Many small used-to-be logging towns in rural Washington have drifted into almost ghost-town obscurity. Several of the burgs along Highway 2 run perpetual going-out-of-business sales in the form of retired churches, which, now devoid of parishioners, live on in a tawdry, makeshift fashion as threadbare antique malls.
Leavenworth, too, was once headed in that direction and might well have suffered the same fate had not some enterprising city fathers-and mothers, I’m sure-decided to reinvent the place. They slapped on layers of Bavarian facades, dressed everybody and his uncle in lederhosen, and declared the city a tourist attraction. Such is the magic of self-fulfilling prophecies that the ploy worked remarkably well. Now thousands of people flock there for their faux Octoberfest and for their annual Christmas-lighting ceremonies. For authenticity’s sake, it helps that Leavenworth is high enough in the mountains that this holiday extravaganza usually takes place in frigid snow, with the occasional blizzard thrown in.
If I sound somewhat churlish about all this, let me say that the one time I bravely went there is also when the “occasional” blizzard happened. That storm resulted in a combination of record snowfall in Stevens Pass and an avalanche on I-90 at Snoqualmie Pass, a one-two punch that brought most of Washington’s east-west travel to a halt. Karen and the kids and I didn’t make it back over the mountains until Tuesday afternoon, two days late for both work and school. Since this was March instead of November or December, however, I figured I was safe enough on the weather score. And since it wasn’t Christmas, there was no need for me to be brimming over with peace on earth and all that jazz-especially when it came to Mr. Jack Lawrence.
During the long solitary drive from Seattle across a still snow-bordered Stevens Pass I had plenty of time for thinking. Gradually I was able to let go of the Mel situation and turn my attention to the problem of Jack and Carol Lawrence. As I drove I realized this would probably be nothing more than a useless fishing expedition. In fact, if Lawrence hadn’t given his stepdaughter such a tough time, I probably wouldn’t have bothered trying to interview him at all. It turns out, though, that I’m a great believer in giving people like him the opportunity to reap what they sow. Besides, I found his interest in
It was late on a sunny but surprisingly chill morning when I pulled up at the Lawrences’ mailbox on Lavetta Road south of Leavenworth proper. Lavetta Road isn’t so much a road as it is a very angular circle. Maybe they should have called it Lavetta Oblong. With the help of my trusty GPS, I managed to locate the long winding driveway marked “Lawrence,” which took off from the southernmost curve of Lavetta and headed off into the forest.
The house itself was one of those some-assembly-required log cabins where someone else cuts up, notches, numbers, and fits together all the tree trunks necessary to build the house. They’re then taken apart, loaded onto a truck, and hauled to wherever the house is being built. At that point the hapless homeowner has to reassemble the pieces himself or pay someone else to do it. Since Lawrence was an engineer type, I figured he would have done the work himself.
This one was a large two-story affair with a steeply pitched roof and a covered porch that ran across the entire front of the house. A single vehicle was parked outside-a muddied Subaru Forester that seemed much the worse for wear. Out of force of habit, I jotted down the license number, then started up the walkway. In true Leavenworth fashion, the metal door knocker had been fashioned to resemble a nutcracker. I gave it a good bash and waited to see if anyone would answer.
The door was cracked open the distance of a short length of fastened security chain. “Yes?” a woman asked questioningly, while remaining mostly out of sight behind the partially opened door.
Carol Lawrence was about my age. Her silver hair was pulled back in a ponytail, but even that small glimpse revealed a resemblance between her and her daughter that was nothing short of striking. She looked as if she had been crying, and I wondered what about.
“What do you want?” she asked.
I held up my ID. “Mrs. Lawrence,” I began, “if you have a few moments, I’d like to speak to you.”
By the time the words were out of my mouth she was already trying to slam the door. My foot, schooled by years of actual door-to-door Fuller Brush salesmanship, was firmly planted in the way.
“Go away,” she ordered. “I’m not talking to you and neither is Jack. Tony’s been gone for a quarter of a century. There’s no reason to bring it all back up.”
“But your daughter-”
“My daughter disapproves of me,” she said. “I didn’t wait the whole seven years, and she’s never forgiven me for that. But you know what? I’m the mother. I get to live my life the way I want to. Now go away.”
“Are you aware that your husband went to see DeAnn yesterday?” I asked. “That he was off the charts and threatened her? She was very upset.”
“Look,” Carol said impatiently, “Jack is DeAnn’s stepfather. They have never gotten along and never will. Not only that, I’ve finally figured out that I can’t fix it. So please go away and leave me alone before my husband comes home and finds you here.”
“You’re saying he would be upset by my being here? Why’s that? We’re just doing a routine follow-up on your missing first husband. I can’t see why Mr. Lawrence finds that so disturbing-unless he has something to hide, that is.”
“Jack’s a very private man,” Carol insisted. “He doesn’t like people nosing around in our private lives. We want to be left alone. Just go away.”
“The way he’s acting is enough to make me think maybe the two of you were an item long before Tony went fishing up on Spirit Lake.”
“So what if Jack and I were an ‘item’ back then, as you call it?” Carol demanded hotly. “We’ve been married for twenty-five years now. That should count for something. You don’t have any idea what my life was like then, and you have no right to judge me now. Neither does my daughter. My husband is a very private man. The idea that DeAnn brought this up-”
“She didn’t,” I interjected. “DeAnn had nothing to do with it. The attorney general’s office is doing routine follow-ups on missing persons cases from all over the state. That’s how your former husband’s name came up. Period.”
“Oh,” Carol said, sounding somewhat subdued. “We thought…”
I took a business card from my pocket and passed it through the door. I didn’t expect her to take it, but she did.
“I don’t care what you thought,” I told her curtly. “We are conducting an active investigation at this time. Please let your husband know that I am going to need to talk to both of you sooner or later. You can make it easy or you can make it hard.”
She studied the card, then unlatched the chain. “All right.” She sounded resigned. “Come on in. Like I said, Jack isn’t home right now. You probably passed each other somewhere between here and Seattle. What do you want to know?”
For the next hour or so we went over the same ground I had covered with DeAnn days earlier. I asked many of the same questions and heard the same answers, but with one telling difference. I had left DeAnn Cosgrove’s home convinced she was telling the truth, or at least the truth as she knew it.
When my interview with Carol was over I left the Lawrences’ sprawling log house living room with the distinct impression Carol had been lying through her teeth. I didn’t know why, not for sure, but I had my suspicions. All I had to do now was to learn enough about the case to catch her in one of those lies.
Like Donnie Cosgrove, I was beginning to believe that Mount Saint Helens had nothing at all to do with his first father-in-law’s disappearance.
“Have Jack give me a call,” I told Carol the last thing before I stepped off her front porch to return to my car. “You have my number.”
“Okay,” she said, “I’ll tell him.”
We both knew he wouldn’t call. Most likely Jack Lawrence would play hard to get. That didn’t bother me, though. Tony Cosgrove had been gone for a quarter of a century. I had all the time in the world.
Without Mel there to ride herd on me I had missed breakfast, so I stopped off at the Brewery Pub in Leavenworth to grab some lunch before heading back to Seattle. As I waited for my hamburger, I was thinking about DeAnn Cosgrove and her mother. DeAnn evidently still disapproved of her mother’s moving on twenty-five years after it had happened. That certainly boded ill for me and Kelly.
The waitress was delivering my hamburger when Kendall Jackson called.
“Just left Elaine Manning,” he told me. “Thanks for that, by the way. What she had to say was interesting,
