Shadows of the Dead--A Special Tracking Unit Novel

by Spencer Kope

  Jennifer Holt is mannequin number three.

  “This is it,” I say, and without waiting for a response, I open my door and step out onto Fulton Street. Rather than immediately approaching the front door, I walk to the south for a half block, and then, with Jimmy watching me but not saying a word, I walk to the north an equal distance. The simple exercise doesn’t disappoint: I find the Onion King in three locations.

  “He’s been here,” I tell Jimmy as I return to the SUV. “He never approached the house, but he walked up and down both sides of the street on different occasions, and another time he seems to have stepped out of his car for a moment, and then immediately left. Who knows how many times he was here and never exited the car?”

  “But he never approached the house?” Jimmy confirms.

  “Not from this side; we’ll have to check the alley.”

  “Well, all right.” Jimmy nods. “One down and five to go. How about we go talk to Grandma and see what she knows?”

  I fall in behind him as he makes his way to the door, noticing several ceramic gnomes in the flower beds as we pass. I can’t help thinking how sad they look, worn by sun, wind, and rain, their paint faded to chalky-hued pastels. The sharp black eyes that once graced each face have worn away to cataracts, and the once-bright clothes have weathered, looking no better than the garments one might find on a neglected scarecrow.

  If my mother were here she’d probably wipe their faces with a damp handkerchief and bless them for good luck.

  * * *

  Jimmy knocks three times on the aluminum screen door, and presently a squat woman in her mid to late fifties opens the inner door and stares out at us with impatient eyes. Her fleshy skin is blemished by both years and abuse, but it’s her unkempt hair that gives her the appearance of a rag doll at the end of its useful life.

  The woman opens her mouth at the sight of us, but before she can say she doesn’t want any magazine subscriptions, can’t afford to paint the house, and already loves Jesus, Jimmy assaults her with a barrage of words that stops her cold.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Holt,” he says, flashing his FBI credentials. “I’m Special Agent James Donovan with the FBI, and this is my partner, Operations Specialist Magnus Craig. I was hoping we could ask you a few questions about your granddaughter, Jennifer Holt?”

  She looks for a moment like a woman who just took an ill-advised sip from a fire hose. “Jennifer?” She looks us up and down. “And you’re with the Federal Bureau of Investigators—”

  “Investigation,” Jimmy corrects. “You are Jean Holt, aren’t you?”

  “Jeannie,” she replies. “No one calls me Jean, leastwise not since my mom died.”

  “And Jennifer Holt is your granddaughter?”

  “Yeah, sure. She’s my son’s kid, but I kind of raised her.”

  “May we come in?” Jimmy asks. “It’ll only take ten minutes.”

  She hesitates a moment, but then pushes open the screen door.

  Leading us to the living room, Jeannie offers something to drink, but Jimmy and I both decline. It’s always a loaded proposition when someone offers you food or drink during an investigation. You want to be polite, but at the same time you have to trust your instincts. It usually comes down to what you see, smell, and sense. To say that Jeannie Holt’s living room doesn’t meet the standard of our culinary feng shui would be an understatement.

  The place isn’t clean, it’s just … not filthy.

  It’s a turn of the screw before filthy, a notch below.

  I question the wisdom of even sitting, but when Jimmy clears the cats off the sofa and assaults me with his eyes, silently commanding me to plop down, I have no choice.

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?” Jeannie blurts as soon as she settles into the chair opposite us. “I mean, she’s been missing over a year now—people just don’t go missing, especially when they have her kind of history.” She tips her head up and lifts an eyebrow, as if we’re all in on some secret understanding of just who Jennifer Holt was.

  “We’re investigating some leads,” Jimmy explains softly, “but yes, we believe she may be a victim of homicide.” He delivers the last part of the statement with compassion and with the hesitation that always comes when delivering such news.

  Everyone reacts differently to death.

