Silent Ridge: A gripping crime thriller and mystery (Detective Megan Carpenter Book 3)

by Gregg Olsen

  She says, “It was a long time ago. We really don’t like reliving it. I’m sure you can understand that.” Of course I did. I hate that I’m opening old, never-really-healed wounds, but I have no choice. I told her it wasn’t my intent to hurt her again.

  I stop the tape. I have to revisit the Blumes. If they still live in Burien, they would be in their mid- to late sixties by now. Retired. Hopefully at home.

  Thirty-Four

  Wide awake at 4:00 in the morning. I try to go to sleep again but my mind is churning, working the case. I feel like I didn’t sleep but only lay completely still with my eyes shut. I give up and take my .45 out from under the pillow on the other side of the bed. I’ve taken to sleeping in jeans and T-shirt, boots beside the bed at the ready. The stalker started this. The killer has only made it worse. I get up and pad, sock-footed, to my desk.

  I left the tape player out, ready to go. I know this is the tape that covers my conversation—interrogation really—with the Blumes about the disappearance and murder of their daughter, Shannon. I don’t have to play it. I remember it all like it was yesterday.

  Dr. Albright had asked me if it was understandable that Mrs. Blume was hesitant to let me in. I said yes, I understood, but I had to talk to her. I told Mrs. Blume that it was important people learn the truth. And that some hurt never goes away. That others have gone through what she has and she’s not alone in her pain.

  What I said must have had the desired effect. Mrs. Blume had looked at me and said, “All right,” and invited me inside. I felt a tremendous relief. I also felt a little sick for lying to someone about something so tragic, so important.

  I remember feeling horrible even relating the story to Dr. Albright.

  I lied to Mrs. Blume and said I would have called but with cell phones these days, no one has a landline anymore. Her house was neat, clean, frozen in time. The furnishings, the décor—even the air—felt old. The foyer was devoid of anything personal. A Boston fern the size of a Mini Cooper filled most of the space.

  Mrs. Blume said she was making pizza and asked if I wanted to stay for some lunch. Her eyes were very kind.

  I was still a little sick from the last food I ate but I said I was starving. That I hadn’t eaten all day. And I told her thank you. I’d been there all of two minutes and had already lied to this nice woman five or six times. I had no choice, of course. If I had told her the truth, she probably would have laughed at me and called the police. That would have ruined my plans and have gotten my mother killed.

  Dr. Albright asked: “So you continued to lie?”

  I told her I wasn’t proud of it, but, yeah. I remembered Donald Blume came into the room. He was older than his wife, but he had a nice smile and I liked him right away.

  He said, “Doing a story about our little girl.” He sat down, sinking into what I assumed was “his” chair, a big leather club chair.

  I gave him the same line I’d given Mrs. Blume about the story I was doing. He said it would be a short story, and Mrs. Blume went to get the pizza.

  That was when I saw Shannon’s shrine. There were nearly a dozen pictures of a girl my age lining the mantel and a large silver urn, which I can only assume held her remains. I don’t know why people keep ashes. I don’t get that at all. The person is not the residue of their burned-up flesh and pulverized bones. The person is the spirit that was left when she was brutally killed. By my bio-dad.

  Mr. Blume said Shannon’s death had ruined their lives. He had taken to drinking. Debra had taken to antidepressants until she had to go into treatment.

  I told him I was sorry. I didn’t know what else to say.

  He said he was too and I could see a sheen of tears behind his glasses. He said the short story was that Shannon was everything.

  Dr. Albright asked if it helped me to find my mother.

  I told her: “You have to understand that I needed these people to like me. I needed them to tell me what they knew. I needed to process all of it and somehow figure out where my mother was being held captive.”

  I pick another tape out of the box and slot it in. Before I turn it on I think back to that day. We ate pizza. If I think about it I can taste the chicken pesto, but I don’t want to think about it. Disgusting.

  Thirty-Five

  I start the tape.

