Betrayal (15 page)
Authors: Gregg Olsen
“Closer? Like Brianna? Drew?” he asked.
Annie looked around, surveying the town she loved so much. “I can say I've never seen anyone more disinterested in a slaying that happened in her very bedroom than this Brianna. She is
unbelievable
. It was almost as though she were mad at Olivia for getting slaughtered in her room. If you asked Brianna, it would have been much more convenient if Olivia had died downstairs, in say, the workout room, where she didn't need to go and could have someone hose out the place.”
Kevin's interest piqued, thinking for a moment that if Olivia had been killed by her best friend, maybe there was a book in it after all.
“Maybe the kid was in shock?” he suggested.
Annie pulled Kevin away from the barista, who seemed to have pretty good hearing over the cloud of steam from the espresso machine.
“Possibly.” She lowered her voice. “Hell, probably. I don't know. She was strange, and Drew wasn't much better. I don't want to put it lightly, because I'm not like that, but, honestly, someone made cold cuts out of a party guest and neither of them seemed to care much. Not about the girl or her parents or her friends. I've never seen anything like it in my life.”
She stopped, realizing she'd probably said too much.
Kevin drank his latte. “I read somewhere that kids who play violent video games become desensitized and don't have a clue about the real thing or its impact on people.”
“I don't buy that,” Annie said. “I think a sociopath is a sociopath and no video game in the world can turn a normal person into a killer.”
Annie's logic was reasonable. Kevin felt his theory was one he'd keep to himself from now on. His editor had suggested it once as a way to make a true crime story more “topical,” and it was a flop back then too.
“What was Brianna like at the scene?” he asked.
Annie snapped her lid back on the paper cup. “Walk with me,” she said. The pair started toward the big green water towers that welcomed people to the small business district. “That was even better. After she practically made out with her dumb-as-a-bag-of-rocks boyfriend on the front lawn, she proceeded toâand I'm not exaggeratingâ over-the-top whine about Olivia's murder.”
As they reached the corner, Kevin went out on a limb and asked, “You think she's the killer, don't you?”
Annie didn't like the idea of rushing to name a suspect when the case was so new. It usually hindered focus, not strengthened it. “There wasn't enough blood on her to pin it on her, and we haven't found the murder weapon yet. But I think she's just about anything other than an innocent bystander. Really, Kevin, this is one messed-up girl.”
They paused to watch people get on a transit bus, and Segway Guy, a Port Gamble resident nicknamed by the twins, followed in the vehicle's wake.
“Messed up enough to stab someone in the throat?” he asked.
“Not common for a girl, that's for sure,” Annie said. “But it happens. Remember that case in Bremerton where the thirteen-year-old used an electric garden edger on the pervert next door?”
No one in Kitsap County could ever forget that case. “Smart girl, that thirteen-year-old,” he said. “But that's not the case here.”
Annie started across the street, turning to Kevin. “No, it isn't.”
“So why the rage?” he asked, still keeping his voice low, even though there was no one near enough to hear.
Annie pulled her coat tighter as the wind kicked up off the bay. “Don't know, and when I find out, you won't be getting the scoop from me.”
“Come on,” Kevin said, only half-begging.
Annie shook her head, and her black hair swirled in the air. “You got me in a moment of weakness. Off-guard. No more. Like one of your books, this case is likely going to be a shocker. I want to keep my focus on finding out what happened before someone else does.”
“Before someone kills again,” he said.
She nodded and continued on. “That, too,” she said.
WHILE DAD WAS TRYING TO DIG UP INFO on Olivia's murder, Hayley was at the Jameses' house next door hanging out with Colton again. Taylor took the opportunity to hit the books. Taylor's lame Family Life project was almost due, and in typical fashion she hadn't even started it yet.
Luckily, she knew Mr. Hayden was a style-over-substance sort of teacher. Bright colors and lots of sparkles always got his attention and a good grade. She pulled out her laptop and set up shop on the kitchen table. Faithful Hedda, the family's dachshund, found a warm spot on the heat duct and, being the greedy heat hog that she was, managed to settle herself completely atop it.
Grill marks
, Taylor thought with a smile as she glanced at the hot-dog-shaped pet. Taylor ducked into her mom's closet for the family photos.
Being a full-time psychiatric nurse, mother, and wife left Valerie Ryan very little time to also be the family historian. Whatever family photos they had never seemed to make it into albums, which was fine by the Ryans who, for obvious reasons, preferred to live in the present. Instead, Taylor's mom kept photos in two Nike shoeboxes: one pre- and the other post-twins. Both sat unceremoniously on the top shelf of her clothes closet. No one had touched either box in years, not since the family had started taking their photos with digital cameras and smartphones.
Taylor slid the “post-twins” box off the shelf and dug down toward the bottom. Grabbing a fistful of photos, she sorted through them and set aside those she could use for her project. There was one of her dad carrying her and Hayley like a couple of footballs to the hospital nursery, and lots of them as tiny, pink babies. In several of the images, Taylor could see the small
T
and
H
her mom had written in Magic Marker on the backs of their wrists to help her know which was which.
As Taylor flipped through more photos, she saw herself growing up right before her eyes. There were school pictures of Taylor and her sister and even a couple of old letters mixed in with the photos. Taylor recognized one she had written from summer camp, the one and only time her parents had separated the sisters.
