Practice to Deceive

personified. Peggy Sue had fought weight her whole life, but when she was slim she was gorgeous.
    “Drop-Dead Gorgeous,” as the news media would nickname her.
    One day, Island County prosecuting attorney Greg Banks would comment that she was a woman who was capable of continually “reinventing herself.”
    That was certainly true.
    But no one could ever say that Peggy Sue wasn’t loved, however she looked or whoever she was. She sometimes complained, however, that her father didn’t show her enough affection. Her half sister Rhonda told her to quit worrying about it, saying, “Dad is just Dad.” Kelvin loved her, although she suspected that he sometimes strayed. Jimmie continued to dote on his “precious baby girl,” and in his eyes, Peggy Sue could do no wrong, but he wasn’t demonstrative. She was still tightly bonded to her mother, who had always treated her like a princess.
    Wherever Peggy was, Doris Alton Stackhouse Matz was there, too. They were almost a matched set, a duo that drew “Do not cross” borders around their world.
    Jimmie’s first three daughters still resented the way Doris shut them out just as she had when they were children.
    “The straw that broke my back,” Rhonda says, “was how Doris favored Peggy’s two girls over all of our kids. One time, I was over at Peggy’s with Brenda’s son, Kyle Gard, and Doris came over to get Mariah and Taylor, Peggy’s daughters. She was going to take them to the beach, and she said, ‘Come on, girls—we’re going to the beach!’
    “She didn’t ask Kyle and he was just heartbroken. He stood in the driveway, holding his arms out and crying as they drove away. That was when I knew for sure that we would always be third place in Doris’s world.”
    Nevertheless, all the half sisters remained in what looked like a solid family unit with birthday parties, baby showers, weddings, and other get-togethers. They filled countless scrapbooks with photographs, newspaper clippings, and mementos. When she was in town, Peggy Sue was almost always in those celebrations. Usually, her half sister Sue was the driving force to keep their wildly blended family close. Sue undertook the task of writing a kind of family tree with all their births, marriages, and deaths noted.
    In their case, it was difficult to follow the action without a “scorecard.”
    Peggy Sue and Kelvin didn’t become rich overnight, but they were doing quite well.
    Peggy excelled in her job in Everett with B.F. Goodrich, and soon became the first woman ever promoted to lead mechanic with the company. She liked her job, but she quit, saying that she wanted to spend more time with her daughters.
    She also went to beauty school, and earned her beautician’s license in Idaho. She worked at a number of Langley salons: Atelier, Studio A, and opened her own salon—Baker Street Hair Theater. During tourist season, there were any number of wealthy women who sought out island beauty salons.
    Peggy Sue sometimes helped Kelvin with the clients in his personal trainer business. In time, they made enough to buy a house in Langley, the house that Peggy would one day rent to Brenna Douglas.
    * * *
    O N JUNE 20, 1987, Doris’s oldest daughter, “Sweet Sue,” was married for the second time. Her first, very young marriage hadn’t worked out. But this was a joyful wedding and reception. Her half sisters were happy to attend. Sue and Neil Mahoney were a true love match. Sue was in her early thirties and it was a wonderful happy occasion. They had found the loves of their lives. Sue brought a son into their marriage and they soon had a daughter together.
    Neil, forty-four, grew up in West Seattle. When he graduated from high school in 1971, he worked and studied until he became a journeyman wireman, and belonged to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union, and also taught electrical apprentices. He loved sports of all kinds and was an avid bicycle enthusiast. He also played the trombone and guitar.
    That was probably how he connected to Jim Huden, playing in some of the bands Jim put together. As it is with many small communities, there were many connections among Whidbey Island residents.
    Doris’s oldest daughter was the “Sweet Sue” whom Jim Huden often visited on his trips home from Florida, but he wasn’t able to attend Sue and Neil’s wedding.
    Jim might also have known of Peggy Sue before. Still, she was so much younger than he that they were like two sailboats