by Elle Gray
“Giving me an ultimatum is about the stupidest thing he could do.”
“I’m not saying he will. I’m just saying he could. Or he could make the decision for you,” she replies. “One way or the other, you’re going to have to decide what’s most important to you—a future with Mark, or you continuing to work on your parents’ case.”
I sigh. “I hope it doesn’t come to that. I really don’t think anybody would be happy.”
“It’s going to be difficult. I’m sure being with someone who takes the kinds of risks you do is nerve-wracking. But it’s also not easy to be with someone who won’t support you and embrace you for who you are.”
“I don’t take risks,” I protest.
Astra rolls her eyes. “You have got to be kidding me. You are so full of crap right now.”
“I don’t take unnecessary risks,” I amend my statement. “And you take the same risks I do.”
“Yeah, but I’m with somebody who doesn’t get all freaked out about it,” she replies with a sly twinkle in her eye. “Benjamin thinks the idea of us kicking in doors is kind of hot.”
We share a laugh, which is followed quickly by a thoughtful silence. She’s made a lot of really good points and has given me a lot to think about. There’s no question about that. And she’s right, I need to figure out a lot of things on my own before the situation with Mark becomes more untenable than it already is.
“My two cents—”
“I think you’ve given me about fifty dollars’ worth already,” I cut her off.
“Shut up,” she grins. “I think you two just need to have a long talk. Y’all both need a come-to-Jesus moment to see where this thing between you is going. Or if it’s going anywhere at all.”
She’s not wrong. She’s not wrong at all. I’m going to have to give some more thought to it. But right now, we’ve got work to do, so I get to my feet.
“We need to go talk to Summer Kennedy’s mother,” I tell her. “It’s been long enough. The SPD should have already interviewed her, so it’s our turn.”
“Running a shadow investigation?”
“Unless you object.”
“Oh, hell no,” she says. “If it involves making that prick Torres look bad, I’m all in.”
“Excellent.”
Six
Kennedy Residence; Ballard District, Seattle, WA
“You’re really going hard on this,” Astra says. “Like I said, dog with a bone.”
“I just have a feeling about this. The bells are going off in my head,” I tell her.
She nods as I pull the car to a stop at the curb and cut the engine. Astra looks at me for a long moment, a sly smile curling a corner of her mouth upward.
“Are you sure you’re hearing bells? Or is this you creating work for yourself so you can avoid going home and dealing with Mark?” she asks.
I raise an eyebrow. “Are you seriously asking me that question right now?”
She shrugs. “Seems like a fair question to me.”
“Come on. You should know me better than that,” I tell her. “But if you’d like, I can take you back to the shop and you can help Mo and Rick track the ATM bandits I assigned them to.”
“Hard pass, thanks,” she says with a laugh. “I’ll go with your gut on this one.”
“And has my gut ever steered you wrong?”
“Not lately.”
“Not ever,” I correct her.
We laugh as we get out of the car. I pause and look around what looks like an upper-middle-class neighborhood. The street is lined with tall trees with wide boughs that stretch out, almost forming a tunnel over the road. All the homes are large and well-kept, the yards are well-tended, and the street is quiet. It looks like a nice place to raise a family.
We cross the street and follow the walkway lined by colorful flowers on either side up to the stairs that lead to a wide porch. There’s a swing on one end of it, along with a pair of large chairs with plush cushions. The front door is white with brass fixtures and has a frosted glass window etched with flowers. It’s beautiful.
I reach out and push the button. Inside, I hear the soft chime of the bell sound. A couple of moments later, the door opens, revealing a woman—or rather, the ghost of a woman. She’s about five-foot-four, with disheveled shoulder-length blonde hair. Beneath her bloodshot blue eyes are dark shadows, her skin is waxy, and her face is drawn and pale. She looks like she hasn’t slept in days.
“Mrs. Kennedy?” I ask.
“Paula,” she replies, her speech slightly slurred.
