Isabelle wiped the tears from her cheeks. “How do you know?”
“I looked into her eyes,” Mabel said. “I have a gift. I can read people.”
“So you think Lee Wallach did this?” Isabelle asked.
Isabelle and Mabel locked eyes. Mabel replied, “There’s something about Lee that bothers me, and I’m going to find out about him, one way or another.”
Isabelle placed her daughter’s journal into Mabel’s hands and folded her own hands on top of Mabel’s as if it were atop a bible and squeezed hard. “You find this man that killed my daughter,” she said. “Promise me this.”
Mabel cleared her throat and nodded. Then she vowed, “I won’t stop until I do. I promise you.”
CHAPTER 37
Saturday, November 1 to Sunday, November 2
Mabel left Karen’s house and made her way to a payphone at a local gas station to call Lavi and share the news. Lavi then arranged for his assistant to meet Mabel the next morning in Tacoma to hand over Karen’s diary and Lee Wallach’s fingerprint and DNA samples. He thought her evidence credible enough to get a delay to the trial’s start even if Lee Wallach wasn’t the one. As promised, Lavi had talked to a DEA agent, who had agreed to meet Mabel at her diner to discuss Larson. Lavi said the agent, named Tyrone Jackson, knew the Larson case well.
With those two pieces of good news, Mabel was too excited to sleep in the next day. Bright and early, she called Lavi’s contact at the DEA and left a message on his machine. Now Mabel had only two things left on her Sunday to-do list: pick up stock and supplies at the distributer in Tacoma and hand over the potential evidence to Lavi’s assistant.
Due to the number of supplies needed, she’d borrowed the cook’s van to do it all in one trip. She liked to be efficient that way.
A semi-trailer blew past her on the highway, startling her at first and then spurring her on; she was tired of being left behind. She put an unlit cigarette to her lips, floored the accelerator, took the rising grade with speed, and passed the semi near the top of the hill — what a thrill! The semi eventually passed her again on the downgrade, but it didn’t matter. She’d had her fun.
She leaned back in her seat, unlit cigarette in hand, and noticed how swollen and unkept her hands were when once they’d been so thin and long with perfect nails. And though she’d be surprised to learn that most folks still considered her a stunner, it didn’t really matter to her, not anymore. The soft light in the rear-view mirror highlighted her emerging wrinkles and stray gray hairs, and she considered them well earned.
An hour later, she’d arrived at the meeting spot. A relatively new, fancy coffee chain out of Seattle that sold mostly coffee beans, had the same name as Fred’s favorite sci-fi TV character, and had a mermaid figure as a logo — go figure, Mabel thought. She sipped her coffee but didn’t think it compared to her own. Lavi’s assistant, Janice, was already on her second cup. In her early fifties, Janice was older than Mabel, and was dressed like the admin assistant she was — in a nice tailored suit. Mabel’s evidence was in a box beside Janice, next to her purchase of roasted coffee beans.
Janice was doing most of the talking, mainly asking questions about Blue River, but when she finally took a breather to sip her coffee, Mabel asked one of her own. “So how is Lavi doing?”
Janice finished the sip and said, “I never really think of him as Lavi. It’s always Mr. Arronson. Only you and his mother call him that. Have you met her, his mother?” Mabel shook her head. “Typical old Jewish lady. Dresses nice, hard on her son. Good gal. Keeps him on his toes. Which I guess you do too.” She patted the box. “I must say, I haven’t seen Mr. Arronson so engaged in a case in years. Normally, he’s making excuses about why he’s going to lose, but I think this case has been good for him. He’s trying again, which is nice to see. How did you do it?”
“I don’t know. I just told him he would be a better man for trying.”
“That’s it?”
Mabel paused her sip and then smiled wryly. “Well, I may have used my motherly charms on him too.”
Janice laughed. “It worked. He’s even trying these new-fangled DNA tests that a colleague of his published in some law magazine. They’ve only been used in Florida once and made a big splash. Expensive as all get out, but Mr. Arronson’s set on it — paying extra for faster processing. Usually, our office is under budget by thousands, but he’s spending it now.”
