by Lis Wiehl
PORTLAND FBI HEADQUARTERS
January 5
Where’s my daughter?” Tim Chambers demanded when Nicole and Allison walked into the interview room.
His impatient words overrode Allison introducing herself. His left eye was nearly swollen shut and his words were distorted by a fat lip.
“Where is Starshine? Is she okay? She’s not used to being away from me. She’s probably freaking out.”
Chambers had not requested a lawyer, which Allison had been glad to hear. Questioning was always easier when there was no one making objections.
“I understand your concern, but she’s fine,” she said. “Right now, she’s eating lunch.”
When Nicole had told her that the autopsy had shown that Katie had definitely been murdered, Allison’s sympathies had shifted away from Chambers. Clearly, he had done a good job raising Starshine. And just as clearly, he would have had the motive, means, and opportunity to kill Katie.
“We just need to clear some things up,” she continued, pulling out a chair and sitting down. “So why don’t you start by telling us why you’re living out there in the woods, Tim.”
“Is that really any kind of life for a child?” Nicole interjected, turning around the chair next to Allison and straddling it.
“Hold on,” Allison said, raising a cautioning hand. “Let Tim tell us his side of the story. I’m sure he has his reasons.”
With a sigh, Chambers sat down on the other side of the table. “Starshine’s mother is in Dammasch.”
Dammasch was the state mental hospital.
“We never got married to each other, but we lived together until Starshine was two. We were fighting a lot, so I took off. I’m not proud of it, but I only saw Starshine about twice a year, because my ex made it clear that she didn’t want me coming by. Then two years ago her sister-in-law sent a letter to my PO box saying my ex had attacked another boyfriend and been committed. She told me that if I didn’t take Starshine off their hands, they would put her in foster care. Of course I couldn’t have that. Starshine’s my flesh and blood.”
“But why live in the woods?” Allison asked.
“I get a $400-a-month disability check. There’s no way to live on that.” His tone was matter-of-fact.
Allison nodded. “What about a shelter?”
Chambers made a face. “I’ve done that before, but they’re not set up for men with kids. A woman with kids, yeah, maybe she could find a place. But a man with a kid—there’s no place for him to go, not really. They would have split us up. I won’t risk having my daughter taken from me. I’m the only family she’s got. And I won’t live on the streets and expose her to what she would see there—alcohol, drugs, kids her age selling themselves. So one day we hiked into the park, got off the trails, and just kept going until we were in a part that looked completely wild. It’s beautiful there. We’re surrounded by God’s creation, not by concrete and garbage and junkies. We started out in a tent. Then I built a little cabin. Once or twice a week we go through the trash bins in the park and look for recyclable cans and bottles we can take back to the store. You’d be surprised what some people throw away.”
Allison nodded agreement, hoping he was referring only to cans and bottles. It was one thing to think of a grown man eating someone’s dis-carded half-eaten sandwich. It was another to think of a child eating out of garbage cans.
“And on Sundays,” Chambers continued, “we go to church.”
“Church?” Allison echoed in surprise. “Which one?”
“First Congregational.”
“Do the people there know you’re homeless?”
The church, with its downtown location, was known for its outreach to the down-and-out.
“We’re not there for charity.” Chambers looked affronted. “We’re there so Starshine can learn about Jesus.”
Nicole cleared her throat, and Allison realized that they had wandered off track. She wasn’t here to solve Chambers’s problems. She was here to find out whether he had killed Katie.
Taking over the questioning, Nicole crossed her arms and slouched. “Do you know why you’re here, Tim? Why we want to talk to you?”
He didn’t bother to pretend that he didn’t know what she was talking about. “Because of that poor dead girl.”
“She’s got a name,” Nicole said. “It’s Katie Converse. She’s not just some dead girl. This was someone’s daughter.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Chambers said. “I pray for her soul every night. She must have been in terrible turmoil to do what she did.”
