by Gregg Olsen
“It’s her,” Kendall said.
“Yes.”
“God, I’ll have to tell Erwin and Joe. They’ll want to know how she died. Can you tell?”
Birdy pointed to a vent-like opening on the right side of the charred neck.
“She was stabbed in the neck. Looks like one clean wound. I’ll check the lungs of course, but I’ll bet you lunch that she died quickly and the fire was a cover-up.”
“Like Juliana?”
“Yes, the cover-up part. Seems like our favorite serial killer likes to mix it up a little when it comes to the killing part. Strangled Juliana, and Janie got a knife in the throat.”
“Call me when you’re done, Birdy. I’m going to go see Erwin now. I don’t want him to find out from the media that Janie’s body’s been found. Let me know if you turn up anything more.”
Birdy nodded and went back to her work. She did everything she needed to do. It was a lot harder to conduct an autopsy with a badly burned victim. The flesh didn’t yield. The liquid in the body had dried and tox reports were more of a challenge. She took her time, letting Stan Getz take her on the journey of what the body could tell her. A couple of hours later, she was done. Photos taken. Janie rebuilt the best she could. Her melted bra, pants, and a keychain and some change in her pockets. All of it bundled up for the final report.
Cause of death: Homicide. Manner: A single wound to the neck.
The look in his eyes told Kendall that she was too late. Erwin Thomas had already heard the news.
“A reporter from the Sun called and wanted a statement.”
“I’m so sorry,” Kendall said. “I didn’t want that to happen. Not at all.”
“Come in,” he said, letting her inside. “I thought it would end like this anyway. In fact, it probably sounds awful but I hoped it would. I couldn’t ever trust her again. I couldn’t be the husband sitting by her side at the trial. It would have dragged on for a couple of years with no real endgame.”
He led Kendall to the kitchen.
“Does Joe know?”
“He’s not up yet. Late night, I guess. I’ll tell him.”
“That’ll be hard, Erwin.”
“I know. But we’ve talked a lot about his mother. Things about her life that he didn’t know. I’m not ever going to defend her, but there are probably reasons why she ended up the way she did.” He stopped and offered Kendall water. “Ran out of coffee. Janie used to do all of our shopping.”
“I’m really sorry about all of this,” Kendall said.
“I know. But it isn’t your fault. She didn’t run off because of you. I’ve read the papers. I’ve seen the TV. I know that you had some kind of connection with Brenda too.”
Kendall didn’t like the sound of that.
“Let’s be clear. I didn’t have any connection with Brenda Nevins. I interviewed her for a case. That’s it.”
“Yes, but she was fixated on you. At least that’s what the papers say.”
“The papers are wrong. You should know that better than anyone by now.”
“I guess so. Anyway, I don’t really care anymore. Joe will want to know how his mom died. Do you know? I heard she was burned alive.”
“No,” Kendall said, still bothered by the notion that Brenda and she were connected in any way. “She died before the fire.”
“How? How was she killed?”
“She’d been stabbed. I’m sorry.”
“Was it prolonged?”
Kendall couldn’t tell if Erwin was interested from a forensic point of view or if he’d been hopeful that Janie had suffered.
“No, it was quick.”
He nodded. “I guess that’s a blessing.”
Kendall was unsure if he was saying the right thing just to say it, or if he’d been a little disappointed.
“You’ll catch her, won’t you, Detective?”
“The world is after her. She can’t hide forever. Despite the lore that’s being forged by the media right now, she’s not that smart.”
Erwin nodded and got up from his chair. “I want to show you something before you go.” She followed him back to the living room where he retrieved a single sheet of paper.
“I gave a copy to the FBI,” he said. “I found it in Janie’s things. None of it matters now. Now that she’s dead.”
Kendall took the paper and started to read.
All my life I’ve been running from the past. What was done to me by those who said they loved me.
I wonder if it is possible that there could be a genuine attraction between disparate, disenfranchised people—people who share a common bond yet have nothing in common.
I’m drawn to her only because she seems to understand me in a way that my husband and son never could. I’ve had all of this locked inside for the longest time. I feel my resistance is weakening every day and that I might find myself doing something that could change the course of the rest of my life. I find myself wanting to let go. Abdicate my power. Even be dominated by a kindred spirit, someone who can take me places I’ve never dreamed of going.
Kendall looked up from the paper. Erwin had moved across the room and was facing out the window.
“Was she writing about Brenda?” she asked, going closer to where he stood.
Janie’s husband didn’t turn around. He kept his eyes on the small grove of swaying birch trees in the yard.
“I guess so,” he said. “Hard to say for sure. It wasn’t addressed to anyone. The FBI agent said she thought so.”
“I’m sorry,” Kendall said.
Erwin rolled his shoulders a little. “You’ve said that a couple of times today already.”
He was right.
“I have. None of what happened is about you, Erwin.”
“I’ve tried to believe that,” he said, at last allowing some emotion to seep into his words. “But when I read that note, I realized that I never knew how unhappy my wife of twenty-five years had been. I’d been blind to her suffering. That makes me feel stupid. Like crap. It dawned on me that I didn’t really know her at all.”