“That’s good to hear, Luv,” Mabel said, happy Lavi was trying.
Janice nodded and then went silent and toyed with her cup. She frowned, and her next question seemed to come out of nowhere. “What makes you think the boy is so innocent?”
“Winston?” Mabel paused. “I met him.”
“I met him too. In fact, I deposed him actually — I took his original statement,” she said, explaining it for Mabel, who didn’t know what a deposition was. “It’s a rare honest criminal who admits he’s guilty from the start. And with him? I don’t know. He has a long rap sheet. Drugs. Theft. He’s not an innocent man. But guilty of murder?” She shrugged. “I’ve found working this job that most murders are committed by someone you know. Mr. Arronson has defended fathers, boyfriends, friends, women, all who killed loved ones — and almost all said they were innocent at first. It’s a strange business being a defense attorney. It’s about due process, he used to say. But he had a bad one once. Got a guy off who was guilty, and then the guy raped and killed another woman. That hit Mr. Arronson hard. He kept defending clients, but he lost his edge and didn’t talk about due process anymore. So I don’t know,” she sighed. “It’s nice to see him trying again, but I worry about him. If Winston isn’t innocent…”
“What are you saying? You don’t think he is?”
Janice tapped the box beside her. “What if all this evidence doesn’t implicate a new suspect? What then?”
“We keep trying.”
“What if there isn’t another suspect?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve seen Mr. Arronson hit rock bottom before. I don’t want to see him like that again.”
“So you think Lavi should make a deal for Winston?”
Janice looked uncomfortable. “No. Not exactly. But I guess what I’m asking is how do you know he’s innocent? What makes you so sure?”
“Well—” Mabel started but then asked herself how she really knew. Had she ever investigated a case before? All she had was her intuition. And what about Karen’s mother and father, the people most traumatized by Karen’s death? What if her hunch was wrong, and Winston was the killer? Mabel looked at Janice and said, “I promised Karen’s mother. I promised her closure.”
“Maybe she has it already, Mabel. Maybe Winston has been guilty all along.”
“But I looked into his eyes.”
Janice scrutinized Mabel. “Is that enough?”
Mabel touched her heart. “I think so.”
“I hope to God you’re right,” Janice said. “For all their sakes.”
Mabel remained silent, unsettled.
Then Janice made her goodbye and left.
Mabel spent the next hour in a daze, shopping for flats of frozen food and fresh vegetables worth hundreds. It took her longer than usual, distracted as she was, asking herself again and again, ‘Was Winston really innocent?’
All she had were her instincts — no detective she, only a waitress in a small town in the middle of nowhere. She had no training, no special skills. All she did every day was serve people food and drinks and get to know them better. That was it. She was good at reading people, but she had no formal education beyond grade eleven. The police had already looked over all the evidence. She only had an idea a man was innocent, and no facts to back it up, not yet. And now it could be that the boy had lied to her all along.
She started the drive back to Blue River, with the day turning to dusk and the long shadows of the fading sun stretching out across the highway. But it was a long drive ahead — at least an hour at top speeds
. The traffic eased once she had turned onto I-67 — the forest-lined highway that climbed up a tall ridge of Dead Man’s Peak to fall on the other side to Blue River, the Long Lake, and beyond — making it a lonely road to Blue River and only a stopping point for most, and not a place to stay or visit long.
