Mel nodded. “As is,” she confirmed.
“That’ll be hard on them,” I said.
“Yes, it will be, but Ross believes it’s the only way we can be confident that all potential trace evidence is properly preserved. He’s heard some things about sloppy workmanship and corner cutting in Dr. Epstein’s morgue, and this case is too important to risk bumbling it. Once the ID is complete, King County will send someone down to take charge of the body. They’ll transport it, examine it for evidence, and perform the autopsy. The fax should be in Sheriff Tyler’s hands sometime in the next twenty minutes. Dr. Epstein will not be pleased.”
Mel’s deadpan comment caught me with a mouthful of not-quite-swallowed coffee. “Pleased!” I sputtered. “The woman is going to have a cow!”
“Yes, she will,” Mel agreed with a grin. “And I’m only too happy to help facilitate the delivery.”
“So we wait for the fax.”
Mel nodded again. “In addition to that, Ross is making arrangements with a Lewis County judge to issue a search warrant for the Browards’ place in Packwood, as well as their telephone records.”
“Do we need a warrant?” I asked. “Once they know Rachel is dead, chances are they’ll give us permission to search her room anyway.”
“That’s true,” Mel said. “You and I don’t think the Browards are involved in what happened, but Ross wants to cover that base just in case. He’d rather we go there armed with a warrant than without one.”
Mel and I left the restaurant in both cars. That made for a slight detour in our plan for the day, but overall we were working the same program. First Mel and I would take the Mercedes to Packwood, where we would give Ardith and Kenny Broward the bad news and bring them to Chehalis for the official ID ordeal.
With four people in the car, my Mercedes was a better choice for that part of the trip than Mel’s Cayman, and the two hours going and coming would provide ample opportunity for us to do a long informal interview. After the ID, I would drive the Browards back home to Packwood, and Mel would drive herself there in the Cayman. That would leave her free to execute the search warrant and then spend the remainder of the day backtracking on Rachel’s Packwood friends while I drove to Olympia to start the same process with friends, acquaintances, and classmates of Josh Deeson.
At the Lewis County Sheriff’s Department we waited in a small lobby just outside Sheriff Tyler’s office while he finished up with what his secretary told us was an important phone call. When he finally emerged, he was carrying several pages of faxed documents and grinning from ear to ear.
“You two really know how to make my day,” he said, handing the paperwork over to Mel. “It’s about time someone put that woman in her place. Call me after you finish IDing the victim. If it turns out to be Rachel, Judge Andrews will sign off on the search warrant and you’ll be able to take that back to Packwood with you.”
“Will do,” Mel said.
I thought we’d be able to walk from the sheriff’s office to the morgue. No such luck. The morgue was nowhere near the rest of the Lewis County government complex. Instead, it was up a steep hill and in the basement of a local hospital. We used both cars for the drive there as well.
Standing in the hospital parking lot and looking out over downtown Chehalis, I realized that it wasn’t nearly as hot as it had been the previous two days. A low-pressure system had blown in off the ocean the night before. Instead of clear blue skies overhead, there was a pleasant cover of gray with a hint of moisture in the air. My favorite kind of Seattle summer day-gray and cool and damp with no rain.
Mel got out of the Cayman armed with her paperwork. We both knew what was written there would send Dr. Epstein into a spasm. I’m sorry to admit it, but I was actually looking forward to this confrontation.
Mel must have caught the slight grin on my face. “What’s so funny?” she asked.
“I hate to think about how many guys in Homicide used to sit around talking and dreaming about leaving Seattle PD behind and finding themselves a nice little job in some quiet burg where they’d be immune from politics. But that’s what this whole thing is with Dr. Epstein-a lesson in small-town politics.”
“Yes,” Mel said. “And if you ask me, small-town politics are worse. They’re more personal because everybody knows everybody else.”
Two minutes later we were ushered into Dr. Epstein’s office. She wasn’t happy to see us.
“We haven’t started yet,” she said brusquely. “I told you I’d call when I had the autopsy results.”
Mel smiled and put the fax down on Dr. Epstein’s shiny wooden desk. “No,” she said. “I’m afraid we’ll be the ones calling you.”
Mel seldom gets mad at me, and it’s a good thing. When she’s mad, she can be a ring-tailed bitch. Dr. Bonnie Epstein had done the unforgivable and had made Mel Soames mad.
As Dr. Epstein read through the fax, her cheeks flushed deep red.
“Ross Connors can’t do this!” she declared at last, spinning the papers away from her. They fluttered off the edge of her desk and landed on the floor. I reached down, collected them, reassembled them, and turned them into a neat stack.
“Yes, I’m afraid he can,” Mel said. “I believe we mentioned that to you earlier this morning. He’s the chief law enforcement officer in this state. What he says goes.”
“Who’s his boss, then?” Dr. Epstein wanted to know. “The governor? I’ll call her next.”
“Go right ahead,” Mel said. “But I have a feeling the governor is a little busy this morning. I doubt she’ll be taking calls from anyone, let alone you.”
“But-”
Mel continued as if Dr. Epstein hadn’t opened her mouth. “Mr. Beaumont and I are on our way to Packwood to pick up Rachel’s parents so they can come and do the official ID. You’re to instruct your people to unzip the bag for them, or you can do it yourself, but that’s it. You’re to do nothing else with the remains, especially no cleaning. The M.E. in Seattle will be responsible for collecting and processing all evidence.”
“Rachel?” Dr. Epstein asked, plucking that single word out of what Mel had said. “That’s her name, Rachel?”
“Yes,” Mel said. “That’s most likely our victim’s name-Rachel Camber of Packwood.”
Dr. Epstein didn’t go down without a fight. “It’s my job to notify the victim’s family,” she objected. “What was that name again, Camber? How do you spell that?”
“C-A-M-B-E-R,” Mel said, carefully calling out the letters one by one.
About then, I found myself feeling a little sorry for Dr. Epstein. She wrote the letters down quickly, without any idea that Mel Soames was cheerfully handing her a dead-end deal.
Given the circumstances, it seemed likely that Dr. Epstein might try to beat us to the punch and contact Rachel’s parents before Mel and I had a chance to do so.
We both knew that wasn’t going to happen. Ardith Broward hadn’t been Ardith Camber for a very long time.
Chapter 17
Dr. Epstein was in the process of attempting to call Governor Longmire when Mel and I left her office. On the way out of town, we stopped at a drugstore and stocked up on batteries for the cassette recorder Mel keeps in her purse. Fortunately she keeps a supply of extra cassettes tucked in there as well.
The trip to Packwood was still the same distance as it had been the day before, but somehow knowing where we were going made it seem shorter.
“We must have done all right with the locals yesterday,” I said. “At least it wasn’t necessary to send Deputy Timmons along to look after us.”
“Are you going to tell Kenny and Ardith, or will I?” Mel asked.
“We could always draw straws,” I suggested.
“No,” Mel said. “We’ll play it by ear.”
As we drove through Randle we noticed that there were no motorcycles parked in front of the Bike Inn, and a red-and-black CLOSED sign hung on the door. I had no idea who owned the bar. As far as I knew, Ardith was an
