The Butcher

by Jennifer Hillier

  Edward smiled. “For me, it’s where the work is.”

  She smiled back. “Truck driver?”

  “Salesman.”

  She seemed satisfied with that. “Quarter for the juke box, Ed?”

  He fished one out and handed it to her. She took the coin, her fingers grazing his a little longer than was necessary. He felt a small tingle of pleasure. She would do just fine.

  A moment later Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” came over the loudspeakers. Agatha was back, standing in front of him, swaying hips that still needed time to develop into the curves she was destined to one day have.

  But, of course, wouldn’t.

  “Dance with me, Ed.”

  He took her hand and eased off his bar stool, allowing her to lead him to the tiny dance floor. There were maybe a dozen people in the bar. Edward had never been here before, and would never come here again after tonight, and so he was pleased he’d picked a good spot. The lighting was extremely dim, the air permeated with cigarette smoke. A man and a woman in their early thirties huddled in the corner, kissing furiously. An affair, clearly. The rest of the patrons were middle-aged men, drinking alone or in pairs, bleary-eyed and world-weary and not paying any attention to the man dancing with a girl who looked young enough to be his granddaughter.

  Aggie moved up against him, her narrow hips thrusting against his thighs. She was so petite he could see the top of her head. Her hair was freshly washed and smelled like Head & Shoulders. Her sticky-sweet perfume reminded him of birthday cake. Skinny arms circled his waist. He moved a little to the music. She moved a lot.

  A minute later, she looked up. “You like me, don’t you, Ed?”

  “I most certainly do.”

  “I can tell.” Her flat stomach pressed against his crotch. “I can feel it.”

  “Can’t help it. You’re a beautiful girl.”

  She smiled. “Want to hang out somewhere else?” She pulled him down so her lips were at his ear. “I’m not expensive. I know a place where we can be alone. I do everything. And I mean everything.” She wiggled her butt, and her hot breath on his neck sent another tingle up his spine.

  “How much for a few hours?” he said.

  She pulled back to look up into his face, her smile growing wider. “A few hours? Serious?”

  He nodded.

  “Like . . . gee . . . like . . . two hundred?”

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  Her surprise and glee were obvious. She bounced a little, grabbing his hand again. It was undoubtedly the most money she’d make all week. “We’ll take the back way out.”

  There was a door to the left of the dance floor with a big EXIT sign overhead. Edward followed her out, sneaking a quick glance over his shoulder before stepping through to the fresh air outside. Nobody was watching them. The bartender was busy chatting up an older woman who’d just come in. The way she was dressed, she could have been Agatha in twenty-five years.

  Sorry, he meant Aggie. That’s what her friends called her, and they were about to become very good friends.

  “Hey, Aggie,” Edward said once they were outside. “My car’s just parked over there. Why don’t we go for a drive? It’ll be more comfortable.”

  She hesitated. “There’s a motel just—”

  “Motel?” Edward frowned. “I don’t want to hang out with you in a motel room. Too claustrophobic, and I think I might want you all night now. I was thinking we could go grab some food, go for a drive, find a romantic spot.”

  She giggled.

  “I have plenty of money,” he said.

  “Lemme see.”

  He pulled out his wallet, fat with cash, and opened it so she could take a look.

  Satisfied, she said, “What kind of food?”

  Bingo. “Anything you want. I’m hungry. Aren’t you?”

  “A little.”

  “Burgers and fries sound good?”

  Her eyes lit up, and in that moment, he saw the little child in her. Something inside him stirred. “Okay.”

  He drove to a McDonald’s twenty minutes away, farther south, closer to Lynnwood. Aggie sat in the front seat with her Big Mac in both small hands. She was eating like she was starving, which she probably was. The burger was polished off in three minutes, and she started to go to work on the fries. One hand fiddled with the radio dial.

  “Oh, I love this song,” she said. “Mind if I turn it up?”

