A Matter of Trust

Chapter 45





Come in, come in,” Frank called to Mia when she peeked in his half-open door. Judy had said he wanted to see her. “Come in and sit down.”

Mia took a seat in the visitor’s chair, wondering if the Frank she had first worked with years ago would even recognize this man who had other people do his summoning.

He reached across the desk to give her a two-handed shake. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here earlier to congratulate you on tracking down the man who killed Stan and Colleen.”

Mia’s morning had been filled with her co-workers’ attaboys and applause and a few tears. Frank had been out of the office in meetings—including a quickie press briefing where he announced that the killer had chosen death over arrest, and promised to reveal more details later.

“Charlie Carlson’s the one who figured out where Seth Mercer was. And he’s the one who almost got killed.” Mia pictured Seth slumping to the ground, his chest a red mess, but in her mind’s eye he wore Charlie’s face.

“From what I hear, you were smart enough to get out of the line of fire and then alerted more cops before Mercer could kill anyone else.” Frank made Mia’s panicky dash sound smart and nearly heroic.

“Charlie pushed me out of the line of fire, and then he got Mercer to confess. And Jonah’s the one who figured out what Colleen and Stan had in common.” Mia decided to simplify things by not mentioning Ophelia’s contribution.

“You’re the one who thought to ask for Jonah’s help,” Frank said. “You’re the one who wouldn’t stop digging.”

Mia was beginning to realize there was no point in arguing. “This is Colleen we’re talking about, Frank. Of course I didn’t.”

“That’s why I asked for you.” He blinked rapidly and then sniffed. “Because this is Colleen we’re talking about.”

For a minute Mia saw a flash of the old Frank, the one who gathered with them around takeout pizza in the break room on crazy nights. Back when Frank was passionate instead of carefully calibrated. Back when he was one of the team instead of the man who had his secretary summon you to his office.

Then Frank’s expression shifted, became unreadable. The switch made Mia tense.

“And I’m hearing you even have some kids on the hook for Darin Dane’s death.”

She nodded. And waited.

“And you got permission from Jeremy Donaldson’s mom to question him? Alone?”

Uh-oh, Mia thought. “Of course we did, Frank.”

“Well, Jeremy’s father called me and said his wife didn’t know what she was agreeing to. That she felt threatened and intimidated because you two went to her home. According to Mr. Donaldson, she didn’t know she had a choice to say no. Supposedly she’s claiming it felt almost like an invasion.”

“An invasion! That’s ridiculous. She gave us snacks! And then when we told her what would happen next, she just kept chopping vegetables. She didn’t seem fazed at all.”

“Her husband’s threatening a suit based on prosecutorial misconduct, even a civil rights violation. He says his kid’s rights were violated under color of law. Do you understand how this looks, Mia? He’s saying he’s going to go to the media.”

“Let him,” Mia said flatly, thinking of how Mr. Donaldson’s son had tormented the boy who had once been his friend. “Jeremy freely confessed to us. And nobody likes a bully.”

“Exactly.” Frank leaned forward and put his hands flat on his desk. “And that’s what you and Charlie look like. Picking on some poor kid until he broke down in tears and didn’t know truth from falsehood, until he told you anything just to get you to leave him alone. Mia, you have to figure a way out of this before it goes viral. This guy is well connected, and he can make some noise. I do not need my campaign derailed just weeks before the election. I do not need to give my opponent a boost. He’ll be saying we railroad minors, that we interfered in the relationship between parent and child. You need to take care of this.”

Without speaking, Mia stood up and walked to his door. She was trembling. Before she could think of whether it was the right thing to do, she turned and said, “This isn’t about your reelection, Frank. This is about a dead child.” She left while he was still opening his mouth to rebut.

What was the right thing to do? she wondered as she walked back to her office. Did these boys deserve to spend years in a detention center? Would it teach them a lesson? Would it prevent future Darin Danes? She sat for a long moment and then called Nate Dane.

She was just hanging up the phone when Katrina poked her head into Mia’s office. “Hey, are you still planning on having that garage sale?” Katrina the ever-practical.

The garage sale. Mia flashed back to Colleen’s Fleetwood Mac albums, to the last conversation she had had with her friend.

“Yeah, I am. In a week or two.” Even a few hundred could be put to one of those Visa bills.

“I have some ski equipment I’d like to sell. Can I drop it off at your house after work?”

“Oh, sure. If I’m not there, you can leave it on the porch.” Mia gave her head a little shake. She didn’t have time to think about garage sales, bills, or even Colleen. Not right now. Not when she needed to be thinking about what she might say to Nate Dane. Not when she needed to be worrying about the potential fallout from her retort to Frank.

Katrina tilted her head. “Are you all right, Mia?”

“Just tired.”

“You should be proud that you found the guy who killed Colleen and Stan. You figured it out.”