  Me: The Blumes started at the beginning. They told me about the kind of hurt that comes from when forced to identify their daughter’s body on a gurney through the thick glass of the morgue’s viewing room. And they told me how much they regret not telling her they loved her as much as they should have.

  Dr. A: That must have affected you greatly.

  Now I know what Karen was really asking was how I could be so callous. I wonder that myself sometimes but I live with it. On the tape I didn’t answer her question.

  Me: I watched Mrs. Blume put a trembling hand on her husband’s. She’s the stronger of the two.

  He asked her to get him a drink and I remember him saying, “And don’t be stingy on it, either.”

  I muttered something about being sorry and told them they at least got some justice. At least the killer was caught and punished.

  Mrs. Blume said in a small voice. “That’s what they tell us.”

  The remark was odd and I waited for her to explain.

  “Honestly, Tracy,” she said, “we never really felt comfortable with the prosecution of Steve Jones, that homeless man, for the murder of our daughter. Don’t get me wrong.” She stopped and looked at her husband. She said, “Don’t get us wrong. We don’t doubt the prosecution did the best they could, but, well, we sort of believed Mr. Jones’s alibi.”

  I was surprised. I didn’t remember what his alibi was and then it came to me.

  He’d said he was out drinking and had a blackout. A friend of his, another drunk, had told him the police had picked him up. He didn’t remember that. The next thing Jones knew was that he was in front of Shannon’s dead body when sirens woke him up.

  I asked her who had called the police.

  Mr. Blume said it was an anonymous caller. The police tape of the call was lost before trial. There was no evidence that the tape really existed, and who would believe a drunk?

  I asked them if they thought Jones might have been set up.

  Mr. Blume said they thought someone had tampered with the evidence. The homeless guy was convenient for the murder. He said they were happy about the conviction at first but there were other questions the police couldn’t answer. He said Shannon was missing for a week and when her body was found she had a tattoo.

  I pause the tape. I remember the tattoo clearly. A heart with the number 16 inside it. Alex’s trademark. All of his victims had the tattoos. I continue listening.

  Me: Mr. Blume said Shannon would never have gotten a tattoo. He showed me a picture of her taken at a Highline High School performance of Les Misérables. He said she played Cosette. She was beautiful and perfect.

  Dr. A: How did you feel about bringing up memories for Shannon’s parents? It must have been hard to listen to.

  Me: Mr. Blume wasn’t kidding about getting into a bottle. When he’d asked his wife not to be stingy with the drink, it had nothing to do with the number of ice cubes she put in it. His head bobbed slightly and his words were beginning to slur. He was getting drunk.

  Mr. Blume said something about the detective leaving the tattoo out of the investigation.

  I asked Mrs. Blume what the detective’s name was. She couldn’t remember but would call if it was important. I told her it was important.

  I stop the tape and look at my watch. I still have to shower and get ready for work. I check that the chair back is still under the doorknob, then go to the bathroom with my .45 in hand. I lay the weapon on top of the toilet tank, farthest from the door and closest to the shower. I’ll play the rest of the tape when I get a chance. So far nothing jumps out at me, but something is circling in my mind like a hawk looking for prey. I’m sure somewhere on that tape Mr. or Mrs.
Blume talked about a detective coming to their house but she couldn’t recall his name.

  I ignore the shower and go back to the desk, naked except for my T-shirt.

  Thirty-Six

  I feel ridiculous sitting here with just a T-shirt on, but I need to hear the rest of the tape. I remember Mrs. Blume calling me at the hotel later that night. I stop fast-forwarding and hit “play.”

  Me: I came back to my room and saw a blinking light on the phone. It was a voice mail left by Mrs. Blume. The insistent tone in her voice was anything but calm. She wanted me to call her right away.

  Dr. A: That must have been unsettling, Rylee.