Astra and I flash our badges. “SSA Blake Wilder, and this is my partner, Special Agent Astra Russo,” I introduce us. “May we come in? There are a few questions we’d like to ask.”
Without saying a word, she turns and walks deeper into the house, leaving the door open. Astra and I glance at each other and she shrugs, so we step inside. Astra closes the door behind us and we follow Paula past the formal living room on our right and a dining room to our left. We pass the staircase and walk down the long hallway to the back of the house.
A bonus room opens to our right. An oval oak and glass coffee table is in front of a large couch and a loveseat sits perpendicular to the sofa. It’s a beautifully decorated house. Everything is done in soft earth tones. A large flatscreen TV hangs on the wall across from the sofa, currently tuned to some trash reality show. I don’t think Paula was actually watching it though, because the sound is muted, and the coffee table is littered with vodka bottles. The air in the room is stale, as if a breath of fresh air hasn’t passed through in ages. Underneath that is the smell of sweat, cigarettes, and booze. But the most pervasive odor in the air is this woman’s grief.
Paula is leaning against the sink side of a floating island in the center of the kitchen to our left. It’s thoroughly modern, with all black and white tile and stainless steel appliances. All the bells and whistles. It’s gorgeous. Makes me think of my own kitchen, which seems tiny in comparison, I find myself feeling a little jealous. I stuff that all down though and focus on the sobering reason we’re here. This woman clearly takes a lot of pride in the upkeep of her home, but to see her lost and broken like this is utterly heartbreaking.
Astra and I step over to the island and are standing on the other side of it, across from Paula. She sways on her feet, and even from where I’m standing, I can smell the vodka. It’s obvious that she crawled into a bottle when she got the news about her daughter and hasn’t climbed out yet. I can’t say that I blame her. I know the pain of loss well, and God knows I’ve been tempted to self-medicate with booze more than once.
Paula lights up a cigarette and takes a deep drag, then blows a plume of smoke to the ceiling. She looks at the cancer stick in her hand like she’s not sure how it got there, then shakes her head.
“I quit, you know. Hadn’t had one in twenty years. When I found out I was pregnant, I stopped cold turkey,” she mentions, her voice quavering. “Not until the other night. Seems like I’ve had one of these damn things in my hand every single minute.”
“Mrs.—Paula,” I start. “We’re very sorry for your loss. We can’t imagine how painful it must be to—”
“I know these things will kill me, but what’s there left to live for anyway?” she goes on as if I hadn’t spoken. “Husband’s dead—cancer, ironically enough. Now my Summer. I’ve got nothing left to live for, but don’t have the courage to kill myself.”
“Paula, I know it’s hard to see through your grief right now, but you’ve still got a lot of life ahead of you,” Astra says. “The pain will fade in time. And then—”
Paula’s head snaps up and she narrows her eyes at Astra. “Have you ever lost a child, Special Agent Russo?” she spits. “Actually, have you ever had to bury a husband and a child?”
Astra lowers her eyes and shakes her head. “No ma’am.”
“Then you don’t really know what you’re talking about, do you?”
Tears spill from the corners of her eyes and ra
ce down her sunken cheeks. Paula takes another drag from her cigarette and angrily blows out the smoke.
Astra cuts a glance at me, then turns back to the grieving woman. “I’m sorry, Paula. I didn’t mean to presume—”
“What do you want?” Paula snaps. “I’ve already talked to the police. Why is the FBI involved with my daughter’s case?”
“I understand. The Bureau is just assisting in the investigation,” I cut in. “We just had a few follow-up questions.”
“Then can we do this and get it done?” she asks as she picks up a half-empty bottle of vodka. “I’ve kind of got a busy day ahead of me.”
“We were just looking for a little background,” I go on. “We understand Summer was a student at UW. Do you know if she was having any problems with anybody on campus?”
Paula shakes her head. “No. None. Everybody loved her,” she says and sniffs loudly. “She was a good girl and had a lot of friends. She wasn’t having problems with anyone.”
