Now That She's Gone (26 page)

Kendall doubted that. Rose Kirkowski was not the kind of woman to do damage control for her daughter. Not one iota.

“Like your mother, your daughter is very ambitious,” Kendall said.

“Not even close. Carol would sell me into sex slavery if that meant she'd see her name in lights. She'd screw me over every which way but Sunday. Probably Sunday too. My mom filled her head with ideas. Carol moved out of here and in with Mom when she was sixteen. I've only seen her four times since. That's right, four freaking times. My mom was a bit player at heart. Carol is heartless. There's a difference. I mean, growing up I felt sorry for my mom. I vowed I would never do to my kids what she did to me.”

“But she turned on you. Why?”

“Because . . .” her voice trailed off. “That's a good one. I don't like talking about it.”

Kendall used the five words she hated to trot out. “But you can tell me.”

Those words always felt so disingenuous. Even though she was there to gather evidence and the subject always knew that, it suddenly turned the conversation to something personal. It was as if by using those words it was only “between you and me” and it wouldn't go further.

Which was always a lie.

“I guess so. You have kids?”

“A son.”

“I wish I had a boy. Boys are nice to their mothers. Girls, well, they just turn on you when they graduate from T-shirts to bras. There's no putting the genie back in the bottle after that.”

“What happened with Carol?”

“My mother. That's what happened to her. She put her through a kind of boot camp to fame. She had a few friends in the business—don't ask me how—I'd have thought everyone she screwed back in Hollywood would have been dead by now—and she made some calls. The son of one of her friends with benefits or whatever you want to call it had a production company and they were looking for someone to play a medium in search of justice.”

“
Spirit Hunters.
”

“Right. That piece-of-crap show. Anyway, the producers there wanted her to play a medium who solves crimes.”

“Sounds like a great concept, I guess.”

“Right. NBC had a show like that. But this one was different. A so-called reality show. The show was far from reality. It is a complete sham. They tell her what to say. She even wears an earpiece so that they can feed crap to her when she's sitting around acting all knowing.”

“I guess I'm not surprised,” Kendall said. “I can see them feeding her words.”

“Yeah, but there's more. The producer in charge was molested by her father so she has it in for every man on the show. She told Carol that whenever the story line can work it in, the target of the show needs to be the dad.”

“So they know all of this ahead of time?”

Rose nodded and finished her beer. She was on to number two, or three, depending on where the counting started.

“Yeah.
Spirit Hunters
, what a goddamn joke. That anyone believes it is beyond me.”

“Can I take a picture of the photo of your mom? The one as Pandora?”

“You're not going to sell it to the
Globe
, are you?”

Kendall shook her head. “No, for the case.”

Rose hesitated, regarding Kendall, and then opened the book. Kendall took out her phone and snapped a couple of photographs. When Rose wasn't looking, she took a picture of the cats and mess all around her. The first one was for the case; the second was to remind herself that law enforcement was sometimes very dirty and not at all glamorous work. She'd show that one to Birdy, who occasionally said that it looked like it was fun to go out interviewing people.

“At least your people can answer your questions,” Birdy had said.

“Yours answer too, though not with words.”

As Kendall got up to leave, Rose dropped a bit of a bomb.

“Just so you know,” she said, “my mother and my daughter are cut from the same cloth.”

“I gather that,” Kendall said.

“There isn't anything Carol wouldn't do to keep moving up the charts, or the fame ladder, or whatever. I mean nothing. It's in her DNA.”

“What exactly do you mean, Rose?” Kendall asked.

Rose lit another cigarette by striking the match on the rough edge of the beer bottle.

“I mean, she'd kill someone and go have a big breakfast afterward. That's how she's wired. If you're here because of the show, that's one thing. But I read
Radar
and the
Enquirer
online and know about the producer who got off'd in your little burg of Port Orchard.”

Rose was surprisingly well-informed, Kendall thought, though her sources weren't the best. She'd never brought up Juliana's death. Not once. The whole time Rose Kirkowski had known about it.

All about it.

After leaving Rose Kirkowski's smelly house, it passed through her mind that there was a great irony to the sweet-smelling name of Pandora's mother. The house stank to high heaven.