Kendall felt the same way about Steven. She didn’t know how he could just move away for a job. Leave her. Leave Cody. She thought that they were solid. Forever. Over the last few weeks she began to wonder if they’d be able to find what they once had.
“No one knows what’s inside another person’s mind,” she said.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
At first he didn’t know what to think. Wyatt Ogilvie looked at the wad of cash he’d discovered in Pandora’s travel bag. He’d had no business going there, but he needed some headache pills—or something stronger—and there it was: $20,000 in crisp, sweet-smelling thousand dollar bills.
He fanned it like a Vegas dealer and looked in the mirror. He wondered where it came from and, more important, if he was going to get a share. He had his eye on a new Armani suit and some Porsche eyeglass frames that made him look both cool and sophisticated.
Why hadn’t she said anything?
Pandora was on the phone talking to someone when he returned from his accidental treasure hunt in the bathroom.
“Oh yes. That sounds good. Will Nan be there for makeup? I’m not doing it without decent makeup. My face looked flat as a pancake the last time I was beamed into America’s breakfast rooms.”
She listened.
Wyatt stood there, hovering over her with a slight glower on his face.
“. . . If the car is late, I’ll panic. I don’t like to be late for anything.”
She hung up.
“What’s gotten in to you? You look like you’re going to hurl. God, I can’t catch a bug now.”
“I am sick,” he said.
“Did you want me to call the hotel doctor?” she asked.
Wyatt knew her well enough to see the practiced concern she had on her face whenever she used it on show, mostly aimed at the parent of a missing child. It was a phony as a three-dollar bill. The thought brought him back to the real bills, the $20,000 that
had raised his hackles. He squeezed the wad of cash in his palm, hidden from view.
“No doctor,” he said. “He wouldn’t know the cure for being double-crossed.”
Pandora’s face tightened.
“I don’t get your meaning, Wyo,” she said. “What’s bugging you now?”
“Pandy, where’d you get this?” he asked, holding out the money.
Her face relaxed. “Oh, that,” she said like it was nothing. “I forgot to mention it to you. I got it from Brit.”
Wyatt could feel his blood pressure rise. “You told me she gave you five thousand dollars,” he said.
She didn’t go as far as yawning, like she was bored, but the look on her face was one of complete dismissal.
“I don’t think I ever said that,” she said.
“You did.”
“I really don’t think so, but maybe. A lot has been going on this week. A lot on my mind. I’m sorry, babe. The usual split, okay?”
He sat on the chair opposite Pandora. The view looked out at the city. She reached over and patted his hand.
“I would never cheat you,” she said. “We are partners, babe. Everything we do, we do together.”
Wyatt sat there, very still, thinking, knowing that he’d been had.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t know that I trust you anymore.” He watched her reaction. She had none. Not that he could really discern. That was unusual. Pandora was always an eager emoter.
“Who was that you were talking to just now?” he asked.
Pandora ran her fingers through her hair and applied a fresh coat of her trademark dark red lipstick—the hue that haters online said looked like she’d been punched in the mouth.
“Which she totally deserves . . .”
“A producer,” she said. “They want us to do the Today Show.”
“When?”
“I didn’t commit. I don’t think we should do Today. They are number two and I am top-tier talent.”
He noticed the omission and his face telegraphed it.
“We are,” she said. “We are a duo. I won’t make a move until we discuss it further.”
“I don’t believe you,” he finally said. He’d seen her work people before. He wasn’t blind. No matter what she thought of herself, Wyatt Ogilvie was absolutely certain that she would never be Emmy-worthy.
Her face turned to granite. “Wyo, you are being so ridiculous and I don’t like it one bit. It makes me feel uncomfortable. When I’m uncomfortable I can’t do my job. You know that.”
He did. She was worse than the most demanding ’80s band when it came to her requirements for a shoot. Four bottles of Pellegrino—nothing else—and pity the poor assistant producer who delivered Aquafina. That kid was working as a weather assistant in Sioux Falls. She needed bedsheets of 800 count in her hotel room, a request that was no problem at a place like the W. But in the middle of Alabama farm country, the local Comfort Inn had no idea what 800 thread count meant. She also needed a bottle of Dom, chilled and ready, alongside a welcome basket of black grapes and nectarines.
Wyatt needed her more than she needed him. Nothing was more clear to him. Pandora was making things happen and if he was able to hang on for the ride he’d manage to fill his closet with Armanis.
“I know this has been a hard shoot for you,” he said.
“It has. I looked terrible in the footage.”
“I meant Juliana. I know you two were close.”
She looked out the window. “Yes. I’m sick about what happened to her. I’ve been trying to grab something that is passing through my mind. About what happened.”
The real deal.
“What have you been getting?” he asked.
“I don’t know. You know how I’ve told you that things are sometimes so dark and grainy that I can’t quite make out what’s going on.”
He’d heard that a thousand times before. Whenever Pandora missed his cues, the research that he’d done to lead her where she needed to go, she complained that things were grainy.
