Snow Creek(55)

“Did you text or talk?”

“She’d lost her phone a week or so before, and my dad was being a real prick about getting a replacement. Said I had to learn a lesson or something dumb.”

I think of the night Ellie argued with Hudson and tossed her phone into the Potters’ backyard.

That was a week before the lake.

“Did she say anything about the upcoming trip to the lake?”

“Like did she say, ‘I’m going to kill my parents and swim away’? No.”

She’s dug out a stud and is rolling it around her fingertips.

“Look, Tyra,” I say, losing my patience a little. “This isn’t a joke here. Your friend might be in harm’s way.”

“I actually don’t care. If she did swim away, she never came back here. Some best friend. It wasn’t exactly as though I didn’t need some support. After what happened to my mom.”

This girl is unbelievable. I don’t want to start an altercation, but I would like to call her bluff. Instead, I press on.

“Did she have a boyfriend?” I ask, taking it down a notch. “Someone else she’d confide in?”

“None of us have boyfriends. Yeah, we see boys when we can. We just don’t cling to anyone.”

“Right,” I say.

Wrong, I think.

Tyra tells me that she has to get back to what she was doing.

“I don’t really have anything else to tell you about Ellie.”

Her father appears and leads me to the door.

Just like that.

Over.

It’s too dark to look for Ellie’s phone. Ms. Potter would definitely call the Seattle police if she caught me poking around her yard with a flashlight. I look at the time. If I hurry, I can make the ferry. Or I could take the scenic route and cross the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and get home that way.

Or I could do what I know I’m going to do.

Texting is an easier way to lie than leaving a voice message.

Sheriff Gray is in bed now anyway. I don’t want to wake him.

I sit in my car and type.

Missed the last boat and don’t feel like driving around.

Be in tomorrow late. Will give update then.





Thirty-Six





My room at the SeaTac Red Roof Inn has a view of a cemetery and traffic on the busy Pacific Highway, most notorious as the hunting ground of one of our many local serial killers. Gary Ridgway cruised the stretch of highway looking for dates. Dates that he would strangle and pitch in clusters, most notably along the nearby Green River.

I barely slept, and my face shows it. I’m too young to look this beat-up, tired. I don’t feel tired. In fact, I’m energized by the case. I shower, brush my teeth with a courtesy toothbrush that leaves bristles in my mouth and I dress in the same clothes I wore yesterday.

It’s the walk-of-shame look, though I’m fifteen years too old for that. And unprepared. I decide to put a change of clothes in the back of the Taurus in future.

Just in case.



I don’t imagine that Chantelle Potter is a shift worker and needs to be in the office by seven. I don’t have a warrant and I need her permission to search for the missing phone. It’s 7:30 when I arrive.

The drapes are open. That means, at least to me, that she’s up.

As I park, the garage door opens and a Mercedes—of course, what else?—backs out of the driveway. It’s Mr. Potter. He’s older than his wife with a neatly trimmed gray beard and eyes that are golden brown.

I think of a goat.

When he sees me, he lowers the driver’s window.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m Megan Carpenter. The detective who talked with Chantelle last night.”

He gives me a nod. “Yeah, very sad about the Burbanks. Nice people. Terrible tragedy.”

I don’t tell him that I doubt it was a tragedy.

“Is she home?”

“She’s always home,” he says, with a touch of irritation. “She’s on her third cup of coffee.”

I thank him and go to the front door, as the sound of the garage as it rolls downward plays in the background.

Chantelle answers right away. She’s dressed to the nines in a sleeveless emerald green dress and shoes on that I know cost more than a week’s pay in Jefferson County. She smiles with recognition.

“Just like TV,” she says. “You came back for one more thing.”

“Kind of like that,” I answer.

She invites me inside and I’m almost certain that none of the midcentury modern furnishings are replicas. Leather, wood, chrome. Mixed with the old are new pieces of steel and glass, electronics too. It’s like a showroom of what people with money covet today.

We sit in one of those leather and chrome sofas that never look inviting but are very comfortable, and talk over French press coffee.

I tell her that I came back to look for Ellie’s phone.

“If that’s okay with you?”

Chantelle nods while sipping her coffee.

“No problem,” she says, setting down her cup. “I’d help you look, but I have to meet my friends this morning. It’s something we do once a week.”

She continues to prattle on about her obligations.

I continue to covet her shoes.