  Me: I called and she answered on the first ring but now she sounded unsure if she should have called. Or maybe she was afraid to call. She told me the detective I’d asked about had called her. Then he came to their house and asked questions about me. His name was Alex Rader. He told them I was an imposter bent on stirring up trouble.

  Dr. A: That must have been a shock. A surprise. Did you think he was following you?

  Me: Of course, I pretended to be at a loss why he would say that. But I know I have been an imposter my entire life. But so has he. He’s lived among the shadows, doing evil at night. During the day he masquerades as an upstanding citizen. A cop. I know that he’s killed all those girls. Maybe others. I know he has my mother right now. I just don’t know where.

  I asked if they’d told him where I was.

  She said, “No. I never trusted or liked him whatsoever. Neither did my husband. He was nothing more than a conceited snot that never gave one whit about Shannon. He said all the right words, but I knew he was just looking for a notch on his detective shield.”

  I told her that I knew the type all too well. Such a fraud.

  I gave her my thanks and our conversation ended with her saying, “I could tell when we talked that you care about Shannon.”

  I hung up and my pulse quickened.

  I remember ending that call, my adrenalin pumping. Alex Rader was trailing me. I wondered who would find who first? If it was a competition, I intended to win. Two minutes later I was on the road. Since Alex Rader was a cop, my respect for the cops nosedived that day. My stepfather, Rolland, once said that the police are limited in what they can do, but I know that there was at least one among them—and maybe more—who did what they wanted no matter the price. Going to the police? Mom went there for help and look how it turned out for her. It is one thing of two that I know she and I will agree on. The other is that Hayden must never know what I know to be true. Like Mom, I carry that burden now. I love my little brother too much to have him live a life knowing that his heart circulates poisoned blood.

  Like mine.

  Thirty-Seven

  I drive on autopilot as if my car knows the way to the office. Leanne Delmont, Shannon Blume, Megan Moriarty. They are all victims of Alex Rader. They are on my mind. I wish I could avenge them again. I have killed Alex Rader, the serial killer. I have killed Marie Rader, his assistant and motivation to continue the killing spree. I thought I had cut the head off of the snake, but now it seems to have grown another.

  I have to figure out who is finishing what those two sick, psychopathic assholes started.

  I pull into the Sheriff’s Office parking area and automatically look up into the trees. Nan is out at the edge of the lot with a cigarette in one hand and a cell phone in the other. She sees me and hurriedly crushes the cigarette under the toe of her shoe and gets off the phone. As I get out of the car she walks past me.

  “Good morning, Detective Carpenter.”

  “Morning, Nan,” I say. I want to call her Nannette, her real name, but I know it bugs her and I don’t need to piss her off.

  She goes inside and lets the door slam behind her. I go over to where she’s crushed out the cigarette. It has the same color of lipstick on the filter as the one I sent to the lab for testing. But it’s a Virginia Slim, not a Camel. I bag the cigarette butt.

  Ronnie has beat me to work. She’s typing on her computer keyboard like a concert pianist. I motion for her to come to my desk.

  “Did you have a good time with Marley?” I ask.

  “All he did was talk about science and things I’m barely familiar with. I felt like I was out with Bill Nye the Science Guy.”

  We both chuckle. Marley looks nothing like Bill Nye but he definitely had the science guy routine down.

  “I had him send his lab report directly to me,” Ronnie says in a whisper. “The DNA on the coffee mug matched the body. The DNA we took from Gabrielle suggested she was the daughter of the victim. The DNA from the items you found out in the trees wasn’t in the database. It’s an unknown. Marley was a little angry that he had to check it, but I told him I found it and put your name on the request form. I told him you said it was a waste of time but I had a hunch.”

  I like this girl more each day.

  “Thanks, Ronnie. At least we have the DNA on file in case something else turns up.” As I say that I can’t help but feel I’ve jinxed myself. I don’t want anything else to turn up because I don’t want anyone else to die.