Taylor smiled as she carefully folded the letter and put it back into its rainbow sticker-covered envelope. The bed-wetter was Starla Larsen. Taylor had forgotten that little tidbit.
Could come in handy one day.
At the very bottom of the box, buried there like a tiny corpse in a coffin, Taylor found a single photograph marking the time just after the bus crash. It was a color snapshot of the twins wrapped in tubes and connected to a tangle of wires in the intensive care unit. On the wall behind them was a banner that read:
The crash and the month-long hospitalization was such a big, dark part of the Ryan family history. Taylor was sure it was the kind of thing that would tug at Mr. Hayden's heartstrings and get her a better grade. Now all she needed to do was find a few photos of her grandparents and parents as kids, scan everything, throw it into PowerPoint, and she was done.
“Better roll over if you want to cook evenly,” Taylor told Hedda as she grabbed the small pile of “post-twins” pictures and the “pre-twins” box and padded down the hall toward the kitchen.
Hedda lifted her head briefly before going right back to sleep. Back at the kitchen table, Taylor lifted the top from the box.
The photographs on the first layer were familiar. She had seen them at her grandfather's memorial service. The first was a black-and-white photograph of her grandpa Chester Fitzpatrick standing in front of the McNeil Island Prison
WELCOME
sign.
Taylor grinned at the irony.
Who, really, wants to be welcomed to prison?
Grandpa Chester had run the institution, and Taylor's mom grew up there. Beneath that photo were pictures of Valerie with her mom and dad at the prison, the guard towers looming above them. The rest were assorted vacation photos. In one, her mother was standing next to a slightly disturbing version of Mickey Mouse.
Taylor wondered,
just how old is that mouse anyway?
While the shots on the first layer of memories in the box were interesting, they didn't advance her cause for Mr. Hayden's project.
Taylor reached deep into the box and pulled out a manila envelope that had been folded in half.
The envelope's clasp, loose from overuse, fell off in her hand. Taylor fished out a small handful of newspaper clippings. She'd seen the first three before, online:
HOOD CANAL BRIDGE CRASH KILLS FIVE
A Port Gamble school bus being used by a Girl Scout Daisy Troop for an ill-fated picnic at Indian Island careened over the Hood Canal Bridge yesterday afternoon, killing the driver and four girls, ages 5â7. Three children and an adult were airlifted to area hospitals.
Motorists on the scene indicated that the draw span had been retracted when the bus crashed in heavy rain and wind. State engineers say retracting the span is done to relieve pressure on the bridge.
“They were right in front of me,” said Cindy Johnston of Bainbridge Island. “I was following them pretty closely because I could barely see. The rain was coming down so hard. In one second, the bus just disappeared.”
Sustained winds of 50 mph, with gusts of 65 mph, were reported in the region by the National Weather Service.
The Washington State Department of Transportation and the State Patrol are investigating.
VICTIMS' NAMES RELEASED, TWO IN COMA
The names of the survivors of the Hood Canal Bridge bus accident were released this afternoon. Sandra Berkley, 30, and her daughter, Katelyn, 5, were thrown from the bus as it went off the bridge. Ms. Berkley suffered cracked ribs and abrasions. She and her daughter were treated and released from Harrison Medical Center, Bremerton.
The two other victims, 5-year-old twin girls Hayley and Taylor Ryan, remain hospitalized. Their parents issued a statement yesterday.
“Our daughters are fighters. Please keep them in your prayers. Believe in miracles.”
The parents indicated that the girls are still in a coma.
Visibly shaken, Adam Larsen, 34, spoke to reporters outside his home in historic Port Gamble.
“We are grieving for the families who have lost their children and for the bus driver's family too. This touches all of us here. I doubt many of us will ever get over it.”
Larsen's daughter, Starla, also 5, was a member of the Daisy troop. She, however, did not go on the outing due to minor illness.
ELECTRICAL FAILURE LED TO FATAL HOOD CANAL CRASH
A spokesman for the Washington State Department of Transportation said today that the school bus crash killing five was a “tragic combination of the weather and an electrical fault that caused the span to open.”
It had not been opened by the bridge tender, as previously reported.
Among the dead were Christina Lee, 7; Sarah Benton, 6; Violet Caswell, 5; and Emma Perkins, also 5. Also killed was bus driver Margie Jones, 29. Jones, according to the North Kitsap School District records office, was an exemplary employee. She was completing her master's degree in education and was working as an activity bus driver. She'd planned to teach next fall.
“She wanted nothing more than to do something for kids,” said Barry Jones, her husband of five years.
Three of the survivors remain hospitalized. One, a 30-year-old Port Gamble woman, has been released.
The next one was a new one, an article that hadn't been posted in any newspaper archive that she'd seen when she Googled the crash for the first time a few years ago:
BRIDGE TENDER CLEARED IN FATAL BUS CRASH
Timothy Robbinette, the 44-year-old bridge tender on duty the afternoon a school bus crashed killing four Port Gamble girls and the driver, was cleared when the Washington State Department of Transportation released its final report late last night.
“While there was concern that operator error or negligence might have been a factor in the accident, a full investigation has attributed the accident to a mechanical/electrical failure and not operator error, as had been suggested in the press.”
When contacted by members of the media last night, Robinette, who has been on administrative leave, said he was “satisfied” about the panel's findings but indicated he would not be returning to work.
“Too many sad, bad memories there for me,” he said.
