by Gregg Olsen
Kevin’s eyes met his daughters’ in the rearview mirror.
“Look at the snow on the mountains,” he said. “Must have had a storm last night.”
The girls turned their attention to the view on the other side of the bridge. It was a distraction, and they knew it. Inside, both understood that their mother and father were as damaged by the events of the crash as they were.
FOR AS MANY PEOPLE WHO’D LIVED AND DIED in Port Gamble, the number of the dead buried in the Buena Vista Cemetery was exceedingly tiny. Among the more notable was Gustav Englebrecht, the first member of the United States Navy to be killed in action in the Pacific. His death was less heroic than foolish. He met his maker during an Indian attack at Port Gamble in 1856 when he hoisted himself up over a log to get a better view of the battle at hand only to be finished off by a young man from the S’Klallam tribe.
There were older graves there too. Early settlers, workers who died at the mill, and so on. And, mixed in among many, there was also a modest plaque—one so small, worn, and faded that unless one knew of the legend, you’d never be able to decipher the inscription:
PETER O’MALLEY, 15,
was interred in the sea on April 22.
He is now in God’s hands.
May he rest in eternal peace.
According to the story, which had been passed on for generations, poor Peter had died from cholera and was laid to rest in a salt-codcrate coffin that had washed atop a sandbar. However, when three young S’Klallams forced open the mysterious crate, all that was inside was a silver crucifix, a tornado of flies, and an acrid, hideous odor. The smell of death. Soon after, the oyster beds died and the seabirds stopped nesting there. People began to say that the site was cursed. They called the place Memalucet, or empty box. Those with a more twisted frame of mind called it Empty Coffin. Decades later Port Gamble was plotted there.
On a day that many also consider cursed, Buena Vista Cemetery received a row of little girls’ graves, under a gigantic maple tree at the edge of the bluff looking toward the floating bridge across Hood Canal. Christina Lee was first, then Sarah Benton, Violet Caswell, and Emma Perkins. Other than the obvious differences of the dates of their births and their names, all gravestones were identical in their design. Carved in relief from the black and white granite was a sleeping lamb and a phrase in simple script:
Only a Short Time Here
With God Forever
For years after, visitors came to the cemetery and left toys and flowers for the little girls. One time, someone left a complete Barbie dream house and a Ken doll. Another deposited a tiny porcelain tea set. All of those things were gathered up and stored in the museum’s archives, with the understanding that no display would be made until the youngest of the survivors turned twenty-one years old. History was full of tragedy, but, as the archivist pointed out, it didn’t need to be shoved into the faces of the living.
Although it never faded from the memory of those who lived in Port Gamble, people did find ways to move on.
Visitors who came to the Buena Vista Cemetery to pay their respects never knew that one of the little girls’ graves was empty. Kim and Park Lee refused to bury their daughter Christina there. It was too cold and windy, and its location was too much of a reminder with that awful bridge off in the distance.
Instead, they had Christina cremated and kept her ashes in an urn in their living room.
Park Lee was among those who could never forget the loss of his firstborn daughter. The mill supervisor died when shrimping in the choppy waters of Hood Canal the year after the tragedy on the bridge. The sheriff’s investigation closed the case as an accidental drowning. His wife, Kim, knew better. When the county authorities returned his personal effects, Kim noticed something missing from his wallet—Park’s fishing license. She knew there was no way he’d have gone shrimping without that. Park was very strict about doing things the right way, the legal way.
At thirty-four years old, Park Lee simply could not face his hurt anymore.
Kim arranged photos of her husband and daughter on a shelf above the TV in the living room. On either end of the shelf, she placed two turquoise and gold cloisonné urns. One held the remains of her daughter; the other, her husband.
They’d been up there so long that Beth no longer begged to spread the ashes on the shore because she thought it would be fun and dramatic. After a time, weeks would pass before she even noticed that the urns were there.