Yesterday Mia had found so many answers, but instead of filling her up, they had left her feeling hollow. Colleen was dead, but so was her killer—and Mia had been a witness to both deaths. The boy who had tormented Darin the worst had turned out to be the same boy who had once been his friend. Even the reason for Charlie’s behavior had proved to have a dark side.

“Seth Mercer suffered a lot too,” Mia said. “His son was innocent, and not only did we convict him, we let him get killed. We made mistakes we could never undo.”

“What’s done is done.” Katrina shrugged one shoulder. “Sometimes you just have to move on.” And with that she took her own advice and exited with a little wave of the fingers.

Mia sat for the next twenty minutes without doing a single thing. Without even thinking. Then Judy called to say that Nate Dane had arrived. Mia met him in the lobby and walked him back to her office, trying not to wrinkle her nose. A fug of stale cigarettes hovered around Nate like the cloud of dirt that followed Pig-Pen in the Charlie Brown comics.

“I know what you want to talk to me about.” Nate stared down at his big hands, twisting in his lap.

“You do?” That was a relief. Mia hadn’t been looking forward to explaining the decision she had reached.

“Let me just say right up front, I’m sorry.”

She had been bracing herself, but not for this. “What are you talking about?”

“For scaring you. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. But when it’s your child, you just get obsessed. I needed to know you were making my son’s death a priority.”

Mia looked at him more closely. Nate Dane was wearing a dark hoodie. Mentally she added a baseball cap and pulled the hood up to hide his face.

“You. You’re the one who followed me.”

“It seems like you’ve been spending a lot of time not even thinking about Darin. Like teaching at that school.”

“I’m teaching future lawyers who will go out and fight for people like your son.”

“And then you showed up at the football game on Friday. Charlie was there too, but he was the only one really paying attention to what was going on. And then I realized you weren’t there to investigate. You were just there to cheer on your son. When my son is dead.”

Mia ticked off the possible charges in her head. Stalking, menacing . . . But Nate was right. His son was dead. And Nate was lost to grief.

“Despite what you think you’ve seen, Mr. Dane, I have been working hard for your son. We’ve had several hearings in front of the grand jury. I can’t tell you what’s been said, because everyone in that room is sworn to secrecy. About all I can say is there have been no surprises. However, yesterday, outside of the jury room, Charlie and I learned the identity of the person who hacked your son’s Facebook.”

He straightened up. “Who was it? That Reece? Brandon Shiller?”

“It was Jeremy Donaldson.”

His face crumpled. “But they were friends.”

She thought of Gabe, of Charlie. “Sometimes it’s friends who hurt us the worst.” Was that what she was planning to do now? What if Frank hadn’t talked to her? Would she still say what she planned to next?

“Here’s the thing, Nate. I feel sure we can get an indictment against Jeremy and Reece and Brandon.”

He started nodding before she even finished saying their names. “They deserve that. They deserve to suffer. They killed my son.”

“But these are minors, teenagers who are fourteen or fifteen. Kids who don’t have criminal records. You may want them to rot in prison, but the reality is even if they are sentenced, it will be as minors, not adults. And there are no guarantees we will win. Juries and even judges can be unpredictable. To make sure they are punished, I’d like to offer them a plea bargain.”

Nate was already shaking his head. “No.”

She had known this wasn’t going to be easy. “The outcome of this trial is unpredictable. With a plea bargain we can guarantee that they receive some punishment.”

“But it would be to a lesser charge, right? That’s not acceptable. I want them to get the maximum.”

“The thing is, Nate, the juvenile justice system in Washington State is geared to rehabilitation.” Gabe’s face flashed into her mind. “Not punishment. Not even deterrence. No one, not even Jeremy, is likely to be sentenced to a juvenile facility for this. It’s even possible that they could be acquitted. However, if we offer a plea bargain, then we know for sure that they will be punished.” He hadn’t interrupted her yet, so Mia continued, “We could propose that if they plead guilty to criminal harassment, they will be on probation until they’re nineteen. And that during that time they must be in school or employed. And that they’ll have to complete, say, forty hours of community service.”

“A hundred. Forty hours isn’t enough.”

Mia nodded. “Okay.”

“And part of that time they have to speak to schools about bullying. Get up in front of everyone and admit the part they played.”

Mia thought about it. Would Reece, in particular, go for it? She thought the answer might be yes, given that the alternative could be harsher. “Okay.”

“And on every anniversary of his death they have to write me a letter saying how they are doing and telling me what they imagine Darin would be doing right now.”

“Okay,” she said again.

After Nate left, Mia picked up the phone and started calling lawyers.



She had just finished talking to Brandon Shiller’s lawyer when her phone rang. It was her direct line, not a call that had come through Judy.

“Hello?”

A girl’s voice said, “You said I should call you if I wanted my stuff back.”

It took her a minute to reorient herself. “Ronni?”

“Yeah. And I can’t sleep without my bear.” Her ragged voice bore testimony to the truth of her words. “I don’t know why. I just can’t. Do you have him?”