The Girl in the Woods (15 page)

B
irdy Waterman was old school enough to get the daily paper delivered to her home. A copy was also delivered to the office. The top story had to do with the homecoming of a Trident submarine that had been out at sea for more than three months on some hush-hush mission. In a navy town like Bremerton, the editors at the paper knew the importance of those kinds of stories. In a way, Bremerton, Washington,
was
a company town. Its business had been either war or peacekeeping, depending on one’s political perspective.

It was the second article that held her interest.

 

N
AVAL
O
FFICER
R
OBERTS
V
ICTIM
OF
P
OISONING

 

The
Kitsap Sun
reporter did a fair job with the piece, as he always did. He wrote how autopsy results indicated that the victim had died of acute kidney failure caused by ethylene glycol.

There were no quotes from Birdy, just some vague attribution—“according to the county’s forensic pathologist.”

That was just as well.

Kendall, however, did get a shout-out.

That designation was a favorite line of law enforcement. A person of interest was just a mere notch below “suspect” and was frequently used to apply a little pressure on the case. Not in a public relations way, but pressure on the perpetrator and those surrounding him or her. Sometimes the specter of being a
person of interest
accelerated the momentum of a case.

Sometimes people lived the rest of their lives as a person of interest.

With the information coming out of Arizona, it was possible that Jennifer Roberts had experienced both—or was about to.

Birdy flipped through the pages to the obituaries and funeral notices. Some people skipped right to the sports page, or the classifieds. Her go-to spot was always the section in which people were remembered. It was work-related, but not completely. Most who died were not autopsied. Even most of those who were, were examined in the hospitals in which they’d died. Birdy was fascinated by the continuum of the living process.

She always had been. She’d collected those bones. She’d attended more funerals than weddings. She sent sympathy cards to strangers when it looked like there were not many left to mourn their passing.

Tess Moreau had told her that her daughter’s memorial would be that afternoon. And while she almost never went to anyone’s funeral that had been a part of an ongoing case, she felt like Darby’s would be a bit thin on the mourners’ side because of the way she’d lived—isolated in that catastrophe of a household in Olalla. She looked at her phone.

11:45.

The service was at noon. Birdy grabbed purse and jacket. There was still time to get there.

 

 

No funeral is a happy occurrence. Really. Even when it is wrapped up with the words “celebration of life,” there is seldom any genuine celebrating. Birdy Waterman parked her car in the lot at Sunset Lane Memorial Park at the bottom of Mile Hill Road. She wore her office attire that consisted of dark slacks and a plain blue jacket over a powder blue blouse. Her long dark hair was pulled back in her usual clip. She hadn’t planned on going to a funeral that day, but it crossed her mind on the way there that she often dressed like she was ready for one.

From across the grassy expanse of markers and flags, she saw the small gathering that had assembled to memorialize the girl found in the woods off Banner Road. A girl who’d been murdered by someone who was still at large was being laid to rest next to her father and her sister.

There had been no viewing for obvious reasons. This was Darby Moreau’s good-bye.

Birdy spotted Tess and her friend Amanda, along with some adults she assumed were co-workers from the prison. Also there, a small group of teenagers—friends of the deceased—she assumed. A few adults stood with the kids and Birdy wondered if they were also from the school.

Just behind her, Birdy noticed Kendall approaching. She slowed her pace so they could walk together. They both had the same idea. Tess acknowledged them with a slight, but appreciative, nod.

The minister, a large round man with photosensitive glasses that obscured his eyes, spoke about Darby and her dreams, but he really could have been talking about any sixteen-year-old girl in the world.

“An unfinished life never seems like it is part of God’s plan, but it is. Praise the Lord! Darby has gone home and she will always live there in the celestial kingdom, but also within all of us who knew and loved her.”

He pressed a button on a small CD player and P!nk’s song,
Glitter in the Air
, played at a respectful volume.

Tess let out a cry during the chorus and one of the teenagers went over to her.

“She was my best friend,” Katie Lawrence said.

“Katie?” Tess asked. “I hoped you’d come. I didn’t know how to call you.”

“I’m here,” she said. “A bunch of us are here from art class. She had a lot more friends at school than just us, and we had to get special permission to be here.”

Tess gripped the girl’s hand. She looked over at the kids and the teacher.

Like a switch, her face went from sad to anger. “Is she Ms. Mitchell?”

Kendall looked at Birdy. This was going to be trouble. Kendall wished the song were shorter.

Tess let go of Katie’s hand and lurched toward the art teacher.

“I know who you are,” the grieving mother said, her voice beginning to crack into tiny, bitter pieces. “I know
what
you are!”

Connie Mitchell took a step back, away from the casket.

“I was her friend, Ms. Moreau,” she said over P!nk’s soaring and heartfelt vocals. “I’m here because I loved her too.”

