She looked out the living room window for a second and gathered her thoughts before turning back to me. “She left,” she said. “Isabel ran away from home-maybe a month ago now.”
I nodded. “Thank you. That’s our understanding as well, but I needed to confirm it with you.”
“During that time, have you heard from her?” Toni asked.
“She called once and left a message on my voicemail,” Mary said. “She said she was okay and that she’d call back later.”
“When was that?” I asked.
“A couple of weeks ago.”
“And has she called back since then?”
Mary shook her head. “No. Not yet.”
“Does she have a cell phone?” I asked. I knew she did, but I wanted to hear what her mother had to say.
“Yes.”
“Have you tried calling her?”
“Yes, of course. It just goes to voicemail. Isabel doesn’t call me back.”
“Have you filed a missing person report with the police?” Toni asked.
Mary stared at her for a moment. “No,” she said.
“Why not?” Toni asked.
“I can’t control her,” Mary said. “She’s sixteen. She’s making her own decisions now.”
I arched an eyebrow and then shook my head. “I’m not sure the law’s going to look at it the same way you do,” I said. “Matter of fact, I’m pretty sure that the law would say you’re supposed to file a missing person report if your minor child disappears.”
She said nothing, and the quiet began to grow in intensity.
This interview was off to a bad start. Toni sensed this as well, so she stepped in.
“Mary,” she said, “we’re not here to cause you any trouble, believe me. All we want to do is to help Isabel. Let me ask you this. Why would Isabel leave? Did something happen?”
“Yeah,” Mary said. “I guess she just grew up. She decided she doesn’t want to be here anymore. So she left.”
“Nothing happened around here to make her want to leave?” Toni asked.
Before Mary could answer, Toni continued. “Usually, kids don’t just up and leave for no reason. Usually, something happens that makes them feel like they need to leave. It doesn’t always make sense to us as adults, but it does to them. Did something happen that made Isabel feel like she needed to leave?”
Mary looked at Toni. “What do you mean? Something like what?”
“Anything,” Toni said. “Anything at all that might have caused Isabel to feel like she needed to leave home.”
Mary hesitated and then shook her head. She didn’t say anything.
“Did the two of you get along?”
Mary closed her eyes tightly. Was she trying to hide something? She nodded. “Yeah, we got along fine. We’ve been through a lot together.”
“So you’d say the relationship between the two of you was good?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Did the two of you talk about things?” Toni asked. “I mean, if Isabel had a problem, would she come to you with it?”
Mary thought about this for a moment. “Well, first off-I work swing shift. I’m only home for two nights a week, so we never had the chance to talk too much. But other than that, yeah-I think we were okay.”
“So you don’t think she had any problems with you, right?”
Mary looked away for a moment, and then she shook her head and said, “I don’t think so. She had no reason to have any problems with me.”
“How about your husband? Did Isabel get along well with him?”
Mary didn’t answer, but I could see tears start to form in her eyes. Toni noticed, too, so she slowed down and changed directions.
“How long have you been married?” Toni asked.
“Almost five years,” Mary said.
“And during this time, have you always worked late?”
“Yeah, at Lynnwood Memorial in the admitting office.”
“Okay,” she said. “And your husband-does he work swing shift also?”
Mary shook her head. “No, he works days. He goes in at seven and gets off at four. He’s a mechanic at Auto Express.”
“So basically, he’s alone with Isabel almost every night,” Toni said.
Mary realized what Toni was getting at. She slowly started to nod her head.
“Did Isabel ever talk to you about any problems she might have had with your husband?” Toni said.
Mary shook her head. “No. She never said anything.”
Toni stared hard at her. “Would she have? Would she have said something?”
Mary thought for a few moments and then shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope so.”
“Well, let me ask a different question. What do you think? I mean, do you think it’s possible that something happened between Isabel and your husband? And if it did, could that something have caused Isabel to run away?”
Mary’s eyes filled with tears again, and she clenched her hands together tightly. She turned to look at me and then turned back to Toni. “I don’t think so,” she said.
“If you don’t think so,” Toni said, “why are you getting so emotional?”
“I don’t like what you’re implying.”
It was quiet for a few seconds. “It’s ugly,” I said. “And we’re sorry.”
“Look,” Toni said. “Mary-I don’t know what kind of relationship you have with your husband. But I’m asking you, for just a moment, to put it aside. Think only about Isabel for just a moment. She’s out there somewhere. She’s alone, and she needs your help like never before. She’s your daughter. Speaking completely honestly, do you think it’s possible that something happened between Isabel and your husband? Something that caused Isabel to leave?”
Mary looked up at the ceiling and thought for a second. “It’s possible, I suppose. Maybe.”
Toni nodded. “Okay, Mary. This won’t be easy for you to hear, but you’re Isabel’s mother, so you have the right to hear it. I want you to know that our client told us that Isabel specifically said that your husband raped her the night before her sixteenth birthday.”
Mary bit her lower lip and continued to look up at the ceiling. The tears now flowed down her face.
Toni continued. “We were told that Isabel said he raped her, and that that’s why she ran away.”
Mary dropped her head and stared at the floor. She shook her head silently.
“In your opinion,” Toni said, “could that have happened?”
Mary hesitated, then, after a few seconds, she slowly nodded her head. “I didn’t know,” she said quietly.
“You didn’t know, but did you suspect something like this was happening?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t even suspect,” she said. “I wasn’t suspicious. I never put things together. . But it fits.” She paused to take a deep, hitching breath. “She changed,” she continued. “Izzy changed.”
“How so?”
“She was more withdrawn-more inside herself. When she was a little girl, she was always happy and outgoing. She had lots of friends. She loves to sing-she used to sing all the time. The past few years, she’s more quiet. She stays up in her room. I thought it was because she was getting older-growing up.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t know,” she said quietly. “It’s happening too fast. I don’t know what to think.”
It was quiet for a few seconds, and then Toni said, “Mary, if this happened-and it sounds like it might have-or at least it could have. Anyway, if it happened, this is a very serious crime.”