  “I’ve got something else that I’d like him to run.” I hand her the bag with Nan’s cigarette butt. “It needs to be eliminated from the other things I—you—found out there. If those things belonged to Nan, she won’t have DNA on file, either, but he can tell if that butt matches the other butt. If it does, we can probably pitch all that stuff.”

  Ronnie grins mischievously. “So you’ve got Nan’s butt in a bag and you want Marley to look at her butt to compare it to another butt?”

  “May the best butt win,” I say, and Ronnie giggles. It isn’t that funny, but it kind of is.

  “I checked on Alex Rader,” Ronnie says. “He was a detective with King County Sheriff’s Office. He disappeared a couple of years back. No trace of him.”

  I’m surprised. I thought his body would eventually be found. The smell would draw attention. Marie had found him. I wonder what she did with his body. I know they found hers, because they made a big fuss over it, since Alex was a cop. One of theirs.

  “His wife, Marie Rader, was found brutally murdered in their home. The detective I talked to said they suspect Alex might have killed her in a rage and fled. No one’s heard from him. They don’t have enough evidence to issue a warrant.”

  And they never will. “Were the murders anything like ours?” I ask, knowing they were nothing like ours.

  “I told the detective we were working a case where the name Alex Rader was mentioned. It’s not a totally uncommon name. I told him we’d get back to him if we had anything linking our case to their Alex Rader.”

  “It’s probably nothing. I’m more interested in finding Michael Rader. Any luck there?”

  Ronnie finds a photo on her phone, a face shot of a man, forty to fifty years old, craggy features, dark hair and eyes that look evil. “This guy was a corrections officer.”

  All I was able to find out was that Alex Rader had a younger brother, Michael. I only saw a photo of him in a news article.

  “He was last at the men’s correctional facility in Monroe,” she says.

  “Where is he now?”

  “He moved six months ago. I haven’t been able to find out where. I didn’t want to call the prison without talking to you first.”

  “How did you find out he moved?”

  “I checked utility companies around Monroe,” Ronnie says. “I got an old address but there were no bills for the last six months. I assume he had the utilities turned off.”

  Thirty-Eight

  Michael Rader is in the wind. To find him I’d need Sheriff Gray’s help. He could call the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office and check Michael out. The Monroe Correctional Complex is in that county. But to do that Sheriff Gray will want to know why I’m interested. I don’t want to tell him more about my past.

  I doubt he would have hired me if he knew everything about me. I know I wouldn’t. I think that’s because, deep
down, I feel like a fraud. Dr. Albright warned me that it would be a lifelong battle and I might never fully believe that I am a good person but that the sins of my past don’t define me.

  Maybe I’m wrong about Michael Rader. Maybe the sins of his past don’t define him. I’m sure he killed Kim Mock in prison, but he did it to protect his brother. He threatened Monique Delmont and got all the evidence I had given her against his scumbag brother. The evidence proving Alex was a serial killer. He must have found Marie’s body after I killed her. I don’t know how he could have known about me unless Marie or Alex told him about my mother and about Alex being my father.

  “I’ll talk to the sheriff,” I say. “He knows the Snohomish County Sheriff and can get more information than we can.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Call Mr. Bridges again. The guy from the victims’ advocacy group. See if he can remember anyone in particular that Mrs. Delmont talked about.” I’m hoping he mentions the names Blume and Moriarty. I want to get into those cases and find the dead girls’ parents again. I want to see if they’ve also had hang-up calls. Part of the evidence Michael Rader took from Monique were pictures of their murdered daughters.

  Ronnie hurries off and I take a deep breath before knocking on Sheriff Gray’s door.

  “Come in,” he says, and I can hear a desk drawer closing.

  When I enter, I can smell hamburgers and onions. I’m sure if I look in his drawer there will be a greasy bag full of the stuff. He’s got a smudge on his chin. I don’t point it out. Who am I to judge? His wife does enough of that to the point he has to hide his food like an alcoholic hides his bottles. Burger-aholic. That’s him.