by Gregg Olsen
“You look like hell,” he says.
I try to perk up. I don’t do a good job of it.
“Sheriff, I need your help with this case,” I tell him. I shut the door behind me and take a seat across from his desk.
“You’re biting your nails again, Megan. What’s wrong?”
I take my finger away from my mouth and wipe it on my slacks. I grip my hands in my lap and take another deep breath. I don’t know how much I should tell him. I don’t know what to tell him. I don’t know because I might walk out of here in handcuffs.
He beats me to the punch. “This is to do with the picture I gave you, isn’t it?”
I can feel my eyes water and I don’t want to cry. I really like this man. I love my job. I love that I’m making a difference. Helping victims. Getting justice. Maybe in the form of vengeance, but justice all the same.
I nod. “I need to tell you some things. I hope you don’t hate me when I’m through. The picture you gave me is me when I was sixteen. I was going to high school in Port Orchard.”
He doesn’t say anything. I notice some hamburger grease around his mouth and I know I’m deliberately distracting myself. I take another breath.
“I’m not going to quit this case,” I say.
He nods. He knows he’s not going to stop me.
“I’m being stalked by a man named Michael Rader.”
Having said it out loud feels like a weight taken off my chest.
He doesn’t ask why. He says, “What can I do to help? I assume this guy is part of your investigation.”
His offer knocks me down. I expected him to take me off the case a long time ago. But he knows what this means to me. I tell him about Michael Rader’s visit to Monique’s house several years ago. I tell him of the threat he made to kill her daughter, Gabrielle, and her grandson. He doesn’t ask how I know this but I’m sure he will someday.
“Are you sure it’s him?” he asks.
“I had a kind of date with Dan Anderson a couple nights ago. Dan had both pictures. The one of me leaving here and the older one from high school. He said someone left them in the mailbox at his cabin. They were the same pictures you have.”
“Do you think Dan is in danger?”
“I don’t know. Can we spare anyone to keep an eye on him?” I ask.
“And you don’t want Dan to know about it. Am I right?”
“He’s already pretty pissed at me because I wouldn’t tell him anything. If someone could just keep a loose watch on him, it would be great.”
“I’ll get a car out there.”
I can breathe again. This is going better than I thought.
“Dr. Andrade said he found a chemical substance in Monique’s system. A paralytic agent. He can’t identify it yet. He thinks she may have been drugged and was alive when they did that to her.” I can’t say the words. I don’t want the mental image again.
“Yang is working on it?” he asks.
“Right. And the coffee mug with lipstick we found in Monique’s house matches the DNA of the victim. The DNA sample we took from Gabrielle matches, too, so we can now say it’s definitely Monique Delmont.”
I feel myself tear up again. I wonder if I’m doing the right thing here. Maybe I should beg off the case and let someone not emotionally involved investigate. The answer is no. I can’t even if I wanted to.
“You think this Michael Rader is a good enough suspect to have him picked up?”
“Not yet,” I say. I don’t want him to know I’m coming for him. I don’t want anyone to know what I did to his family. I don’t want him found.
Ever.
“But there are some other things I didn’t tell you about Monique.”
“I’m listening,” he says, getting the bag of hamburgers out of the drawer. He offers me one. I gobble it down before continuing. It may be my last meal.
Thirty-Nine
I go back in the office and round Ronnie up and head to the car. I didn’t ask Sheriff Gray to contact the sheriff of Snohomish County just yet. I’m afraid Michael will still have friends in the area that might tip him off that I’m looking for him. The good-old-boy network.
Now that I’ve put most of it out there for the sheriff, I’m not so worried about questions of how I know any of this.
“Where are we going?” Ronnie asks, getting in the car.
I start the engine and a thick cloud of smoke belches out of the tailpipe. “First, tell me what Mr. Bridges said.”
She takes out her ever-handy notebook with its fancy leather cover and flips to a page she’s marked. “He gave me some names. Most are recent victims’ families.”