Allison watched him closely, wondering if the reason he was praying was to ask forgiveness for what he had done.
“We need to find out what happened to her,” she said. “If you’re completely honest with us, we can help you and Starshine get into a subsidized apartment, get you on food stamps.”
Nicole glared at Allison, but it was all for show. At least Allison thought it was. Nicole had been in a bad mood ever since she had come back from the autopsy. And Nic was always better at playing bad cop than Allison was at playing good.
“Don’t lead him on.” Nicole turned back to Chambers. “You’ve got a dead girl a couple hundred yards from where you camp out, and you expect us to believe you had nothing to do with it, and just let you go on your merry way? Tell us what happened. And don’t lie to us, because we already have the forensic evidence.”
“It must have been hard keeping it a secret,” Allison said sympathetically. “No one to talk to.”
Chambers sighed. “What happened is, Starshine and I, we were down at the grocery store turning in our cans. It was getting dark. We were almost home when I saw this girl sprawled on the ground. Not moving. I yelled at Starshine to get in the cabin and stay there. I knew that she didn’t need to see it.”
“What day was this?” Nicole asked.
“I don’t know.” Chambers shrugged. “A school day, that’s all I remember. When we go into town on a weekday, I have to make sure we do it late enough in the day that no one will ask me why Starshine’s not in school.”
“Did you pass anyone on your way back?” Allison asked.
“No. But the girl had obviously killed herself. There was a leash around her neck and a broken branch overhead. Poor kid.” His eyes misted at the memory. “She didn’t look that much older than Starshine. I didn’t know what to do with her. I figured if I told anybody, they would start asking questions about us and then take Starshine away. I thought about trying to carry her closer to the main trails so she could be found right away, but I was afraid someone would see and get the wrong idea. So I yelled at Starshine to stay in the cabin. Then I pulled the girl underneath a bush and away from the path we use to get to town. I didn’t want my daughter to have to see her every time we went someplace. And then I said a prayer over her.”
“Look, Tim—do you love your daughter?” Nicole demanded. “If you tell us what really happened—and I mean the full truth—then I guarantee Starshine will go to a good home. With loving parents who can give her everything, even send her to college when the time comes. Otherwise she’ll be left to the mercies of the foster care system, bouncing from home to home. And you’ve heard what those places are like. Children’s Services pulls a kid out of one home because they’re getting beat up, then sticks them in the next home where they get sexually abused.”
As Nicole spoke, tears gathered in the corners of Chambers’s eyes. “You can’t take her away from me. Starshine and me, we’ve only got each other.”
“Then tell the truth,” Nicole said. “Because you know where I was this morning? At that girl’s autopsy. And she didn’t kill herself. So I already know you’re lying to me. Somebody did that to her. And I think that somebody was you.”
To Allison’s eyes, Chambers looked genuinely bewildered. “No, I didn’t. Why would I do that? I saw enough death in Vietnam. I would never do that. I tell you, she was already dead when I got there.”
Allison leaned
closer. “But is that what really happened, Tim? I mean, if it went down another way, it’s completely understandable. You’re living out there in privacy, not bothering anyone, and then this girl comes blundering in. Did she see your camp? Or worse—did she see your daughter? You had to stop her, didn’t you, before she ran off and told. Was there some kind of accident?”
“What are you saying?” Chambers looked shocked by Allison’s words. “She was dead when I got there. She was already dead. That’s not how it happened at all.”
“Isn’t it, Tim?” Nicole’s face was all planes and edges, no softness at all. “Tell us the truth now, while you still can. Because we have that leash—and the prints on it are being analyzed right now.”
This was a total bluff, as far as Allison knew. Nicole had said there weren’t any prints. But then there was a knock at the door. A Portland police officer stuck his head in.
“Nicole, I need to talk to you.”
Chambers watched her go, biting his lip.
