LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter Seven

      March 31, 10 a.m.

      Port Orchard

      Instinct and intuition often play an important function in police work. Those who deny their crucial roles are likely those who don’t possess that something extra that allows an interrogator to home in on the truth when the facts don’t always add up: how the flutter of an eyelash indicates a lie, the curl of an upper lip says more than the words coming from the subject. Truth, Kendall Stark knew, was more than the sum of available facts. There was nothing to really back up the belief that Celesta Delgado simply ditched her boyfriend in the middle of cutting brush in Sunnyslope. Nor did she think that the gentle man who’d come into the Sheriff’s Office was involved with her disappearance. She drove out to Kitsap West, the ramshackle mobile home park that was best known for a dead baby that had been found the previous year on the other side of the rusted eight-foot wire fence that cordoned off the single- and double-wide mobiles, along with a smattering of travel trailers and fifth wheels.

      She parked her SUV in front of space 223, a single-wide Aloha with new steps and decking, and knocked.

      A woman of about sixty answered. Although it was past ten, she was still wearing slippers and a bathrobe. As she spoke, the remnants of the cigarette she’d been smoking curled in the still air. And while she had a pleasant face and reasonably warm eyes, everything else about her told Kendall that she was going to be of no help. She barely opened the door, for starters.

      A sure sign that the person is hiding something inside: a messy house, maybe a dead body . . .

      “I don’t need a vacuum or aromatherapy if that’s what you’re here for,” she said.

      Kendall offered a smile. “I’m a detective with the Sheriff’s Office. I’m Kendall Stark.”

      “I don’t know anything about my nephew.”

      Kendall suppressed a smile. She could never begin to count the times that someone misunderstood why she was on their front doorstep and offered up a relative or a neighbor as a quick means to save themselves from some hidden concern.

      “Ma’am, I’m not here about your nephew. I’m here about the missing woman who lived next door.”

      The woman widened the door a bit more. “You mean the Mexican?”

      “I think they are Salvadoran.”

      “Same to me.” She motioned for Kendall to come inside. “I liked Celesta. Nice girl. What she was doing with those rowdies, I’ll never know.”

      A four-foot patch of linoleum served as the entryway to a living room that was papered in a cheery orange poppy print. A brown sofa, two small chairs, and a TV playing a shopping channel that sold only gems completed the milieu of a person of big dreams and modest means.

      “I didn’t catch your name,” Kendall said, scooting a sheaf of newspapers to one side of the sofa before taking a seat.

      “Sally Todd,” she said. “Coffee?”

      Kendall politely declined. “No, thanks. I’m here about Celesta. You seem to think there was trouble at home. Am I getting that right?”

      Sally Todd tightened the knotted belt on her robe, a pale blue flannel garment that needed laundering, and took a seat facing her visitor.

      “Look, these days there is always trouble with young people. I know the girl. I know Tulio and his brothers too. They had their music playing at all hours. I called the sheriff on them five times last summer. You can check on that, if you don’t believe me.”

      “Did Celesta ever indicate to you that she wanted out of the relationship? That maybe she wanted to return to El Salvador?”

      The older woman looked for her cigarette case and pulled out a More. She flicked on her lighter and pulled air through the slender dark brown cigarette.

      “She said that Tulio was no good and she wanted to get away from him. He was too controlling.”

      This interested Kendall, although she wasn’t sure if she believed anything this woman had to say. “Really?” she asked.

      “I’m talking out of school,” she said, “but I don’t care. The girl needed to get away from the lot of them. The Pena brothers have turned this quiet mobile home park into party central. I think one of the boys stole my leaf blower. They denied it. But that’s what I think. I called the sheriff on them too.”

      “I see.”

      “Yes, and you can verify all of this. The girl finally got some sense. Really, picking brush? What kind of life is that? She could do better than that. Who couldn’t?”

      Kendall thanked her. She didn’t tell her that the county was rife with desperate people who would do just about anything to survive—and stay out of the reach of the law. Picking brush was far from the worst endeavor she could imagine.

      With Josh Anderson away at the academy speaking about his experiences investigating rural crimes, detectives’ row in the Kitsap County Sheriff’s office was far quieter than usual. Almost pin-drop hushed. Two were out in the field, running down drug cases, and a third was working the third murder of the year, the case of a Seabeck woman who’d been arrested for the killing of a woman she and her husband had picked up after a night of partying at the Bethel Saloon. The tavern was a Kitsap classic, a rough-around-the-edges biker-type bar that shared a parking strip with a butcher, Farmer George’s, frequently prompting a retort about the two establishments’ close proximity:

      “Wonder which is the bigger meat market?”

      “Judging by the looks of some of those biker babes hanging around the pool tables, I’d say there’s more gristle at the Bethel than at Farmer George’s.”

      Kendall Stark had felt genuine concern coming from Tulio Pena when he spoke about Celesta. She’d seen the way a husband or boyfriend can try to emulate devotion or worry by saying the right words. Sometimes they even eke out a tear to punctuate the moment with a display of emotion that is supposed to support their position as a loving partner.

      “I don’t know why she did this to me.”

      “I had no idea she was unhappy.”

      “All I ever did was love her.”

      Kendall just didn’t see a false note when Tulio gave his statement. Even so, something troubled her greatly, and there was no way to really dismiss it. The reporting deputy noted in the initial missing-person report that Celesta Delgado’s purse had been left behind in the van.

      Inside the purse were the three main indicators of an abduction or a homicide: Celesta’s cell phone, keys, and wallet.

      No woman running away leaves those things, she thought.

      It was around five when Kendall found her husband and son in the plaza of the Kitsap County Administration Building. Steven had a client meeting that evening, and they’d planned on an early dinner. A few clouds had rolled in, obscuring the Olympics and turning what had been a lovely afternoon into what promised to be a cool spring evening.

      Cody’s face lit up when his mother emerged from the Sheriff’s Office walkway. “Mommy! I see you!” he said.

      Kendall beamed and ran toward her son with outstretched arms. Some days there were no words, just the rocking of a small body as he looked at her with eyes that seemed empty of recognition.

      “Hi, you two,” she said.

      “Ready

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