Victim Six

by Gregg Olsen

  After work, she parked her car in the lot behind the aptly named Pack Rat’s Hideaway and climbed the stairs to her daughter’s apartment and knocked.

  No answer.

  She pushed the bell.

  Again, nothing.

  She listened, and she could hear the sounds of a baby crying.

  “Tasha?”

  No answer.

  “Marissa!”

  A man wearing oil-soaked blue jeans and a red flannel shirt poked his head out of the apartment next door. His face was the picture of annoyance and anger, a pinched mouth and eyes that told Donna Solomon that a smart person wouldn’t mess with him.

  “Can you tell that ho to keep her kid quiet?” he asked. “Jesus, some of us have real jobs and need to get some shuteye. The kid’s been crying all night. Day and night. I don’t give a shit about the day, but I don’t like putting up with some brat squawking when I need to get some sleep. I get up at four a.m. Kid’s going all night.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll tell her,” Donna said, defusing the man’s anger with complete understanding.

  “You better. That’s what I say.”

  “I will. I said so.”

  “Fine. That bitch is a piece of work, you know.”

  Donna shot the man a cold stare. “Yes, I know, sir. That bitch, as you call her, is my daughter.”

  The man, slightly embarrassed, retreated into his apartment.

  Donna tilted her head and listened as the sound of a cry emanated from inside the apartment.

  “Marissa! Open up!”

  She jiggled the doorknob. Locked.

  The sound of the crying grew louder. With a surge of adrenaline—the type that turns a frightened mother or grandmother into Wonder Woman—Donna rammed her shoulder against the hollow-core door with such force she could feel the frame bend and break.

  And she nearly dislocated her shoulder in the process.

  “Marissa!”

  Once inside, Donna hurried into the expected disorder of the living room. If Donna kept a spotless home, her long-troubled daughter was the opposite. Things were never filthy, but nothing was put where it ought to be. Magazines and clothes were piled up on the coffee table in front of the TV. A bouquet of wilting red roses sat on the TV next to a small framed photo of Tasha.

  “Marissa?” Donna’s heart was thumping, and the pain in her shoulder nearly made her cry. Obviously something was very, very wrong. She hurried to the apartment’s sole bedroom, the one that Marissa shared with her daughter.

  Tasha was standing in her crib. She’d somehow shredded her diaper and her little body was smeared with feces and her bedding soaked in urine. Seeing her grandmother, the little girl let out an even louder wail.

  “Oh, baby, it’s all right. Grandma’s here.” Donna scooped up Tasha, shivering and crying. She didn’t think twice about how filthy the child was. She held her close. “It’ll be all right. It’ll be all right.”

  She spun around the room dreading the bathroom, as it was the only place in the apartment where her daughter could be.

  The door was open a crack, and she moved it open with her feet.

  “Marissa, are you in here?”

  But she wasn’t.

  It was only her and Tasha. She grabbed a baby blanket and wrapped it around the crying baby. The stench was nearly overpowering. The white mattress cover was stained with a dark pool of urine, nearly the color of strong black tea. Tasha’s lips were dry and cracked. But despite her crying, no tears came to her eyes.

  “Oh, my sweet baby, you’re dehydrated. How long have you been alone? Why did your mother leave you?”

  She looked around for a bottle but found none. She went in to the kitchen and dampened a towel with tap water. She dabbed at Tasha’s dry lips, letting some moisture into her mouth.

  “Marissa, what did you do? Marissa, where are you?”

  She reached for her cell phone and dialed 911, first requesting an ambulance, then a police officer.

  Josh Anderson responded to the call to the apartment above Pack Rat’s Hideaway, joining officers from the Port Orchard Police Department, who had the jurisdiction for the city limits. The city police and the Sheriff’s Office had a long history of cross-training and cooperation. Josh was on the roster to join in that Tuesday. By the time he arrived, child welfare caseworkers had already followed Tasha’s ambulance to the hospital. Donna Solomon didn’t fuss about it. She needed immediate medical assistance. If Donna hadn’t come when she had, the worst possible outcome would have been likely.