So did the family.

 

 

In her car, Kendall checked her phone, while two boys played in front of the Tudor. Two missed calls. One from Birdy. One from Steven. Kendall didn't want to talk to him just then and it bothered her that she felt that way. She was hurt, angry, and unwilling to hash out the same thing over and over. If he didn't want to come home, so be it. She'd figure things out. She dialed Birdy.

“How's the Inland Empire?” Birdy said upon answering.

“The what?”

“That's what they call Spokane now. Or at least that's what they are wanting it to be known as.”

Kendall grinned. “Really? I thought they called it Spokevegas.”

“That too,” Birdy said. “How did go with Rose Kirkowski? I'm dying of curiosity here. Before I saw it on the Internet, I didn't think Pandora had a mother,” Birdy said. “I thought she crawled out of some primordial ooze somewhere dark and inaccessible to normal beings.”

“That's about how I feel about her too,” Kendall said.

The boys playing catch almost hit her car, but Kendall just smiled at them.

“So what's the mother's story?” Birdy asked.

“Mother is a chain-smoking alcoholic who despises her daughter and hates her own mother even more. Says that her mom was sometimes an actress and I believe her exact words were ‘full-time whore.'”

“Sounds delightful,” Birdy said, without a whiff of sarcasm. “I bet Christmas is fun at their house.”

The boys went into the house.

“I'll send the photos later and you'll soon grow to feel sorry for me,” Kendall said. “Anyway, she said that her mother was the one who gave Carol the Pandora stage name and, along with that, the desire for life in the spotlight. She also said that the show was far from reality.”

“We know that, don't we?” Birdy said, struck that Kendall even mentioned the obvious. Maybe she hadn't been sure. It was interesting and they'd talk about that another time.

“Yes,” Kendall said. “But there's more. The show is a complete setup. Everyone is in on it. One of the producers—Juliana maybe—had been sexually abused by her father and wanted that to be the story line whenever there was a chance to go for it.”

“So Roger Frazier had no chance?”

“Right,” Kendall said. “Not against the likes of her.”

 

 

Next, Kendall returned Steven's call, but after five rings it went to voice mail. Her heart sank, but she tried to leave a hopeful, upbeat message.

“In Spokane doing some interviews. Marsha is watching Cody. Wish you were home, Steven. Or better yet, wish you were here. In any case, I'm wishing.”

Kendall looked at the time. It would be dark when she got home. She'd gas up in Moses Lake, stop at the Starbucks in Ellensburg, and get there in time to send the sitter home. She'd be beat, but the trip had been worth it.

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-FIVE

A
mong the many viewers of the
Today
show was Debbi-Jo Patterson. Her two-year-old was up half the night and she was fueling herself with caffeine and steeping herself in worry. She had been concerned about her boss, the owner of the Grey Gull, when he failed to show up for work the day before. While he'd been known to extend his vacation, Chaz Masters wasn't the type to let his staff twist in the wind to wonder when he'd return.

Debbi-Jo rocked her little one and held him on her hip while she dialed the number for the Kitsap County sheriff and asked for the investigator handling the Brenda Nevins case.

“That case is being run out of the FBI field office in Seattle,” Darrin, the dispatcher, said. “You seen Nevins?”

“No. I mean maybe. She was here last week drinking Bloody Marys with my boss Chaz Masters. He's real reliable, and well, I'm worried. He was supposed to be back to work and he's not.”

“All right,” Darrin said. “Let me take your number. Hang on a sec. Got another call. I'll give you the FBI's number when I come back too.”

“All right,” Debbi-Jo said. She waited, but then thought better of it. She was spooked, that's all. She hung up the phone. Maybe Chaz will turn up later that day and they'll have a good laugh over the very idea that he was offed by some sexy serial killer.

Yes
, she thought.
We'll have a good laugh over that one.

After her shift, Debbie-Jo dropped her son off at day care and drove down the long, winding road to Chaz's place in the woods. She knew it was stupid and that he'd probably chew her out for being such a worrywart, but she just couldn't help herself.

His car was missing, but there was another in the driveway that she did not recognize.

