“My money’s on Gizzy, with Zoe knowing exactly what was going on,” Mel said grimly. “What a nice bunch of kids!”
“Did you find out anything about security cameras at Janie’s House?” I asked.
“Yes, I did,” Mel said. “According to Meribeth Duncan, there aren’t any. On purpose-so they wouldn’t ‘infringe’ on client privacy. That computer log system was evidently installed under the radar and without official sanction from the board of directors.”
“Now that they know some of those kids might be engaging in criminal behavior, maybe they’ll wise up,” I suggested.
Mel shook her head in exasperation. “How do you spell ‘Hear no evil; see no evil’? But Meribeth told me she’ll try to reconstruct a list of the people who had keys-houseparents, tutors, and so forth-who could come and go as they pleased.”
“Without any records that might be hard to do.”
“Not as hard as you think,” Mel said. “Don’t forget Todd copied all those hard drives yesterday. I think he’ll be able to dredge a whole lot of useful information out of those.”
There had been a multiple-vehicle rush-hour accident in the northbound lanes of I-5, and traffic was at a standstill just north of Olympia. Originally the GPS said we would arrive in twenty-two minutes. It ended up taking twice that.
“Did Todd manage to turn up any close friends on Josh’s computer?” I asked.
Mel shook her head. “Not so far. He evidently played Internet chess with several people, but that’s about it. I asked Katie Dunn to check last year’s yearbook. ‘Chess Club’ was Josh’s only listed activity. He’s old enough to have a learner’s permit, but there’s no record that he ever applied for one. Most kids race to the nearest licensing office the moment they’re eligible.”
“Josh Deeson was a long way from being a ‘most kids’ kind of teenager,” I said. “Maybe not bothering to get a driver’s license was one way to thumb his nose at all the other kids by ignoring their usual rites of passage. He didn’t care about them, and he didn’t care who knew it. He was odd man out and he intended to stay that way.”
“But why would Giselle be involved in this texting thing?” Mel asked. “What’s her motivation?”
“Marsha Gray Longmire and I went to high school together,” I said.
“Yes,” Mel agreed with a laugh. “I gathered as much.”
“Of all the girls in our class she was probably the coolest-she wore the best clothes; she drove the best car; she got the best grades. Did I mention she was valedictorian?”
“No,” Mel said, “but it figures.”
“She was cool; I was not cool.”
“Maybe you weren’t cool then and you aren’t cool now,” Mel said with a smile. “At least Marsha must have thought you were cool the day before yesterday. Why else did she ask for you?”
“Maybe because she thought she could call on old times’ sake to help control the narrative.”
“Which is?”
“As I said, Marsha was cool to the nth degree. Maybe Gizzy is just like her mother. DNA is like that. If she’s one of the cool kids, the last thing she wants is to be irrevocably linked to someone who is not cool-someone who is the antithesis of coolness.”
“Josh Deeson,” Mel supplied. “But I still don’t understand the point.”
“Whoever sent the texts probably did so in the hope they’d succeed in sending Josh packing. That’s what bullies do. They think that if they make things uncomfortable enough, the target will just fold and disappear. When Josh didn’t bail, they upped the ante with the film clip. But Josh fooled them again. Instead of disappearing without a whimper, he committed suicide. Now cops are involved in what should have been a relatively harmless teenage prank. There’s a real investigation. By now the kids involved have probably figured out that someone is going to come around asking uncomfortable questions. Maybe that meant the film star needed to disappear, too.”
“Speaking of which, I wonder if the King County M.E. has done Rachel’s autopsy yet?”
“Call ’em up and find out,” I told her.
Mel pulled out her cell phone. After jumping through a few voice mail prompts, I heard her ask for Dr. Mellon.
I was relieved to hear that we had lucked out and drawn Rosemary Mellon. She’s a new addition to the King County M.E.’s office. She hasn’t been around long enough to develop as many jurisdictional prejudices as some of the old guard. She’s easy to work with-thorough but not terribly concerned with going through channels and across desks. I had an idea Ross Connors had handpicked her for the job.
Mel listened for several minutes, jotting down notes. When she got off the phone, she gave me a briefing.
“According to Rosemary, Rachel had been dead about eight to ten hours before being dumped in the water. There are clear signs of strangulation. She found some defensive wounds as well as tissue under her nails. She expects to be able to get a DNA profile, but there’s no sign of sexual assault.”
“I wonder if our enterprising filmmakers were looking for an encore performance-a real one this time.”
Mel sighed. “Maybe,” she said.
Sid Longmire’s home was in what’s called a “gated community,” but on this summer evening no one was minding the gate. The guard shack was unoccupied, and we drove right up to the house.
I had given Mel a hard time about her objections to the age difference between Greg Alexander and his girlfriend, but that’s what happens when you look askance at other people’s foibles without taking your own into consideration. I had automatically expected Sid Longmire’s wife to be of the trophy, arm-candy variety and hardly older than his daughters. When Monica Longmire answered the door, I knew at once that assumption was wrong. What the second Mrs. Longmire had going for her wasn’t necessarily her looks or her age. Maybe Sid had tired of Marsha’s power politics and excessive coolosity and had gone looking for stability instead. In contrast to Marsha’s well-tailored good looks, Monica’s face was plain and more than a little round. She had the ruddy complexion of someone who spends too much time in the sun, more likely gardening than golfing. And the smile lines on her face were exactly that-smile lines.
“Yes,” Monica Longmire said, peering out past the security chain. “May I help you?”
Mel produced her badge. “We’re looking for Giselle,” she said. “We were told she’d be here with you and your husband. We need to ask her a few questions about Josh Deeson’s circle of friends.”
“I’m sorry. Gizzy isn’t here right now,” Monica said, opening the door. “She’s out with her boyfriend. They were planning on seeing a movie and then she’s going back home. That seemed like a bad idea to me-not the movie, going back home.”
Monica motioned us inside the house and directed us to seating in the family room.
“Frankly, I thought she and Zoe would be better off being here for the next few nights so they could escape some of the drama,” Monica continued. “It’s hard for kids to hang around home when everyone is so upset. I’m pretty much an outsider when it comes to what goes on with Marsha and Gerry, but I know they’re both really hurting. As for Josh? That poor kid never had a chance. And poor Zoe, too,” she added. “Finding Josh’s body like that must have been a horrible shock.”
Monica’s apparently genuine concern for her stepdaughters didn’t sound like part of the usual evil-stepmother tradition. But neither Mel nor I let on that as far as Governor Longmire knew, Giselle was still scheduled to stay with her father. Telling both sets of parents one thing and then doing something else is standard teenage behavior, even without a death in the family.
“We’d appreciate any insight you could give us,” Mel said. “Did the two girls talk about Josh much?” she asked.
“When Josh first went to live with them, Zoe especially was all excited about it. Gizzy was less so. Zoe was under the impression that since they were so close in age they’d end up being great pals. I think it hurt her feelings when that didn’t happen, but what do you expect when you start blending families? There are always a few bumps in the road. My boys are three and five years older than Giselle. The only thing they have in common with the girls is that they ostensibly belong to the same family. They share the occasional meal, usually on holidays, but they are not good friends, and they’re never going to be. That’s just the way it is. Sid and I are in love. The kids aren’t in love. Deal with it.”
“So Zoe was disappointed that she and Josh didn’t bond,” I said. “What was Giselle’s reaction?”
