Snow Creek(25)

“No,” I say. “Thank you. I’m highly allergic.”

It’s a lie. I actually like cats. Not a hundred at a time, though.

“That’s too bad. After my husband died, a pregnant cat showed up and, you know how it goes. Ten become twenty. Then more. I’m probably the luckiest woman on the planet. Never, ever lonely.”

I turn the conversation back to the Wheatons.

“Did you meet Ida and Merritt? What was your take on them?”

“Why are you asking about them? Folks out here don’t have block parties. We mind our own business.”

“I imagine that’s very true,” I say as a cat circles my legs, leaving a trail of gray fur on my pants.

“Cotton likes you,” she says.

The acknowledgment softens Maxine.

“She’s beautiful,” I say. “I so wish I wasn’t allergic.”

Maxine nods. “The Wheatons were weird. He did all the talking. His wife just stood around and looked lost. I couldn’t figure out the relationship. I even asked the kids one time if things were okay at home.”

“What did they say?” I ask.

She picks up Cotton and a cloud of fur scatters in the breeze. “Nothing really. It was a while ago. It was the last time I saw ’em too. They were real regular visitors. After that, nothing. Why all the questions, Detective—”

“Carpenter,” I tell her, giving her a card. “The parents are missing. Been gone for a few weeks now. Supposed to be in Mexico at an orphanage. Never got there.”

“Orphanage? What for? To get another worker?”

I look at her eyes. They’re slits now, but she’s studying me.

“No, to do some work for charity.”

Maxine lets Cotton slide from her arms to the ground.

“That’s a crock,” she says. “That man had a mouth like a sailor. Always yelling at those kids, especially his wife and the boy. Charity? What a joke that is. I bet they were headed down there to get another boy. Joshua wanted to bolt.”

Cotton is back to rubbing against my legs.

Help me, I think.

“He told you that?” I ask.

“Yes, he did,” Maxine went on. “He told me that he didn’t want to live out here. It’s not for everyone. Kids don’t have a choice. Parents get to decide everything. My husband moved us out here and I hated it for the first twenty years; now I wouldn’t trade places with the Queen of England.”

I imagine the queen would feel the same way.

I ask her if there are any other neighbors up the road, off the grid.

“Not anymore. Since marijuana became legal in Washington, our local growers packed their tent—and I do mean a tent—and moved on. Nice couple. No one else up this far. Few folks back the way you came. Saw ’em a time or two, but don’t know them by name. Not even by sight. Sorry.”

I thank her, nudge Cotton away, and head to the car.

“Come by again, Detective. Haven’t had a visitor out here for a year or so.”

I tell her I will, but I hope I don’t ever have to. I’m sure I smell of cat pee.



I wind my way down the bumpy road, stopping at a couple of places. No one seems to be home. One mobile looks abandoned. Yet it hasn’t been. I peer through the window after I knock and see a sweet potato vine growing suspended by three toothpicks over some water. The water’s full. I leave my card with a note to tell them to call, though I doubt whoever lives there has a phone.

When I get to my office, I fill out the paperwork for the lab work on the samples. The courier hasn’t left, so Joshua’s cheek swab and his mother’s hair will be in Olympia tonight.

I write an email to the crime lab:

RUSH NEEDED.

The DNA samples I’m sending your way need your urgent attention. Looking for evidence of a familial match. Please do it first thing. We have a dead woman and a missing man out here and we need confirmation from you.





That night I eat the one slice of pizza I somehow managed to resist the night before. I sit at the table in my underwear, windows wide open and a fan blowing over my body. I hear the sound of the washer down the hall, separating Cotton’s fur from my black pants. I catch my reflection on the open windowpane. I look tired. The roots of my hair are showing. I’ll need to get to the salon. Maybe I should get some Dark and Dangerous.





Sixteen





Sheriff and I arrive at the office at the same time the next morning, an unusual occurrence. Port Townsend’s only all-season panhandler is setting up by a fountain that no longer spouts anything but a green swill of algae.

“Morning, Chad,” Sheriff says.

“Going to rain today,” Chad says, looking skyward, as he unfolds the carboard sign that hits all the right notes for his job.

Army Vet. please help. Family needs food.





I give him a side eye. He drives a better car than I do. Better apartment too.

Nan looks up from her keyboard, while the modern jazz she prefers leaks out of her headphones.

“Lab tried to reach you, Sheriff. You too, Detective,” she says, adjusting an owl pendant that hangs from her neck. “I told ’em that you were on assignment in a remote part of the county.”