by Gregg Olsen
“Tell me about the photos.”
“If I’d have been smart, there would have been more of them. He used me like a punching bag—and I’m not kidding—from the wedding night on. He said when I danced with a friend from high school that I looked like a whore. I should have known he was a control freak. Everyone else did.”
Emily knew that something within Tricia’s past had led her to choose a man like Mitch Crawford. Maybe her father had knocked around her mother. Maybe she’d been abused by a family member. It no longer took a psychologist to ferret out the reasons why some women made the poorest choices in a mate.
Sometimes a deadly choice.
Emily tapped a finger on the worst of the images.
“I’ve seen photos like this and I’ve talked to the women who’ve lived through the worst kind of abuse, and I know that you’re like so many of them. You’re a survivor. You did the right thing by coming here today.”
Tricia twisted her Kleenex and balled up the sodden tissue.
“I got away from the bastard. All I can wonder is, you know, if I had said something, maybe Mandy wouldn’t, you know…”
“Wouldn’t what?”
“Be gone. Be dead.”
“What makes you think Mandy Crawford is dead?”
“OK. I don’t know that she’s dead, but I’ll never forget what Mitch told me after our divorce.” She stopped and eyed Emily. Her look was pleading and sad.
“What did he say to you?”
“He said, ‘I never make the same mistake twice.’”
“And you take that to mean?”
“At first, I thought it meant that he’d never get married. Now, I think he meant that if he ever found himself with a wife that didn’t bow to his every whim, he’d kill her. The man was not complicated, in the way that a pit bull isn’t complicated. They might look cute when they are puppies, but they grow up to rip the face off a ten-year-old. He’s like that. Everyone thought he was a charismatic do-gooder. He ran his dad’s lot in Portland like he was running for office.”
“But he wasn’t like that at home,” Emily said, more of a statement than a question.
“Oh, to be fair—and that’s how sick I think I still am, giving him the benefit of the doubt at all—but in the beginning we were happy. I thought that when he questioned what I was wearing, how friendly I was, or whatever, that he was just jealous. You know, that he cared about me.”
“Does anyone know about the photos?”
“You mean, does Mitch?”
“That’s right, that’s what I mean.”
“Of course he does. He gave me fifty thousand dollars to get out of his life and give him the photos and the negatives.”
“But you have copies.”
“That’s right. I was an abused wife. I wasn’t completely stupid.”
“Of course not,” Emily said. “You know that this will come out, now.”
“Yes. But I’m glad about it. Even if it means that he’ll sue me for the hush money. That’s what I think of it—hush money. I really don’t care. I don’t want to leave feeling like I sold myself for fifty thousand dollars. You see, Sheriff,” her emotions once more causing her words to fracture, “I have a daughter now. I don’t want what happened to me, to my mother, to happen to Abby. I’m over it, but I don’t know what residual damage might linger.”
Emily knew that the cycle was learned and often generational. Predators like Mitch Crawford went after women who fit a certain type. She had never thought of Mandy Crawford, on the rare occasions when she saw her, as a passive woman. She seemed so outgoing. So confident.
It had been a mask.
It occurred to Emily just then that both the Crawfords wore masks of a sort. He pretended to be the consummate charmer; she was the adoring wife.
But neither was true.
“Tricia, you know what you’ll have to do. If Mitch killed his wife, we might need you to testify.”
Emily’s words seemed to embolden Tricia. She leaned forward across the desk. She tapped a painted nail on the stack of photographs.
“I’ve been waiting for this for years. I’d like to pay back the SOB for all he’s done to me. I only hope,” she said, her demeanor softening, “that I’m not too late—that Mandy is still alive.”
Emily studied Tricia, now fully composed.
“Is there anything else?” she asked.
“Yeah. He was screwing the help at his office here in Cherrystone. I heard he got the girl pregnant. He’s such a pig.”
“Who told you that?”
Tricia looked down at the photos, letting her eyes linger on the gruesome images. “A friend,” she said. “I still have a few, you know.”
After Tricia left, Emily fanned out the photos on Jason’s desk. She told him about her story of being battered by Mitch and how she’d heard that he was up to his old tricks, sleeping around with the help.
“Holy crap!” he said. “Mitch Crawford did that? He’s going down.”
“I like it when you’re direct, Jason. But let’s see. I’m going to check on her story about Darla. Let’s see if she had Mitch’s baby.”
A phone call to the dealership confirmed it was Darla Montague’s day off and Emily drove over to the Cortina Apartments on Sycamore. She found Darla’s apartment right away—the car with the omnipresent car seat and a decal of breaching Orcas were obvious beacons. Darla had a SAVE THE WHALES poster, coffee mug, and pencil holder at her desk.
Darla looked crestfallen when she opened the door and saw the sheriff. No reassuring words or warm smile could placate her.
“Please don’t tell my baby’s daddy,” Darla said as Emily confronted her with what Patty Crawford, a.k.a. Tricia Wilson, had indicated earlier that day in her office. The twenty-two-year-old with the baby in her arms started to cry. “I don’t want my parents to know, either.”
