A Matter of Trust

Chapter 46





A woman clutching a Seattle’s Best coffee cup walked by and gave Mia an odd look, as if trying to figure out what category she belonged to. Occidental Park, in the heart of Seattle’s Pioneer Square district, attracted all kinds of people, from tourists to the homeless to office workers taking a quick break. But Mia bet this might be the first time that a professionally dressed woman had sat on one of the park benches with a worn brown teddy bear perched on her lap.

Mia’s heart ached for Ronni, so alone that a worn stuffed animal was her only comfort. “I have everything of yours that was in the house,” she’d told her. “Your bear, your textbook, your clothes, your sleeping bag. Just tell me where you are and I’ll meet you.”

“How do I know you won’t turn me in to the authorities?”

“Your birthday was three days ago, Ronni.” Charlie had gotten the girl’s birth date from her school. What had it been like, marking her birthday all alone and in hiding? “You’re eighteen now. In the eyes of law, you can stay on your own. Even if that means you’re living on the street. And since you didn’t do any damage to your old house when you were staying there, the bank isn’t interested in pressing charges.”

“I can’t go back there, can I?” Ronni asked. “I tried my key, but it didn’t work.”

“No, I’m sorry, you can’t. They changed the locks, and the real estate agent will be going inside more often.”

They had agreed to meet at three. Now Mia and the bear sat looking out over the park, facing one of the four carved totem poles that reminded visitors that long before Seattle was a city, this area had been home to native tribes. Pigeons bobbed and cooed at her feet. Even a few gulls patrolled the brick pavement, looking for crumbs from workers’ lunches or from treats purchased from one of the coffee shops that ringed the park.

Mia checked her watch again. Ten after. Charlie was at the other end of the park, pretending to read a copy of The Stranger, Seattle’s alternative weekly. She had noted his presence and then not looked at him again, except out of the corner of her eye.

Charlie a bully. The idea still shocked her. Mia imagined him with bloody fists, standing over some crying, cowering boy. She tried to put an expression on his teenage face, but couldn’t.

What kind of bully had he been? Smirking like Reece? Pitiful like Jeremy? Given Charlie’s age, he had to have been a hands-on bully like Brandon and Reece. There’d been no Internet to hide behind.

And why had he been a bully? Although, did it matter where it came from? Weren’t all bullies insecure, maybe even in pain? He had claimed he had acted out of fear, but maybe he had enjoyed the power.

Knowing that Charlie had been a bully changed everything. Didn’t it?

Mia remembered his compassion with Shiloh and Rainy when they talked about Darin. Even with Jeremy he had been gentle.

Especially with Jeremy.

If you had done something wrong, were you unforgivable?

Could you change your past? No.

Could who you were now offset who you were in your past?

Mia considered her dad. Which was the real man? The father who had kept his distance, barked orders, didn’t pay his child support? Or the kind dad who only wanted to help her?

A little boy laughed behind her, and she turned. A father held the hand of a three- or four-year-old boy as he walked up a tilted slab of granite that was part of a memorial to four fallen firefighters. The granite slabs were meant to evoke a collapsed building. Bronze statues of the firefighters—two kneeling and two standing—memorialized the men who had been killed in the collapse of a deliberately torched warehouse twenty years earlier.

For a moment Mia envied the dad and his young son. Life had been easier when Gabe was three, when he willingly held her hand. She had had to let go, let him make his own mistakes. She only hoped he was learning from them.

And what about Charlie? Yes, he sometimes flouted the rules. But Mia had also spent the last week in his company. He hadn’t hesitated to leave a crime scene to help her family. He had let out a relieved sigh at the news that Brooke would outgrow her night terrors. Even when Seth held a rifle on him, he had treated him with something approaching kindness. And then he had held Mia while she cried.

And it wasn’t as if Charlie had changed only because being a cop had forced him to. Just because you were a cop didn’t mean you couldn’t be a bully too. Mia had even prosecuted one, a cop who broke a woman’s arm and claimed she had been resisting arrest—until a neighbor’s cell phone video showed he was lying. But despite Charlie’s reputation for being gung ho, Mia had never heard anyone even whisper that he was too quick to use force. And yesterday it had been clear that he had wanted to bring Seth in unharmed.

When a girl began walking slowly toward Mia, her mind was brought back to the matter at hand. The school had given them a photo of Ronni. Her hair had been worn down around her shoulders. Now it was tucked back behind her ears, exposing black plugs that stretched her lobes. Her hair was dyed black except for a three-inch stripe of brown at her crown. She was bone thin, and even her skinny jeans looked too loose.

“Ronni? I’m Mia.”

The girl didn’t say anything, just snatched up the bear. She stepped back and hugged it close, burying her face in it and sniffing it.

“Why don’t you sit down?” Mia patted the bench beside her.

