by Gregg Olsen
Dr. A: How did you decide where to go?
Me: It seems so stupid now. But also, in its own way, smart. We called the nights before we moved to another place “the switch.” We had a glass bowl with a bunch of names of towns that were written by Mom on small, fortune-cookie-sized pieces of paper. I once asked my mom why it was that we did all of that. She told me, and I’ll never forget it, that there was security in randomness.
I press STOP on the recorder. It’s getting late. I’m tired. My mind needs a break. And yet I can’t stop thinking of my mother. How she made me believe in so many things.
If we are thinking of a place, making plans for a place, then it can be found out, she said. If we are random, no one can know where we’re going, honey. You know, because even we don’t know until we make the switch.
I remember thinking how it all made sense, in the way that parents sometimes can make the most ridiculous things seem normal. Like the Easter Bunny. Like the fact that only old people die. Or that all dogs go to heaven.
Speaking with convincing authority was my mother’s forte.
I’m dizzy from the wine or the memories that have bombarded me. It’s hard to know which. Wine, I hope. I want to think of myself as a strong person. That’s what makes me good at my job. I look down. My hands are shaking. I know why. The tape has sparked so many memories of Hayden. I miss my brother so much as I think of him as that little boy back in Port Orchard. Everything that happened after he found our father was my doing. He was a little kid. I dragged him along on my odyssey and dropped him off the first chance I had.
He didn’t deserve that.
I pad down the hall to a second bedroom that I use for an office. The scene there is chaotic. I’ve turned an entire room into the proverbial junk drawer. Little things, big things. Nothing put where it belongs. Most of the stuff is junk, yet because I have so little of my early years, I keep it all—a necklace I wore the day we left the house, vintage Foster Grant sunglasses, my ASB card from South Kitsap.
And a news clipping I tore from an old bound edition of the Oregonian from Portland State University archives.
My laptop beckons from the desk.
I slide into the chair and open my email account. Nothing but the usual offers from stores that I was stupid enough to give my email address. I’d rather not have ten percent off anything if it means you’ll spam me every single day of my life.
Even though risk always looms with any technology, especially the use of email, I start typing, keeping things vague and free of details that could hurt either one of us. It is my only hope to reach him.
Hayden,
You don’t have to answer. Please read all the way to the end. Please don’t let this email bounce back because you’ve blocked me or relegated me to your SPAM folder. I’m missing you so much right now. I just wanted to let you know that I’m doing okay. You’d like Port Townsend so much. It’s got some cool old architecture like Wallace. Lots of restaurants and bars too. I have a spare room. When your deployment ends maybe you can come here and stay awhile. Like I said, you don’t have to answer.
I love you,
Rylee
I reread the email. I note where I tell him—no less than twice—that no response is required. That’s really not for him, but for me. I doubt he will reply. I write those words so I don’t check my email obsessively. Even though I will.
I put my fingertip on SEND and go back to bed knowing that I’ll check my email first thing in the morning.
Thirteen
Jane Doe’s face is so badly beaten and burned that there’s nothing for a forensic artist to work with. No photos of Ms. Wheaton exist online. I wonder how anyone could escape social media these days—even if you want to be anonymous, someone somewhere is going to take a picture and post it. Except the Wheatons. None of them have any kind of digital presence.
I listen to the news as I return to their place in Snow Creek. It’s Seattle news, of course. It’s like the news bureaus have erected a wall around the city and declared that nothing outside it is worth reporting. The reporter for the Port Townsend Leader will do a story on the body found off the logging road when he finally sobers up and checks the log at the department. I’m thinking he’ll get around to that tomorrow. Always on top of it.
Sarah is in the yard pushing an old-fashioned rotary mower. She’s wearing jeans and the Miller Highlife T that her brother had worn the previous day. Her long hair is pulled back and beads of sweat sparkle on her brow.
She runs over to my car as I pull in.
“Have you found them?”