Tess wasn’t having any of that. “Your kind of love is sick. She was just a girl. You had no business getting involved with her!”

Kendall moved in and stood between the two women. “This is not the time or place,” she said.

The song was over.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Connie said, now shattered into tears of her own. “I was only her friend.” She looked at Kendall. “Tell her that!”

“Tess,” Kendall said, “she’s telling the truth.”

Connie looked at the detective. “You said you wouldn’t say anything. I trusted you.”

Birdy wished she hadn’t come.

“I didn’t,” Kendall said.

Katie looked around for some support, but there wasn’t any. “
I
did. I’m sorry. I did. I just thought that—”

Connie spun around. “Katie, how could you? I’ve been in a domestic partnership for more than a year. Millicent and I are going to be married this summer. I’m not ashamed of that, but I’m ashamed of you.” She turned to face Kendall. “I’m not a predator. You’ve ruined my life. How do you sleep at night?”

“Wait a minute,” Kendall said. Everything about what was happening at Memorial Lane was wrong. Could not be more wrong. “Please not here.”

Connie stood up straight. “I won’t be silenced. I’m going to sue you and Kitsap County. If I lose my job over this, I’ll sue the school district.”

“Look, you’re getting ahead of yourself. I didn’t ruin your life. I believed you when you told me there was nothing to the rumor.”

Katie let the floodgates open. Not tears for her friend. Not tears for Ms. Mitchell, but tears of regret.

“It’s all my fault,” she said, tears now streaming down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I started the rumors. I did. I thought that Darby had a boyfriend and it made me so mad. I wanted to get even with her. She told me that she was spending time with you, but not in a bad way.”

One of the art boys went over to Katie and put his arm around her.

“You didn’t mean it,” he said. “I know it.”

The minister pushed a button and the casket slowly dipped into the hole, disappearing from view. Tess had brought a basket of Beanie Babies to let each person lay one on top, but no one did.

Tess just stood there, next to the hole. She looked over at the gravestones for her husband, her other daughter. She had nothing. No one to blame. No one to stab in the heart for doing what they did to her daughter.

No one. Not really. Only herself.

Amanda said something about having a small gathering at her house in Gig Harbor, but she understood that the drive was too far for most people to come.

“Tess appreciates everyone for being here,” she said. “Darby is with the angels now.” She stopped and looked to the minister for some kind of closing remarks, but the man just stood there like a memorial park statue. He might have been blinking in shock about all that had been going on around him, but with those dark glasses no one could tell.

As far as funerals go, the one for Darby Moreau was unforgettable for all of the wrong reasons. It was, most definitely, not a celebration of anything.

K
endall Stark and other officers from the Kitsap County sheriff’s office conducted a thorough search of the Roberts home on Camellia Street early the next morning. Ruby and Micah stood out in the front yard with their mother. None of Jennifer’s haters on the block were there to watch the show. Lena and her husband had gone to Seaside, Oregon, to visit her sister. Molly O’Rourke was working at the convalescent center in Silverdale.

Molly more than anyone would regret that she hadn’t called in sick.

“They aren’t going to find anything,” Jennifer said to her son and daughter. “Because there isn’t anything.”

The warrant Kendall had presented was specific. She was looking for the source of the poison that killed Ted Roberts. The judge who’d signed the warrant allowed the search in only a few specific areas—the kitchen, the garage, a shop—if any—and the bathrooms. The bedroom, living room, and the kids’ bedrooms were considered out of scope.

“Can I at least get a coat?” Jennifer said when Deputy Gary Wilkins’s blocky frame passed by.

“I’ll ask,” he said. “Hang on.”

“Can my kids go to school?”

“I’ll find out about that too,” he said.

Minutes later, the deputy returned.

“Yes to both. Detective Stark says you can get a coat. I’ll take the kids to South.”

“I don’t have my backpack,” Micah said.

“I don’t have my purse,” his sister chimed in. “I have to have my keys. I have to close up the shop tonight. It’s my job.”

“All right. No harm in that.”

Jennifer donned a stylish leather trench coat, then returned to the yard to watch the crime scene investigators—techs and deputies—emerge with boxes of household cleaning supplies, bottled water, food that had been stored in the refrigerator.

She hugged her daughter and son and admonished them not to worry.

“Truth is on my side,” she said. “I’ve faced this before and they didn’t beat me down.”

Later, after depositing the Roberts teenagers at school, Deputy Wilkins approached Kendall. She was supervising the collection of items from the kitchen. He told her what he’d overheard earlier.

“She actually said, ‘I’ve faced this before and they didn’t beat me.’ I think she was referring to the dead husband in Arizona.”

“Don’t worry about that, Gary,” Kendall said. “She’s not going to get away with this.”