Emily felt for the young woman. She saw her as the type who probably meant well, but through her own gullibility was constantly a victim of circumstance. She was working as a receptionist at the car dealership, she had a baby, and she was worried about what her parents would think of the fact that she’d slept with the boss.
“Is the baby Mitch’s?” Emily asked as she took a seat on a sofa half-covered in folded diapers and baby blankets.
Darla, in a rocker, held her son tighter. “Oh, no. I didn’t do anything with Mitch until after the baby was born. I swear it.”
“I see,” Emily said, more of an acknowledgment than an acceptance of Darla’s story. “Tell me what happened.”
“You mean about how we did it?”
“No. No, Darla. Not how you did it, if you’re referring to the sex act itself. What I’d like to know is what was the extent of the relationship? How involved were you, really?”
Darla became quiet. She turned around with her back toward Emily, her baby boy facing the sheriff. She looked out the window.
“This is really embarrassing,” she said. “We only did it one or two times.”
“Was it one or two?”
“OK, two times.”
“All right. Now when did this happen?”
“This summer. After my son was born. I’d come back to work, from my extended leave. And you know, I was feeling bad about myself. I felt fat. My boyfriend called me a cow. Can you believe that? I just had his son and he called me a cow?”
Emily felt strongly about a two-parent family, but this baby daddy of Darla’s was a piece of garbage.
She shifted the subject back to the concern at hand. “I’m sorry, but what happened with Mitch?”
“Well, Mr. Crawford, err, Mitch, said that my boyfriend was a jerk to call me names. He said that he thought I was pretty. He said that I had potential. Real potential. And then, you, know, one thing led to another.”
Emily felt sorry for Darla. Potential? Honestly, what didn’t work when it came to getting a lonely girl into bed?
“No,” she said, “I don’t know. Tell me.”
“OK, it
was after closing and he told me to come into his office. My son was at my mom’s so I didn’t have to rush out. It was a Friday night. I was going to go out to party. Anyway, he told me he was lonely. He said Mandy was cold to him. Then, well, then he kissed me and we had sex.”
“In his office?”
Darla turned around, tears streaming down her face. “Yeah, and I’m not proud about it.”
“Did he say he was in love with you?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“But he wanted to see you again, didn’t he?”
“I guess I’m not explaining myself very well. He said that I was pretty and we had sex two times. I don’t think he ever said he wanted a relationship with me. He just told me that his wife was cold to him and I was fun.”
“Did you know Mandy?”
By then, Darla’s tears were uncontrollable and her baby started to cry, too. “I’d seen her come into the dealership a few times. She was nice enough. I mean, she pretty much acted like she was put out having to come into the dealership. She never stayed long and she didn’t seem to appreciate how hard her husband worked.”
It passed through Emily’s mind that Darla Montague was probably the most naive person she’d ever met. Youth alone wasn’t the reason she’d gotten involved with a charismatic man. She had also felt sorry for him. Maybe, she thought, Darla had hoped that he’d fall in love with her.
Yet he only wanted her for one thing.
“I have to leave now. My mom invited us to dinner.” She balanced the baby against her shoulder and looked for her purse and car keys.
“All right,” Emily said, starting toward the door. “We can talk more later.”
Darla dug her keys out of the space between cushions on the sofa. She looked nervously at Emily. “OK. Please don’t tell my mom. Please don’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t say anything to your mother. But I do have to tell the prosecutor. If we get to the point where there is a need for you to testify, you best tell your mom, OK?”
Darla wanted to buy some time. “But that will be a long way off, right?”
“I hope not. But, yes, you have some time.”
Right then, Emily wanted to give Jenna’s former classmate some motherly advice. But she resisted telling her that she’d be all right, that this would pass, that they’d all laugh about it someday. Because she knew she wouldn’t. Darla Montague had been stupid beyond stupid. It was best for her to live with that and let it sink in.
Emily left Darla’s apartment and its baby smells with more questions than answers. Chief among them was whether Darla’s relationship with Mitch had anything whatsoever to do with the fact that Mandy was missing. She seemed to be a truthful young woman, one more worried about what her mother might think about her affair with her boss than being involved in a potential criminal matter. One question that gnawed at her was the source of the tip that led her to Darla. Who inside the dealership had it in for Mitchell Crawford? Judging by his reputation, she imagined that the line of people with a score to settle might a long one.
A very long one.
Emily looked out the window. The streets of Cherrystone glittered with ice.
“Jenna, where are you?” she said aloud.
She looked at her watch. It was half past the hour. Jenna’s plane had landed long ago and she was due on the Inland Empire Airport Shuttle an hour ago. Emily chatted on the phone with Chris a while—he was doing things around the condo that he hoped to sell in a slowing Seattle real estate market.
“I’m worried. Something could have happened to her.”
“I’m sure she’s fine,” he said. “Jeesh, Em, you act like you’re going to put out an APB on your daughter because she’s a half hour late.”
“Don’t think I wouldn’t. And she’s forty-five minutes late.”
Chris laughed and asked Emily if she needed him to bring anything from Seattle when he came for Christmas.
“Chestnuts,” she said.
“Really?”
“Yes, fresh ones.”
He promised he would, though he didn’t have any clue as to where he’d find them.