Mabel drove up the mountain’s tallest ridge. At the top was a scenic view for tourists to gaze at the road descending in windy curves down the forest ridge to pass the new mine, and then her motel and diner and then on past Blue River. She had followed its longer track beyond to the coast once. Bill had taken her on a vacation before the kids were born. It was a fantastic trip, stopping at campgrounds, meeting new people, going for hikes, and spending time with each other. Hector was a result of that trip. She smiled, remembering how close she and Bill had been. He was often out in the field in some far-off country working as a geologist, and Mabel didn’t really mind. Leaving it late to have kids had made people think they couldn’t have any, but Mabel had just wanted to wait. She had a business to run and all. Now he was gone again, this time to Minneapolis, and likely he wouldn’t be back till after its trade show — but she knew he would come back, he always did. And she’d always be there too, waiting for him. But if he still hadn’t changed, she wouldn’t let him stay long, not yet — well… maybe for an hour or two again, she thought, with a languorous smile.
But her boys needed a dad, more so than she needed a lover. She worried about them — well, mostly about Hector. At least Kerry’s help was welcome, and while she was starting to do more around the house, she had also made it clear she was leaving as soon as she finished high school. Part of Mabel minded, part didn’t, because she’d love Kerry to stay, but Kerry cared more about the larger world beyond a small town and needed to leave. Having suffered greatly from her parents’ deaths, she needed more happiness in her life. She thought university might do that, though Mabel honestly couldn’t advise her on it. Mabel had stopped schooling early to take care of the motel and diner after her dad had become sick, and her larger world was only Blue River. That was all she needed. Yet what was in Blue River for her kids once grown? For Fred, she had no worries. She expected university like Kerry. But for Hector? University wasn’t really in the cards. The logging industry was dying, the mine only getting started. Yet what was the life of a miner for her eldest son, if that was what he was to become?
She didn’t know. Only the hope it was a better life than one ruled by Larson.
She drove on.
With the man owning half the town already, she didn’t want her sons to fall into his trap. If she could, she’d break up his empire in a heartbeat. But she wasn’t so naïve. Even if she could somehow ever do that, that would devastate many families and likely gut this community. Those families supporting the drug trade now, like Sarah and Pete, weren’t bad men and women. They’d just lost their way. Sarah and Pete hadn’t seen the harm the harder drugs were doing to folks in Seattle or Tacoma, where Larson sold his, until it had affected their own son.
But even then, they kept supporting Larson.
She gripped the wheel tighter.
“The allure of money alters the morals of man.” She recalled the words of Preacher Dave from a Sunday service long ago. And Larson had a lot of money.
She drove on.
She thought next of the girl sitting in Larson’s lap that day, wondering whether she was another runaway that had run into the Larson gang and got stuck. She couldn’t imagine she was there by choice, not anymore. At times, Mabel had caught herself searching for the girl in town. Hoping that she would find her and bring her back to the motel, to rescue her, if she wanted it. Because who knows what crimes Larson was hiding out there? He was into drugs, he was into abusing women, and he might be a murderer. Was Karen killed on Larson’s orders? Was it a hate crime or about profits?
Mabel looked out at the darkening forest, the open, cheery wood of the day melting into the moodier, darker shades of night. She shivered, driving on, a little faster now.
But even in her current state of loneliness, and of fear of the unknowable darkness, she came back again and again to what Janice had said: “Was Winston innocent?”
She thought about Lavi helping a guilty man go free and then finding out the man had then raped and killed another poor soul. She made a face at how terrible it would feel, starting to understand why Lavi had lost his desire to defend indefensible crime.
And why was she defending Winston, really? Was it because he was black? Maybe after all this, it had been a crime of passion. Maybe he was guilty and she was the one blinded by his skin.
What if Janice was right? That question stayed in her mind for the rest of the drive.
Her motel and diner lights flashed bright and clear past the bend. It always brought a soft smile to her face to see them. A welcoming feeling at night, the neon lights, soft and comforting, advertised home. And while reasonably early for the evening, the mine crew’s trucks were parked in front of her home like a blockade, making her feel safe and protected. She doubted Larson would pull another drive-by shooting here. If it happens, she thought, he’ll get me on the road or in town. That made her turn ice cold, not for herself but out of anxiety for her children. Larson was not someone who cared about the innocent. If he now labeled her his enemy, she better make her kids more aware. She’d talk to them tonight. Tell them to be more careful and not to linger in town.