  The variations are as numerous as the people on the planet, but the range is fairly well established. On one end of the scale is jubilation, a silent jig in honor of a departed ex-spouse or despised parent, though we rarely see this reaction because most people are smart enough to recognize how guilty it makes them appear—even when they’re innocent.

  Further down the scale we find the accepting nod, the handshake, and the “Thanks for letting me know.” This is someone who expected the news and prepared for it, or who just doesn’t care one way or the other. At the far end of the scale we find shrieking and fainting. This is either an Oscar-worthy thespian, or someone truly devastated by the loss. Mostly it’s the latter.

  Jeannie Holt is near the middle of the range.

  You can see the loss on her face, but the emotion behind it is subdued. I realize she’s been expecting this visit for some time now, perhaps even hoping for it, to end the waiting and wondering, though she’d done little of either.

  “So, you think she might be dead, but you’re not sure?”

  Jimmy gives her the watered-down version of DNA analysis and she dutifully retrieves some of Jennifer’s belongings, including two brushes, one for hair and one for teeth. Jimmy seals the items in small brown paper bags with red-and-white tape that has the word EVIDENCE printed in a repeating pattern. He scrawls his signature in the white section of the tape on both bags so that any tampering will be immediately evident. When he finishes, he leaves the bags sitting on the coffee table.

  They stand like brown tombstones between him and Jeannie.

  “I understand Jennifer was taken to the hospital for an overdose shortly before she went missing,” Jimmy says.

  “Hmm,” Jeannie grunts. “I heard about that, but I kicked her out about a month before. Wasn’t the first time she overdosed. There were two other times that weren’t reported, and another time—like three or four years ago—when her drug buddies rolled her out of the car at the emergency room and took off.” She snaps her finger, as if remembering something. “And the time they hauled her out of that drug house in Seattle.” She wipes her nose with her thumb and index finger and then brushes them off on her pants.

  “Mostly they’d just give her that narc stuff and she’d be fine,” she says, referring to the emergency medication Narcan, which, due to America’s ongoing opioid epidemic, has become standard in most ambulances.

  “Do you remember which hospital she went to?” Jimmy asks.

  “Would have been Providence, I suppose, except when she overdosed in Seattle. That would have been Harborview.”

  Jimmy writes the names down.

  “Any history of suicide attempts,” I ask, “even if it was just a threat?”

  Jeannie gives a snort. “What do you call heroin?”

  “I was thinking more like guns, knives, or intentional overdoses.”

  “She never actually tried anything, leastwise not as far as I know. The police took her to the hospital once or twice when she was saying she wanted to hurt herself, but she never did. The counselor helped a little, at least when she was clean.”

  “She was seeing a therapist?”

  “Yeah, I drove her there a few times. They got an office downtown with three or four doctors, but she mostly saw the one. Don’t remember what his name was, but he’s the one that said she’s got the bipolar thing.” Raising an index finger pensively, she pushes herself from her chair and says, “Hang on.”

  Shuffling to the kitchen, her slippers never seeming to fully leave the floor, she rummages through the cabinets, opening and closing drawers and slamming doors. A moment later we hear a satisfied grunt and she returns to the living room and hands me a
worn business card.

  “BrightPath Wellness,” I read aloud.

  “That’s them,” Jeannie says, clearly pleased with herself. “The receptionist is a cranky old sea hag, but the rest of them are nice enough.”

  The business card is like any other. It has a logo that shows a footpath leading toward a bright horizon, under which is the address, phone number, web page, Facebook address, Instagram name, and Twitter account. Among all this is the name Dr. Arthur Hemming.

  “Dr. Hemming?” I read aloud. “Is he the one Jennifer was seeing?”

  “Yep, that’s him.”

  “When was the last time you took her to see him?”

  She exhales hard, letting her lips flap with the releasing air. “It must have been a couple weeks before we had our little falling-out.” She leans forward in her chair. “She was stealing my pills. I got back problems and when they flare up, it’s bad. I go to get a pill one day, just after I got my prescription filled, and the bottle is near empty. Well, that was just it, the last straw; I couldn’t take it no more.”

