and still be in Washington. Try explaining that to someone who hails from, say, Delaware or New Hampshire.
There was a light tap on Sheriff Tyler’s closed door.
“Come in,” he called.
The door opened to reveal a young uniformed officer standing outside. He was all spit-and-polish. I didn’t know if it was the beginning of his shift or the end of it, but his uniform looked like it was fresh from the laundry. The creases in his pants were still sharp.
“Sorry to disturb you, sir,” he apologized. “But Dispatch told me you wanted to see me right away.”
“Have a seat, Deputy Timmons,” Sheriff Tyler said. “These two officers, Mel Soames and J. P. Beaumont, are agents from the attorney general’s Special Homicide unit. They’re here to speak to you about Rachel Camber.”
I appreciated his avoiding the term S.H.I.T., and clearly Deputy Timmons was duly impressed.
“Yes, sir,” Timmons said. He edged his way into the room and took a seat on the only remaining chair. Not a seat so much as a perch. He sat fully upright, as though he were still standing at attention.
“Did you bring that photo with you?” Sheriff Tyler asked.
“Yes, sir,” Deputy Timmons said.
He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a notebook. Opening that, he removed a piece of paper that had been folded to the exact dimensions of the notebook. He unfolded the paper and handed it to Sheriff Tyler. The sheriff studied it silently for a moment and then passed it to Mel, who eventually handed it to me. It was a school photo with the same shy, tentative smile we had seen at the beginning of the video.
Looking at the photo made my heart hurt. If the two girls weren’t one and the same, then they would have to be identical twins.
Deputy Timmons seemed to find the silence in the room unnerving. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, “but did I understand you to say homicide? Does that mean Rachel Camber has been murdered?”
“It’s possible,” Sheriff Tyler said noncommittally. “How about if you bring us up to speed with what you learned in Packwood.”
Timmons’s notebook, which had been properly stowed in his shirt pocket, came back out. He opened it and began reading through his notes.
“According to Kenny-”
“Kenny?” Sheriff Tyler repeated. “You mean Kenneth Broward, Ardith’s most recent husband?”
“And Rachel’s stepfather then,” Mel supplied.
Deputy Timmons nodded and returned to his notes. “Kenny said that the last time he saw Rachel was Sunday afternoon. She told him she was going to see a friend and that she planned to spend the night.”
“Does this friend have a name?” Mel asked.
“Janie,” Kenny said. “Ken assumed Janie was someone from school, but Conrad Philips, the high school principal, is an old personal friend of mine. I gave him a call when I was on my way back from Packwood. He knows every kid in his school on a first-name basis. He says there isn’t a Jane or Janie in the bunch.”
“Is there a chance that Mr. Broward was mistaken about the name?” Mel asked.
“I suppose,” Timmons said with a frown, “but I doubt it.”
“So according to Mr. Broward, the last he saw of Rachel was Sunday, when she left on her own.”
“Yes,” Deputy Timmons said. “That’s correct.”
I knew where Mel was going. There’s a lot to support the idea that stepfather/stepdaughter relationships can be fraught with peril, so when she asked her next question, I wasn’t at all surprised.
“Have you considered the possibility that Mr. Broward might have something to do with Rachel’s disappearance?”
The genuinely shocked expression on Deputy Timmons’s young face made his verbal answer unnecessary.
“So you don’t think there was something inappropriate going on between Mr. Broward and his stepdaughter. .”
“No, ma’am!” Timmons said decisively. “I never gave that possibility any thought at all. I’ve known Kenny Broward all my life. If there was ever a truly upright guy, he’s it, although how he could get mixed up with someone like Ardith Haskell is more than I can understand.”
I glanced back at Ardith’s mug shot. Haskell was the first name listed there, a maiden name, as it were. People from your hometown are usually the only ones who stick to those first names, so it occurred to me that Deputy Timmons had known Ardith all his life as well.
“I’ve heard what Ardith’s place was like before,” Timmons went on. “Before Kenny was in the picture. You’d be amazed, Sheriff Tyler. Now the place is clean as a whistle. He cut down all the weeds in the backyard and put together one of those wooden swing things out there so the kids would have something to play on. When I got there, they were outside having fun like normal kids. If you ask me, Kenny’s more of a father to that bunch than all those other guys put together.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let me understand this. Rachel went off with this supposed friend named Janie on Sunday.”
“Yes,” Timmons said. “She left Sunday afternoon about four, just after her mother left for work.”
“How did she leave?” I asked. “Did she walk? Did she ride?”
“She rode. Somebody picked her up, somebody driving an older-model pickup truck. Green. Chevrolet, Silverado. Kenny didn’t see the license, so that doesn’t help us much. There are lots of old Chevys in Packwood.”
“Okay,” Mel said. “She left on Sunday. Why did she leave after her mother went to work?”
“According to Kenny, Ardith and Rachel fight a lot. If Rachel had asked for permission, there probably would have been a big argument.”
“When was she reported missing?”
“This afternoon,” Deputy Timmons said. “Kenny called it in after Ardith left for work, for the same reason. He didn’t want to start another argument. I think I may have mentioned that Ardith isn’t exactly a nice person, a reasonable person.”
“Don’t you think it’s odd that Rachel’s stepfather is the one who turned in the report and not Rachel’s own mother?”
Deputy Timmons sighed. “He told me what she said.”
“What who said?” I asked.
“What Ardith said about Rachel’s running off,” Timmons said.
“What was that?” Sheriff Tyler asked.
“She said, ‘Good riddance. One less mouth to feed.’ ”
On the face of it, Kenny Broward sounded too good to be true, and Ardith Haskell was just the opposite-too bad to be real. Either way, the situation at the home in Packwood had been bad news for Rachel, and it had sent her running pell-mell into something much worse.
“Do you know where Ardith is right now?” I asked.
“Sure thing,” he said. “Tending bar at the Bike Inn bar in Randle. It’s a pretty rough crowd, but Ardith has worked there for years. She fits right in and can hold her own with the best of them-or the worst,” Deputy Timmons added. “Take your pick.”
I stood up. “We should probably go have a talk with her,” I said. “And maybe with Mr. Broward as well.”
Sheriff Tyler nodded. “Good idea,” he said. “But if I were you, I’d let Deputy Timmons take you there. You can drive your own car, of course. I wouldn’t expect you to go there in a squad car, but I caught a glimpse of your wheels when you got here. If you drive up to the Bike Inn by yourselves in that pretty little Mercedes of yours, those guys are likely to clean your clocks.” He grinned at Mel. “I have it on good authority that you’re fully capable of handling yourself in a pinch, but let me ask you this. If you were going out on an African safari, would you head off on your own, or would you pick up a local guide before you took off?”
“Local guide,” Mel said.
“Exactly right,” Sheriff Tyler said. “And this is the same thing. As far as the outside world is concerned, Randle and Packwood are a little like the back of the beyond. When Deputy Timmons came back home from his tour of duty in Iraq, I hired him to work that eastern sector of the county because he grew up there. He knows those logging roads like the back of his hand. He knows the people, the good ones and the bad ones.