“Maybe his car broke down and he had to get a loaner,” she told herself as she knocked on the front door. When there was no answer, she did what most people would do. She twisted the knob and swung it open. The air was foul and the stench came at her. She knew immediately what she smelled, but she hoped it was a dead raccoon. Chaz had told her that there was a family of the critters in the attic and he'd done his best to try to get them out of there humanely.

“Chaz? You home?” she called out as her nose pulled her to the source of the smell in the bedroom.

Debbi-Jo let out the scream of her life. Slumped in the bed was the nude figure of the man she'd adored from afar. He was bloated, features distended. His face appeared to be wrapped in a cocoon of plastic. The only thing that told her it was her boss was the tattoo of a seagull across his chest. She'd seen the ink when a drunk patron spilled his drink and he needed to change.

 

 

Cody Stark grinned up from the breakfast table. Kendall caught her husband's expression in the little boy's face and it made her miss what had become of their now very fractured family.

Birdy called.

“Turn on the TV. Channel five. Pandora's about to go on
Today.
They are promoting it as an exclusive interview about her close friend and producer Juliana Robbins's murder. Call me back when it's over.”

Kendall set her phone down and turned on the small television that sat next to the toaster. She'd purchased it so she could follow along on a cooking show, but that was before she got a tablet.

The toothy but earnest host, Savannah, introduced Pandora, who was on satellite from Seattle.

Kendall wondered when the woman was going to go home. Maybe a trip to see her mother in Spokane would do her some good.

“What I have to say is very disturbing, Savannah. But I've never seen the need to hold back when the dead want me to speak for them. It just isn't right. Keeping them silent would be evil.”

“What is it that you're hearing?” asked Savannah, who by then was already looking uncomfortable. “And who are you hearing it from?”

“Juliana Robbins, my producer on my hit show,
Spirit Hunters.
”

“All right. Fine then. What is her spirit telling you?”

“She told me that serial killer Brenda Nevins murdered her. She strangled her and tried to cover it all up with a fire.”

“Brenda Nevins is the serial killer who escaped with the superintendent of the women's prison in Washington State,” Savannah said, cluing her viewers in on a saga that had gripped the nation.

“That's right,” Pandora said. “The famed serial killer.”

“I don't know if
famed
is the right word,” Savannah said. “What else, if anything, did you learn about what happened to Juliana? How was it that she crossed paths with Brenda? It seems a little random.”

“I deal with things that most people don't understand. I can assure you nothing in this universe is random.”

“Do you know the whereabouts of Janie Thomas?”

“No, but I expect she'll turn up dead. Brenda hasn't stopped killing. She's a mighty and evil force. She's killed at least two people since she escaped.”

“Ms. Robbins and Mrs. Thomas?”

“I'm not sure about Mrs. Thomas, but she's killed Juliana and a man named Chaz. I didn't get a last name. A bar owner. Someone who has gone missing not far from the women's prison.”

Savannah, who usually was a nimble interviewer, didn't know what else she could say to the medium with the message. Instead, she focused her attention on a statement issued in the wee hours of the morning by the Kitsap County Sheriff's Department's public information officer.

Kendall set down her coffee cup. Brad James's picture appeared on the screen.

The Kitsap County Sheriff's Department can't confirm anything Pandora has said. Nor do we intend to. This is an open investigation and we're supporting the FBI as they search for the missing superintendent.

 

And that was it. An awkward segue to the local weather followed.

Birdy was on the phone right away.

“Did you catch that? Tell me you caught that, Kendall!”

“Every last word,” Kendall said. “I smell a rat.”

“Me too. The rat's name is Brad James.”

“Our investigative files were compromised, Birdy. If Brad's ass wasn't going to be booted out the door for his botched
Spirit Hunters
‘opportunity' then he's as good as gone now.”

“He didn't mention the hummingbird,” Birdy said.

“But he did say a few things only the killer would have known.”

“Except one thing, Kendall.”

“What's that?” she asked.

“We never said that Brenda was the killer. Her name isn't in the file. Not anywhere.”

“Then how did he know?”

“I honestly don't know. But I intend to find out.”