  A day later, and Tasha might not have survived.

  “My daughter has her problems,” she told the Kitsap County detective as they stood by his car in the parking lot off Bay Street, “but she wouldn’t leave Tasha for any real length of time—never long enough for the baby to be in jeopardy. Something has happened to her.”

  Josh knew Marissa by reputation and rap sheet. Most local cops did.

  “But your daughter does hang out with unsavory types, doesn’t she?”

  Donna knew he was trying to be kind. He probably knew plenty about her daughter. The distraught mother and grandmother could appreciate his kindness, of course, but she wasn’t looking for that just then.

  “You know very well that she does,” Donna finally said, her voice rising with more emotion than she wanted to reveal. “But it didn’t mean she isn’t a good mother—that she doesn’t love her child. She would never leave her for more than a minute or two.”

  “Point made. Was the baby’s father involved in her life?”

  It was clear just then that he knew what kind of life Marissa had. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have referred to the “baby’s father” he would have presumed that Marissa had a husband.

  “Look, my daughter and I seldom talk about anything of importance, except for Tasha. Not for years. I don’t know who the ‘man in her life’ is, and she never told me. Frankly, I never asked.”

  “Do you know who her friends are? Maybe someone who knows her better than you do?”

  Donna had held it together pretty well. She’d been through tough times, the late-night phone calls from drug dealers demanding to know where Marissa had gone. But the truth hurt. She knew nothing much about her daughter. Nothing at all. A single tear rolled down her cheek, but she flicked it away so quickly she hoped that Josh Anderson hadn’t seen it.

  “She might have been seeing someone,” Donna said. “I saw some flowers in a vase. She’s not the Better Homes & Gardens type to have fresh flowers from the market. But, as I’ve said, I don’t know my daughter very well. Really, you have to believe me: she loves her baby girl. I see the look in her eyes. I see the way she held her. She wouldn’t leave her.”

  “I’m sorry,” Josh said. “We’ll do our best to find her.”

  “Do you need me to make a statement or anything? You’re treating her as a missing person, right?”

  “Yes, we are.”

  “Fine. Then you’ll need this.” She reached into her purse, pulled out her wallet, and found a photograph. “This was taken three weeks ago. Look at that mother with her baby. Tell me…Tell me…” She stopped to compose herself. “You know that she loves her daughter.”

  Josh looked at the photo. It was a color image printed at Wal-Mart. It showed Midnight Cassava, a.k.a. Marissa Solomon, with Tasha on her lap. They were sitting in a booth at a restaurant. The table had two plates of food. Two cups of coffee. One was positioned in front of Marissa and the baby. The other was in the immediate foreground.

  “You take this shot?”

  Donna shook her head.

  Josh tapped his finger on the photograph, noting the obvious. “I guess your daughter has some friends,” he said. “Someone took this picture, right?”

  Donna Solomon turned away. She knew nothing about any friends. She was happy, though, that Marissa had any at all. She wondered if being a mother had become too much and Marissa had run off somewhere, but she never said so. She thanked the detective and went with a Po
rt Orchard police officer to give her official statement.

  A half hour later, Josh found Kendall in her office.

  “How’d it go downtown?”

  “A lot of to-do about nothing. Hooker went on a bender or ran off. Feel sorry for her mom, though. Nice lady. Kids are so much work, and you never know what you’re going to get.”

  Kendall turned her attention toward her computer screen.

  “You’re right about that,” she said quietly.

  The conference room suddenly felt very uncomfortable as Josh Anderson broached the subject of recording and running a tap on the phone calls Serenity was receiving from the supposed killer. He conceded that the calls might be untraceable, but it was an option on an investigative list that was short. Too short.

  Charlie Keller, however, would have none of it.

  “We believe in cooperation, but that’s a violation of our rights to gather news independently. We don’t want Big Brother looking over our shoulders.”

  “We could get a court order,” Josh said.

