Now That She's Gone (14 page)

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-ONE

I
t took some doing, but Alyssa Woodley and Scott Hilburn arrived at the Kitsap County Sheriff's Department for an interview. Kendall called Birdy to see if she wanted to sit in.

“Can't. Up to my elbows in my work.”

Kendall didn't like the image that came to mind.

“All right. Will fill you in.”

She hung up, went to the reception area where the couple waited, and led them down the hall to the interview room. It was immediately clear from the start that Alyssa was the leader of the pair.

“I want him sitting next to me,” she said when Kendall indicated the conference room where she was going to conduct the interview.

“That's fine,” she said, making a note of Alyssa's insistent demeanor.

Scott nodded and sat down.

“I'm glad you two made it over here. I was thinking that I'd have to hop the ferry and look for you on campus,” Kendall said.

“Well, we saved you the trouble,” Alyssa said.

“We're glad to help,” Scott jumped in, staving off his girlfriend's abrasive manner. “Katy was a good friend.”

Kendall nodded. “Yes, I know. She was your girlfriend at the time she went missing, wasn't she?”

“Yeah, but it wasn't serious,” Alyssa said.

“Excuse me, Alyssa, I was asking Scott.”

Alyssa made an irritated face.

“Yes, she was, but like Alyssa said, it wasn't serious. Just a high school thing.”

“Right. A high school thing,” Kendall repeated.

“What do you want to know?” Alyssa asked.

“I'm getting there. You must be on the debate team, Alyssa.”

“I'm not. Why would you say that?”

“Because you don't let anyone get a word in edgewise.”

Alyssa looked at Scott. It was a hard, cold stare. “We came here to help and you're treating us like criminals,” she said.

Kendall shook her head “No. No. I'm just following up on some things left unfinished by the investigation four years ago.”

“Okay. Whatever,” she said. “We need to catch a ferry in an hour.”

“There's always another boat,” Kendall said. This girl was a piece of work. “But this shouldn't take too long.” She locked her eyes on Alyssa, then looked down at her notes, the timeline of Katy's disappearance.

“Part of my predecessor's timeline doesn't jibe with all of the interviews,” Kendall said.

“Like what?” Alyssa asked.

Kendall glanced at Scott, who was looking over at Alyssa.

“Scott, can you keep your focus on me?” Kendall asked. “I'd like you to answer.”

“Okay, answer what?” he said.

“Did you, Alyssa, Katy, and Tami have plans to do something after school the day she went missing?”

He shook his head. “I honestly don't remember.”

Kendall didn't like it when someone used the word
honestly
.

“My notes say that you originally said that you did have plans.”

“I don't remember.”

“Can I say something?” Alyssa asked, in what was the first polite move she'd made since she plopped herself down in the chair across from Kendall.

“Yes. In a moment,” Kendall said. “Now, Scott, it was only four years ago. I bet that Katy's disappearance was a very big moment in your life. Surely you remember what happened that day.”

Scott looked at the table.

“I wish I could be helpful. It
was
a very big moment. I might have blocked stuff out of my mind.”

“Can I talk now?” Alyssa asked, though it was really more of an insistent demand.

“Sure, Alyssa. What do you remember?”

“I have an excellent memory,” she said. “I remember being interviewed by that doofus deputy Mayberry. That's what I remember. He wasn't the smartest tool in the shed and I doubt—I seriously doubt—that his notes were accurate.”

“Fine,” Kendall said. “Then tell me what you remember. What plans did you and Katy have?”

“None,” Alyssa said. “That's what plans we had. Katy and I weren't as close as we had been. We didn't hang out that much anymore. I don't know who she hung out with or what she did after school that day or any other day.”

“Really, Alyssa?” Kendall said. “You were best friends.”

Alyssa thought a moment. “We were. But things had cooled between us. High school relationships are so transitory anyway.”

“But you and Scott were high school friends and now you're together, Alyssa.”

Alyssa's eyes flashed. “That's different,” she said. “We're in love. True love never fades.”

Kendall thought about her own relationship with Steven. She wondered when she stopped believing what that twenty-year-old said.

“Why would Naomi say that her sister had plans with you, Tami, and Scott?”

“Naomi was a kid. Who knows why she'd say anything? Maybe to get attention. She was sick of all the family love heaped on her sister. I don't blame her. Not really. Katy and I were close for a time, but I hated how everyone idolized her. God, every time she turned around they handed her an award. Not that she didn't deserve it. Just hard, probably, for a kid sister to take.”

Kendall made a couple of notes. “Scott, what did Katy tell you about her family life?”

He shrugged. “I don't know. She hated her mom. I hated mine at the time too. Naomi was clingy, but a good kid.”