  He shrugged and she jacked up the volume dial. Linda Ronstadt’s clear voice melted out of the speakers as she sang about the blue bayou. Aggie joined in, and Edward was surprised to hear that she was a decent singer. Good timing, impressive range, maybe a little thin in the higher registers, but nothing that training wouldn’t be able to help. Mind you, it was Marisol who had the real ear—his wife would have been able to confirm whether the girl had any real potential—but Edward thought Aggie did. Her young, sweet voice filled the car and he didn’t mind it at all.

  Glancing at her sideways, in the dark like this . . . she could almost pass for Lucy.

  He made a right turn, heading off I-5 and onto a smaller road that at this time of night appeared to lead to nowhere.

  “Where are we going?” Aggie had stopped singing. A french fry dangled in one hand. She peered through the windshield, but other than the winding road, there was nothing much to see.

  “Taking a shortcut,” Edward said.

  “But there’s nothing out this way. Just forest.”

  “I know. My friend has a cabin out this way. Hope I can find it. It’ll be a bit of a drive, so you should just relax until we get there.” Edward smiled sideways at her. “It’s pretty, you’ll see. Has a fireplace and everything.”

  “Can’t see nothin’ right now.” She settled back in her seat and popped the french fry into her mouth. “I don’t care where we go. I just have to be back before it gets light out, at the latest. I have to get my little brother ready for school.”

  “I’ll make sure you are. I have a camera. You’re so beautiful, I was thinking we could take some pictures.”

  She smiled. “It’s extra for pictures, and I’ll need the money up front.” She placed a hand on his arm as if to soften her words. “But I promise you we’ll have a really good time.”

  “I don’t doubt that at all, Aggie. I’ll pay you when we get there. I’ll even throw in an extra hundred.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I like you,” he said. “And I want to help you. Who knows, if this goes well, maybe we can make this a regular thing whenever I pass through every month.”

  That seemed to please her. “Every month?”

  “Yep.”

  “Wowza!” she said, lifting her arms up over her head. Her french fries spilled over onto her lap. “Oh, oops. I’m so sorry.” She started plucking them back up quickly, her eyes darting to his face to gauge his reaction. “I didn’t mean to spill. Gosh, I’m so sorry.”

  Poor little thing. Beaten at home, hooking at fifteen. She really didn’t stand a chance.

  Really, he was doing her a favor.

  “It’s okay, Aggie,” he said in his most soothing voice. “You’ll make it up to me.”

  “Promise I will. Once we get to the cabin. I’ll do anything you want, Ed.”

  Of course she would. They always did.

  Four hours later he was on his way back to Seattle, all traces of Agatha removed from his car.

  He turned up the radio, still at the Top 40 station Agatha had left it at. Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf” came on.

  Mouth is alive, with juices like wine

  And I’m hungry like the wolf

  Fitting.

  He opened his eyes when his seatmate drove another elbow into his ribs.

  “All right, everyone, we’re here.” Kyla Murray’s sweet voice carried easily from the front of the bus. “Wake up.”

  Edward sat up straighter and blinked, disappointed to be jolted back to reality. The 1980s had been his favorite decade, by far, and he
felt a small sense of loss as the memories of Aggie faded away.

  The Sweetbay Village activities director, however, was not a bad consolation prize for being forced back into the present. She was standing at the front of the bus with her clipboard in hand, her bright blue Village golf shirt straining against her ample breasts. Edward felt a stirring in his groin at the sight of her, and looked down, almost hopeful.

  Dammit. Nothing today. Not like the other day, with the loose end, Joyce.

  “I’ll hand you your buffet coupons as you exit the bus. Remember to go and register for a Player’s Club card if you don’t already have one because you can earn points for your next visit. We’ll meet back here at the front entrance at six p.m. You all have my cell phone number if you need me.”

  Donald Martini was still snoring beside him, and it was finally Edward’s turn to drive an elbow into the man’s ribs. He did it a little harder than necessary, and the man awoke with a jolt.

  Stepping off the bus, Edward took a moment to breathe in the fresh air. Everyone else filed straight into the casino, chattering excitedly like monkeys, the women clutching their purses close as they tended to do.