  “We’ll fight it,” Charlie said. “And we’ll win.”

  Serenity looked at Kendall, but both stayed quiet.

  “Maybe,” Josh said, raising his voice a little. “But if there is a serial killer at work around here, your paper will look like you don’t give a crap about anything but your precious rights.”

  Charlie’s face was red and the veins in his neck, night crawlers. “They are pretty precious. In this day and age, there’s no doubt that the government has its fingers everywhere they want to be. Get your disgusting wiretap. Get your court order. We’re not saying yes to anything.”

  He looked at Serenity, who appeared anxious as she took in her boss’s tirade. She moved her gaze from one person to the next.

  “I’ll do whatever Charlie says,” she finally said. She knew that he’d been involved in the Zodiac case in San Francisco, at least on the periphery. The papers there had been used as a conduit for messages between the purported killer and the police. Ultimately, Serenity felt, everyone had looked bad because the case was never solved.

  After Charlie and Serenity filed out, Josh turned and whispered in Kendall’s ear.

  “I’ll work on her. I’ll get her to agree.”

  Two hours later, Josh showed up in Kendall’s office carrying a paper Starbucks coffee cup. He had, apparently, gone out. He could be a selfish jerk at times, but usually office protocol dictated that anyone who went out specifically for lunch or coffee would make the rounds to see if anyone wanted something.

  “The girl said she’d do it,” he said.

  “What girl?”

  “Serenity Hutchins said she’d let us run a tap on her line. She had one condition, and I agreed to it.”

  Kendall set aside the meager case file and studied Josh.

  “What agreement?”

  “She doesn’t want her boss to know. He’s a freak about it. She’s scared. I said we’d do it.”

  Kendall hesitated a minute. “When?”

  “Tonight. That pervert said he’d call her tonight.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  April 13, 8 p.m.

  Key Peninsula, Washington

  As she prepared herself for an evening with her husband, Melody Castile climbed into the shower and let the water run over her body. She set aside a pink plastic razor and some shaving foam and spread her legs. While Sam called for her to hurry, she went about the business of shaving her most private areas.

  Although, she knew, there was no privacy whatsoever.

  It had started with small things.

  Melody wore her hair shoulder length when she and Sam Castile first met. He complimented her on the color and style, saying that he’d never seen a woman’s hair with such a sheen.

  “Like the sun is shining through you.”

  Three months into their relationship, Melody decided to surprise him with a new look. She had her hair shorn. She thought the haircut was stylish, sophisticated.

  Sam hit her. Hard. “You’re stupid, Melody. You looked so sexy and hot before. Now you look like some boring chick from Bremerton. Pop out some kids, get fat, and be nothing.”

  His words hurt, and she never cut her hair again.

  Six months into their relationship, Sam asked her to drop the rest of her life and move in with him. He’d bought some property down on the Key Peninsula and was going to build a house. They’d live in a travel trailer down there, with no running water, no cell phone service, and no power.

  Melody told her family about it, making it sound as though she and Sam were going to be living off the land as they built their dream house.

  “He wants to use the actual logs on the property. Isn’t that cool?” she asked, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

  Serenity, still at home, caught the disapproving looks of her parents. No one really liked Sam or thought that he was a good match for Melody. Even before they married a full year later, the couple had completely fallen off the family grid. When Serenity was still in junior high, she and her parents drove out to the peninsula to see the new house. They waited in the unfinished living room on lawn furniture for about a half an hour before Melody emerged from the back bedroom. She was so pale and thin that her mother gasped.

  “Honey,” she said, “are you all right?”

  Melody looked at Sam. “I’m fine. Just tired. It’s a lot of work to get this place in order. We barely have time to eat and catch our breath around here.”

  A moment later Sam started the tour, pointing out all that he’d done and chiding his bride for being “Miss Lazy” and not doing enough to help. Melody laughed it off, but Serenity thought that there was no real laughter behind her eyes.

