The Girl in the Woods (6 page)

B
irdy Waterman stood at the front of the line at the latte stand in the Kitsap County administration building, a mammoth structure that faced west to the shipyard and beyond to the Olympics. Birdy normally didn’t go there for coffee—the coroner’s office had a kitchen with a refrigerator, stove, and coffeepot. That sometimes the refrigerator held errant body parts while waiting for exam was of no matter. It was an old house. That the coffeepot had broken, however, was a big concern. She needed that third cup.

She looked down at the paper on the counter and read while she waited.

The
Kitsap Sun
had a screamer of a headline across the top of the daily’s front page:

“Hi, Kendall,” Birdy said, looking up and noticing the detective joining the queue.

Kendall smiled in her direction. “Birdy, what are you doing over here?”

“No coffee, no autopsy,” the forensic pathologist said, more for effect than the reality of what she was saying. Actually, there was no pile of bodies waiting for her back at the office. A pile of paperwork, yes. Birdy knew the importance of paperwork, but she’d almost rather dive face first into the rancid depths of a body cavity than deal with the most tedious part of her job.

“Got a call from a woman in South Kitsap,” Kendall said. “Says her daughter has been missing.”

“How long?”

Kendall pulled out her frequent coffee drinker card and the barista stamped it.

“A few days,” she said.

“How old?”

“Sophomore at South.”

Birdy lingered as the barista handed Kendall her tuxedo mocha.

“You still drink those?” Birdy said.

Kendall took a sip. “You still drink drip?”

“I’m a traditionalist, Kendall,” she said. “You know that. Comes from my culture.” Birdy held a sly smile on her face. It was a reference to other training they had to do—diversity training. Birdy, being a Makah Indian, was the only non-white person in the room. Every time anyone posed a question about how people from other cultures might interpret something, the others looked at her.

They walked over by the floor-to-ceiling windows and looked over at the mountains and down at the shimmering water of Sinclair Inlet.

“Want to ride along? She’s the daughter of a local celebrity of sorts.”

Birdy took a drink. The coffee in the county admin building was superior to the stuff she’d been drinking in the coroner’s office. It might have been a good thing that the coffeepot died, after all.

“I didn’t know we had any celebrities around here,” Birdy said.

“Very local,” Kendall said. This time
she
smiled.

“All right, Kendall. I’m game. You drive.”

On the drive down Sidney to Bay Street and then onto Highway 16, they spoke about what was going on at home. Birdy talked about her nephew and the complications that came with his arrival. Kendall talked about how her autistic son, Cody, was progressing. They were friends, but with extremely busy lives and careers that knew no time clock. There was never enough time for catching up.

“You think the missing girl is the source of the foot?” Birdy asked.

Kendall glanced at the forensic pathologist.

“Possible,” she said.

“Right age,” Birdy said. “Close to the dump site.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

Birdy’s focus was always about
how
a person died, not so much of the
why
. The
why
was the domain of detectives and prosecutors. They needed the
why
to prove a case. Not always, of course. But it helped.

“Except, most killers are not so careless,” Birdy said. “Killers who torture and mutilate—if that’s what this guy did—are pretty careful about where they deposit their victim’s remains.”

“I guess so,” Kendall said. She pulled off the highway and drove west on Mullinex.

“Gacy kept his victims’ bodies in the crawlspace of his house—so he didn’t run the risk of detection,” Birdy said.

Kendall turned the car toward Olalla Valley Road.

“Yes, and the Green River Killer dumped many of his victims within a few miles of his home,” Kendall said.

Birdy finished her coffee. “Lazy, that one,” she said.

“Yeah,” Kendall said. “The laziest.”

The two women meandered their way along the trail between the berms of garbage and things that would soon be garbage that led to Tess Moreau’s front door.

“Local celebrity, huh?” Birdy said softly, shooting a teasing glance at her friend.

“Well, yes,” Kendall said without a trace of irony. “Everyone knows her.”

The detective knocked. After what seemed like a very long time, a woman opened the door. What greeted them was surprising considering the surroundings. Tess Moreau was a pretty woman. Her hair was long, but not too long. She had smooth, even-toned skin, and bright blue eyes. She wore blue jeans with a slight crease as though they’d been ironed. Her top was a crisp, white blouse. If Birdy had been presented a photo array lineup of people and was asked to pick out the hoarder, she’d never have picked Tess. Her own mother, yes. Her neighbor, yes. Kendall, maybe. Tess Moreau was the epitome of neatness.

Not a hair out of place.

“We’re here about your daughter,” Kendall said, identifying herself.

“I’m with the department too,” Birdy said. There was no need to say she was with the coroner’s office. No need to sound the alarms. It was bad enough to have a detective show up, but a forensic pathologist—that was beyond what most moms could endure.

“Have you found my daughter?” Tess asked.

Kendall shook her head. “No, we haven’t, but we do need to talk to you. We need to make a report.”

Tess stood in the doorway.

“I suppose you need to come inside,” she said.

“It would be easier,” Birdy answered.

Tess looked over her shoulder, back into the cluttered space of her home.