“What about her dad? What did she say about him?”

“Nothing. She liked him.”

Alyssa cut in. “Is this about the stupid TV show that's in town?” she asked.

“No,” Kendall said, which was kind of a lie. The truth was they were sitting there discussing a four-year-old missing persons case because of
Spirit Hunters.
“Why?”

“They keep calling us,” she said.

“Who does?”

“The whole bunch of them,” Alyssa said. “The producer Juliana Something, the cop who's on the show, and the freaky chick who says she can talk to the dead. I don't watch the show. I don't believe in that crap. Not a bit.”

“What did they say to you?” Kendall asked Scott.

“Nothing. Alyssa talked to one of them.”

“Who was that?”

“The weirdo chick Pandora,” she said. “I talked to her.”

“What did she say?”

“She wanted us to be on her show. Said that she knew the truth of what happened and that she was going to prove to the world who killed Katy.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Really. I didn't buy her BS. Why would I?”

“Did she say anything else?”

Alyssa nodded. “Yeah, something about Katy's dad knowing the truth. But nothing definitive. I mean, think about it. When those psychics make a prediction it's always so stupid and vague, like a earthquake is going to happen next year and some people will die.”

“Fine. What do you think happened to Katy?” she asked, this time looking at Scott.

“I wouldn't have an idea about what happened to her,” he said.

“Neither would I,” Alyssa said, standing up to leave. “Really, we have to go. I don't want to wait for another boat back to Seattle.”

“Don't either of you want to know what happened to Katy? It seems very odd to me that you've just moved on.”

Scott stood too. “You can't live in the past, Detective Stark. It'll swallow you whole if you do.”

Alyssa reached for his hand. “He's right about that. Scott's always right.”

“Have either of you been in touch with Tami?”

“No. Why would we? She's a druggie.”

“Yes, but she was your close friend.”

“Like I've said, that was ages ago,” Alyssa said. “We have moved on from high school. I haven't talked to Tami in years. My mom says she had a kid and got married. I'm glad about that, but I don't care about the past. Tami's the past.”

“Yeah, she's the past,” Scott. “Like Alyssa says.”

 

 

Birdy Waterman, thankfully, was no longer elbow deep in an autopsy when Kendall Stark arrived at her upstairs office over the morgue to tell her about the interview with Alyssa Woodley and Scott Hilburn.

“Did I miss anything?” Birdy asked.

“A better show than
Spirit Hunters
,” Kendall said. “Although when I think about it just about any show is better than
Spirit Hunters.
”

Birdy smiled. “Tell me.”

“I think they both know more than they are saying—or more than she lets him say.”

“She's the boss then,” Birdy said.

“At one point he talked about not letting the past get in the way of living, that if you do, it can swallow you whole. I had a visual of an anaconda named Alyssa disengaging her jaw and eating him. So yeah, she's in charge.”

“Say anything about Mr. Frazier?” Birdy asked.

“Nope,” Kendall said. “Not really. Talked about how Katy hated her mother, and her kid sister was a pest. They also mentioned they'd been hassled by the folks from
Spirit Hunters.
”

“Who hasn't?” Birdy said. “It seems they certainly are on the case.”

“I know. I'm going to talk to the third prong of that friendship, Tami Overton. I'm also thinking that I might need to make a trip east of the mountains.”

“Who's there?”

“Mayberry,” Kendall said. “I really need to find out what went wrong with his investigation. Between you and me, this really does smack of gross incompetence. Katy was no runaway.”

“But what if her father molested her? That would be good reason to run away.”

“I know, but I left the door wide open for Alyssa or Scott to say something about it and they never did. I would have thought that if Katy confided in anyone it would have been one of those two.”

“Maybe Tami?” Birdy suggested. “Sometimes you make the most private disclosures to those who are close, but not close enough to throw it in your face every time you see them.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-TWO

L
ynn Overton had a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach. She and her daughter hadn't had the best relationship over the years, but it had improved, and with the birth of Tami's son, Jax, there had been a genuine connection for reconciliation that while tenuous at first, was growing stronger, little by little. When Tami didn't answer her phone, she figured that the battery had died and she decided to drive over to see how things were going. She knew the ghost show had interviewed Tami. She'd had her own interview with Kendall Stark of the Kitsap County Sheriff's Department and there was no doubt that old wounds, old hurts, had been reopened by the TV show that had zipped into Port Orchard to film an episode.

Lynn worried about the show, the attention that it would bring. She'd cautioned Tami on the phone about appearing on
Spirit Hunters
and Tami seemed to be listening. It was a rare phone call, the kind that made her fingers tremble whenever she attempted one.

“I don't know that I want, or that I can do it,” Tami said when they talked the night before.

