by Gregg Olsen
Carter nods. “He probably did.”
I go on. “Just so you know, no woman I know wants to get one of these. At least, none would want it as their introductory photo from a dating site. Just not cool.”
I look through the photos. There are seven. Some erect. Some flaccid. All are close-ups. None show Luke’s face, which I know for sure has never been his best asset.
“Nic, we don’t even know if these are his dick pics,” Carter says.
I give him a look. “Who else’s would they be?”
Carter shifts in his chair. “All right, they are probably his, but other than telling us that he’s an even bigger pervert than we thought, what’s the big deal? No pun intended, by the way.”
I smile. I don’t mind the pun at all.
“We won’t know until we find out how he used the photos,” I say.
“Did he share them during one of his online chats on the Kidzzz site?” Carter asks, turning to the printout of his postings, where I’m running my finger down the list.
“No photos posted here,” I say.
“Then where?” Carter says. “He took them to share them.”
“We need to get his phone back from the lab,” I say.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Wednesday, August 23
When I go to see her at the hospital, Mia Tomlinson is sitting in an empty “family” room at the hospital—not her usual haunt along the cafeteria windows. She no longer appears like she’s going to blow away in a good gust of wind. She looks like she’s planted her feet on the floor. She’s full of resolve as I tell her about Rachel Cromwell.
“That fuck face,” she tells me.
I don’t respond, at least not immediately with words. I try to keep my expression somewhat flat. Interested. Empathetic. Not too encouraging. I want to see where she’s going to go now that I’ve told her that Luke was having an affair. The conversation seems more casual, and I never lose sight that she’s lost her daughter. I hate more than anything to bring such news to the mother of a dead baby, but what Mia knows about her husband’s affair could be crucial in the case.
“He could never keep his dick in his pants,” she says. “Makes me sick to think that he was out screwing around with some floral slut while I’m working my ass off, trying to make a life for us. Good God. He’s such an idiot.”
She watches me for a beat, and then her eyes focus on the window and the scene outside. Clouds lie low over Aberdeen.
“It might rain tonight,” she says.
“That’s what they say,” I respond.
We sit in silence for a moment.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“I’m fine,” she says. “I know why you’re telling me this, Detective Foster. I’m not stupid, you know.”
“I’m telling you this because it might be important. It might have some relevance.”
Her eyes stay on the window.
“You’re here to judge Luke. I get it. You’re here to make me tell you something that will help you. I’ve lost my daughter. Now you want to take away my husband forever. You really are something.”
I hadn’t expected her to push back so hard. I thought to myself that if I had been lucky enough to be a mom, a real mom, I’d attack whoever hurt my child. I might find forgiveness somewhere if what happened had been an accident. But, to be honest, that would take a million years.
“I know that, whatever screwing around he was doing, it had nothing to do with what happened to Ally,” Mia says. “If that’s what you’re after. I mean, if you think that—just because a guy will stick it wherever he can—I can tell you right now that’s the way things work. You’re older; you might not get how things are today.”
I bristle inside, but she can’t see it. Yes, I am older. Not that much. Not old enough to be her mother, not even by the narrowest of Hoquiam generations. Mia just told me a lot about herself. She and Luke are a match made in heaven. The person they love more than anyone in the world is the person they see in the mirror. Ally. Poor little Ally. Her parents had very little use for her. They certainly had very little interest in a baby. Luke was out screwing around, and Mia was so focused on her career that she seemed glad that Luke had distractions that didn’t involve her.
“Look,” Mia says, “I love my husband. The reason I can say that is that I understand and accept him. He’s a moron. He’s a traitor. He only gives a crap about his video games and his buddies at work, but he’s mine. He’s the husband that I have and I love him. That doesn’t mean I give him an easy pass on everything. When I see him in the jail tonight, I’ll make him blubber like a baby. He’ll get everything I can throw at him. He will. I promise you. And as far as the florist girl goes, fuck her. I don’t care. I love Luke.”
“Just so I understand,” I say, because I’m really not sure that I do. “Are you saying that you didn’t know about Rachel? That now that you do, it doesn’t really matter?”
Mia toys with her hospital ID tag before answering. She seems irritated by my question.
“Again,” she says, “this might be generational. People my age don’t hold on like you do. Like my mom did. Guys cheat. They’re dogs. Whatever. Move on. Get over it. It happens.”
We talk a few more minutes, but if she has anything against her husband, she’s holding it back. She excuses herself to get back to work.
“Look,” she says, “I know you’re just doing your job. I’m sorry if I was harsh to you. Sometimes a tragedy or an accident is just that. A stupid mistake isn’t always something evil.”
When she’s gone, I call Carter to let him know how it went. It goes to his voice mail, and I leave a short message.
“She’s in denial,” I say. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to get much more out of her. Heading back to the office. See you.”
A young nurse pokes his head into the family room just as I get up to leave. His ID card indicates his name is Trevor Johns. He’s young, short, balding, and wears wire-and-plastic-framed glasses. He’s got everything working against him but the look in his eyes. They’re deep blue and full of indisputable emotion.
Worry and anguish, I think.