“What about a boyfriend? Astra asks.
“She didn’t have a boyfriend. Summer is—was—focused on her studies,” she replies. “She wanted to be a child psychologist. That was her passion. Helping kids.”
Astra cuts her eyes to me before asking her next question and I can see the tension in the set of her jaw. Having to question a grieving family member is one of the hardest parts of this job.
“And you’re sure there was nobody special she was spending time with?” she asks, as delicately as she can. “She never mentioned—”
“My daughter and I had no secrets from each other,” Paula snaps. “She told me everything.”
In my experience, no child ever tells their parents everything, regardless of how close they are. I was extremely close to my own folks and I never told them that Sean Dugan gave me my first kiss in the basement of his parents’ house when I was eleven years old. There are some things that, as a kid, you just don’t discuss with your folks. That doesn’t mean you don’t love or respect them, and it certainly doesn’t mean you’re not as close as you believe you are. It just means that we’re all individual people with our own lives—and yes, with our own secrets too. There’s nothing wrong with having things you keep just for yourself.
But I know there are a lot of parents out there who would take offense at the notion that their children were anything but one hundred percent forthright with them. They would take the secrets their children held back as proof their kids weren’t who they believed them to be. They’d be upset and question everything about their relationship with their children. And I’m kind of getting the feeling Paula would definitely be that kind of parent.
Which is kind of sad in my book, simply because as a parent, I’d think you would want your child to grow up to be their own person.
“Did she live on campus or have an off-campus apartment, Paula?” I ask.
“She lived in the dorms.”
“Great. And does she have a roommate?”
She nods. “Yeah, Ariel McCann. She’s a lovely girl. She and Summer were very close.”
I jot the name down in my notebook, and then we ask some basic background information on Summer—places she liked to spend time, groups she was involved in, the names of some of her other friends. And when we’re done, Paula looks wrung out and ready to crawl back into her bottle. I hate leaving her like this, but there’s nothing I can do.
“Do you have somebody who can stay with you for a bit?” I ask. “Family member or—”
“I’m fine. Thank you for your concern,” she growls, not sounding very thankful at all. “Now, if there’s nothing else?”
“No, I think we have everything we need. Thank you for your time,” I say. “We’ll show ourselves out.”
Paula looks at me for a moment and I see her eyes shimmering with more tears. And as she holds my gaze, I see her lips quivering.
“Please find who did this,” she whispers, her voice thick with emotion. “Please find the person responsible for my baby’s death.”
“We’re going to do everything in our power, Paula,” I say. “I promise you that we will do our very best.”
Seven
Narasaki Hall, University of Washington Campus; Seattle, WA
“That woman is falling apart,” Astra sighs.
“I can’t say I blame her,” I reply. “To lose her husband and her daughter? The grief has to be unimaginable.”
After leaving Paula’s home, we made a beeline for the UW campus, hoping to catch Summer’s roommate before she heads to class for the day. Assuming she’s going to class. In the wake of a tragedy like this and losing a good friend, going to class is probably the last thing on Ariel’s mind.
“I hope I never have to go through something like that,” Astra says.
I frown. “I wish nobody ever had to.”
After getting Ariel McCann’s dorm assignment, we make our way across the busy, bustling campus. I watch a group of guys throwing a frisbee back and forth. Another group is tossing a football around. There’s a small knot of people sitting beneath a large tree talking and laughing. One of them is playing guitar. Other clusters of kids are scattered about, some of them talking. Some of them, with books and laptops open on their laps, look like they’re intently studying. All around us, the students give off a powerful sense of life. They give off this powerfully vibrant energy that fills the air.
And yet, when I look at all these kids who have their lives and their futures stretched out before them, with all the hopes and dreams they’re chasing, all I can see is a wide pool of victims. And predators. The fact is, there is an alarmingly large percentage of people on this campus who are going to experience some form of violence. Be it physical or sexual, there are very, very few who will make it off campus completely unscathed and untouched by violence of some kind. It’s a depressing thought.