It was just her and her mom and that was all it was ever going to be. And while Kim tried hard to make her daughter feel special, Beth never really felt it.
Once, in a moment of deep introspection and personal clarity, Beth admitted to Hay-Tay that the reason she never stayed with anything very long was because “none of it seems to work.”
“What do you mean?” Taylor had asked as the three of them walked across the field by the wedding pavilion. It was summer and a bridal party was being photographed along the edge of the bluff overlooking the water.
“I’m not blaming my mom,” she said. “I guess I get that the love she has for Christina and my dad is stronger because they’re dead. It isn’t like she gets any do-overs with those relationships. She can fantasize and romanticize.”
“People do that, sure,” Hayley said as the girls sat in the freshly mowed grass, not caring that their butts would turn green.
“Sometimes I just want to tell her, ‘Hey! Look at me! I’m still here!’”
Taylor touched Beth on the shoulder. “She knows that, Beth,” she said.
They watched as a young eagle tussled with a gull overhead.
“On some level I get that,” Beth said. “It’s just hard when half your family’s in urns, you know?”
THE PARENTS OF THE DEAD GIRLS and the husband of the bus driver received financial settlements from the state, though each of them would have traded the money for their loved one’s life any day of the week. After lawyers’ fees, the sum was nowhere near the hundreds of thousands reported by the Seattle media.
Kim Lee put the money into CDs and watched it grow, like the accountant that she was. She could have cashed it out any time she wanted and moved away. Anywhere—even Fiji. But she stayed put because Park and Christina considered Port Gamble home. Though they were completely portable, they weren’t going anywhere.
The Berkleys used their windfall to finance and refurbish the Timberline, a restaurant that they’d never own because no historic buildings in Port Gamble could be sold to anyone.
When Katelyn was in seventh grade, Sandra and Harper confessed to her that the college fund she’d thought she’d have for her pain and suffering had been spent on a new car and the first restaurant.
“Don’t worry, baby,” Sandra said. “Your grandparents are going to take care of your college education. They’ve promised.”
The disclosure had brought some relief. Katelyn was sure Starla would get some fabulous scholarship to a top-tier school, while she’d need to pay her way to get there.
“I trust you, Mom,” she had said. “I know you’d never let me down. You or Dad.”
chapter 39
THE MORNING AFTER COLTON FOUND HIS WAY into Katelyn Berkley’s computer, he drank a glass of orange juice and ate two thick slices of cinnamon toast that his mother made. Shania James slathered on the butter and sugar nearly to the point of complete calorie overload, but that’s the way her son liked it. He’d been thinking all morning about Katelyn, her mother, and whatever it was that was on her laptop that Sandra had wanted to see. As he ate, he watched from the window for Hayley and Taylor to emerge from their house so they could huddle at the bus stop.
He left Katelyn’s laptop and a Post-it note with her password on the kitchen table. Sandra Berkley said she was going to come by later in the morning to pick it up.
“Did you look at any of it?” Shania asked.
He shook his head. “Not really,” he said. It wasn’t a lie. He hadn’t. “Seemed a little invasive to me.”
“Yes,” she said, “I think it would be. But I think if something happened to you, I’d probably do the same thing.”
He zipped up his coat, grabbed his backpack, and went for the door.
“I guess I should start deleting all the bad stuff I’m into when I get home tonight,” he said, deadpan. “You know, so you don’t have to dig through all that ugly.”
“No need,” she teased. “I’ve already installed a secret Net Nanny on your PC. I’ve caught up with all your ugly already.”
Colton was fifteen, too old to hug his mom, but he wanted to just then. He never had any doubt that she was always on his side.
“Bye, Mom,” he said.
The sky had cleared overnight, which brought temperatures down to well below freezing. Hayley, Taylor, and Colton met in the alley. The girls were zipped up and prepared for the Arctic. To humor her mother, Taylor wore what Colton knew was Aunt Jolene’s vomit scarf. Hayley had on a bright red scarf with a four-inch black leather fringe. He’d been with her when she bought it, and she had told him it was both cool and functional.
