastern half of the state. She filled her SUV's tank at Vantage, a truck stop, convenience store, and restaurant perched on the bluff over the mighty Columbia River.

Nick Mayberry was sitting in the Peacock Lounge at the historic Davenport Hotel. He drank coffee and nervously swirled his spoon in the cup. He was almost fifty with a slight paunch and thinning hair punctuated by white sidewalls. Nick wore a jacket over a uniform, concealing his profession from the casual observers in the bar. Overhead, a magnificent stained glass peacock loomed.

“More coffee, Nicky?” the waitress asked.

He indicated his cup. “Thanks, Carla.”

“You okay?” she asked. “You seem, I dunno, sort of distracted. You waiting on someone?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“You're not Internet dating again? You know that only brings out the losers and the pretenders.”

“No,” he said. “I'm waiting for someone from the coast.”

Those who lived on the eastern side of the state always referred to the western side as “the coast” no matter if the town was a hundred miles inland. Anything on the other side of the Cascades was “the coast.”

“All righty,” she said. “You take care.”

He smiled. “Will do.”

Inside there was no smile. There was nothing to be happy about. He'd made a very big mistake four years before and he'd never been able to get it out of his mind. He'd left the Kitsap County Sheriff's Department because of it.

 

 

The Davenport Hotel had been resurrected. Opened originally in 1914, it closed in 1985, and had been saved from the wrecking ball in 2000 by a Spokane couple who wanted to bring it back to its former glory. In doing so, they brought back the heart and soul of an inland city that had bragging rights to a gilded past born of mining money that turned a former Indian village into an impressive city. The crown jewel was the Davenport.

After a uniformed valet took her keys and handed her a claim ticket, Kendall found Nick in the bar. She'd known him casually when they were in the department together, but she was working her way up and he was, unfortunately, working his way down. He waved her over to his table and stood to greet her.

“Been a while,” he said.

“Yes, it has. How you been, Nick?”

“Can't complain,” he said as they both sat down. “You?”

She could complain about a million things, but none that she'd share with him right then.

“I'm fine. I wish I could say that about the Katy Frazier case.”

“Yeah. Saw that in the paper.”

Carla poured her coffee and asked if they wanted menus. Kendall hadn't eaten for hours and ordered the Crab Louis, a salad that had been originally created at the Davenport. Nick had a four-cheese grilled sandwich. While they waited for their food to arrive they talked about Port Orchard, the department, and its grab-bag mix of personalities.

“I miss that place,” he said.

“Why did you leave, Nick? What happened?”

Carla delivered the food and asked if they needed anything else.

“We're good,” he said. “Thanks, kiddo.”

“Are you a regular here?”

“Kind of,” he said. “I mean, I'm not a cop anymore, Kendall. After what happened in Port Orchard, I just couldn't do the job.”

He undid his jacket showing the same valet uniform Kendall had seen on the attendant when she arrived.

“Nick, I didn't know. I thought you were in law enforcement in Post Falls.”

“Yeah, that's what I told everyone.”

Kendall took a bite of the crab. It was delicious, but she didn't savor it as she would have in other circumstances.

“What happened, Nick?”

“Brit happened. That's what.”

Kendall's eyes widened. “Katy's mother?”

“Yeah,” he said, his eyes cast downward at his plate. “We had a thing. It was before I had Katy's case, but it heated up again when she went missing.” He stopped and picked at the fries next to his sandwich. “I know it was wrong, if that's what you're wondering.”

“It's more than wrong,” Kendall said, setting down her fork and facing him with riveted eyes.

“You can't beat me up any more than I have already.”

She knew he was probably right about that. He'd gone from a good job, one with prestige and a future, to parking cars for well-heeled hotel guests in Spokane. That likely wasn't a single person's dream for a career trajectory.

“What happened? How did it affect the investigation?”

“She was going through something. So was I at the time. I was drinking a lot at the time. Been sober for three years now.”

“Go on with it, Nick. Just tell me.”

“This was before her coffee shop. She talked about it back then. I listened. I listened to everything she said. When I'm loaded on Scotch, I'm a very good listener,” he said.