“I saw Mia leave,” he says. “You’re the detective working on her daughter’s case, right?”
I introduce myself, and he lingers a little before shutting the door behind him.
“I like Mia,” he says. “To a point.” He stops and withdraws a little. I can see that his hands are trembling slightly, and when his eyes catch mine, he shoves his hands into the confines of his pockets.
“Trevor,” I say, “I can see you’re troubled. What is it? You know that this is important, right?”
He swallows. “Yeah. I know. I just don’t want to cause trouble, but I haven’t been able to sleep very well. In fact, not at all. Not since Ally died. I just keep wondering about something and I feel like I should tell someone. You, I guess. I don’t think I would have had the guts to call you. But seeing you here. It was like God was telling me that I needed to say what I needed to say.”
“That’s good,” I tell him in my most reassuring way as we take a seat side by side at a table. If we sat closer, I would tap him lightly on the knee to indicate our connection in a calming, nonthreatening way. “What do you want—what does God want you—to tell me?”
Invoking God might seem manipulative, but I’m a believer. Prayer went hand in hand with the recovery from my gambling addiction. A higher power was never a crutch but a scaffold. Faith kept me steady when I needed it most.
He talks about her personal habits for a minute, telling me that Mia’s always the first to seek credit for something, the last to shine the light on others.
“The day Ally died, she pulled a typical Mia. She came late for staff recognition. Acted like it was a bother to be there.”
I nod. “There’s something bigger here, right?”
Trevor pauses and then unleashes.
“Mia didn’t like being a mom,” he says. “I mean, she really, r
eally didn’t like it. She told me one time that she wished that her daughter had never been born. She said that Ally was cramping her style and that she and Luke were turned off by parenthood.”
I’m drinking in every word. And I suddenly feel sick.
Trevor stops. He’s assessing my response, and it fuels him. It tells him that what he needs to say is important, maybe necessary.
“She told me that having Ally shifted her priorities against her will. Or it would if she let it. She said that if Luke wanted to be Mr. Mom, then that was fine, but she had her degree to attend to. And as far as downtime? They could no longer go out and party because—and these were her exact words—‘the alien that I popped out cries all night long.’”
“‘Alien’?” I repeat. “Ally?”
“Right,” Trevor says. “She told me that. Mind you, I thought at first that it was a joke; it seemed funny. She riffed on it all break long, saying that she felt like she was the host organism and only Sigourney Weaver could save her. We laughed. We all did. Later, I don’t know . . . it seemed wrong, what she did afterward.”
“Like what?” I ask. “What did she do?”
Trevor crosses his arms with such vigor that it seems as if he’s giving himself a reassuring hug.
“Like coming back to work after her baby died. The next day. Who does that?”
“Sometimes people need to hold on to a routine,” I tell him. “A big piece of their life has shattered and the only way to stay sane is to maintain the other pieces.”
“It was more than that,” he says. “I went to give her a hug and to tell her that I was so sorry. Because, wow, I was.”
Tears fill his eyes. They fall, and even though he surely must feel them as they roll downward, he ignores them. He makes no crying sound. Just the slow, steady stream of a deep, deep hurt.
“What did she say to you, Trevor?”
His lips move a little, but it’s more of a tremble than an attempt to really speak.
“Tell me,” I say. “Please.”
“It seems so crazy. So wrong. Mia told me not to be sad; that everything was going to be fine. She was going to get her degree and Luke wasn’t going to be forced to change diapers. She actually said that it would be okay! Ally was dead, and somehow it didn’t really matter to Mia at all!”
His story is a series of poisoned darts. I knew that Mia Tomlinson was ambitious. I thought she was like a lot of us Grays Harbor County girls, looking for something just a little bigger in life than a retail job, vacations at Ocean Shores, the occasional trip to Seattle or Portland. I knew that she loved her husband. And while I couldn’t really make sense of that attraction, I knew that no one who really knew me could see my attraction—other than the obvious physical attributes—to Danny Ford, my last boyfriend. Probably my last forever. If what Trevor is telling me is true, Mia wore a mask. It was a flimsy one at best. She passed herself off as someone who cared so much about others—a nurse—and wore the mask of a mom who doted on her baby girl; a wife who worked her way through nursing school so that her husband could nurture their child.
Such a giver, that Mia.
Trevor pulls himself together.
“You aren’t going to tell her what I said, are you?” he asks. “I sure hope not. I have to work with her, and she has a way of making people look like dirt around her. She turned me in to the charge nurse one time for stealing from the vending machine. They wrote me up. I really didn’t steal. Someone tried to get some Doritos and the package got stuck. I put in three quarters and got two packages. Big deal. Mia was mad because I didn’t give her one. So she told on me.”
While Trevor’s story hints at a grudge between him and Ally’s mother, it also suggests something more.
Mia Tomlinson is a woman who gets what she wants.
Back in my car, I take a call from Rick in Evidence.
“WinCo surveillance camera images are in and being processed. Ready in the morning,” he says.
I thank him and check my speed as I drive. I don’t want to be the cop who flashes a badge to get out of a ticket. My mind swerves to the scenario that I hope never comes to pass.