“I’m so damn frustrated,” she once screamed at him on a show. “I can see it. I can almost see it. Someone is trying to show me something!”
“Were you really going to give me the money?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“Is there any more to be had?”
“Oh, babe, there’s always more. Remember Wheeling?”
Of course he did. The father of a dead mother of three pleaded poverty and offered her a $2,000 check for a private consultation. He was adamant that his daughter’s husband had killed her.
Pandora looked at the check.
“Two things,” she said. “I don’t do checks. I also don’t even turn around for less than five thousand dollars.”
“I don’t have it,” the distraught father said.
Pandora shrugged. “Then you’ll never know what happened to her,” she said.
His eyes flashed, puddled with tears. “Are you holding some information hostage?” he asked. “That isn’t right.”
Pandora ignored the man’s frustration, his genuine emotion. His complete despair.
“What isn’t right is your being so cheap when it comes to your dead daughter,” she said. “Honestly, sir, don’t waste any more of my time. Move along. Get on with your life.”
“But I don’t have any more money.”
She was in predator mode just then. Wyatt had seen it before when she got the assistant producer fired for bringing her the wrong brand of water.
“I don’t drink water from any damn spring in California! What are you trying to do to me? Poison me?”
Pandy the Predator.
“Sell something,” she said to the girl’s father. “I don’t care. I’m not a charity. The truth might set you free, but the truth sometimes comes with a price tag.”
The man pulled it together. He would not cry. He would not beg. He gave in.
“All right. I’ll get you the money.”
“When?” she pushed.
“Now. I have it in my safe.”
Pandora shook her head and her eyes met Wyatt’s.
“I don’t like being deceived,” she said, without even the slightest trace of irony in her voice.
Wyatt replayed that moment in his head. He’d seen what she could do. He’d known she was one step above the criminals he’d apprehended when he was a detective in San Francisco. There were times when he hated her. Times when he couldn’t wait to be with her. But there was never a time when he trusted her completely.
“Are we good?” she asked.
“Solid,” he said. “Solid as a rock.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
It’s a five-hour drive from Port Orchard to Spokane, long enough to justify a plane ticket, but Kendall decided that she needed the time alone to process everything that had been going on. The drive would do her good. She arranged for a sitter to take Cody to school and pick him up.
“I’ll be home late,” she said.
“Butter noodles?” the young woman asked.
Cody liked one thing. Make that two. Popcorn and butter noodles.
“Grate some cheese on top. He needs more protein and he’s doing a good job of expanding his horizons.”
She kissed her sleeping son goodbye and headed out in the dawn of a new day. Seagulls hovered over the inlet in front of her house in Harper and she caught the second boat out of Southworth, grateful that it didn’t include a stop at Vashon Island—an inconvenience that irritated many leaving the Kitsap Peninsula. She listened to the news as she looked over the bow of the boat as it chugged across Puget Sound to the dock in West Seattle. She thought of that first date with Steven so many years ago. They took his car over to a concert in Seattle, but it broke down and they had to hitch a ride back. They’d laughed about it back then. Today, busy as everyone is, there was no time for the unexpected. Every moment had to be programmed to the nth degree.
She longed for Steven to come home.
It was too early to call him, so she texted a short note.
Going to Spokane to work cold case. Cody’s with Marsha. Missing you.
She pushed SEND.
As the cars rumbled off over the pier deck, she thought of all that had happened in the past few days. Katy’s case had been supplanted by Juliana’s. Juliana’s had been supplanted by the drama of the disappearace of Brenda Nevins and Janie Thomas from the prison. In the wake of all the tragedy, the murders, the fire, the horrible Spirit Hunters TV show, there was the distinct feeling that the world was spinning out of control.
Her world too.
Kendall got on the interstate and absorbed the glorious view of Seattle’s skyline, the football and baseball stadiums, and drove east, thinking of everything and nothing at the same time. Everything had been smudged, blurred, altered. She crossed over the mountain pass at Snoqualmie and the landscape shifted from green Douglas firs to the burnished brown grasslands and verdant farmlands of the eastern half of the state. She filled her SUV’s tank at Vantage, a truck stop, convenience store, and restaurant perched on the bluff over the mighty Columbia River.
Nick Mayberry was sitting in the Peacock Lounge at the historic Davenport Hotel. He drank coffee and nervously swirled his spoon in the cup. He was almost fifty with a slight paunch and thinning hair punctuated by white sidewalls. Nick wore a jacket over a uniform, concealing his profession from the casual observers in the bar. Overhead, a magnificent stained glass peacock loomed.
“More coffee, Nicky?” the waitress asked.
He indicated his cup. “Thanks, Carla.”
“You okay?” she asked. “You seem, I dunno, sort of distracted. You waiting on someone?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“You’re not Internet dating again? You know that only brings out the losers and the pretenders.”
“No,” he said. “I’m waiting for someone from the coast.”
Those who lived on the eastern side of the state always referred to the western side as “the coast” no matter if the town was a hundred miles inland. Anything on the other side of the Cascades was “the coast.”