  Her eyes find Jimmy.

  “I s’pose there’s stuff you’re not telling me because you’re trying to spare me, but you don’t need to bother,” she tells him. “I figured that girl was dead long ago—hell, I figured she was dead when she was still living with me, she just didn’t know it yet.” Her eyes drift to the corner of the ceiling, as if seeking meaning and purpose among the cobwebs. Despite her brave front I can see the water in her eyes.

  “They got a copy of her dental records when she went missing,” she says at length, her voice suddenly aged and tired. “I don’t know much about police stuff, but I’ve seen enough shows to know that you don’t ask for DNA if you have dental records and teeth to compare them to, so I guess I’m just wondering if there’s going to be enough of my Jennifer to bury?”

  Jimmy glances at me and then moves closer to Jeannie, placing a consoling hand on her shoulder. “We’ll try to get you something,” he says, “but…” He pauses, unsure how to finish such a statement. How do you tell a woman that her granddaughter was dissolved in lye and dumped out on the forest floor, the remains of her teeth and bones becoming small pebbles in the landscape?

  “It’s okay,” Jeannie says, stiffening her chin. Inhaling deeply and then breathing out in one long breath, she repeats, “It’s okay,” as if the words make it so.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Jimmy says.

  Jeannie shakes her head as if utterly defeated, and in that moment a great, solitary tear runs down her left cheek, dragging with it all the sorrow and heartache of too many years. Sorrow not just for the loss of Jennifer, but for the loss of the potential of Jennifer: all the things she could have been and wasn’t; all the things she could have done and didn’t.

  * * *

  Jimmy and I sit with Jeannie a good while, letting her talk, letting her cry. She shows us old photo albums of Jennifer when she was a baby, and the box of pictures she’d drawn through the years, first in crayon, and later with charcoal and pencil. The last of these was a pencil drawing on a standard sheet of paper that she’d signed and dated when she was thirteen, about the time she’d started getting into trouble. The image is exquisite and shows Christ on the cross, but instead of Jesus, the figure is that of a young Jennifer, her face turned down as if the weight of the world were upon her. I suppose when you’re thirteen that’s how it sometimes feels.

  There were no more drawings after that.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Our next stop is Lynnwood.

  We’re looking for the shine associated with mannequin number four, but so far, we’re having no luck. After knocking on Emily Cantu’s front door, we find her alive and well … and a bit curious why the FBI is checking on her. Jimmy quickly explains that it’s a simple case of mistaken identity and assures her that all is well and she has nothing to fear.

  When we reach the curb, Jimmy pulls the list from his pocket and scans down. Crossing off Emily Cantu’s name with three swipes of his pen, he looks at the remaining names. “That means mannequin number four has to be either Debra Mata of Seattle or Cheryl Kaffe of Olympia.”

  “Or neither,” I suggest.

  “Or neither,” he says with a sigh.

  * * *

  After grabbing a belated lunch at Panera Bread, we make our way into the heart of Seattle, to Yesler Way, and the last known address of Debra Mata. We’re still rolling into the neighborhood when I recognize her distinct shine, and that of another: amethyst with burnt orange marbling, the shine of the Onion King.

  “It’s her,” I say with words clipped short by a rush of adrenaline. “He’s been here too.” I point to an empty parking spot along the right side of the road, and then at another one farther up the street on the left.

  “Does he approach the house?”

  “No; it’s just like before. He’s watching. I’ll bet he doesn’t come near any of the houses, he just waits and watches, learns their routine, follows them. That way he can grab them elsewhere, someplace he won’t be seen.”

  Jimmy nods. “Counting Erin Yarborough and Jennifer Holt, that’s three so far.”

  “It’ll be seven by the end of the day,” I reply confidently. As the words leave my lips, I have no idea just how right and wrong I am, and both at the same time.