The girl did, keeping a good three feet between them. She sniffed again, then wiped her blotchy cheeks on the bear’s face. Mia had thought she had been inhaling the bear’s comforting scent. Now she realized Ronni was really using it to hide her tears.

“Where’s the rest of my stuff?” the girl demanded.

“In my car. We can get it in a few minutes.” Mia picked up the brown paper bag that sat between them. “I got you a bagel and a coffee in case you’re hungry.”

The words were barely out of her mouth before Ronni was biting into the toasted bagel with a little moan. Mia could smell the warm rich scent of melted butter.

“How did you end up living in your old house?”

Ronni spoke with a full mouth. “We got foreclosed on in July. My mom took me and my brother and we went out to Spokane to live with my uncle. But it was pretty clear he didn’t want us, and there wasn’t any room anyway. And I love my school. I’m a good student, you know? But if I had stayed with my mom, I would have had to go to a new school and try to study in a tiny house with two bedrooms for ten people. And I thought—our old house is empty, and I still have a key. Why can’t I just live there and keep going to school? So I came back about a week before school started. The water still works, so it’s not that bad.”

“Does your mom know where you are?”

A shrug. “Yeah. She’s not happy, but she didn’t try to stop me either.”

Mia tried to imagine being that hands-off, but couldn’t. “So you started back at your old school?

“I just showed up on the first day like always, and no one asked any questions. When I filled out the forms, I just did it like I was my mom. We already qualified for free lunch, and the school serves breakfast too.” Her bagel had disappeared, and now she licked her shiny fingers.

“What about weekends?” Mia asked, thinking of the peanut butter and crackers. “How have you been eating then?”

“Sometimes I panhandle. But I don’t like it because then people stare or make rude comments. If I get really hungry, I go to that one fountain, the one in front of the bank, and fish out the coins. But you have to be pretty desperate to do that, since they’re mostly pennies.”

It would take a lot of pennies to add up to something to eat. “Where have you been staying since Saturday?”

“There’s this Laundromat? I’ve been sleeping under the folding tables. Or if people are still there, I put an out-of-order sign on the bathroom and lock the door. But like I said, I can’t sleep without my bear.” She hugged it again.

“Why not go to a shelter?”

“I’m not like those people,” Ronni said. “People with no teeth and track marks on their arms. I’m normal. There’s lots of homeless kids in Seattle, kids who won’t go to a shelter because they’re runaways or they don’t like the rules or they’re scared of the other people. But I don’t want to be like them either, sleeping behind hedges, hoping some old homeless guy or meth addict doesn’t find you.”

At a nearby bench was a reminder of the world Ronni was trying to avoid. A scrawny man with a snake tattoo coiled around his neck sat with his eyes half closed. Next to him was an older woman with rotted teeth. She held a rope leash, and on the other end was a pit bull named Diablo that she petted and praised.

Ronni’s gaze skittered over them. “I’ve heard of kids who hide in a library or a school after closing time, just to have someplace safe to sleep. But I was worried if I got caught they would turn me over to the police for trespassing.”

“So were you in your old house ten days ago? On a Sunday night?”

“Yeah.” She squeezed the bear.

“Around eight?”

Ronni nodded, her hair falling in her eyes.

“Did you see Colleen get shot?” Mia held her breath as she waited for the girl to confirm that Mercer had been the shooter.

“No. I didn’t see it.”

Mia exhaled, and then Ronni added, “I heard it. And then I looked out the window.”

“What did you see?”

“Nothing that will help you, to be honest. Someone dressed all in black was looking in the window. Part of it was broken, but the rest was still in the frame. He put his hand up next to his eyes like this”—she cupped her left hand around the outside of her left eye—“so he could see inside. He was wearing gloves. Another man was standing on the curb holding something in his right hand. When I saw that it was a gun, I dropped to the floor. I was so afraid he would turn and shoot me.”

“Did you see their faces?”

“Only the guy with the gun. And it was more just like an impression. About all I could tell you was that he was white. Once I saw the gun, that was all I could see.”

“Was he fat, thin? Tall, short?”

Pressing her lips together, Ronni shook her head. “Average height, average weight. I guess.”

“Old? Young?”

A shrug.

“What did you do then?”

“I didn’t know what to do. I don’t have a phone anymore. They’re too expensive. And the nearest pay phone is at least a half mile away. While I was still trying to decide, I heard the sirens. When I peeked out, the men were gone, so I pulled the blinds back down and watched through the crack.” She sighed. “But the police were too late. Colleen was already dead. And I didn’t even see how the guy who killed her left or what he looked like or anything. I didn’t see anything that could help you find whoever killed Colleen.”

Mia didn’t tell her not to worry, that the killer was already dead. Because something Ronni had said didn’t fit.