“They’d only want to come with us.” Jo’s mirrored shades shifted toward the rearview mirror as they merged onto I-5. “Which probably wouldn’t be a bad thing.”
“You think so?” Becca was surprised. “Are you getting fond of my buddies?”
“I like them both, yes. But even more, I’ve always liked the idea of a clan. A family of strong women having our backs, in your words, as we confront a killer. It’s a pity Rachel’s letter only introduced us, and we couldn’t get an entire Amazon tribe through Western’s doors.”
So the woman who abhorred crowds secretly longed for a clan of her own. Becca almost remarked on Jo’s growing ability to talk openly about her heart, but she stopped herself in time. She hoped such personal revelations would become normal conversation between them, not worth special note. “I think that’s why the Amazon tribe in Xena appealed to so many lesbians, right? Partnered or not, we’re still searching for a clan, that extended family. That notion has always drawn me, too.”
That slight smile crossed Jo’s face again, and she reached for the dash and clicked a recessed button. A moment later a rich trickle of music filled the posh interior of the Bentley, and Becca grinned. “Oh, you’re kidding. Perfect.”
The iconic theme music from Xena: Warrior Princess was a more than fitting soundtrack for the day’s quest, and its familiarity filled Becca with a chiming comfort.
She lay her head against the cushioned headrest, enjoying the music and the cool purr of the elegant car’s all but silent air-conditioner. Seattle was too unjustifiably proud of its sometimes heat-choked summers to feature air-conditioning in most apartments, and the one in Becca’s poor jalopy had gone to its rusty reward years ago. She allowed herself a small, selfish hope that Jo would never grow so uncomfortable with her wealth that she’d dispose of it all, or if she did, that she’d sell Becca this car really, really cheap.
“What about your father, Becca?”
Becca turned her head on the rest and looked at Jo quizzically. She might be talking about feelings more readily, but she still needed help with question clarification. “My father?”
“I’ve heard so little about him. I know the focus of our study is your mother, but it seems odd to me that such a major player in this family drama is so rarely mentioned.”
“Well, from our dinner the other night, you know my dad didn’t always get along with his older brother.” Becca traced a pattern on the cool glass of the window with her fingertip. “A point in his favor, I’ve always thought. But he and my mom fought all the time, too. He had a temper. He tried to take care of me when she was sick. And as far as I remember, he did that pretty well. My dad was always nice to me.”
Becca realized she had summed up the whole of her father’s life as she knew it. She erased the pattern she had drawn on the window with a slow sweep of her knuckle. Scott Healy was a montage of blurred pictures in her head, his face always far above her; he had been tall, and not prone to stooping to get eye-level to a toddler. But the face Becca remembered had almost always been smiling. His kindness to Becca had been tinged with a harried, anxious quality, but it had felt genuine. When he raced home at noon to fix Becca lunch, he always created the unique bowl of cheesed SpaghettiOs that had been her small self’s passion for years.
“We’ll have to consider your father a suspect, Becca.”
Becca’s reverie came to an unpleasant, jangling halt. “Come again?”
“We already know the police investigation of this case, and the forensics, were spotty. They eliminated Scott Healy because of the placement of the gun on the kitchen floor, its position between the two bodies…” Jo glanced at Becca contritely. “I’m sorry. I’m just pointing out that otherwise, your father is a rational suspect. He had motive and opportunity. Your parents were involved in an emotional argument that night. It’s possible that he’s the one who fired the first shot and then killed himself.”
Becca was abruptly younger again; not a helpless five-year-old, but a stubborn and resentful teen. She clenched her fists on the seat in denial. “So, first we considered Rachel a suspect. Now it’s my father. Jesus, John William Voakes is looking better for this all the time.”
“I consider Voakes the least likely of possibilities.” Jo either didn’t hear or ignored the warning in Becca’s tone. “The theory Marty and Khadijah proposed about him is intriguing and technically feasible, but—”
“Jo, would you please remember we’re talking about my family here?” Becca snapped off the air-conditioner against a chill. “If we’re going to try to prove my mother innocent, only to condemn someone else I love to taking the rap for this—”
“We’re going to try to find out the truth.” Jo’s voice was kind, but firm. She opened her hand on the seat between them. After a long moment, Becca accepted this unprecedented gesture, and rested her hand in Jo’s. “I’m afraid there’s no promise of a happy end to this story.”
Jo’s palm was smooth and cool against her own.
The looming presence of Mount Rainier, its base shrouded in an almost perpetual mist, hovered off the far horizon as they drove south toward the town of Steilacoom. Its volcanic history aside, the stately mountain stood as Seattle’s constant guardian, and Becca had always drawn solace from its craggy peaks on the rare sunny days it was visible. Her parents had loved Rainier, she remembered. They had taken her for picnics in a lush field of wildflowers in its foothills. A small painting her mother had made of that field was framed on Becca’s wall, above a picture of her parents.
The mountain’s silent regard worked its magic again, filling Becca with a tentative courage as they sped toward the most notorious mental hospital in the state. The mountain strengthened her, and so did Jo’s hold on her hand.
Western State Psychiatric Hospital, called the Insane Asylum of Washington Territory when it opened in 1871, was notorious only by lurid local legend, for the most part. Its incarceration and lobotomy of actress Frances Farmer in the forties ensured a kind of lingering, whispered infamy. Some sources claimed Farmer was never lobotomized at Western at all, but the shameful procedure had definitely been practiced here.
From the visitor’s lot, they were only seeing a small portion of the grounds — Western sprawled across two hundred and fifty acres — but the main complex didn’t seem particularly sinister. They might have pulled up in front of a dated, rather grim high school.
“This is your first time here, correct?” Jo touched her keychain to lock the Bentley in the sun-drenched parking lot.
“I toured the place a long time ago, when I was in grad school. Doesn’t look like much has changed since then.” Becca walked beside Jo toward the entrance, taking faint comfort in their twinned, elongated shadows streaming over the concrete.
“Given your career, you’d know more about this place than me. Any impressions you’d like to share?”
“Let’s see.” Becca smiled at this courtly acknowledgement of her credentials. “Western really has a decent reputation in psych circles, in spite of its detractors. The staff here is good. Patient rights are respected.”
“And anyone in western Washington who’s declared mentally disabled as part of a criminal case receives treatment here?”
“Right. Western has wards for both civil and criminal commitments.” Becca paused as Jo pulled open the heavy glass-paned front door. “I seem to remember that long-term patients die kind of young here.”
Jo held the door and stared at her, and Becca shook her head.