“But I have a murder to solve,” I’d say.
“Nice try, Detective.”
“But really.”
“We all do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Wednesday, August 23
She’s back. I feel it. I know it.
My sister is like the monster that never died. Letting her go was only delaying a reunion that I didn’t ever want. I could have done things differently. I could kill Stacy, I think as I turn off the ignition outside of Carrie Anne’s. There must be some part of me that will enable me to do the kinds of things my sister has done without hesitation. We come from the same parents. The same poisoned blood of our mother courses through our veins. The same pathetic blood of our father that allowed Mom to do whatever she wanted without him standing up to her even once. All the boxes are the same. I tick off another. We were raised in the same gloomy, weather-beaten environment, a place in which a blue sky seemed so rare that we lived most of the summer without expecting any sunshine at all. Overcast. Heavy air. The weight of Hoquiam and everything that happened when we grew up nearly suffocated us like a pillow pressed to our faces at night.
I could kill Stacy.
I really could.
If I did, I’d be rid of her forever. I’d never have to look over my shoulder. I’d never have to worry that she’d crawl like a scorpion into Emma’s bed and sting her with what she would insist was merely a kiss. If Stacy were gone, I’d be able to breathe in like I’ve never breathed before.
Killing Stacy would set me free.
It also could send me to prison.
Life’s full of tough decisions, I think.
I get out of the car to get Emma. The dog next door, an insufferable Pomeranian, yaps at me like she knows what I’m thinking at that very moment. That I’m no good. Dangerous, even. That I would snuff out the life of my sister. I love dogs. But not that one. At least, not right now. That one sees right through me. I glare at that yappy puffball.
Killing Stacy would make me a murderer. Doing so would turn me into the kind of human garbage that I have spent my life trying to put away. I think of Cy. Of Tomas. Of Kelsey. Of Julian. I think of the wreckage left behind in my sister’s formidable wake. I tell myself time and again that murdering Stacy would ultimately save lives. It actually would be the humanitarian thing to do. The compassionate thing. Not only would Emma and I be free of her, but any other unsuspecting soul who might come in contact with Stacy in the future would also be safe.
Emma lights up when she sees me.
“Hey, kiddo,” I say, reaching down to scoop her up.
“Carrie Anne says we can go to the beach tomorrow, if that’s okay with you.”
I hug her like it’s the last time. Since Stacy arrived, every time feels a little like the last time. Or could be.
“That’ll be fine,” I tell her.
Carrie Anne appears behind Emma. “We’re getting close to the end of the summer and I thought a day at the beach would be a great way to celebrate. You can come too if you can.”
I shake my head and plant Emma’s feet back on the ground. “Love to,” I say, “but probably can’t get the time off.”
“Tomlinson case is something else,” Carrie Anne says, her voice low.
“Emma knows all about it,” I say, catching Carrie Anne’s look of concern.
“Yeah,” she says. “I guess all the kids do. Seattle TV’s latched onto the story. They love portraying us like a bunch of backwater morons one level below moonshiners in the woods of Kentucky.”
I smile at her. “I could use some moonshine.”
She grins back. “I’ll look up the recipe on the Internet. Day care receipts are going to drop when the kids skedaddle back to the classroom. I’ll need a sideline for sure.”
“I’ll look the other way,” I say.
Behind Carrie Ann
e, I notice her ex-husband’s gun cabinet. Most of the guns are gone and a few of the vacant spots have been filled—ironically, I think—with Precious Moments figurines. The cabinet’s locked, and I’ve never worried about it being in the living room of Emma’s day care. Suddenly, however, I think of it as a source of inspiration. I could shoot Stacy while duck hunting out on the edges of the Wishkah.
If either of us were the duck-hunting type, that is.
Carrie Anne calls over to her kids to quiet down, and Emma and I tell her goodbye and start the drive home. While Emma chatters about all the things that happened that day, I continue to think of ways to kill her mother. It’s like an annoying song on perpetual repeat, and I can’t get it out of my head.
We pass a Safeway with cherries on sale featured on its reader board. The idea that I could bake a cherry pie—with a lattice crust, because Stacy would have no other—and lace it with cyanide pops into my head.
“Have an extra big piece,” I’d tell her. “I’d join you, but I’m gluten-free now.”
A car merges into traffic and slams on its brakes to let an old drunk weave across four lanes to the other side of the road.
I could run Stacy over in the car. It would be brutal and messy and I’d almost surely get caught.
“What are the odds that you’d hit your own sister?” An investigator would surely ask.
“I didn’t know it was her,” I’d lie.
Shooting her. Poisoning her. Hitting her with the car. Those are only the first ones that come to my mind. Drowning. Drug overdose. A rope around her neck. Those and other possibilities I’m all but certain will visit me when Emma’s asleep and I’m lying in my bed, trying to come up with a way to save her from a life with her mother.
Shelby greets us at the door.
I could feed Stacy to an alligator. If I had one. But I don’t.
As Emma hurries inside, I pick up my dog and hug her. God, how I wish Stacy had never come back. God, how I wish that my mind were free of the hideous thoughts that are circulating through it.