“I already know what you are thinking,” she said.

“No one is thinking anything,” Kendall said. “We’re here about your daughter, Darby. Not your house.”

Tess opened the door wider. “Then you were thinking about it.”

“Only because you are,” Kendall said.

She motioned them inside.

Birdy wanted to say something about the Precious Moments that filled the foyer. Her mother collected them too. But not to that extent. She doubted anyone did. There were scores of them.

“I’m not the best housekeeper,” Tess said. “But I’m a good mother. No one could say otherwise.”

She bent down and moved a stack of newspapers off the sofa and indicated with a nod that her visitors could sit there. She took a spot on a piano bench across from them. The place was musty and cluttered, but it didn’t stink. She was a hoarder of stuff; that was true. But Tess Moreau wasn’t a hoarder of animals and that was good news for her visitors’ olfactory senses.

“When did you see Darby last?” Kendall asked.

“Sunday night when I went to bed. I get up and leave for work early. Darby gets herself off to school.”

“Darby’s sixteen? A sophomore at South?”

“Yes, just sixteen.”

“Did you have any communication with her? Texts? Phone calls?”

Tess tried to calm herself. She took a deep breath. “We don’t bring our phones into the prison. Policy. Darby knows not to call me because of that stupid rule. No point in it. I did check my phone when I got out Monday, but nothing.”

“But you did get a call,” Birdy said.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Not from your daughter, from the school.”

Tess nodded. “Yes, I did.”

“Did you call them back?”

“Yes, I did.”

“What did you tell the school?” Kendall asked.

Tess’s eyes flooded. “Why are you being hostile?”

“Look, I’m not being hostile. I’m being direct. That’s my job. Now, Ms. Moreau, when you talked to the school what did you tell them?”

“I told them she was sick. I told them Darby was out sick.”

“Why did you do that?” Birdy asked, jumping in.

Tess didn’t say a word.

“All right,” Kendall said, pushing on. “You lied to the school and waited a whole day before calling to report she was missing. Is that because she’s left before? Are there problems between you and your daughter? Is there something we should know about?”

Tess’s lips tightened before she spoke. “No. No. No. That’s not why. She’s a very good girl. Mostly As and Bs. She’s never been any trouble whatsoever.”

“But you waited and you lied,” Birdy said.

Tess started to shake. “I waited because of this.” She got up from the piano bench and pointed all around them. “I know what people think of me. I know you know.”

Birdy looked directly at Tess. “No, I don’t know.”

“Crazy lady. Tess the Mess. Pig Woman. I am not deaf.”

Birdy looked over at Kendall. She had heard of Tess the Mess, but she didn’t realize it was
her
. It didn’t seem it could be. Yes, the place looked like a terrorist had let off a bomb in a department store, but the woman standing in front of them was so put together.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Birdy said, a lie that she was happy to make.

“I didn’t want people to say what I felt they would say,” Tess said.

This time Kendall spoke. “Which is?”

Tears puddled her eyes. “That I lost her here in the house.”

“We’re not saying that,” Kendall said. “We know you didn’t. But we do need to figure out where she’s gone.”

“How about her father?” Birdy asked. “Where’s he?”

Tess tried to mop her eyes with the back of her hand. “Buried up at the cemetery in Port Orchard with her sister. That’s where.”

Birdy blinked. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know.”

Kendall turned to Birdy. “A terrible accident on Highway 16.”

“I’m so sorry,” Birdy repeated.

“It has been a long time,” Tess said. “Long enough for some people to forget, but not so long that I don’t think about them every day.”

For the next half hour they talked about the missing girl. She played tennis on the JV team. She wanted a horse. She kept a journal. She had lots of school friends, but none who came to her house—for reasons that neither Kendall nor Birdy needed amplified. Darby was the quintessential good girl.

“Here’s a recent picture,” Tess said, handing over a photograph that showed a pretty blond teenager next to a chestnut mare. Her fingers gripped the reins.

“She’s beautiful,” Kendall said.

Birdy took the photo. “Yes, very pretty. Did she always do her nails?”

Tess nodded. “Yes, fingers and toes.”

“Can we see her room?” Kendall asked.

“Of course, but be prepared for a big shock.”

“What’s that?” Birdy asked.

“She doesn’t take after her mother,” Tess said. “It’s at the end of the hall on the left.”

It was a jarring experience, both women would later say, when the mother of the missing teen opened the bedroom door.

The walls were painted white. Cream-colored linen curtains pressed with accordion pleats hung over the sole window in the room. A bed with a plain white comforter was pulled up tautly and a pair of pillows in pink cases sat in squared off uniformity.

“I told you she didn’t take after me,” Tess said.

Birdy turned around. “That’s all right. I don’t take after my mother either and I turned out all right.”

Tess smiled weakly. “Thanks.”

Kendall moved deeper into the space. “There are worse things than being a collector, Ms. Moreau.”

“I see your daughter loved pink,” Birdy said, looking at the pillows.

Tess’s gaze tracked the forensic pathologist’s. “The singer and the color, yes.”