Joshua appears in the doorway and joins Sarah.
“Detective, do you have some news?” he asks.
“You can tell us,” Sarah says. “We’re not little kids. Were they in an accident? Are they in the hospital? Where are they?”
“Let’s sit here,” I say as we start for the front porch. I motion to a bench by the door.
“When we talked at the Sheriff’s department,” I go on, “you said your mother had no distinguishing features.”
“Right,” Joshua says. “No tattoos. Nothing like that.”
“That’s right,” I say. “Was there anything else about her that would be different than most people? Maybe something about her body.”
Sarah looks at her brother, then back at me.
“Mom was super self-conscious about her foot,” Joshua says. “She wouldn’t want to bring it up. She was very embarrassed.”
My stomach drops. I look at their faces. They are about to receive the worst possible news. I’ve made visits to the families of people who had died in traffic accidents. Mothers and fathers who have to be told their child had been found in a school bathroom or a county park, dead of an overdose.
Never have I told two children that their mother was murdered.
“What was it about her foot?” I ask, knowing the answer, knowing that Ida Wheaton had been found.
“Her baby toe. She had an accident with a mower when she was five.” Joshua looks over at the mower Sarah had been using. “That’s why she wears those.”
Sarah indicates the heavy, lace-up boots on her feet.
He’s reading me now.
“You found her,” Joshua says. “Didn’t you?”
“We think so. We can’t be one hundred percent sure.”
“Where is she?” Sarah asks, bunching her hands together. “Is she in the hospital? Is she going to be okay? Where’s Dad?”
“We don’t know where your father is,” I say. “But no, she’s not in the hospital. I’m very sorry to tell you this, we think that a body recovered from Puget Logging’s old property not far from here could be your mom.”
Sarah lets out a cry, and Joshua reaches out to comfort her. Her shoulders melt into her body as she shrinks downward in the bench.
I give them a moment to process.
“I’m very sorry,” I say.
Joshua nods. “I think we’re in shock. Is our dad in the hospital?”
“No, he’s not,” I say.
“He killed Mom, didn’t he?” Sarah says.
“We don’t know that,” I say, switching the subject, admittedly awkwardly so. “What kind of car did he drive?”
“A GMC pickup,” Joshua says. “Are you looking for it?”
I shake my head. “No, we found it. Dumped off the logging road.”
Joshua stares at me. His eyes are glistening, yet he’s not yet crying. He’s being brave for his sister.
Like I’d been for my brother.
“You found Mom, but not Dad?” he asks.
“Yes, and as I said, it might not be your mom. We have to confirm.”
“You want us to come to town and look at her? I don’t know if I can do that,” Sarah says, through her tears.
“No,” I say, softening my voice. “I would not recommend that. The body is not in any condition that you should view.”
“I don’t understand,” she says.
“There was a fire at
the scene where the truck was found.”
Sarah wails and Joshua puts his arm around her, tighter. He whispers in her ear that everything will be all right.
“Maybe it’s not her,” he says.
I give them some time, before speaking again.
“I need something with your mother’s DNA. A hairbrush would be good. Or a toothbrush.”
Joshua gets up and disappears into the house. A minute later, he comes out with a tortoiseshell hairbrush. Strands of blond hair catch the light of the sun.
I put it into a plastic bag and seal it.
“I need one more thing,” I tell them. “I need some DNA from one of you. It will be compared against your mother’s, so we can determine a match, all right?”
I pull the swab and vial from my pocket.
Sarah is closest to me, but she’s suddenly inconsolable.
“I can’t believe this is happening.”
She gets up and runs into the house.
“I’ll do it,” Joshua says.
I hold out the swab, and he opens his mouth like a baby bird. A severely injured bird. I feel my hand shake a little as flashes of my own life come back to me. I know what’s coming next for them. It won’t be easy. It will leave a scar for the rest of their lives.
“It won’t hurt,” I say. “I’ll just rub the tip against your cheek.”