“Then don't. He's telling you not to.”

“Mom, don't get all Jesus on me. I have enough baggage from all of that.”

Lynn wasn't sure what her daughter was saying and in that moment, she decided that she'd not press her for any details. After Katy's disappearance everything had gone dark for Tami. It was as if her grief over the shocking mystery of what happened to her friend had sucked her into a whirlpool and nearly drowned her. It was only a miracle—and, Lynn thought, God's power to heal—that saved her from becoming another statistic.

She got in her late-model dark blue Volvo and backed out of the driveway, turning on the Christian music radio station that brought her great comfort. The station was playing a song by Mandisa, a gospel/pop singer she'd loved on one of the seasons of
American Idol.
Mandisa's soaring vocals always brought her closer to God. She drove along Long Lake to Mullenix and then on to Highway 16. Lynn always liked the drive over the Purdy Spit's venerable bridge to the neighborhood that her daughter and her family called home.

She'd been there only three times before, but each time felt like a step closer. A baby step. A chance to be a mother to a girl who needed one, an opportunity to be a better grandmother than she was a mother to Tami.

“I failed her. I am to blame,” was the brokenhearted mother's mantra. When she told friends that Tami's drug use had been her fault, none could see it.

“You loved her. You were proud of her. You did everything you could to help her get on firm footing,” they'd say.

She'd nod in agreement, but those words felt empty when she looked at the damage all around her. Her husband left her. Her child was a drug addict, a dropout, and a girl of questionable morals. Everything she'd dreamed about when she first held Tami in that hospital room had just turned to nothingness.

Joe, Tami's husband, worked double shifts at an oyster farm not far from their house. Only Tami's old cabriolet was parked in the carport of the tidy red and white rental house tucked into the corner of a neighborhood with an overabundance of speed bumps and cyclone fencing.

She parked and went to knock on the door.

No answer.

The curtains were drawn, and Lynn tried to peer between the slits of the fabric that she recognized as an old sheet set that her daughter had cut and trimmed with gimp for a set of country-style curtains.

She couldn't see anything. She went back to the door and knocked again.

“Tami? It's Mom. Are you home?”

Again no answer.

For a second Lynn wondered if her daughter was avoiding her. She'd felt that their phone call the night before had gone fairly well. At least for them. If Tami didn't want to see her, she should at least have the common courtesy to let her mother know by coming to the door.

The irony of her thoughts tugged at her. She had tried to do her best. She'd gone to group meetings for parents of drug addicts. She'd gone to counseling for herself to see what it was that she could have done to raise a girl who'd stick a needle in her arm.

Lynn went around the back of the house to the slider and cupped her hands over the glass so she could mitigate the reflection and get a better look inside. The TV was on in the front room. A coffee cup sat on the counter next to a half-full carafe. On the floor was a fairly neat pile of toys—mostly stuffed animals and a few little trucks and things that her one-year-old could hardly find that enchanting.

Except maybe to suck on. Jax was teething.

Then she saw the baby. Right in the midst of all the toys, just sitting there, crying.

The door was unlocked—something that she'd hold her tongue about when she found Tami—and she went inside, scooping up her grandson.

“Where's Mommy?” she asked, looking around and finding her way down the hall, looking in each bedroom and the main bathroom. The house was spotless, which made her feel good, but it also bothered her that she even cared about that right then.

Something was wrong.

The curtains were drawn in the master bedroom, making it impossible to see. She flipped on the lights, but they didn't work. With the baby on her hip, Lynn pulled back the heavy-lined curtains and let out a scream.

Tami was on the bed, her eyes open, but unresponsive. A syringe was stuck in her arm.

Lynn, in a panic, started to hyperventilate. She set the baby down on the corner of the bed.

“Tami! Tami! What have you done! Tami!”

She reached over and pulled out the syringe, throwing it across the room.

“How could you do this to me? To Jax? To Joe?”

She felt for a pulse.

Tami was alive.

Lynn called 911.

“Please hurry! My daughter's alive! But she's overdosed on drugs!”

The man from the Comm Center told Lynn to hang tight, keep an eye on Tami's vitals, and help would be there. A volunteer paramedic unit was less than a quarter mile away.

“Was she suicidal?”

“No, she wasn't.”

“Was she a habitual user?”

“No. No. She was a mother. She's a wife. All of that is in the past. Please, just get here. Save my baby.”

Jax was crying pretty loudly by then and Lynn picked him up and tried to comfort him. She hoped against hope that everything would be all right. The baby boy could feel the terror that his grandmother was experiencing right then. He soaked in all her worry, fear, and let out a scream that Lynn was pretty sure God could hear.

She certainly hoped so.