Closer Than Blood

eyes.

“More than that,” she said.

“We want to conduct a second autopsy on Jason.” Mary’s eyes started to flood, but she didn’t cry.

“How can you do that?” she asked.

“That’s the hard part and that’s why I’m here. I want to ask you something that no mother would ever want to be asked. And I don’t take it lightly,” Kendall said.

“I want to ask you for permission to exhume his body.” Mary shook her head.

“I don’t know about that.”

“I know this is hard, Mary,” Kendall said.

“No, I won’t allow it.”

“You want to know the truth, don’t you?”

“We know the truth, don’t we?”

“I’m going to tell you something very important and something very confidential.”

“What is it?”

“The file on Jason is very, very scant on information. We have the accident report and a single X-ray. No photos. No nothing.”

“Yes.”

“The X-ray shows a slight irregularity,” Kendall said.

“It appears that Jason’s hyoid was compressed, broken.” Mary looked confused.

“Hyoid?”

“A bone in his neck,” Kendall said.

“From the accident?”

“Not likely.” Mary looked down at the chamois that she’d been absentmindedly balling up in her hands.

“I’ll have to think about it a while. My baby’s been undisturbed for fifteen years.”

Kendall Stark looked at her phone. There was still plenty of time to get over to Tacoma to talk with Detective Kaminski. The round trip across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and back took about an hour. She dialed his direct line and he answered right away.

“Not a good day today,” he said.

“Things stacking up a little on our case. Maybe later in the week?” Kendall understood completely. She knew how impossible it was to get everything done, every procedure done correctly, in the beginnings of a murder case.

“We have an exhumation in the works,” she said.

“An irregularity appeared on the films of the dead boy.” It felt strange to call Jason the “dead boy” when she knew him. It seemed so impersonal and she didn’t like the way it came out of her mouth. But it also struck her that Jason would always be a dead boy, never a man. Never anything that he had dreamed about.

“Interesting,” Kaminski said.

“But just so you know, we don’t like your friend for this shooting. In case that’s where you’re going with this.” Kendall took a moment.

“No, not at all. Going for the truth, that’s all.”

“That’s the name of the game,” he said.

“What else are you doing on the Reed case?”

“There’s not much we can do. Only three witnesses, an addict who came on the scene and the two sisters.”

“Addict around?”

“As a matter of fact, he is. He’s a pastor of a church in Kingston.”

“Parker, you let me down once,” Tori Connelly said, her voice decidedly stern, the kind of icy, emotionless tone that reminded the teenager more of his mother.

“You can’t do it to me again. You need to be a man now.”

“I am a man,” he said.

“You’re acting like a loser. I want to be with a winner.”

“I can’t do it. I couldn’t do it then. You know that. I’m not like you.” She let out an exasperated sigh.

“What’s that supposed to mean? I’ve given you everything I have, my heart, my soul, and you have failed me time and again. I don’t know why I bothered to fall in love with you. I wish I didn’t. I wish that I’d fallen in love with a man who would protect me. Save me. Take care of me.”

“I don’t know.” Tori seemed exasperated, possibly a little bored.

“You will. Parker, your fingerprints are on the gun used to kill your father. Your hair is on that ski mask.”

“It isn’t my hair,” Parker said.

“It’s his hair.”

“It is, baby. I had to do something to make sure that you’d stay strong and fight for me.” There was a long silence.

“Parker?”

“Yeah, you did that to me?” His voice was shaky. He wasn’t a man after all.

“Pull yourself together, Parker. Are you listening to me? I did it because I love you. I love us.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Kingston

It was late, the time of day when Mike Walsh wanted nothing more than to go home to his little house in the woods, feed his cat, and watch some reality-show trash. The reality-show TV schedule was key. Those shows that reminded him that not only were there others to save out in the world, there were many who could not be saved. On the bulletin board facing his computer screen was a bumper sticker that riffed on the motto of AA, an organization that had helped save his own life.

ONE SOUL AT A TIME.

He heard footsteps and a knock on the door.

“Come on in, Susan,” he said.

“ ’Bout ready to leave for the night.” The door lurched open.

“I’m not Susan.”

“Son, do I know you?” Parker stood still, his eyes dark and lifeless, the kind of eyes that refuse to divulge or betray any emotion. His hands were tucked inside the front pockets of his Western Washington University hoodie.

“I’m new. Are you Pastor Mike?”

“That I am,” he said, looking down and noticing that the teen was rocking slightly on his heels. Was he drunk? High? Nervous? All three? “What can I do for you?” Pastor Mike smiled. It was a wide smile, but a jarring one. His teeth had been damaged by years of drug abuse. They were more gray than white. In the illumination pouring in from a solar tube skylight, it was clear that his skin had been ravaged, too—pockmarks long since healed dotted his cheeks.

“Will you pray with me?” the teenager asked, as he started to cry. Pastor Mike felt the surge of emotion that comes from seeing a person in need make that step to the Lord.

“Let’s pray side by side in the Lord,” he said. Parker didn’t say anything as Pastor Mike led him from his office out to the sanctuary. Its pink-hued fir woodwork cast a warm glow, even as the darkness fell in the woods that framed the Quonset hut church. They both knelt down. The pastor closed his eyes and folded his hands, but Parker didn’t. He needed to see what he was doing. He wanted to hold that hunting knife. His hand shook as he gripped it. The minister was deep in prayer. The prayer was for him. Parker knew that he needed it. He also knew that what he was doing was the only way he could ensure that his dreams come true. That he would be with her.

“I need you to stop that.”

“I’m praying for you.”

“I don’t want you to do that.” He showed the blade.

“What are you doing with that?”

“Lie on your stomach.” Pastor Mike shook his head.

“You don’t want to do this. You don’t need to do this. We don’t have much money, but you can have what we