“I’m not married.”
“Your partner, Granger, told us when we drove out last week that you wouldn’t want to speak to me, and I can understand your resistance.”
“Can you?” Sarcasm cuts through her words.
“I’ve done my research. I know how the media hounded you all, and how you ended up leaving the force. But I only want to talk to you about the actual nuts and bolts of the Leena Rai investigation. The strategy behind it. How you guys brought on Detective Luke O’Leary. How you got Leena’s killer to confess, which put him behind bars. That’s the scope.”
Rachel opens her mouth, but I shoot my hand up, stopping her. “Just the basics of the investigation, Ms. Walczak. The impact of the teen’s horrendous death on the small and tightly knit community—on her teachers, friends, classmates—”
“It’s Hart. Rachel Hart. I no longer go by Walczak.” She reaches for her bucket. “And the answer is no. I’m sorry. And like you said, I was not the only detective on the case. Try Luke O’Leary. Or Bart Tucker.”
“Bart Tucker referred me to a PD press liaison officer. Detective O’Leary is in hospice care. He’s lucid only some of the time.”
Rachel goes dead still. Her face pales. Quietly she says, “I . . . I didn’t know. Where . . . which hospice?”
“On the North Shore. Near the Lions Gate Hospital.”
She stares. Time elongates. Water drips inside the barn. Then she gathers herself, and her features turn hard. “I want you to get off my farm. Now.”
Gio starts to back out of the barn. But I hold my ground, my heart beating faster as I feel it all slipping away through my fingers.
“Please, Ms. Hart. I can do this without you. And I will. But having your side of the story will make it so much richer. My podcast does not aim to sensationalize, but rather to understand why. Why does a seemingly normal person suddenly cross the line into very violent crime? What are the gray areas in between? Could someone have seen the signs earlier? How does a normal schoolgirl in a normal little resource town in the Pacific Northwest suddenly become the victim of such a terrible event?” I fish a business card out of my pocket and hold it out to the retired detective. “Please take it. Please consider calling me. Gio and I will be commuting between Twin Falls and the Greater Vancouver area while we continue to interview people.”
Rachel’s mouth tightens. Before she can turn us away, I say in my best calm voice, nice and soft, “When Clayton Jay Pelley pleaded guilty, he denied everyone their proper day in court. He denied you all the why.” Rain starts to drum loudly on the tin roof of the barn. I can smell the soil. The dankness of wet straw. “Clayton Pelley robbed Leena’s parents. He took not only their daughter’s life, but he robbed Jaswinder and Pratima Rai of the reasons. Yes, he told you how he did it, but according to the transcripts, he never explained why he chose Leena. Why the violence. Aren’t you interested, Ms. Hart, in why Clayton Jay Pelley—a seemingly mild-mannered teacher, a husband, a father, a school guidance counselor, and a basketball coach—would do something so horrific out of the blue?”
“Some people are just born sick. And you’re not going to get the ‘why’ from him now, not after all this time—”
“He spoke to me.”
Rachel freezes. Time stretches.
“He what?”
“Pelley. He spoke to me. At the prison. He’s agreed to a series of interviews. On the record.” I pause, pacing my delivery. “He’s promised to tell us why.”
Blood drains from the old detective’s face. “Clay spoke?”
“Yes.”
“He hasn’t said a word in twenty-four years. Not to anyone. So why now? Why to you? Why after all this time?” She stares at us. “It’s because he’s finally up for parole—is that it?”
I hold my silence. I have baited the hook, and I am now reeling my subject in.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” says Rachel, her voice louder, her eyes flashing. “He’s currying favors in anticipation of a parole board hearing. He’s going to play you. Use you to some end. And you’re falling for it. And you’re going to drag Leena’s family back through hell with it all.”
I remain silent. I watch Rachel’s eyes. I can feel Gio getting tense.
“What did he say to you?” Rachel asks finally, her voice catching.
I proffer my business card again. This time the ex-cop accepts it.
“Our first episode went live last week. The second went on air yesterday. My website address is on there.” I pause. “Please, listen to the first episodes. Then call me.”
RACHEL
THEN
Saturday, November 22, 1997.
I watch the dive unit from the bank. I’m huddled in my waterproof down coat, my hair tied tightly back in a ponytail. Loose tendrils whip about my face in an icy wind that drives off the sea. It’s almost noon, but the day is dark and hangs heavy with pregnant clouds. Somewhere up behind the clouds the sound of a chopper begins to fade. The air search has been aborted because of the foul weather. Twin Falls is my town. I was born here, grew up here. And I’m now a detective here, walking in my recently deceased police chief father’s footsteps. I’m a wife and a mother, and I understand the pain of Leena Rai’s parents. Their fourteen-year-old daughter has not been seen for eight days now. The missing teen is the same age as my own daughter, Maddy. She’s a classmate. On the same basketball team. And I’m spearheading the search. The weight of it feels enormous. I need to find Leena. Safe. Alive.
Initially there was a sense Leena might have been acting out—as she had before—and that she’d show up by herself. But two days ago a rumor surfaced among the students at Twin Falls Secondary School—the only high school in town. Kids were saying Leena Rai had been drowned and her body was “probably” floating somewhere in the Wuyakan River. The Wuyakan rushes down from the high mountains, slows and widens as it nears town, then spills brackish water into the sound near a log sorting yard.
I called in a K9 team as soon as I learned of the rumor. The Twin Falls PD also tasked the local search and rescue team to search along the Wuyakan banks, starting at a swamp higher up the river and working back toward the sea.
Then yesterday morning a student—Amy Chan—was brought into the Twin Falls station by her mother. Amy claimed she had seen Leena stumbling drunkenly along the Devil’s Bridge sidewalk at around 2:00 a.m. on Saturday, November 15. I immediately redeployed the SAR team to the bridge area. Late yesterday, just before full dark, the team located a backpack that had fallen between large boulders beneath the bridge on the south side of the river. It’s an area where teens occasionally gather to smoke, drink, or make out. There is graffiti on the bridge trestles, an old mattress, pieces of cardboard, tins, old bottles, and other urban detritus. Inside the backpack we found a wallet. It contained Leena’s ID card, $4.75, and a dog-eared photo of a ship with the words AFRICA MERCY emblazoned across the hull. Also inside the pack was a key on a fob. Near the backpack, nestled between the rocks, we found a lip gloss in “cherry pop pink,” a soggy packet of Export “A” cigarettes, a lighter, an empty Smirnoff bottle, a knit scarf with blood on it, and a wet book of poems entitled Whispers of the Trees penned by a well-known poet of the Pacific Northwest. Written on the title page were the words With love from A. C., UBC, 1995.