  The bedroom was dominated by an enormous four-poster made of alder logs that had been peeled and oiled to a tawny sheen. A stuffed grouse fluttered in a corner; a deer head hung over the back window—trophies testifying to a man’s hobby. Serenity caught her mother’s eyes riveted to the headboard where two large steel hooks had been sunk into the wood and oily leather straps dangled. Everyone noticed the hooks, but no one remarked on them.

  After the tour, Melody served ice tea and sandwiches. The conversation was a bit strained, and then at exactly 2 P.M. she stood up and thanked everyone for coming.

  “I have chores to do now. So you’ll all have to go.”

  “We’ve only been here an hour,” her mother said.

  “And we’ve enjoyed every minute,” Sam said. “But Mel’s right. We’ve got things to do, and we have to get them done.”

  Serenity went to embrace her sister good-bye, but Melody pulled back slightly. She’d never been much of a hugger, but it was a cold reaction that seemed in keeping with this strange afternoon visit.

  “Something’s going on there,” she said in the car as they began driving home.

  “The only question I have,” her mother said, “is why in the world anyone would want to live all the way out here in the middle of nowhere. It seems so remote.”

  Her husband leaned his head out the window as he backed up, not wanting to hit a pile of lumber crowding the dirt driveway.

  “Bingo. You’ve got the reason.”

  For the next two nights, Kendall, Josh, and a tech named Porter Jones showed up in Serenity’s Mariner’s Glen apartment. They’d set up a feed that ran the phone through a listening and recording device. Of course, a tap could have been set up off location, but that would require a judge and there’d be a lot more heat about “freedom” of the press. Serenity didn’t seem to care about that right then. While she wanted to advance her career, she wanted to prove that the voice she was hearing was not some kook, but the voice of a killer.

  A telemarketer called twice.

  Josh looked at her. “You know, you can get on a ‘do not call’ list.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” she said.

  “Serenity,” Kendall said, “are you sure you’re getting calls on this line?”

  Serenity’s eyes went c
old. “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “That’s what she says,” Josh cut in.

  Kendall let out a sigh, but held her tongue. It was interesting that Serenity would have some new blog post or article just about every other day. Where was her source? Why hadn’t he called?

  If he was real at all.

  Kendall got up to take a break from the huddle around the dinette table. She stepped over the sleeping tabby cat, Mr. Smith, through the living room to the apartment’s sole bathroom. Next to the sink, she noticed an open shaving kit. It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that Serenity Hutchins probably had a boyfriend.

  “I didn’t know you were seeing someone,” Kendall said. “The shaving kit.”

  Serenity barely looked at her.

  “That’s my dad’s,” she said. “He stayed over last week.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  April 18, 11:15 a.m.

  Port Orchard

  It was a crystalline morning without the fog that had coated Sunnyslope for the past several days. Certainly the mist burned off by the early afternoon, but for morning people like Trevor Jones, the muslin shroud over the woods was a complete and undeniable downer. He longed for his home in the Midwest, where most mornings—no matter the season—started with a sky patched with blue. It seemed that when it wasn’t raining in the Northwest, it was foggy. At least on his days off. He threw a leg over his mountain bike, called for his Labrador, Cindy, and went for a ride. He thought he’d pedal through Sunnyslope, toward the Bremerton Airport, then maybe as far as Belfair, a town along the southern shores of Hood Canal. Cindy would see him only as far as the end of the driveway: The invisible fencing collar that she wore had reminded her that, as much as she’d like to go with Trevor, she had to stop.

  “Sorry about the force field, Cindy!” Trevor said as he spun out toward the road.

  The dog looked forlornly at him and then turned around.

  “Good girl!”

  Trevor had twenty bucks in his wallet, a bottle of water, and the conviction that at twenty-nine he was still allowed to take the time for a Saturday ride. He put in long hours in the metal shop at the shipyard, and outside of tipping back a few beers on Friday nights and video games during the week, this was the extent of his fun. His wife, Crystal, was back in their tidy home, sewing a top that she intended to wear to a luncheon at the Central Kitsap School District office, where she worked as an aide.