Practice to Deceive

face” his clubbing, partying, and cheating. She thought he might be a sadomasochist, although she said he had never tried anything like that with her.
    “I just couldn’t accept his sexual ideas—he thought whatever he saw on the Internet was ‘normal.’ ”
    “Did you ever participate in any of those sexual activities?”
    “No!”
    “Why do you think he wanted to get back together with you?”
    “Control. He liked to play control games with me. Like on Thanksgiving. He was supposed to meet me at the ferry about seven in the morning. But he didn’t show up. I finally called him at ten thirty and he was just then leaving Tacoma. He did things like that as his way of controlling me.”
    “Did he build you up and then let you down when he treated you bad?”
    “Yes.”
    “How did that make you feel?”
    “Sad.”
    “Did he ever make you angry?”
    “Yes! When he treated me bad.”
    When Mike Birchfield asked her if she thought Russel Douglas had mental problems, she nodded. Now she recalled the names of two counselors he had been seeing.
    Once again, Brenna stated that Russel had “run off before,” only to come back and try to get her to make their relationship work.
    “Russel started divorce papers but he never went ahead with them,” she said
    “Why didn’t you file for divorce?”
    “I guess I was hoping we could work it out. Russel and I have owned Just B’s salon in Langley for about a year. Our business is pretty successful. I’m the one who works there, but he was going to do our taxes this year.”
    “Do you know where his current address is?”
    “No—but I know how to get to his apartment. I know he runs—ran—and went to Gold’s Gym that’s near his apartment. He used to work out at Ken’s Korner in Clinton about eight years ago—when we were first married.”
    But Brenna added that Russel wasn’t exactly a health freak—he drank a lot. It was very common for him to get drunk.
    “Drugs?” Birchfield asked.
    “I don’t know.”
    Mark Plumberg asked Brenna about the note he’d seen near the front door.
    “I wrote it this morning. He’s been staying here since Christmas Eve. I left him a note that me and the kids were going off-island. We took the one o’clock ferry to Mukilteo.”
    At that point, Brenna’s phone rang. She left the room to answer it. When she came back, she explained that two of her friends—sisters—had called, and that they often called her late at night because it was a good time to talk after her children went to sleep.
    Within about fifteen minutes, the two women arrived at her door to comfort Brenna in her loss.
    Mike Birchfield asked her if she would be willing to come to the precinct office in Coupeville the next day for a further interview.
    Finally, she looked stricken. “What do I do?” she asked. “What do I do with his family?”
    There was no way to answer that. Birchfield studied her face before he commented casually that she hadn’t been very emotional or surprised when he told her that her husband—albeit an estranged husband—was dead.
    “Why is that?”
    Brenna sighed. “When my mom died, Russel told me I was not allowed to cry. Now, I guess I’ve learned to just suppress my emotions.”
    “Do you know what your husband had in his car?” Mark Plumberg asked.
    “Tons of stuff—sleds for the kids, files from his work, some clothes.”
    “Have you been in his vehicle since he arrived here on Christmas Eve?”
    She nodded. “I drove it to the Star Store on Christmas Day to buy some pies, and then Russel drove me to our salon so I could hide a key for one of my girls to open the shop the day after Christmas.”
    “When your husband left here on the twenty-sixth,” Mike Birchfield began, “what did he do—or say?”
    “It was about a quarter to eleven. He kissed me and the kids, and he said he’d be back in a few hours. He said he had to get some things done.
    “But he never came back.”
    It was late, and it seemed wise to end this first interview. Mike Birchfield and Mark Plumberg had many more questions they wanted to ask Brenna Douglas, but they could wait until morning.
    As they left, one of Brenna’s friends asked if she should bring an attorney with her for the next day’s interview.
    “That’s up to her,” Birchfield answered.
    This was the beginning of one of the most challenging investigations the Island County Sheriff’s Office and the Island County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office had ever