“Pike Place Market,” she said. Just as she was about to tell him which stall to zero in on at the venerable farmers’ market in downtown Seattle, a pair of headlights pierced the darkness in front of her house.
The van had arrived.
“She’s here,” Emily said.
“OK. Tell her I’m looking forward to chilling with her tomorrow.”
“Chilling?”
“Hanging. Whatever. Love you, Em.”
“I love you, too.”
She snapped her phone shut and spun around in time to swing open the door for Jenna.
“Merry Christmas, Mom!”
Forgetting the nightmare of the Mandy Crawford investigation as she drank in her daughter with a hug that meant to convey all of her love and shake off the cold night air, Emily knew it would be a great Christmas.
Jenna was home.
Chapter Twenty-one
The white Victorian was full of memories, which was one of the reasons Emily could never let go of it. Her brother hadn’t felt that way, so there was no problem in buying him out after their parents died. She wondered why it was that he hadn’t felt the connection to the old place.
Maybe it was a girl thing?
The house was as decorated as Emily could manage, given the time she’d spent chasing down phantom leads on the Mandy Crawford case. Chris came over from Seattle on Christmas Eve and the two of them cut some pine boughs from the backyard and put them on the mantel. The woodsy fragrance filled the living room.
Chris put his feet up on the ottoman and leaned back, as if he’d been out working as a lumberjack in the woods of the northwest.
“A lot of work,” he said, “but I guess it’s worth it.”
Jenna poked her head into the room. She brought with her an armload of presents.
“Work,” she said, “is all this wrapping I’ve been doing. Wrapping packages so someone can shred it in two seconds. Some traditions are stupid. Give me a gift card any day.”
Emily made a face. “You’d be the first to complain if all you got were gift cards and you know it.”
Jenna eased her packages under the tree, while her mother stood back and regarded her handiwork. She’d done a nice job with the tree, putting up the ornaments that Jenna had made as a child alongside those she’d made for her own mother and father. Her favorite was a raggedy angel with a Styrofoam ball for a head, silver pipe cleaners for a halo, and wings made of cut pieces of a paper plate. It was tacky, all right. But sometimes, tacky can be quite charming.
“Oh, Mom,” Jenna said, spotting the paper plate angel, “can’t we put that in the back where it won’t show?”
“Not on your life.”
“Ugh. It’s embarrassing.”
“Only to you. When you have kids of your own someday—not anytime soon, I hope—you’ll do the same thing.”
“I doubt it.”
“Believe me, when it’s your own child, you’ll love almost everything they do.”
Chris looked a little wistful—his own children were grown, then gone, evaporated into their own lives by a bitter divorce.
Emily caught the look and changed the subject.
“Let’s see about dinner,” she said.
Christmas Eve always meant the biggest turkey that could be found by the cook—first her grandmother, then her mother, then Emily. Emily made a duck sausage stuffing with the fresh chestnuts that Chris bought at Pike Place Market. Roasting the nuts on the stove was his sole contribution to the meal.
In her years as a daughter, wife, and mother, Emily had fixed a turkey every which way—in a paper bag, deep-fried, roasted under a tent of aluminum foil. Jenna had helped with some of the side dishes, of course, and though Emily was far from the point of handing over the turkey duty to her daughter, she enjoyed how much she’d grown into wanting to take over.
“Mom, you a
nd Chris should relax. Maybe there’s something on TV that’ll keep you occupied?”
Emily smiled at Jenna. She was so glad to have her home for Christmas. She would have kept her disappointment to herself if Jenna had elected to have gone west of the mountains to be with her father and baby half sister, instead of staying put in Cherrystone.
“How about we do this together?” she asked, brandishing a whisk.
“Sounds good, Mom. You seem like you’re letting go. That’s good.”
Emily thought of zinging Jenna back, just as she always did. But not that day. For most of the morning, mother and her daughter ruled the kitchen while Chris Collier staked his claim to a football game preview show.
No one said grace aloud when it came time to eat, but inside each of the three gathered around the table knew how blessed they were. After dinner, they opened their gifts. Chris gave Emily an emerald bracelet and a German gun polish that everyone in law enforcement coveted. She gave him a navy cashmere sweater and a tin of Virginia peanuts that she knew were the very best—and his favorite. Jenna was sure her mom had broken the bank with the lovely cream wool peacoat with gold-toned buttons with pink plaid lining from Juicy. She got a pair of black Ugg boots and a Tiffany heart necklace from her father.
“Nice necklace,” Emily said as she fastened it around her daughter’s neck.
Jenna touched the heart as it swung in place. “I circled it on a catalog when I was over there. I knew he didn’t have an imagination, so why not pick something expensive?”
Chris nodded. “Good girl.”
The best gift came from Jenna to her mother.
Emily could have cried when she opened the red box from Talbot’s. Inside, was a pair of fully lined pants made in the same worsted wool fabric as her dreaded A-line skirt that paired with her Sheriff’s uniform jacket.
“Where did you find these?” Emily said, clearly touched.
Jenna beamed. “Chicago, mom. The world’s a lot bigger than Cherrystone and Spokane, you know.”