Allison figured Nicole must have arranged for this. “Tim, I’m a Christian like you. And we both know that Christ offers us forgiveness if we confess our sins. Now is the time to get this off your chest. It will look a lot better for you if you confess than if you keep lying.”
“But I’m not lying.” He was calmer now. “When I found her, her spirit had already fled. If someone did that to her, I didn’t see them.” His faded blue eyes fastened on her, and he leaned forward and patted her hand. “God’s laid a heavy burden on you about this girl, hasn’t He? She’s become as much your responsibility as Starshine is mine. But the Psalms say, ‘Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.’”
Allison looked at him in astonishment. What had just happened? How could some homeless guy who lived in the woods be offering her solace and comfort?
When Nicole opened the door, she was holding something behind her back, her face incandescent with rage. “Oh, you’re just some poor disabled vet, forced to live in the woods because you don’t make enough on the government dole? Then how do you explain this?”
Her hand whipped out. In it was a fresh-picked marijuana leaf.
“There was a cultivated patch of pot less than a half mile from where you lived. Don’t deny it—I know it’s yours.”
Chambers’s eyes widened—and Allison’s did too. This put a whole new spin on things. Chambers, with all of his talk of God, must have been trying to pull the wool over her eyes.
“They tell me there are five hundred plants there, with a street value of a half million dollars. Now you tell me, Tim—would someone kill to keep half a million dollars safe?” Nicole answered her own question. “Hell, yeah. So Katie blundered into your little agricultural operation, and you caught her. Did she run from you? Is that what happened? She ran from you and you tackled her, and then you hit her in the throat?” She slashed her hand sideways for emphasis. “Did you watch her die? Did you?”
Nicole’s face was inches from his. “They said she wouldn’t have been able to scream, wouldn’t have even been able to talk. But she would have been able to think. And she would have been able to feel her body shutting down. Do you know what it feels like to have no air, Tim? It’s supposed to be the most terrible feeling in the world.”
“I didn’t!” Chambers’s eyes were despairing. “I tell you, I didn’t kill her! That’s not my pot, and I didn’t kill her!”
FOREST PARK
January 6
Cassidy was not the kind of woman who belonged on an ATV. She realized this as they bounced and jutted over roots and stones. She had one arm around Andy’s waist, and with the other she held tight to his camera. More equipment was strapped on behind her.
As they cut through the forest, following a faint path only Andy could see, wet bushes slapped at her denim-covered legs. Mud flecked her face. So much for her carefully applied makeup. Overhead, she heard the sound of a helicopter. Whatever channel it was, they were going to be kicking themselves when they saw that Cassidy had gotten the story first—again.
Twenty minutes later, she was doing her stand-up. They had to hurry to get the tape back to the studio in time for the noon news. More than that, Cassidy had to show Jerry that she was still bringing him scoop after scoop. There was no way she was just going to lie down and let Madeline McCormick walk all over her.
“It was a lonely life,” Cassidy told the camera lens, “but a simple one. And for a fifty-five-year-old Vietnam vet named Tim Chambers, it was the only life he thought he could have and still keep his daughter with him.
“Portland police say Chambers and his ten-year-old daughter have lived here, deep in Forest Park, for years. Not in a tent, but in an elaborate camp dug into a steep hillside.”
She swept out her arm as Andy panned the camp. “They had a shelter, a rope swing, and a tilled vegetable garden. And this creek was where they got the water to clean and cook with.”
Leaning down, she dipped her fingers into the water, which was bone-chillingly cold. “They placed rocks around this small pool to collect water and store perishable foods.”
Straightening up, Cassidy gestured behind her. “They lived inside this shelter.”
As Andy followed her, she walked over and pulled open the door.
“The father taught his daughter using the encyclopedia you see here.” She pointed at a red plastic shopping basket that held a stack of old World Book encyclopedias. “They slept in sleeping bags on these two cots.”
Despite her puffy down coat, it was only through force of will that Cassidy was keeping her teeth from chattering.