“From there, you became involved?” Kendall asked.

He ate some more of his sandwich and shook his head when Carla lifted the coffeepot from the other side of the room.

“Not that night. But not long after. Look,” he said, “I liked her. I felt sorry for her. She seemed anxious, angry. A mix of both. She told me that her husband had let his dreams supersede her own. That her kids were sucking the life out of her and she needed a way out. We met a few times after that. At my place because I lived alone and she had Roger and the girls.”

“How long did this go on?” Kendall asked.

“Not very,” Nick said. “She was clingy and, basically, too much work. We stayed together for six months, but I knew it was wrong from the outset. I kept trying to break it off, but, you know, the sex was good and I was a lonely drunk with few options.”

“So you had an affair with her,” Kendall said. “And you broke it off. Is that right?”

“Yeah. But there's more to it.” He pushed himself away from the table. “Brit was my downfall. Not kidding. I know that I should be accountable for what happened. I know that in my heart of hearts, but damn, she just led me over the edge.”

 

 

Nick Mayberry knew the address. He'd actually been inside the house twice when Roger was gone and the girls were in Seattle doing whatever a twelve-year-old and sixteen-year-old could do. He was glad he didn't have kids. He'd seen so many come through the justice system with futures written in erasable ink.

“It's you,” Brit said, her eyes rimmed in red, as she opened the door. “I'm glad it was you. Roger's here,” she said, this time her voice low.

Nick followed her inside the “Flash Cube,” looking around as though it was the first time. Roger Frazier got up and introduced himself. Nick took out a small black notebook—one that he now used to calculate tips he'd received from his job as a valet. Back then it was an investigative notebook.

The couple told him that Katy hadn't been seen for hours and they were worried.

“Normally we don't start a missing persons case this soon.”

“She's a good kid,” Roger said. “Star athlete. Top-ten student. Something is seriously wrong, Detective. Seriously.”

“He's right,” Brit said, crumpling a tissue in her hands. “Katy is the apple of our eyes.”

Nick knew that was a lie. Her daughter was the scourge of her life. She'd said so many, many times.

He made some notes. Captured the names of those who most likely had seen the girl before she vanished. Looking around her bedroom showed just what Roger Frazier had described. A very good girl. A desk set up for homework. A bed with white eyelet sheets, crisp and neatly made. In the bathroom, he detected some small drops of blood.

“What's that?” Roger said, though he likely knew what the oval droplets were.

“Don't know,” Nick said. “Could be blood. Lab techs will be down. Don't touch anything.”

 

 

Carla took their plates and offered dessert, but both declined.

“I interviewed her friends and they told me that they'd planned on seeing her after class, but she was a no-show.”

Kendall kept her eyes locked on him. She didn't understand what happened. She pointedly asked him.

“Why did the investigation stall, Nick?”

“Brit and me. That's why. Honestly, that's the truth. In the middle of her daughter missing she needed comfort and I stupidly went there. I know with every fiber of my being that it sounds completely predatory on my part, but the roles were reversed. Honestly. I just let her cry on my shoulder and one thing led to another.”

“So are you thinking she got rid of her daughter, is that it?”

“Hell, no. She didn't have a thing to do with it. I'm sure of it. The funny thing was that she wasn't all that broken up about it. She told me over and over that when Katy came back she was going to beat her ass with a yardstick. Does that sound like a mother who killed her kid?”

Kendall thought it sounded like a Port Orchard version of
Mommie Dearest
, but she didn't say so.

“That's all you got, Nick?” she asked. “A feeling that because she was going to discipline her child that she couldn't possibly have made her disappear?”

“I guess so,” he said.

“You really screwed up here,” she said.

“I told you I know that already. Park some other guy's Lexus for the rest of your life. Drive your Hyundai home every night to your walk-up apartment in a crappy part of Spokane. You'll be reminded every day that you screwed up.”

“What happened with Brit?” she asked.

“We broke it off. We kind of had to. One of the kids saw us kiss. Said she'd tell the sheriff and Roger what she'd seen.”