“I want to hear the ones that are three or more years old.”
“Okay.” She flips some more pages. “Monique’s daughter, Leanne, was murdered—”
“I know about that one,” I say a little too quickly.
“Did you know she didn’t believe the guy they caught was the killer?”
“I may have known that,” I lie.
“Did you know that she thought two other murders were tied to her daughter’s murder?”
I act surprised. “Two others?”
“A girl named Shannon Blume and a Megan Moriarty, both sixteen when they died.”
“Did you look them up?” I am hoping she did.
“I’ve got the case number for each, the parents’ information and the names of the detectives working the cases. Both cases happened almost twenty years ago. Right around the same time as Leanne Delmont.”
“Where?”
“All in King County. Including Leanne.”
“Who were the detectives?” I ask, like I don’t know. “Are they still around?” I know we can’t talk to him.
“A Sheriff’s Office detective. Alex Rader.” She says this with emphasis.
“The same Alex Rader that they think killed his wife? What was her name?”
“Marie Rader,” ever-ready Ronnie says. “She was wheelchair-bound. He’s the one who disappeared and was never heard from again. Don’t you think it’s odd that his brother has done a runner too?”
I agree. It only adds to my suspicion that Michael is our guy. “Do you have an address for Shannon Blume’s parents? Do you know if they still live there?”
She has the address already pulled up on GPS and I hear that grating robot voice give directions. We head that way.
As I drive I remember where I first heard the names Shannon Blume, Megan Moriarty and Leanne Delmont. After my stepfather was killed, I fled the house with Hayden and we discovered that I had a key to a safe-deposit box in a Seattle bank. In that box I found several envelopes. Letters, newspaper clippings and a gun. One of the envelopes was marked in my mom’s handwriting:
For my daughter’s eyes only.
Another was marked for Hayden:
For my son’s eyes only.
And it was in that letter to me that I found out the truth my mother had hidden from me until that day. I destroyed the letter, not wanting Hayden to ever know, but I remember it word for word.
Honey, I have lied to you. I lied because it was the only course of action to save you, save me, save Hayden.
She told me that the man we’d been running from our entire lives wasn’t some jilted boyfriend or a stalker. He was my real father. Alex Richard Rader. A police detective. A serial killer. He’d tried to kill my mother but she told me she was the victim who got away.
If you decide to try to find me alive—I know I can’t stop you—you will need to follow his trail. Look into the victims’ pasts to find me.
Two things stand out immediately, now, as I remember her letter. My mom wrote that I had seven days to find her. Seven days between when the victim was kidnapped and killed. The other thing is her words. Look into the victims’ pasts to find me. It’s as if she’s giving me clues to solve this case. Is she telling me there’s a deadline too? And should I look into Monique’s past or my own? I was a victim too. I was another one who got away.
&nbs
p; Forty
It’s a two-hour drive from Port Hadlock to Burien by way of the Bainbridge ferry. I originally found Don and Debra Blume’s address in a library. I searched the Internet for Leanne and Megan. I tried to find Alex but he was a ghost. Now Ronnie had the address from police reports of Shannon Blume’s death. The GPS guides us right to the house.
I pull up in front and it looks just as it did when I last visited. According to Ronnie’s search engine, Don and Debra Blume still reside here.
“What reason are we going to give for why we’re here?” Ronnie asks.
“I’ll take care of it. Just follow my lead.”
We go to the door and I ring the doorbell.
I hear someone inside saying, “Be right there.” Probably Mrs. Blume. I am right.
Mrs. Blume answers the door and she looks ten years older than I remember from a few years ago. I’ve changed my hair, gained a little weight, and I know she’ll mostly look at my badge. I’m still nervous that she’ll recognize me.
“Can I help you?” she asks.
“Mrs. Blume?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“I’m Detective Carpenter. This is Detective Marsh. We’re with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department. Can we ask you a couple of questions?”