I finish and put the swab into the kit and seal it.
“Our dad had his issues, but he wouldn’t hurt our mom. Not like that. His kind of hurt was not talking to her for days. Never even yelled at her.”
I won’t tell him what I’m thinking. The strong silent type is often silent because to give words to what’s in his mind would shock his audience. Ted Bundy never said a cross word to his girlfriend, but inside he was reliving the things he did to the girl he’d just left, skull shattered, head severed, in the woods. Gary Ridgway had his son in the truck when he picked up women to murder and dump along the Green River. Wait here, he’d say. Me and my friend are taking a walk. After raping and strangling her, he’d take his boy for an ice cream. Playing the murder like a silent movie in his head while the boy ate his cone.
“I’ll call your Aunt Ruth,” I say, “but it would take her a day at best to get here.”
Joshua nods. “Yeah. Thank you.”
“Do you have anyone in the neighborhood you can be with?”
He shakes his head.
“I mean there are people around here, but we only know them in passing. I don’t even know their names.”
“Are you going to be all right? Should I send someone out here tonight? Otherwise, I’ll be back when I have more news. You call me if you need anything, Joshua?”
“We’ll be fine,” he says, tucking his shoulder-length hair behind an ear. He’s acting strong for my benefit, showing me that he can deal with the tragedy. I also see the hope in his eyes. “Our dad has to be out there,” he says. “Someone must have abducted them. Maybe he escaped or something?”
I doubt it, though I don’t say so.
“We’ll do our best to find him.”
Fourteen
I try Ruth Turner three times but no one picks up. Maybe she’s at the church caucus, whatever that is. Or her husband won’t allow her to take my call. There’s no answer on her so-called borrowed cell phone, either. Though I wonder how close the sisters actually were—after all, she hadn’t been to Snow Creek in a half dozen years, I know that my words will crush her.
I order a pizza from an Italian place across from the courthouse on my way home. I want thick crust with a mountain of cheese and pepperoni. I’ll probably burn the roof of my mouth with the oil that pools on each little round slice of pepperoni. I don’t care. The pizza is so good and maybe I deserve a little pain to shift me from what I know I’ll do when I get home.
I pull a triangle of cheesy goodness from the box and eat it as I drive. Oh perfect, I think… I feel a burn.
The house is surprisingly cool when I go inside and I set down the pizza box next to the tapes. Analog tapes. I suddenly feel old. The world today is a vapor. Nothing, not even photographs, exists in tangible form. Just ether floating around your phone or computer. I crack a cold beer and open the windows to suck in the maritime breeze.
My fingertips roll over the little rectangles, each like a pair of coiled snakes in a clear, plastic case.
I insert the next one into the little recorder.
Dr. Albright tells me to take off my shoes. The command puzzles me for a moment. What kind of therapy was I getting anyway? What else did I forget? I breathe a sigh of relief when it dawns on me that there’d been a cloudburst on my way to my appointment that afternoon. My hair, my feet and the front of my shirt where my jacket was unzipped were sopping.
“Feel better?” she asks.
“Thanks,” I say. “It was a dumb day for sandals.”
She murmurs something that I can’t make out.
“Let’s start where we left off last time. Close your eyes and tell me everything; tell me the story that you’ve held inside all these years, Rylee. I want to see what you saw, hear how you felt. Put me right there in real time.”
“Okay,” my younger self says.
I drink my beer, the first of several I’ll have. The pizza, that I told myself when I ordered it would be great for lunch the next day, will be nearly gone.
I tell her about how Hayden and I slept in the bathroom of the Walla Walla, the ferry from Bremerton to Seattle. I mention the sepia-toned photograph of Princess Angeline and how she watched me.
Dr. A: Tell me more about that.
Me: Princess Angeline, Chief Seattle’s daughter, was born in 1820, died in 1896. I remember looking at her picture. She had skin weathered like silver driftwood and her eyes were wide and light in color—like amber beach glass, I think. I felt like she was watching me as I plotted my way to the end of the night.
