employee. It struck me as a kind gesture on the owner’s part to have closed the place down for the day in honor of the tragedy playing out in Kenny and Ardith Broward’s lives. Once we arrived in Packwood, however, I was downright impressed.
Kenny and Ardith’s yard was full of motorcycles-two dozen or more, along with a collection of woebegone minivans and pickup trucks. People milled around on the porch, where a washtub full of ice, beer, and sodas was the center of attention. Out in the front yard, someone was lighting up an old-fashioned charcoal grill.
You could tell the motorcycle guys from the loggers by the way they were dressed, leathers as opposed to overalls and flannel shirts. A collection of kids dressed in shorts, some of them barefoot, clambered over the play structure. And even without stepping inside the house, I knew that it was full of neighboring women who had probably covered every available flat surface with a collection of casseroles and potluck-worthy hot dishes. Packwood was a small town, and the folks had gathered there together to show their respect and offer their condolences in time-honored small-town fashion.
In a way, this was surprisingly similar to the people who had come to the governor’s mansion once news of Josh’s death had leaked out. Friends had gathered there, too, offering sympathy and support, but that had been a far better dressed crowd; the vehicles involved had been more expensive; and to my knowledge, none of the guests had come to the governor’s mansion with a covered-dish casserole in hand.
Everyone paused and watched with interest as I squeezed into one of the last available parking spots. When Mel and I stepped out of the vehicle, Conrad Philips-the high school principal and the only visible black man in attendance-extricated himself from the group around the charcoal grill.
“Did you find her?” he asked.
I nodded. He understood the implications. What we had to say wouldn’t be good news.
“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll go get them.”
Philips disappeared into the house and returned a few moments later with Kenny and Ardith in tow. Mel and I had agreed we’d play this one by ear, but I don’t think either of us had anticipated that we’d be speaking to the Browards in front of this kind of audience. The silence in the yard was absolute-like the silence in the Bike Inn the day before-only bigger, much bigger, and far more attentive.
As Conrad Philips led the bereaved parents through the throng of people, I was struck by how they looked- broken, red-eyed, and hopeless. They had tried to prepare themselves for the bad news. Now they faced it together.
“You found her?” Kenny asked.
“Yes,” I said. “We believe so. The body of a young woman was found floating in a retention pond north of Centralia early this morning.”
Ardith swayed slightly on her feet and then buried her face in her hands. Kenny reached out to steady her, holding her upright, while somewhere in the nearby trees a bird of some kind began to sing. That’s what I’ll always remember about the scene-Ardith Broward weeping, the bird singing in the background, and everyone else waiting and watching in utter silence.
When Ardith quieted, Mel stepped forward and took one of Ardith’s hands in hers.
“The body has been taken to the morgue in Chehalis,” she said quietly. “If you and Mr. Broward don’t mind, Mr. Beaumont and I would like to drive you there to see if you can identify the remains. And, of course, we’ll bring you back.”
Ardith looked up at Kenny as if for guidance. “Right now?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“We can take our van,” he offered.
“No,” Mel told him. “That won’t be necessary.”
“All right then.”
We helped them into the back of the Mercedes. While I started the engine and backed out of the parking place, Mel removed her recorder from her purse, switched it on, and placed it on the seat beside her.
As we started back down Highway 12, Mel told them some of what we knew or suspected, but she left out a few important details-like the possibility that Rachel had been dead for only a few hours when she was found in the pond. We explained how the identification process would work. We tried to prepare them for the shock of what they would see and apologized in advance for the fact that their daughter’s body would still be in the same condition in which it had been found.
“Why is that?” Ken asked. “Why couldn’t you clean her up?”
“Because we might lose evidence in the process,” Mel said. “Evidence that could help us convict her killer later.”
“Oh,” Ken said. “All right then.”
I was content to do the driving and let Mel carry on the conversation. Somewhere along the way, Mel began explaining about the search warrant that would include both their home and their telephone.
“That reminds me,” Ken said. “I don’t know what else you’ll find, but Ardy and I went through Rachel’s room last night. We found this hidden in her jewelry case.”
He handed Mel a small business card. She looked at it and passed it to me. The design on the card showed a simple peaked roof with several stick figures gathered beneath it. The words JANIE’S HOUSE were written on the card, along with a phone number with a 360 area code. There was nothing else there, not on the front or the back.
“What’s this?” Mel asked.
“I have no idea,” Ken said. “But that’s what Rachel told me on Sunday-that she was going to Janie’s house!”
Mel took out her iPhone and began surfing the net. “It’s a drop-in shelter in Olympia,” she said. “In other words, it’s not a place where people stay, but they serve as a centralized source of needed services for homeless youth. It’s named after a girl named Janie Goodson, who was murdered in 1985 while living in a homeless camp outside of Olympia. Janie’s grandmother started it. It supplies showers, laundry facilities, meals, tutoring, and a place to hang out.”
“But why would Rachel even go there?” Ardith demanded from the backseat. “She had a home. She had us.”
I knew there weren’t any easy answers to that question. I had asked myself the same kinds of things years ago when my own daughter, Kelly, had taken off. In her case, the answer had to do with a boy named Jeremy. Maybe the answer for Rachel was something similar, but with a far more tragic outcome. A few years down the road, Kenny and Ardith wouldn’t end up with a couple of cute little grandkids to show for all their heartache. No, the best they could hope for was having a chance to lay their daughter to rest. On the other hand, that’s more than far too many parents of runaway kids ever have a chance to do.
In any case, I knew that as soon as the identification was out of the way and the Browards were safely home in Packwood, Janie’s House in Olympia would be my next destination.
“Can you get me a street address on that shelter?” I asked.
“Can do,” Mel said. “I’m working on it right now.”
The ID session was every bit as bad as we had expected. That was due in large part to the condition of the body. But it also had something to do with Dr. Epstein, who made her displeasure known by being disdainful and condescending to the point of being rude. It was fine for her to be mad at Mel and me. We deserved it. In fact, we had gone out of our way to provoke her. Instead, she took it out on the Browards, slamming the gurney with the body bag on it into the middle of the room and then jerking down the zipper to reveal the ghastly, still mud-covered face.
“Is that her?”
“Yes,” Kenny whispered while Ardith nodded wordlessly.
“All right then,” Dr. Epstein said. “We’re done here.”
As in “Here’s your hat. What’s your hurry?” If that was Dr. Epstein’s idea of bedside manner, she had done the world of medical science a huge favor by becoming a coroner rather than working with living, breathing patients. Maybe that was the path of least resistance if you don’t want to deal with customers who actually talk back. Ditto for Dr. Larry Mowat, the Thurston County M.E., although in terms of status, serving as Lewis County coroner was most likely a big step down from a position where you got to put the words “medical examiner” behind your name.