The camera panned around the tiny space. In addition to the cots, there were a makeshift table, a large metal pot, a handsaw, and an old wooden apple crate that now held canned goods.
“Authorities say the two went into the city once a week to stop by the bank, attend church, buy groceries, and pick up a few odds and ends at Goodwill.”
Cassidy could not imagine it. Nicole had said something about a “pit toilet,” whatever that was, and she just hoped they didn’t stumble over it.
“Police were amazed to find them clean, well fed, and healthy. To be certain the girl was not being maltreated, authorities split up the two and questioned them separately. They say the girl is well-spoken beyond her years. They were also examined by a doctor and evaluated by state welfare workers. They fingerprinted both of them and did a thorough national background check. Everything was negative. Tim Chambers receives only a small disability check for post-traumatic stress disorder related to his service in Vietnam. He told authorities he chose to bring his daughter to the woods rather than subject her to the streets or risk being separated from her if he went to social services.
“Chambers has reportedly told authorities that he knew Katie Converse’s body was nearby, but was worried that if he alerted anyone about it, he would lose his home—as he has. Is he a suspect? Authorities aren’t saying, but they haven’t charged him with anything and have released him from custody. They do say they aren’t sure what will happen to them next, but there is some speculation that Tim’s fears could come true—and that he and his daughter will end up separated.”
She looked into the camera, her expression serious and determined. “I’m Cassidy Shaw, reporting from deep inside Forest Park.”
LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL
January 8
The Lincoln High School auditorium looked like it had been decorated for the prom, not for a girl’s funeral. Bunches of purple balloons trailing purple crepe paper streamers hung from the walls. Nic remembered the Converses telling her that purple was Katie’s favorite color. The closed casket sitting on stage, however, was white and gold, draped in white roses.
When Wayne had told Nic about the plans for the funeral, he said, “Valerie chose not to see the body.”
She and Allison had tried to talk him out of viewing his daughter’s remains too, but Nic had heard that he had disregarded their advice.
“She said she wanted to remember Katie the way she was. And she’s right. Because whatever is in that casket isn’t Katie. My baby isn’t in there anymore. But we’re going to give her one hell of a send-off. This is going to be every party Katie will never get to have. This will be all her birthdays, her prom, and her wedding all rolled into one.”
Now neighbors, students, teachers, businesspeople, and strangers sat shoulder to shoulder, stood in the stairwell, crowded the balcony, and filled the lobby. Scattered among them were FBI agents and cops, looking for clues, looking for suspects, looking for answers—and finding only anguish. Nic had been given a place near the front, where, if she half turned, she could see most of the audience. Twenty feet from her, Wayne, Valerie, and Whitney sat surrounded by aunts and cousins, grandparents and friends—but alone in some fundamental way.
The service began with a slide show projected on two ten-foot screens set at each side of the stage. Between the screens sat a grand piano and fifty-person choir, with the casket on a dias behind them. Accompanied by classical piano music, photo after photo of Katie flashed by.
An infant Katie on her belly, head raised, wearing nothing but a diaper and a triumphal smile. A five- or six-year-old Katie in a Tigger costume, grinning, with her hands held in mock claws. Katie behind a podium, but still so young that only her eyes were visible. The photo of her with George Bush that Nic had seen in her room. Katie holding aloft a trophy. And finally the photo from the vigil: Katie with eyes as blue as the sky behind her.
In every photo Katie was smiling, but Nic began to wonder just how real those smiles had been. Was it her imagination, or was Katie’s expression a mask that hid a deeper sadness in her eyes?
After the slide show, a friend of Katie’s recited a rap poem he had written. Another played the trumpet, but halfway through lost his breath to emotion. After trying and failing to start again, he let his trumpet fall to his side and began to weep softly, his head bowed, his shoulders shaking. Finally, the officiating pastor led the boy away, but by that time the crowd was undone by grief and drama.