  * * *

  If Kristin Mata is surprised to find two FBI agents on her porch asking about her sister-in-law, she hides it well and greets us with a welcoming smile, the smile you give to a longtime friend or a good neighbor. When we explain our purpose, she invites us in and offers something to drink, without specifying anything in particular. We decline, hoping to make this a quick visit so we can be on to the next.

  “I’m sorry Ken isn’t here,” Kristin says, motioning for us to sit. “He should be home from work by six if you want to come back. Debra is his younger sister by about ten years, but they don’t talk. I don’t think we’ve seen her for about three years now.”

  Kristin’s manner of speech reminds me a bit of a bullfight. There’s some initial hesitation and ground-pawing, followed by a rapidly accelerating charge of words that end in something akin to a crescendo. After this there’s a lull, a sort of repositioning for the next charge, and then it’s all hooves and red capes again.

  As she finishes her preamble, she seems to almost shudder, and then hurriedly takes a seat opposite from us. “I really do think it would best if you talked to Ken directly—I just feel funny talking about his sister when he’s not here. Know what I mean?”

  “We’re not looking for anything salacious,” Jimmy assures her. “We’re just trying to figure out where she might have gone and maybe who some of her associates are.”

  Kristin snorts. “Associates!” She says the word as if it’s a public joke or a private profanity. “Toward the end, before Ken told her to leave and never come back, the only time we saw her with her so-called associates was when they showed up here looking for money—though I suspect her real purpose was to check and see if we were away, so they could sneak in and rob us blind.”

  Her voice suddenly rises sharply. “Five times!” she says, holding up the splayed fingers of her right hand. “That’s how many times we were broken into in the six months after Ken told her not to come back. We had to harden all the doors and windows and install a monitored security system before it finally stopped.” She seems to realize that her voice has risen and turned sharp, so she forces a deep breath and then brushes out the nonexistent wrinkles in her slacks.

  “I’d like to say I miss her, but I don’t,” she says with a bitter edge. “It hurts Ken, though, especially during the holidays and around her birthday. He still remembers when she was little, before she got caught up in all that—that nonsense.”

  She sighs. “God knows where she’s living or what she’s doing with herself. Whenever I’m downtown I’m afraid I’m going to see her on the street, panhandling or strung out or … or prostituting herself.” She grows quiet, an
d then adds, “That’s Ken’s biggest fear. I tell him she wouldn’t do that, but I know better. That’s part of the lifestyle, isn’t it?”

  “Not always,” Jimmy replies softly, “but often.”

  Kristin nods.

  She assures us that she has nothing of Debra’s that might contain DNA but promises to ask Ken if he’ll speak to his mother. She might have old clothes or toiletries, but Kristin can’t be sure. From our standpoint, the lack of DNA isn’t critical. With the facial recognition, the fresh knowledge that Debra fits the same pattern as the others, and the fact that she’s missing, it’s enough.

  “Was Debra ever admitted to the hospital?” Jimmy asks as we wrap up the brief interview.

  “Sure, at least twice that I know of.”

  “Which hospital?”

  “Harborview—both times.”

  “And was it for illness or overdose or something else?”

  “The first time she wouldn’t say, but I suspect it was overdose or something close to it. The second time it was because Ken called the police after she threatened to kill herself. They took her for a mental health examination, one of the ones where they hold you for a couple days.”

  “Did she ever actually attempt suicide?”

  Kristin shakes her head slowly. “She’d talk about swimming out into the middle of the Puget Sound and just letting herself sink to the bottom, but she was too afraid of the octopuses.”

  “Octopuses?”

  “Under the Tacoma Narrows Bridge,” Kristin clarifies, “though I suppose they’re all over the Puget Sound, it’s just the under-the-bridge part that you always hear about. They say they have tentacles twenty feet long.”

  “Giant Pacific octopus,” I say, leaning close to Jimmy, as if the information is somehow confidential. When he gives me an odd look, I shrug. “Marty is always going on and on about them, like they’re sacred or something.”

  He stares at me a moment and then turns back to Kristin.