“You’re thinking about all of the kids on campus who are going to be raped, beaten, or murdered, aren’t you?” Astra asks.
I nod. “You must be a psychic.”
“Nah. I was just thinking the same thing.”
“I’m not sure if that makes us good at our jobs or just dark, twisted, paranoid freaks.”
I flash her a grin. “I tend to think it’s both.”
“Probably so.”
We make our way up the steps to Narasaki Hall, presumably named after Karen Narasaki, a Seattle-born civil and human rights activist and former Commissioner of the US Commission on Civil Rights. Seems fitting for a women’s dorm. We check in with the security desk and badge our way past them after confirming that Ariel McCann is in her dorm—the students are required to use their IDs to get in and out of the building, and she hasn’t checked out yet today.
Some of the students we pass give us sidelong glances as we cross the lobby and make our way to the elevators. It’s as if they somehow instinctively know we’re law enforcement or something because they give us a wide berth. There are a pair of girls waiting in the elevator lobby, but when the doors open, they step aside and give us the car to ourselves.
“We’ll catch the next one,” chirps a bubbly blonde.
I roll my eyes and we step onto the car, then take it up to the third floor. The doors open again with a soft chime and we walk out, immediately looking around for signage.
“It was room 324A, wasn’t it?” Astra asks.
I nod. “It was.”
“Okay, it’s this way.”
The building is massive. There are more rooms than you’d think looking at it from the outside. The walls are all a uniform shade of yellow with a gray linoleum made to look like marble beneath our feet. Most of the doors are decorated with photos or small, colorful decorations. The whole place is surprisingly clean. I see no graffiti on the walls—which tells me the school has a crack janitorial staff, since I know students aren’t exactly paragons of cleanliness. Spaced pretty evenly on both walls are cork boards littered with fliers for tutors, things for sale, concerts, and open mic nights. It’s e
verything a college dorm should be.
“You look like you’re feeling pretty nostalgic,” Astra observes.
I shrug. “I enjoyed my college years.”
We find the room and Astra knocks on the door. There’s a hurried shuffling inside the room and when the door opens a crack, we find ourselves looking at nothing more than a green eye pressed to that crack. We both show her our badges and the eye grows wider.
“Ariel McCann, I’m Special Agent Russo, this is SSA Wilder,” she intones in her best butt-kicking, FBI chick voice. “We’d like to speak with you for a moment.”
“Yeah, this isn’t a good time. I’m actually not feelin’ real good right now,” Ariel replies, then gives us a fake cough and looks at us like we were expected to buy it. “Maybe another time.”
I look at Astra. “Do you smell that, Agent Russo?”
Astra frowns dramatically. “If by smell that, you mean the overpowering aroma of marijuana, then yes, SSA Wilder, I do smell that.”
Ariel rolls her eyes but looks shaken. “It’s legal in Washington.”
“Only for those twenty-one and older,” I point out. “And I’d say you can’t be more than nineteen or twenty years old—and don’t bother with the fake ID. Now, you can either have a nice conversation with us or we can arrest you. It’s your choice.”
She hesitates and I can see the annoyance on her face, but I can also see the fear. I can tell she’s calculating the odds of her parents finding out and what the fallout of that might be.
“You wouldn’t want all of your friends to see you getting hauled out of here in cuffs, do you?” Astra asks, applying the pressure. “Forget your friends. What would your folks think? What would they do to you if we popped you for smoking weed in the dorms? It’s been a while since I was in college, but I’m pretty sure it’s against university policy, too, with pretty heavy penalties. You willing to take that risk?”
I don’t like strong-arming the girl like this, but we really need to talk to her. She may or may not have important information, but I won’t know until we have a conversation with her. She finally relents and throws the door open for us, grumbling under her breath. Astra follows me in, shutting the door behind us as Ariel belatedly opens a window then drops down onto her bed. The smell of pot is strong, and the cloud gathered around the ceiling is as thick as the smog in Los Angeles.