“Which is very difficult to achieve,” she had said.
Colton handed over the thumb drive. “All of Katelyn’s info is on this,” he said. “E-mails, saved chats, Word docs.”
Hayley took the thumb drive and zipped it into her pocket.
“Now are you going to tell me what’s up with that?” Colton asked.
They were nearly at the bus stop, where a few other kids were waiting.
“I have a feeling that Katelyn would never have committed suicide,” Hayley said, thinking about how she was going to say the next part.
“We both do,” Taylor said, cutting in. “It’s either an accident—”
This time it was Hayley’s turn to cut off her sister. “Or a homicide,” she said.
“You’ve been reading too many of your dad’s books.”
“Maybe so. But suspicion is a good thing,” said Taylor, the daughter who had never cracked a Kevin Ryan paperback in her life.
The bus came into view, and the space between the kids tightened as they lined up to get on board out of the cold.
“How’s that?” Colton asked, hoisting his backpack over his shoulder.
“Keeps things interesting. And we need that in Port Gamble,” she said.
Colton nodded, but deep down he knew that was far from the truth. Port Gamble was a small town, certainly, and those who didn’t live there might think it was a sleepy little place. Yet the truth was almost every household had been the victim of something. Starla’s dad, Adam, left town without so much as a word; Beth’s father drowned; Katelyn was dead; and then there was what had happened to his own mom.
Exactly what it was had never been a topic of conversation around the Jameses’ household. And as much as he loved his mother, he loved her enough not to say a word about it. Whenever he saw the scars on her neck, he pretended they weren’t there.
Later at school, between algebra and history, Colton ran into Starla—a rare occurrence because they spent most of their passing time in their separate pods, his orange, hers blue. It was even more unusual that Starla was alone, away from her usual group of mean-girl admirers and the straggler or two who wanted to be part of the group—until Starla ordered the poor girl picked off like a weakened zebra.
“Hi, Colt,” she said.
“Hi, Starla.” Colton tried to remember the last time she had spoken to him privately. Was it seventh grade? When she pretended to like him, when all she really wanted was for him to do her computer science homework? Like the biggest idiot in the universe, he had done it.
Starla edged a little closer, drawing him over by the teacher’s resource room, where it was quiet.
What does she want now?
“You doing okay?” she asked him.
“I’m fine,” Colton said, “but what about you? Are you doing all right?”
She was full-on Starla just then. She smelled good. Her eyes were done up in such a way that they looked anime-big. “It has been really hard,” she said. “My mom mentioned to me that Sandra dropped off Katelyn’s laptop for you to hack.”
The reason. Starla was ten times more efficient in getting to the point than she had been in middle school, Colton thought.
“Yeah,” he said. “She did.”
“Were you able to get into it? You’re pretty good at that kind of stuff.”
Colton knew she was using him again, yet he still blushed a little. Why did she have that effect on him?
“Thanks. I guess. But yeah, I was.”
“Really.”
“Yeah. Really.”
Starla inched a little closer. She looked concerned, interested. She was kind of good at that, and just maybe had a future in movies. Make that TV.
“What did you find out?” she asked. “She was pretty messed up, wasn’t she?”
Colton thought a moment before answering. There was always a risk in telling Starla something. Information was her currency. Gossip. Truth. Whatever she could use, she did. She was, Colton knew, an info-parasite.
“Messed up, maybe,” he said. “But not half as much as the SOB who was sending her those taunting e-mails.”
He wanted to tell her that the sick SOB who sent them was her mom’s boyfriend, but he didn’t.
“Wow,” she said, her eyes no longer as large, but shuttered a little as if she were concentrating on something important. Or as if she were trying to narrow her focus on Colton to see just what it was that he knew. “That’s totally scary.”