“What makes you so sure?” he asked.

“That.” She pointed to one of the large plastic totes that the team had brought in. Each had been filled with paper bags of evidence.

The young deputy looked confused and went over to peek inside. A flash of yellow caught his eye—a plastic bottle of antifreeze.

“That was in the house?” he asked.

Kendall nodded. “In the kitchen under the sink.”

“She’s going down,” he said.

Kendall agreed. “Oh yeah, she is.”

Kendall made a quick call to the sheriff and then went outside where Jennifer had been standing by her car. Kendall told the deputy to follow her, which he gladly did.

“Am I free to go?” Jennifer asked, looking completely put out in her nightgown, slippers, and winter coat. “I’m hungry.”

Kendall kept her expression flat. Deep down, she loved this part of her job more than any, but she wasn’t a gloater. She didn’t see any need for that.

“They’ll feed you where I’m taking you,” she said with the tiniest trace of snark in her delivery. She just couldn’t help it. Jennifer Roberts was the type of woman who just did that to other people. She was the type of woman who rubbed other women the wrong way. It wasn’t her gorgeous looks, not really. It was that air of entitlement that seemed to come from every utterance from her perfect mouth.

Jennifer brightened a little. “Where?”

Kendall reached in her pocket and pulled out a card. “Jennifer Marie Roberts, you’re under arrest for the murder of your husband, Ted Roberts.”

“I didn’t do it,” Jennifer said.

Kendall started reading. It was standard procedure to make sure that no defendant could ever say that their rights were violated because the arresting deputy had made a mistake on Miranda. Kendall read it word by word, instead of a more conversational fluid fashion.

“You have the right to remain silent . . .”

As the deputy cuffed Jennifer, she wriggled a little. “Steady,” he said, leading her to the open door of a cruiser.

“I don’t need a lawyer,” Jennifer said. “I’m innocent. You are so wrong about me, detective.”

Kendall didn’t answer. Instead, she turned to another deputy.

“Pick up her kids, Ruby and Micah, from South Kitsap High. I’ll be back at my office. I want them to be together in the car, but separated when you arrive. Let’s see what they know about their mother’s activities.”

“You think the kids know something?” he asked.

“The girl does. She hates her mom. She sees her as competition. I got a whiff of that at Desert Enchantment where she works. She’ll crack.”

 

 

While the cars and the bins and bags of evidence filed past Kendall as she stood in the Robertses’ front yard, she phoned Birdy at the coroner’s office.

“How’d it go?” Birdy asked right away.

“Better than hoped,” Kendall said. “She’s halfway to booking now.”

“What’d you find?”

“A jug of Prestone in the kitchen. Under the sink like some big yellow warning sign on a highway somewhere. Couldn’t miss it.”

“That’s pretty careless, Kendall.”

“No one said she was a criminal mastermind. She’s no Brenda Nevins.”

“Most of them aren’t.”

“When are you leaving for Arizona?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Lucky you. You’ll get some sun. I wish I could go. The county’s too cheap to send us both.”

“Right. And in case you haven’t noticed I’m already tan, Kendall.”

“Sorry. I wish I tanned.”

“You could always go to Desert Enchantment, Kendall.”

“Hey, speaking of which, Ruby and Micah are coming in for some questioning. Want to observe?”

“You bet I do,” Birdy said before switching the subject. “I have a favor to ask. A personal one.”

“What do you need?” Kendall asked.

“Can you look in on Elan?”

“You’re only going to be gone two days.”

“I know,” she said.

Kendall smiled at the thought of her friend doing a little mothering. It was good for her to have someone to worry about—someone she loved and, more than anything, was alive.

Even so she teased her a little.

“He’s sixteen, Birdy. He can handle it. Honestly, how old were you when your parents left you and your sister alone?”

Birdy knew that Kendall was right, even so she felt compelled to give her friend a glimpse into her life—something she seldom did.

“Not a fair comparison,” she said. “My dad was on a fishing boat in Alaska and my mom was, or rather
is
, an alcoholic. I don’t remember a time when we weren’t left alone.”

Gary motioned to Kendall that the evidence had been collected and the house was sealed.

“Gotta go,” Kendall said, hanging up.

Birdy put down the phone and went to the kitchen for some more terrible coffee. Not that she needed a jolt of caffeine. Talking about growing up on the reservation—something she tried to avoid—had got her to thinking. And thinking meant pacing.

Even years later, the memories still hurt.

Birdy looked down at the stack of magazines that had been there forever like dental office rejects.

On the cover of
People
magazine was an inset photograph of Brenda Nevins with the headline:

Boy, Brenda, that must have made you mad when Kelly Clarkson got the cover?
Birdy thought.

She smiled at the thought and poured some coffee.