  Edward accepted his coupon from Kyla with a smile and stuffed it into his pocket. He waited until she was busy talking to Donald Martini behind him, who was peppering her with dumb questions, probably just so he could stare at her tits. Not that anyone could blame him.

  And then, instead of following the herd into the casino, Edward turned and made a right.

  Time to find a girl for some fun.

  17

  The Green Bean was situated in the heart of Sweetbay, not far from Matt’s house. It was probably Sam’s favorite coffee shop, because the coffee beans were ground to order and the pastries were made in-house every morning. Since quitting her day job to write full-time, she had become quite the connoisseur of coffee shops.

  At the moment, however, her latte and cheese Danish were the last thing on her mind. Pausing her iTunes playlist, she yanked out her earbuds, hardly able to believe what she was reading online. The Seattle Times had just uploaded a new article with the headline BODY FOUND IN MARYSVILLE, SECOND BODY FOUND IN SEATTLE AREA.

  In the first paragraph, a hiker had discovered the body of a young female in a densely wooded area in north Marysville earlier that morning. The male hiker was Marty Stephanopoulos, age fifty-two, of Marysville. He had veered off the trail to “answer the call of nature,” as he put it, and had been shocked to discover a dead female body lying barely three feet away. The young woman’s identity had not been released, which told Sam that the victim was likely under the age of eighteen. Stephanopoulos was quoted as saying, “I was midstream when I saw her lying there under a pile of leaves. I totally freaked out.” Foul play was “strongly apparent,” and the police had ruled it a homicide.

  The second paragraph went on to report that another body, also female, was found in a parking lot behind a Mexican restaurant in the Capitol Hill neighborhood in Seattle. The police weren’t releasing her identity, as her next of kin had not yet been located, but the article stated she was forty-five years old and a resident of the state of California. The police had also ruled her death a homicide.

  Spokespersons for both the Seattle and Marysville police departments confirmed that there was no reason to think the murders were related.

  Taking a deep breath, Sam read the article one more time, her brain going a mile a minute.

  Was it possible that the second victim, the older female, was Bonnie Tidwell?

  Sam hadn’t heard from the woman since she’d dropped her off at her motel the other night. Sam had given Bonnie her phone number and mailing address, and had invited her to have dinner at Matt’s restaurant if Bonnie was able to make the time before heading back to Sacramento. Things had been tense between them, but Sam was hoping the woman would change her mind about opening up.

  But Bonnie had never called. And as Sam had told Sanchez the previous day, the older woman had checked out of the Sixth Avenue Inn that morning.

  A shiver passed through her and Sam buttoned up her cardigan, even though the Green Bean was a little warm. She hated to bother the detective, but she didn’t see what choice she had but to call him. If she didn’t, this would bug her all night. She finished off her Danish and then reached for her phone. But before she could scroll for his number, it rang.

  “How weird, I was just about to call you,” Sam said. “What timing.”

  “Bet I know why.” Detective Robert Sanchez’s voice was grim. “Is it because you haven’t heard from Bonnie Tidwell?”

  “Oh shit,” Sam said, her heart beginning to race. “Don’t even tell me.”

  “You already know?”

  “Just tell me. Is she dead?”

  “Yes, she is.” Sanchez sounded both surprised and suspicious. “How did you know?”

  Sam sighed, taking a moment to process what Sanchez had just confirmed. Poor, poor Bonnie. “An article was just uploaded to the Seattle Times website. They mentioned a dead body, female, forty-five, from California.”

  Sanchez grunted. “At least they didn’t say her name. Or shit, did they?”

  “No, it said you were still trying to locate her family.” Sam rubbed her eyes, feeling the onset of a headache. “Bobby, I don’t understand. When did this happen? The article said she was stabbed behind some Mexican restaurant? I just saw her two days ago.”

  “She had a single wound to the chest. Medical examiner thinks it was likely made by an ice pick. Official cause of death is exsanguination.”

  “So she bled to death.” Sam closed her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, my sweet.”

  “Do they know who did it?”

  “We’re working on it.”

  Sam’s eyes widened. “It’s your case?”