Colton brushed past her. “Yeah.” He didn’t look back at her anime eyes. He just went to class, letting Starla think about just what he’d found on her dead friend’s hard drive.
MOIRA WINDSOR ATE A COUPLE OF MINT-FLAVOR TUMS she had fished out of the Paradise Bay house’s medicine cabinet. She had eaten too much. Too fast. She heard the ping of a new e-mail being delivered and quickly returned to her computer.
From: S. Osteen
To: Moira Windsor
RE: Farm to table article
Ms. Windsor, I got your e-mail about the farm-to-table story you’re doing. I’d be glad to assist you in any way that I can. I see buying local food as a key to our future longevity on this planet. Please feel free to call me or e-mail me if you’d like to meet. I live near the Bremerton Airport.
Moira picked up her phone and tapped out the telephone number provided. After a few pleasantries and some confirmation about what she wanted, Savannah Osteen invited her to come over.
“When can I come? I’m kind of on deadline.”
“Anytime,” Savannah said. “I work out of my home.”
Moira pounced. “How about today?”
Savannah paused, thinking it over. “Today’s fine,” she said.
“How about now? I’m not doing anything and I can be there in half an hour. I was thinking it would be a nice day for a drive.”
“Partly sunny days like this are a treasure this time of year,” Savannah said. “Sure, come on over.”
She provided directions and the address, and Moira was out the door.
ABOUT THE TIME THE PORT GAMBLE high school students were looking for their second latte of the day, pathologist assistant Terry Morris made a run to the Albertson’s store on Mile Hill Road for maple bars, because he loved those better than anything and could easily eat two on his morning drive to the Kitsap County Morgue. He didn’t care how sticky his fingers got, because he could just lick them clean in the parking lot. Who cared if anyone saw him? He wasn’t a people person, which is why he selected a career in the coroner’s office. He’d figured he might be a dead-people people-person.
That sticky, sweet maple bar run took longer than he’d planned. Terry wasn’t good at planning, period. He wasn’t really good at being the pathologist’s assistant either, but he’d been hired and was on threemonth probation. He was already getting the vibe from Dr.
Waterman that he wasn’t exactly winning her over.
He tossed his greasy bakery bag into the trash by the morgue’s back door and looked inside through the window.
Good, Dr. Waterman wasn’t in there hacking away through the first autopsy of the day.
Terry was late for the autopsy of a burn victim from a house fire in Bremerton. But not too late, he thought, since it hadn’t started.
He was glad he had those maple bars. Hanging around a smelly corpse might kill his appetite for lunch.
He went upstairs, where Dr. Waterman and the county office administrator were conferring about something in the kitchen. Terry scurried past to put away his things, wiping his hands on his trousers along the way. He hoped she didn’t notice he was late.
But she did.
“Glad you made it into work today,” Dr. Waterman called out from the kitchen.
“Car trouble,” he lied.
“I have some things bagged and ready for shipping to the state crime lab,” she said. “Please get them processed and meet me downstairs in the autopsy suite. Everything’s on my desk. Let me know if you have problems managing that, all right?”
What a hag, he thought, though he didn’t say it out loud.
“No problem, Doctor,” he said, thinking that a real doctor would be helping living people, not literally picking their brains. But, hey, that was just him.
He found four bags labeled with the case information for Robin Ramstad, a gunshot victim found in a wooded area outside of Port Orchard. The incident was before his time, which was just fine with him. Terry didn’t know much about it, and, frankly, didn’t care.
He started boxing up the evidence for shipping when Dr. Waterman called out again.
“Heading downstairs,” she said. “See you there when you’re done.”
Terry scowled inwardly. He hated how passive-aggressive she was. She was always telling him what to do. She was so bossy.
It didn’t occur to him that she was bossy because she actually was his boss.
“Be right there,” he said, shoving a fifth bag into the box, before sealing it with strapping tape and signing the chain-of-custody paperwork.