Snow Creek(21)

He didn’t deserve that.

I pad down the hall to a second bedroom that I use for an office. The scene there is chaotic. I’ve turned an entire room into the proverbial junk drawer. Little things, big things. Nothing put where it belongs. Most of the stuff is junk, yet because I have so little of my early years, I keep it all—a necklace I wore the day we left the house, vintage Foster Grant sunglasses, my ASB card from South Kitsap.

And a news clipping I tore from an old bound edition of the Oregonian from Portland State University archives.

My laptop beckons from the desk.

I slide into the chair and open my email account. Nothing but the usual offers from stores that I was stupid enough to give my email address. I’d rather not have ten percent off anything if it means you’ll spam me every single day of my life.

Even though risk always looms with any technology, especially the use of email, I start typing, keeping things vague and free of details that could hurt either one of us. It is my only hope to reach him.

Hayden,

You don’t have to answer. Please read all the way to the end. Please don’t let this email bounce back because you’ve blocked me or relegated me to your SPAM folder. I’m missing you so much right now. I just wanted to let you know that I’m doing okay. You’d like Port Townsend so much. It’s got some cool old architecture like Wallace. Lots of restaurants and bars too. I have a spare room. When your deployment ends maybe you can come here and stay awhile. Like I said, you don’t have to answer.

I love you,

Rylee





I reread the email. I note where I tell him—no less than twice—that no response is required. That’s really not for him, but for me. I doubt he will reply. I write those words so I don’t check my email obsessively. Even though I will.

I put my fingertip on SEND and go back to bed knowing that I’ll check my email first thing in the morning.





Thirteen





Jane Doe’s face is so badly beaten and burned that there’s nothing for a forensic artist to work with. No photos of Ms. Wheaton exist online. I wonder how anyone could escape social media these days—even if you want to be anonymous, someone somewhere is going to take a picture and post it. Except the Wheatons. None of them have any kind of digital presence.

I listen to the news as I return to their place in Snow Creek. It’s Seattle news, of course. It’s like the news bureaus have erected a wall around the city and declared that nothing outside it is worth reporting. The reporter for the Port Townsend Leader will do a story on the body found off the logging road when he finally sobers up and checks the log at the department. I’m thinking he’ll get around to that tomorrow. Always on top of it.

Sarah is in the yard pushing an old-fashioned rotary mower. She’s wearing jeans and the Miller Highlife T that her brother had worn the previous day. Her long hair is pulled back and beads of sweat sparkle on her brow.

She runs over to my car as I pull in.

“Have you found them?”

Joshua appears in the doorway and joins Sarah.

“Detective, do you have some news?” he asks.

“You can tell us,” Sarah says. “We’re not little kids. Were they in an accident? Are they in the hospital? Where are they?”

“Let’s sit here,” I say as we start for the front porch. I motion to a bench by the door.

“When we talked at the Sheriff’s department,” I go on, “you said your mother had no distinguishing features.”

“Right,” Joshua says. “No tattoos. Nothing like that.”

“That’s right,” I say. “Was there anything else about her that would be different than most people? Maybe something about her body.”

Sarah looks at her brother, then back at me.

“Mom was super self-conscious about her foot,” Joshua says. “She wouldn’t want to bring it up. She was very embarrassed.”

My stomach drops. I look at their faces. They are about to receive the worst possible news. I’ve made visits to the families of people who had died in traffic accidents. Mothers and fathers who have to be told their child had been found in a school bathroom or a county park, dead of an overdose.

Never have I told two children that their mother was murdered.

“What was it about her foot?” I ask, knowing the answer, knowing that Ida Wheaton had been found.

“Her baby toe. She had an accident with a mower when she was five.” Joshua looks over at the mower Sarah had been using. “That’s why she wears those.”

Sarah indicates the heavy, lace-up boots on her feet.

He’s reading me now.

“You found her,” Joshua says. “Didn’t you?”

“We think so. We can’t be one hundred percent sure.”

“Where is she?” Sarah asks, bunching her hands together. “Is she in the hospital? Is she going to be okay? Where’s Dad?”

“We don’t know where your father is,” I say. “But no, she’s not in the hospital. I’m very sorry to tell you this, we think that a body recovered from Puget Logging’s old property not far from here could be your mom.”

Sarah lets out a cry, and Joshua reaches out to comfort her. Her shoulders melt into her body as she shrinks downward in the bench.