“Of course. But excuse the house. I haven’t done any cleaning today. Come on in.”
She leads us into the same room where I pretended to be a reporter with the North Bend Courier doing a story on how people cope after a tragedy. She may have aged, but her house is still spotless. I don’t see a sign of her husband, Don.
“Is Mr. Blume here as well?” I ask.
She indicates for us to have a seat, but I continue to stand. Ronnie has her notebook out and ready.
“Mr. Blume isn’t here,” she says, without elaborating.
I don’t know if they’ve split up, he’s died or maybe he’s in rehab. It doesn’t really matter, as long as he wasn’t murdered.
“We hate to bother you, but we’re working on a burglary case.”
She looks around uneasily. “Not around here. We have very nice neighbors and I’ve never seen anyone suspicious.”
“Nothing to be concerned about, Mrs. Blume. We’re just checking out some phone numbers we found in a suspect’s cell phone. One of them is your number.”
Ronnie shows me the number on her notepad, but I have the number memorized. I tell Mrs. Blume the number and she looks shocked. I feel relieved. Probably no one has been here.
“That’s our phone number, but I haven’t been burglarized.”
“We know. We checked with your local authorities before coming out.”
That’s a lie, but it seems to settle her down. “Why don’t we have a seat?”
We all sit and the concerned look returns to her face.
“Mrs. Blume, the phone call only lasted ten seconds. It was probably misdialed. We still had to check with you personally to make sure you haven’t been getting suspicious calls. You know: people calling and hanging up, crank calls, that kind of stuff.”
“No. No. Not that I’m aware of. My husband used to sit on his phone and butt-dial people, but he hasn’t had a phone for quite a while now.”
“Can you tell me where your husband is?” I ask.
She looks at me in an odd way and I can see the flicker of a light coming on behind her thick glasses. I’ve changed my appearance but my voice hasn’t changed. “You don’t have to tell me. It’s not part of what we’re doing. I’m sorry.”
“No. I’ll tell you. He’s in a nursing home. It’s been over a year now. I wasn’t able to care for him anymore here.”
I don’t want to bring up the past, especially since she’s dealing with another tragedy. I can understand why she’s aged. But I need to know if Rader has been back.
“Mrs. Blume, do you have children?”
She recoils as if I’ve punched her in the stomach. “We did. Not anymore.”
“Mrs. Blume, I’m so sorry to bring back sad memories. But I have to ask if you’ve been contacted by anyone saying they are investigating that case?”
“Not for a long while. A detective came by and told me he was looking for someone pretending to be a reporter. I didn’t like his looks. I didn’t tell him anything and to this day I don’t think he was really a policeman.”
He was a serial killer, so her instincts were good. She’s still looking at me. I can see wheels turning. It’s time to end this. I hand her my card. “If anyone calls or comes by asking about that case, please call me.”
I have an idea. “Detective Marsh, can you pull up the picture of Rader?”
She does and shows it to Mrs. Blume.
“Have you ever seen this man before?” I ask.
She studies it. Looks up at me, not Ronnie. “Does this have something to do with the burglar?”
“Maybe,” I say. “Have you seen him before?”
“No. I’ve never seen this man. Is he dangerous?”
I’m already scaring the wits out of her, but I say, “We suspect this guy of doing home invasion burglaries. You know: pretends to be someone so they can get in your house. So please don’t let anyone inside that you aren’t sure of.”
She’s still looking at me in that odd way.
“We’re sorry to have bothered you,” I say, and we go to the front door and let ourselves out. I try not to run.
On the drive back to the Sheriff’s Office, I can’t stop thinking about how Dan and I left things. That’s the problem with having a relationship. I always avoided them until Caleb came along, and after he broke my heart I thought I was finished with them for good. Apparently not.
“Why don’t you call him?” Ronnie asks.
Why don’t you mind your own business? “Speaking of calling someone, why don’t you call Marley and see what he’s found on the drug from the autopsy?”
