Orchard restaurant the previous summer. Her life had seemed to run in a series of long-delayed changes. She never looked happier. A sparkle in her eyes. A smile on her face. Birdy Waterman was a late bloomer, a woman who’d put her career ahead of personal aspirations and desires. She once told Kendall that she’d forgone marriage and all that went with it out of a sense of duty, a need to achieve all she could.
“You know,” she said.
“Because of where I came from and how what I do reflects on my people.” Kendall had understood, yet there was nothing to which she could personally relate. She’d had the nice middle-class life in Small Town, America. Her parents adored her and her sister, and they’d never really gone without. If they needed something, they got it. It wasn’t always the best quality, but growing up in Port Orchard, they didn’t necessarily know the difference between Walmart and Nordstrom. Birdy had been born on a reservation to an alcoholic mother and a father she barely knew.
“My people need something to hold on to, and every time I go home, I am reminded of that. It is loud and very, very clear.” Kendall knew that was true. One of the rare times was when she’d been over to Birdy’s new place on the bluff overlooking the Southworth ferry landing, she’d overheard bits and pieces of a phone conversation.
“
“I’m sorry,” Birdy said.
“My mother has problems.” Kendall considered Birdy one of the most accomplished women she’d ever known. Certainly, she knew she’d grown up poor, but somehow she hadn’t let it pass through her mind that the stunning black-haired woman with the medical degree had any battles left to fight.
“I’m sorry,” Kendall said.
“If there’s anything I can do . . .” The offer had been genuine, but words uttered in that sequence rarely carry much weight. People mean well most of the time, but sometimes they only mean to put a period on an uncomfortable moment. An offer of kindness that will never be cashed in, never be due.
“You’re not here about the crash vic this morning, are you, Kendall?” Kendall shook her head.
“No. Something from quite some time ago. You probably don’t have it.” Birdy smiled.
“I sense a little trepidation there. You must know about our wonderful filing system.” She looked toward the stairway to the attic.
“I’m sure it’s better than ours,” Kendall said, recalling the difficulty the sheriff’s office had when the records division went to a fully computerized system some years ago.
“What’s the case? And, almost more important,
“November or October 1994. A fatal accident on Banner Road. The victim was a seventeen-year-old-boy named Jason Reed.” The forensic pathologist took in the information, but her face was without recognition.
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” she said.
“It’ll take some looking. I can dig around this afternoon.” Kendall thanked her, stood, and reached for her coat, a long lapis peacoat that was more suitable for winter than for spring.
Kendall walked back from the coroner’s office across the parking lot toward the rear entrance of the Kitsap County sheriff’s offices. The rain had slickened the lot, leaving a dozen puddles swirling with the iridescence of motor oil. She drew her hands into her pockets to hike up her pant legs. She needed to do something about those pants. Ordering online was easy, but the fit was never right. She wondered how it was that so many years had passed since she thought of Jason and the night that he’d died. In the months following the accident, she doubted that a day went by without her thinking of it. Jason Reed’s death had changed the trajectory of so many of their lives. Especially her own.
It took about two minutes for the staff in the Tacoma PD crime lab to validate that the gun recovered from the Connelly residence had been, in fact, the murder weapon. Three casings retrieved from the scene and slugs from Alex Connelly’s brain were fired from a 357 Ruger. DNA analysis on the gun had confirmed it. Traces of blood and hair—belonging to Alex Connelly—were found on the outside edges of the barrel. A second person’s DNA was also captured along the underside of the gun’s barrel. There was a partial print, but it was barely there at all. Also missing were the weapon’s identification numbers. They’d been somewhat crudely scratched out.
“An attempt to obliterate the serial numbers was made by someone,” a technician named Carol-Ann told Kaminski when he sidled up next to her behind the counter, where she’d placed the gun under a microscope outfitted with a camera. He leaned as close as he could without interfering with her personal space. Carol-Ann could be touchy.
“You read anything?” She barely glanced at him before answering.
“Of course. That’s my job. I’ll run some prints for you, but the printer’s in its god-awful cleaning cycle—ten minutes or ten hours.”
“Just read ’em. I’ve got a pen.” She read out the numbers and Kaminski jotted them down.
“Wonder where this will lead?” he said.
“Back to Connelly’s front door,” Carol-Ann said.
“I’m not a detective, but I’d say a random intruder might shop at Target, but I doubt they’d bring the bag to the crime scene and dump it off right in the bushes or pond or whatever.” He almost corrected her by calling the store Tar-
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Kendall hadn’t suggested any real urgency, but Birdy Waterman was never the type to hear a request made more than once. She found the 1994 Jason Reed file in the attic in a plastic tub of other files that had never been converted to microfilm or destroyed as a matter of disposal protocol. That wasn’t unusual, given the cost of the conversion process, but it was fortuitous. She went into the coroner’s office kitchen with its view of the county’s administrative buildings, courthouse, and always-jammed parking lots. At one time the homeowners who lived there when the house was new probably had views of the Olympics and Sinclair Inlet. She poured some coffee from a formerly white, then brown Mr. Coffee machine that had been there longer than she had. The file folder was thin: a single X-ray film, a death certificate, and a partial police report covering the basics of the accident. Tori O’Neal had been the driver, with the victim Jason Reed in the passenger seat. Her sister, Lainie, had been in the backseat. The twins’ statements were identical. They’d been to a party where there had been drinking. The roadway was wet. Tori was driving at least ten miles an hour too fast—but, she insisted, not much more than that. The file was interesting for what it didn’t contain—an autopsy report. Yet, a death certificate had been issued. A predecessor had signed off on it—internal injuries the result of impact in a car accident. Birdy set the film against the light box and flipped the switch. It was an X-ray of Jason Reed’s chest, indicating several broken ribs. The fractures were consistent with the crash described in the report. She looked closer, fumbling for glasses she still was not used to wearing. The fractures did not indicate that they’d splintered and pierced any organs. Nor was there any pooling of blood. She looked closer yet. Although the previous pathologist had likely meant only to cover only the dead boy’s chest, at the top of the frame Birdy’s dark eyes fastened on the horseshoe-shaped hyoid bone. It had been broken. In a boy the age of Jason Reed, that particular bone was not likely to have broken in the impact of the crash—it was known for its flexibility as it hadn’t completed the process of ossification. Yet Jason’s was broken, crushed,
“You in your office?” she asked.
“I am.”
“Good. I feel like taking a walk. I’ve got something to show you.”
Birdy Waterman smiled at the photo of Cody and Steven on Kendall’s desk. It was an image Kendall had taken of the two of them crabbing off the dock in Harper. Though they hadn’t caught anything of consequence, it was clear that father and son were enjoying the sunny weather, the water, and the pleasure of just hanging out and