Dr. A: You didn’t really think that, did you?
Me: I’m messed up, Doctor. I’ve done crazy things, but no, I’m not crazy.
Dr. Albright offers an apology, and I carry on with my story. I tell her how I monitored the cleaning crew’s routine with the bathrooms, going in and out, with a mop and bucket every fifteen minutes.
I knew that inside the door was a sheet of paper that indicated when the restroom was last cleaned. It was a farce, of course. They were only in there long enough to sign their name to the card affixed on to the back of the door that indicated they’d done what the captain had asked.
Me: So, I told Hayden to plug up a toilet with a bunch of toilet paper, flush, then hide in a storage cabinet. He got mad because I made him hide in the women’s room. I told him it’s the only way we can be safe. A man will come in there and shut down the toilet’s water flow. And since it’s the last run of the night, he’d leave the mess for the morning crew to clean up.
My voice goes soft and then stops.
Dr. A: Do you need to take a break, Rylee?
Me: Just thinking about my brother. His trust in me. Hayden was so scared. I remember how I acted so tough because I knew that I was near breaking too. I just did my best to hold my emotions inside because that’s the only way anyone can get through the really hard stuff. Our mother told me that. Mom told me that she learned to actually control her feelings. She said that she knew that emotions only made the punishment greater. Dr. Albright, can we stop? I feel sick.
I hear Dr. Albright shift in her chair. She says that remembering buried things can do that, but promises it will get better. She pulls a tissue from the box and says I could call her if I need to talk before our time together the following week.
Me: I carry your number with me, Doctor. I haven’t used it yet.
Dr. A: But you can. You need to know that, Rylee.
I check my email. Once more, nothing from my brother Hayden.
My nearly empty glass follows me to my bedroom, and I lie there, half asleep, half woozy from too much alcohol. I run my hand through my hair. I’m back
on the Walla Walla. The images are fuzzy, like an old VHS tape.
Hayden is asleep, and I gently lift him away, deeper into a nest of paper towels. I turn in the dim light of the ferry bathroom and hold up my hair with one hand. I reach for the scissors and start cutting. Locks fall like autumn leaves over the dingy countertop and into the bottom of the pitted white sink. I cut, and I cut. Tears roll down my cheeks, but I don’t make a sound.
I open a box of dye and apply it with the thin plastic gloves that come in the box. I smell the chemicals as my hair eclipses from brown to blond. I rinse in the sink, the acrid odor wafting through the still air of the bathroom. I tear a ream of paper towels to wring out the water and then, in what I think is a brilliant move, I turn on the hand dryer and rotate my head against the hot spray of air. I am in Maui. I am in Tahiti. I’m on the beach and I have a tan. A handsome boy looks at me and I smile.
The dryer stops, and I look in the mirror and I see her. Mom. I look just like my mother. It was unintended genius.
Hayden, now awake, seems to agree.
“I miss Mom. Do you think they found Dad?”
I indicate the second box of hair dye. “Your turn, Hayden.”
He climbs up on the counter and lays his head in the sink as I wet his hair with lukewarm water. It reminds me of when he was a baby and Mom washed him in the sink instead of the tub. He scrunches his eyes shut as I rub in the dye. When I’m done, he will be transformed. He’ll no longer be the little boy with the shock of blond hair, the one that makes him look like he’s stepped out of the page of a cute kids’ clothing website.
I look down at the name on the dye box.
Dark and Dangerous.
The tape spins to the end and all I can think about is Hayden. We had a blowout of a fight the last time we saw each other. It was my fault. All of it. I was like some insidious weed that took over every inch of his life. We’d met in a crowded bar near SeaTac airport. He was all grown up, going on a vacation to Cabo before deploying for the Middle East. Things were going well for us, I thought. We’d moved on and made something of ourselves.