Snow Creek(4)

“Detective Carpenter,” she says, her eyes now puddling, “thank you for seeing me.”

I don’t like tears. My own or anyone’s. I give her a reassuring smile and move quickly to defuse her emotion. Tears get in the way of truth sometimes. I know that from personal experience.

“Come back here with me, Ms. Turner,” I say. “Let’s see what we can do.”

“Call me Ruth.”

I nod and lead her to a room that we use mostly to interview children. The furniture is colorful, and its walls are adorned with pleasant posters of breeching orcas and lighthouses at sunset. It’s a far cry from the foreboding space of the interview room next door. That one is all white and gray with a decidedly claustrophobic milieu, which is in line with its purpose.

Make the subject uncomfortable.

Help them focus.

Make them want to get the hell out of there.

In other words, get them to spill their guts.

I sit across from Ruth and I take in everything I can about her. Her body language. Her ability to look me in the eyes. Her tics; if she has any. She does. She blinks harder than necessary after each gasp of her story. I can’t tell if she’s trying to wring out more tears or if that’s just how she is.

She tells me Ida, and her husband, Merritt Wheaton, live in the hills above Snow Creek.

It’s an area with a bit of a reputation.

“Off the grid?” I ask.

“Right,” she answers. “It’s something that Merritt wanted to do. Ida didn’t mind. We come from kind of a conservative background. Raised in Utah and Idaho. Dad hand-picked Merritt for Ida.”

I bristle inside at “hand-picked,” but I don’t let on.

“You said on the phone that you weren’t sure when the last time was that anyone had heard from your sister. Yet now you are concerned about her welfare? Did something happen?”

Ruth looks away and blinks hard. “No. Not really.”

“Not really,” I repeat.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Last time I talked to her she was a little off.”

“How so?”

She hesitates before answering. “She disrespected her husband for the way he disciplined the kids.”

Up till then, Ruth hadn’t mentioned any children. She sees the look on my face before I even ask her about them.

“Sarah is almost seventeen and Joshua is nineteen. You know teenagers can be a handful no matter how you raise them. It takes a firm hand to make sure they stay on the straight and narrow.”

I asked for a definition of “firm hand.”

She suddenly seems wary and pulls her arms tightly against her body. A defensive move.

“You probably wouldn’t approve,” she tells me, “but from where we come from, Detective, it has served us well. Our children are taught that there are consequences for misbehavior. Rules provide the structure for a holy life.”

“What kind of discipline?”

“The usual,” she says. “Spankings when small. That kind of thing. Withholding privileges when older. Extra chores.” Ruth fidgets with her wallet. I notice that she carries no purse. She takes in more air and considers what to say. I give her the space, the time to continue. “We are Christian. Good people. We’re not a part of some fundamentalist group that lives in a commune.”

“I didn’t mean anything by that,” I say, though I did. “I was just thinking about the children. Wondering if you knew what school they attended. It might be the best place to start. We can do that with a phone call.”

She looks at me right in the eye. “There is no school, except what Ida teaches. Her kids, like mine, and like my sister and me before them, are homeschooled.”

Of course.

“All right,” I tell her, getting up, “I’ll drive out to Snow Creek for a welfare check. See what I can find.”

“I’m going with you.”

“Not a good idea,” I tell her.

“You couldn’t find it on your own. I’ve been there. Trust me. You need me to come along.”

I don’t really trust anyone.

“I’m pretty good with GPS,” I say.

“That won’t help you. It’s my sister. I have to go.”

I give in. “Fine. You’ll stay in the car the whole time. All right?”

She agrees.

I still don’t trust her.

After letting the dispatcher know I’m headed out on a welfare check-up in Snow Creek, I poke my head into Sheriff Gray’s office to tell him what’s up, and he mutters something that sounds like approval from the online game he’s playing on his phone.

“You want me to ride along?” he asks, looking up, over his glasses.

“No need. I can see you’re busy.”

He smiles at my jab.

In some ways, though I would never tell him, he’s like family to me. He and his wife have me to dinner occasionally. We exchange not-too-personal gifts for the holidays. Candy. A windsock. A book.

I met him at the academy. He was teaching a class on the intricacies of small-town law enforcement—which it turns out isn’t so intricate after all. The cases I’m assigned here are mostly domestic violence and property crimes. The domestics are easy. The property crimes almost never get solved. Meth-heads are brazen, though lucky too.