If this were to be a full-on war with Larson, she’d better be ready.
CHAPTER 38
When Mabel got back to the house, Kerry was sitting on the couch eating a Hot Pocket, with the synth sounds of Duran Duran’s A View to a Kill escaping from the Walkman’s headphones.
“Did you make dinner like I asked?” Mabel asked her.
Kerry lifted the headphones, and Mabel winced at the volume.
“Huh?” Kerry asked.
“Did you make dinner for the boys? I left a note.”
“What note?”
“It was on the fridge. I made a vegetable lasagna. All you had to do was put it in the oven.”
“Sorry. Didn’t see it.”
“What did the boys eat?”
“Hot Pockets,” Kerry said, replacing her headphones. “And, oh yeah, Halloween candy.”
Mabel bit back a response. She went into the kitchen to confirm how Kerry could have missed the so-obvious note on the fridge, but it wasn’t there. After a brief search, she found it under the table. She sighed, not able to get mad at anyone but herself. She rolled up her sleeves to clean the mess, thinking that at least the lab evidence was off to Lavi, and that was something — no matter what Janice had said.
After cleaning the dishes, she noticed another note in Kerry’s handwriting on the table. It had a phone number and the word “emergency.” Mabel went back into the den. “Who called?” she asked, but Kerry couldn’t hear with the headphones on, so Mabel mimed at her to take them off and had to repeat the question once Kerry petulantly did so. “There’s no name, and it says emergency,” she added.
“I don’t know, some girl who didn’t want to leave her name,” Kerry said. “Wants you to call her. Said it was urgent.”
“You could have told me when I walked in,” Mabel said, irritated.
“I left a note.” Kerry pouted as she put her headphones back on.
Mabel growled, intending to give Kerry a talking to after she got off the call. She went back to the kitchen and dialed the number on the wall phone. Six rings in, she was about to hang up when a girl’s timid voice came on the line. “Hello?”
“Hi. This is Mabel. You called me earlier?”
Silence.
“Hello?”
“Yes,” said the girl meekly. “I have something to tell you.” A pause. “That girl. Karen. I know who did it.”
Mabel nearly dropped the phone. “Oh my gosh. Who is this?”
“I… I can’t tell you.”
“Then who did it, dear?”
“It was… I need to speak to y
ou in person.”
“Can’t you tell me now? We can go to the police.”
“No! No police,” she said, panic in her voice. “I need to meet you somewhere.”
“Well, why don’t you come here? To the diner. It’s safe. Lots of people around.”
“No. You need to go to… where she died. To the sawmill.”
Mabel was shocked. “Why there?”
The girl sounded muffled like she was talking away from the phone.
“I can’t hear you, darling. Why there? The diner is much safer.”
“Be there in ten minutes. Come alone.” Then the line went dead.
Mabel looked at the phone, then redialed the number, but it just rang and rang. She put the receiver down, wondering if this was some crank call. She’d had a few of those in her time at the diner — asking for a Mr. I. M. Butts and Mrs. B.O. Stanks, that sort of thing — but this did not feel like a prank. The girl sounded scared to death, that’s for sure. She looked at the time. It would take her ten minutes just to drive to the mill.
Mabel made a snap decision. She went into the other room and sat down beside Kerry and gave her a look that meant business. “Take them off for a second, hon,” she said, indicating the headphones. “Do you still want to see Lisa tonight?” Kerry nodded, breaking into a smile. “Then I need you to take the boys with you and drive me to the mill.”
“Ugh, with the boys?! Why? I don’t want to babysit when I see Lisa.”
“It’s an emergency.”
“Okay, okay.” Then she added, confused, “Wait. What? The mill? Why there?”
“That girl who called wants to meet me there alone.”
“That sounds weird.”
“I know. I’m going to call the Sheriff and ask him to meet me there. Then you can drive over to Lisa’s place if you want. You don’t have to wait.”
Heart of a Runaway Girl Page 19