“No. But the girl had obviously killed herself. There was a leash around her neck and a broken branch overhead. Poor kid.” His eyes misted at the memory. “She didn’t look that much older than Starshine. I didn’t know what to do with her. I figured if I told anybody, they would start asking questions about us and then take Starshine away. I thought about trying to carry her closer to the main trails so she could be found right away, but I was afraid someone would see and get the wrong idea. So I yelled at Starshine to stay in the cabin. Then I pulled the girl underneath a bush and away from the path we use to get to town. I didn’t want my daughter to have to see her every time we went someplace. And then I said a prayer over her.”
“Look, Tim—do you love your daughter?” Nicole demanded. “If you tell us what really happened—and I mean the full truth—then I guarantee Starshine will go to a good home. With loving parents who can give her everything, even send her to college when the time comes. Otherwise she’ll be left to the mercies of the foster care system, bouncing from home to home. And you’ve heard what those places are like. Children’s Services pulls a kid out of one home because they’re getting beat up, then sticks them in the next home where they get sexually abused.”
As Nicole spoke, tears gathered in the corners of Chambers’s eyes. “You can’t take her away from me. Starshine and me, we’ve only got each other.”
“Then tell the truth,” Nicole said. “Because you know where I was this morning? At that girl’s autopsy. And she didn’t kill herself. So I already know you’re lying to me. Somebody did that to her. And I think that somebody was you.”
To Allison’s eyes, Chambers looked genuinely bewildered. “No, I didn’t. Why would I do that? I saw enough death in Vietnam. I would never do that. I tell you, she was already dead when I got there.”
Allison leaned closer. “But is that what really happened, Tim? I mean, if it went down another way, it’s completely understandable. You’re living out there in privacy, not bothering anyone, and then this girl comes blundering in. Did she see your camp? Or worse—did she see your daughter? You had to stop her, didn’t you, before she ran off and told. Was there some kind of accident?”
“What are you saying?” Chambers looked shocked by Allison’s words. “She was dead when I got there. She was already dead. That’s not how it happened at all.”
“Isn’t it, Tim?” Nicole’s face was all planes and edges, no softness at all. “Tell us the truth now, while you still can. Because we have that leash—and the prints on it are being analyzed right now.”
This was a total bluff, as far as Allison knew. Nicole had said there weren’t any prints. But then there was a knock at the door. A Portland police officer stuck his head in.
“Nicole, I need to talk to you.”
Chambers watched her go, biting his lip.
Allison figured Nicole must have arranged for this. “Tim, I’m a Christian like you. And we both know that Christ offers us forgiveness if we confess our sins. Now is the time to get this off your chest. It will look a lot better for you if you confess than if you keep lying.”
“But I’m not lying.” He was calmer now. “When I found her, her spirit had already fled. If someone did that to her, I didn’t see them.” His faded blue eyes fastened on her, and he leaned forward and patted her hand. “God’s laid a heavy burden on you about this girl, hasn’t He? She’s become as much your responsibility as Starshine is mine. But the Psalms say, ‘Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.’”
Allison looked at him in astonishment. What had just happened? How could some homeless guy who lived in the woods be offering her solace and comfort?
When Nicole opened the door, she was holding something behind her back, her face incandescent with rage. “Oh, you’re just some poor disabled vet, forced to live in the woods because you don’t make enough on the government dole? Then how do you explain this?”
Her hand whipped out. In it was a fresh-picked marijuana leaf.
“There was a cultivated patch of pot less than a half mile from where you lived. Don’t deny it—I know it’s yours.”
Chambers’s eyes widened—and Allison’s did too. This put a whole new spin on things. Chambers, with all of his talk of God, must have been trying to pull the wool over her eyes.
“They tell me there are five hundred plants there, with a street value of a half million dollars. Now you tell me, Tim—would someone kill to keep half a million dollars safe?” Nicole answered her own question. “Hell, yeah. So Katie blundered into your little agricultural operation, and you caught her. Did she run from you? Is that what happened? She ran from you and you tackled her, and then you hit her in the throat?” She slashed her hand sideways for emphasis. “Did you watch her die? Did you?”
Nicole’s face was inches from his. “They said she wouldn’t have been able to scream, wouldn’t have even been able to talk. But she would have been able to think. And she would have been able to feel her body shutting down. Do you know what it feels like to have no air, Tim? It’s supposed to be the most terrible feeling in the world.”
“I didn’t!” Chambers’s eyes were despairing. “I tell you, I didn’t kill her! That’s not my pot, and I didn’t kill her!”
FOREST PARK