Page 8 of Everything She Feared

Hirano walked off for a moment alone.

While surveying the deputies interviewing the others at the day camp, he called his sergeant.

“What do we have there, Rob?”

“I can’t be certain,” Hirano said. “We need detectives on this.”

“You suspect this isn’t a clear-cut wilderness accident?”

“Just a gut feeling.”

“What’s the ME say?”

“They’re on their way.”

“Alright, Rob. We’ll get a detective team rolling. You hold the fort.”

Ending his call, Hirano looked down at his open notebook and the words he’d circled after his interview with Katie Harmon.

Possibly deceptive responses.

5

Near North Bend, Washington

Detective Kim Piercedidn’t see the forests rolling by her window as Detective Carl Benton guided their unmarked Ford Explorer east from Seattle on I-90.

Driving far above the speed limit, the SUV’s emergency lights wigwagging, Benton threaded around traffic while glancing at Pierce.

She was concentrating on notes she’d received from the first responding deputy, who was still at the scene. She broke things down: deceased, a seventeen-year-old female; indication she’d taken a fatal fall. Only witness: a nine-year-old female.

Pierce went over other notes while continuing with her own.

Less than an hour earlier, she and Benton were at their desks at the King County Sheriff’s Office headquarters at the King County Courthouse in downtown Seattle. Pierce had been completing a supplemental report on an assault when Detective Sergeant Art Acker came to their workspace, undid his collar button and loosened his tie.

“North Precinct just called,” he said. “We got a death in Sparrow Song Park, the private place on the east side of North Bend. Kim, this is yours, you lead. I’ll put you in touch with the deputy there.”

In that moment Pierce caught Benton’s reaction, the rise of his eyebrows nearly imperceptible as Acker said to her: “You go with Benton.” Acker rolled up his sleeves, looked at the desks nearby. “Grotowski and Tilden, I want you to go, too. Take another vehicle, in case you need to separate out there.”

Heading to their car, Pierce had considered Benton’s subtle registering of surprise at Acker putting her in charge of the case. It underscored her feeling that Benton and the others were slow to accept her on the team. She was the only woman in an all-white squad of men, having joined three weeks ago after just making detective.

She was the rookie.

Sure, it always took time to settle in, but Pierce sensed their resistance went deeper, thinking back to an uneasy moment.

It happened about three days after she’d joined. She’d stepped away from her desk to get a coffee. When she returned, Grotowski and Tilden were talking with Benton at his desk. Benton, the case-hardened veteran, the team’s senior member, was leaning back in his chair, arms folded, holding court. Approaching them, Pierce heard a fragment of Benton’s side of the conversation, picking up on two words,her heritage, before their murmuring died away. Seeing her, Tilden shifted the subject to the Seahawks.

Her heritage?

The words stuck.

Pierce didn’t know what, or who, they were talking about, or the context. Acting like she hadn’t heard, she sat down and resumed working, deciding to let it go.

Days passed, but the incident and those two words gnawed at her.

There’d been a short bio of her in the newsletter when she made detective. Were Benton and the others talking about the fact her mother was Native American and her father had been born in Guatemala?

Do they have an issue with my heritage? Maybe I’m wrong about that. I hope I’m wrong.

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