Forty-One
I get back to the office and on the computer. I search the Internet for Alex Rader, Michael Rader, Steve Jones, Kim Mock and Arnold Cantu. I print out everything I find.
Steve Jones, a homeless man, was found guilty of killing a complete stranger, Shannon Blume. He died, beaten to death, in prison. I didn’t find anything showing that Michael Rader was in that prison at that time, but he could have been.
Kim Mock was found guilty of killing his girlfriend, Megan Moriarty. He was stabbed to death in the chapel of the prison. Michael Rader is the one who found him. Now Michael Rader has done a runner.
Arnold Cantu, convicted serial killer, confessed to killing Leanne Delmont. He was confessing to a lot of murders. They believed him and the case was closed. Monique wasn’t sure they had the right man. She thought they’d done a cursory investigation.
Alex Rader was the investigator.
Now Monique Delmont, a woman who helped me over some very rough patches—who helped me become the woman I am—is brutally murdered. Anyone the Raders touch ends up dying. Technically, I’m a Rader. I’ve killed before.
Technically, Hayden is a Rader also. But he’s the kindest, gentlest boy—man now—that I’ve ever met. He’s had a very messed-up life, but he’s overcoming it. Without me. Maybe in spite of me. He’s been visiting our mother in prison, the one who betrayed us both and lies as easy as breathing, but his foster parents gave him a good role model and a good life.
Sheriff Gray has already left and I don’t think what I’ve found is worth calling him at home. I say good night to Ronnie. She’s going to meet Marley to get the results. He’s being bullheaded and won’t give them to her except in person. That’s not very professional for the supervisor of the crime lab. But he’s putting all my stuff in front of the line, so I won’t complain.
I put all the printer sheets in a folder to take home with me. I want to find the tape on Megan Moriarty. Ronnie has an address for Mr. Moriarty, her father, but I hesitate to talk to him again. He’s a letch but he seemed genuinely broken over the loss of his daughter. This case has been nothing but pain for me. A
nd for all the ones in the path of Hurricane Alex.
Dan hasn’t called. Not even to yell at me. On the way home, I drive by Dan’s shop downtown. The front of the building is all windows with stands displaying all of his carvings. No lights are on inside. His truck isn’t there unless it’s parked behind the building. I slow down and think of stopping. I don’t want these feelings. Just when I’m starting to get comfortable with the idea of dating, my past has to get in the way. He’s not from my past. Maybe not my future.
I make it home, park and watch the front of my house. I left the light on in the entryway and it was still lit. I make a mental note to buy lightbulbs and replace the whole damn bunch of them.
I look around before getting out and then look up and down the street. The usual cacophony of noise from people and a car down the street playing music.
I take my key out, draw my .45 from the shoulder holster and then try the door. It’s locked. I feel silly for having a gun in my hand to enter my own house. While I’ve got the gun out, I think of going down to the loud car and introducing myself. But I don’t. I don’t need to attract the attention.
Inside, I feel uneasy. The last couple of months have been hard on me. One murder after another, being shot, watching Ronnie get kidnapped, receiving emails from my stalker and now Monique brutalized by someone from my past. And there’s Hayden suddenly showing up and offering only a tiny hope of reconciliation. I don’t even know where he is or have a number to contact him. Maybe he’s safer staying away from me.
I’m almost one hundred percent sure my stalker and the killer are the same person: Michael Rader; but then, could it be someone else that Monique angered? I can’t count that out. And apparently she had mentioned Megan Moriarty and Shannon Blume to Mr. Bridges in the advocacy group. She talked about them enough for him to remember their names. There’s no telling what hornets’ nest she poked.
It’s still early. I hang my blazer in the closet. I shrug out of the shoulder holster and hang it on the back of the chair at my desk. I take all the research I brought home, spread it across the top of my bed and go back to the desk. The bottle of Scotch and a plastic tumbler are in a drawer with two packs of Cheetos. I have dinner.