  “Afraid so. When the call came in and they told me who it was, of course I asked for it. Did she ever tell you if she had kids, or a boyfriend? I can’t seem to find anyone, here or in California.”

  “She never had kids, she said. Just two ex-husbands. If she had a boyfriend, she didn’t mention it to me.” Taking a few seconds to compose herself, she said, “The other murder isn’t related?”

  “The one in Marysville? No, I just talked to the detective working the case up there, and it doesn’t seem like it. He said that the victim is a seventeen-year-old high school dropout from Everett. She lived in a rental house up in Tulalip, fairly close to the casino, with seven other people, all about her age. Not sure if she was into drugs but it wouldn’t surprise me. No record, worked part-time at Walmart, and when she wasn’t working, she hung out a lot at the Wheels Go Round truck stop diner off I-5. Her boyfriend works there as a fry cook, and he’s older. Like thirty.”

  “Yikes, that’s pretty old to be dating a teenager. Did Marysville PD talk to the boyfriend?”

  “Of course, but he was working at the diner the whole day, and multiple witnesses have confirmed it. He definitely didn’t do it.”

  “Okay, and what else did the detective say?”

  “Not much. Someone remembers seeing her talking to a homeless man and then leaving with him after a few minutes. She never came back to the diner. Boyfriend called the cops last night when she wouldn’t return any of his calls, but they didn’t follow up on it because she wasn’t considered a missing person yet. They found her body this morning, but she’d been dead for at least fifteen hours. She’d been raped with some kind of blunt object, could have been a baseball bat, but they’re not sure. Cause of death was strangulation.”

  “Did he penetrate her, too?”

  “The ME says it’s hard to tell, but possibly not,” Sanchez said. “No fluids were found in or around her vagina or anus.”

  Sam shuddered. She was a visual person and it took effort not to picture what the detective had just described to her. That poor, poor girl. Nobody deserved to die like that. Nobody.

  “So they think the homeless man might have done it?” she finally said.r />
  “They’re looking for him, but they haven’t found him yet. The homeless guy, he’s in his fifties, and apparently he’s a regular at the truck stop, and around Marysville in general, so they’ll catch up to him soon if they haven’t already. He does a lot of odd jobs, holds up signs on street corners for some of the local businesses, that kind of thing. Apparently he never bothered anyone, though.”

  “Maybe he was paid to lure her out.”

  “That’s definitely possible.” He hesitated. “Listen, Samantha, there’s one other thing, but if I tell you, it stays between you and me. This info hasn’t been released yet. I’m not even sure if I should tell you because I know what you’re going to say.”

  “Tell me.” Her breath stopped.

  “The victim’s hand was chopped off. Fairly cleanly, below the wrist.”

  Sam froze. “The left or the right?”

  “The left.”

  “Oh God. The Butcher—”

  “We’re not going to have this discussion right now, okay? We can talk about it more later when I see you in person. But yeah, let’s just say I’m starting to think you might not be totally off base.” Sanchez sounded muffled, as if he was covering the receiver with his mouth, which he probably was.

  Holy crap, did he actually believe her? She was almost afraid to hope. “Then when are we seeing each other?”

  “At some point you’ll have to come in and make an official statement about Bonnie/Joyce. It’s possible you were the last person to see her alive other than her killer. But it doesn’t have to be today, since we’ve already talked.”

  “You don’t want me to come now?”

  “No, I’m too swamped. I’m working on a couple of different things, and I’m actually going to see your boyfriend in a little bit.”

  “You’re going to see Matt?” Sam was surprised. “About what?”

  “The parents of one of his employees filed a missing persons report,” Sanchez said. “His name is PJ Wu. You know him?”

  “Of course I know PJ.” Sam’s mouth hung open for a moment. “He’s missing? Matt never mentioned it.”

  “I’m sure he’s been busy. I know the feeling. I wouldn’t normally do a missing persons case, but the detective who caught it recognized Adobo as Matt’s restaurant and knew that I knew you guys. I offered to go talk to the staff there, though I’m now wondering why. I got too much going on.”