After the interview with Elizabeth Harkness, I go for a drive. I spiral up the on-ramp to the Megler Bridge, past the backside of the houses on Alameda, until I’m on the road deck, two hundred feet above the water. Freighters and cruise ships and battleships can all pass safely beneath, even at high tide. I press my lips together as a gust of wind broadsides my car and makes me swerve away from the centerline.
Once I pass over the main shipping channel, the bridge drops to a more prosaic height. Cormorants and seagulls soar over the guardrails. To my left are swatches of brown; extensive sand bars sprawl just beneath the surface. During low tide, they become visible as monochrome islands outlined with foam.
When a detective interviews someone, she has to keep her feelings in check. It’s important not to react, to record the facts and not add her own emotional baggage to the atmosphere. But after hearing about something like this, it’s hard not to feel angry.
Victoria had been an abused child. First by her uncle, then by her well-meaning mother. Enrolling her in a private school fell far short of what was needed. Victoria should have had therapy. I mean, hello, doesn’t Elizabeth read the news? A religious school and church are, sadly, no protection against further abuse, and it feels criminally ignorant that her mother just assumed they would be. The girl had been groomed and molested by an older man at an especially vulnerable age. She wouldn’t have been able to protect herself, might even have unintentionally responded to attention in a provocative manner. And the overt morality of a religious school may have made her feel even more isolated and unworthy. I truly hope nothing further happened to Victoria, I hope the new surroundings were safe. But. It’s perhaps not surprising that she rejected all forms of traditional worship.
It’s incredible that Victoria was trying to turn her own tragedy into a positive. I admire her for it. But. What if her abuser heard about her church, and went to a service? Or she might have looked him up herself. Trying for closure, or maybe an apology. Knowing what I know about her, it sounds like something she might do.
Whoever reached out first, what if their meeting didn’t result in hope or healing, but in harm?
The man in my vision had said he wanted to stop Victoria from spreading lies. Could that be a reference to her talking about the abuse? He might not want to admit he was a pedophile, to himself or anyone else. It might be buried so deep in his psyche that he truly believed it was a lie.
No one ever wants to see themselves as they truly are.
As the highway unfurls through mossy forest and over gleaming waterways, with their attendant herons and raptors, I turn the pieces of the investigation, trying to arrange an image. My latest idea has a resonance to it; I can’t help but feel the past has a bearing on Victoria’s death. If the police stopped their digging when Seth Takahashi had an alibi, if there’s no forensic evidence to support an investigation, then the only one pursuing this is me.
I get it. Drownings are tough. It’s hard to prove a homicide, especially when it’s in a big body of moving water. Forensic evidence gets washed away. Plus, it’s the third most common method of suicide among women. The Astoria Police Department doesn’t have my dubious advantage of psychotic visions to help them.
Or maybe they just need to focus on the latest crime: the killing of Daniel Chandler.
I haven’t allowed myself to think about this crime. Because it’s the mother of all monkey wrenches. I don’t understand what it means. Plus, Daniel was my client. Oh, Claire approached me, but Daniel signed the contract. Legally, I’m not sure where I stand. Do I continue with the Harkness investigation, ignoring Chandler’s death? Do I broaden the scope to include Chandler? Or do I back off completely? I didn’t really like him, but murder is murder.
My questions to myself are largely rhetorical — of course I’m going to continue. Of course I’m going to try to find out what happened to Chandler too. Because I just don’t think two murders in the same small group of people are a coincidence. There’s a unified theory that explains them both.
Corpses always show up when you’re around. You seem to inspire people to murder. A regular Typhoid Mary.
I’m getting pretty sick of Zoe. Ignoring her doesn’t seem to be working. She isn’t going away, and I don’t know how to get rid of her. She understands me better than anyone. She was present when I had my meltdown. And for that reason, it frightens me to hear her now.
On my way home, I pass the Three Bean Coffee Shop and screech across two lanes of traffic to wedge my car in between a Suburban and Silverado before sauntering inside to snag a tiny table by the window.
Could Uncle Abe Harkness be responsible for Chandler’s death too?
The only way to find out is to discover where Victoria’s uncle has been for the past few years.
Soon, I’ve got a toasted ham sandwich — a panino, in cafe parlance — and a cup of black coffee with a pinch of salt keeping me company as I rev up the search engine on my laptop, search for Abe+Harkness+Astoria+Oregon. I add the state after getting a bunch of false positives for people in New York. All kinds of results cascade down the screen: social media profiles, white pages, newspaper mentions. And something I don’t expect: an obituary. After reading it, and associated Astorian articles published around the same time, I discover that Abe Harkness died in a car accident five years ago in which he was found to have a blood alcohol level of .23. Long before Victoria returned to the town she’d grown up in.
I’m disappointed. In some corner of
