Victim Six

by Gregg Olsen

  She noticed she’d left on the lights of her black 1999 Toyota Tercel, a temperamental car if ever there was one. She’d dubbed it “Hiroshima’s Revenge.”

  You better start! We’ve got a floater today!

  She turned the key, a slow grind, and then…success!

  Her phone vibrated with the unanswered text message.

  DEAD GIRL LITTLE CLAM BAY.

  Seven miles out of town, the Little Clam Bay neighborhood was a Northwest crazy quilt of housing. Expensive custom homes were perched on the water’s edge and backfilled with double-wide trailers skirted in plywood and kept dry with a patchwork of blue and silver plastic tarps. The bay was a narrow little inlet the shape of a shepherd’s hook that reached in from Puget Sound and jutted through a cedar- and fir-trimmed landscape. At high tide it was a body of blue dotted with floating rafts, docks, and seagulls. On the flip side of the tidal schedule, the bay drained nearly dry. In summer, with the sun bearing down on the soggy bay bottom, the neighborhood smelled of rotting fish, seaweed, and the garbage that had been sucked in through the narrow channel and left scattered on the muddy floor. Sometimes careless boaters dumped garbage overboard in Puget Sound, and if their deposits hit the currents just so, Little Clam Bay, with its sluggish water flow, became a saltwater dump.

  On the morning of September 18, Devon Taylor and Brady Waite decided that they’d skip school rather than force themselves through another state-required language assessment test conducted at Sedgwick Junior High. At fourteen, Brady and Devon were on the edge of trouble whenever the mood struck, which was often. It was nothing big—mostly skipping school and acting out in class when they bothered to slide behind back-row desks. They’d smoked some pot now and then and tried coke once, but ultimately the pair preferred video games and skateboarding to drugs.

  Girls were also of great interest, but neither had plucked up the courage to ask one out.

  They’d set up a kind of private clubhouse at Devon’s, in a garden shed on the Taylors’ lawn, which undulated down to the water’s slimy edge. While they waited for Devon’s mom to leave for her nursing administrator’s job at the naval hospital in Bremerton, they smoked a couple of cigars they’d stolen from Brady’s stepfather’s secret stash.

  “Even if I get in trouble for taking his stogies,” Brady said between hacking coughs, “my mom won’t be too mad. He’s not supposed to smoke anyway.”

  “Your mom’s a bitch,” Devon said.

  Brady’s eyes puddled, and he let the smoke curl from his lips.

  “Everyone’s mom is a bitch. That’s just the way it is, dude.”

  Devon didn’t argue. “Speaking of moms. I wish mine would get her ass out the door. Cold out here this morning.”

  “Yeah, it is.” Brady looked out the greenhouse window at the water. “Does this swamp ever freeze up?”

  “It isn’t a swamp, though it smells like one half the time. Only around the edges and not very much. Maybe froze twice since my dad moved us to Port Zero from Tacoma.”

  Brady seldom mentioned his father, and Devon took the opportunity to pounce on the subject.

  “Ever hear from him?” he asked.

  Brady took another puff before answering. “He calls Mom and she puts me on with him, but I can tell he’s only talking to me because he has to. He doesn’t give a shit about me.”

  “My dad’s an asshole, but I guess having him around is better than nothing,” Devon said.

  Brady filled his mouth with more smoke and held it a second before attempting a smoke ring.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right, dude,” he said.

  A beat later, the boys turned in the direction of the sound of a car’s ignition turning over.

  “Finally!” Brady said. “She’s leaving. Let’s go inside.”

  Devon flipped the latch on the door to the garden shed, sending a layer of smoky air outside. He looked over at Brady—alarm had suddenly filled his eyes.

  “Jesus, someone is going to see the smoke.”

  Brady ignored his friend; his eyes stayed fixed on Little Clam Bay.

  “You sick or something?” When he didn’t answer right away, Devon followed his best friend’s sight line to the water. “What is it?”

  Brady didn’t say so, but he wished right then that he hadn’t skipped school that day. He pointed at the water.

  Devon’s eyes widened. “Jesus, is that what I think it is?”

  The boys walked closer, stepping on the frosty planks of the dock, their white and red Skechers slipping a little under their feet. Devon let his cigar fall into the water, making a sizzling sound as its hot cherry tip went black.

  “We better call 911,” Brady said.

  Devon tugged at his buddy’s hooded sweatshirt. “We’re going to be in big trouble, you know.”

  “No shit.”

  “Maybe we should just pretend we didn’t see it and just go inside and watch TV or something.”

  Brady shook his head. “But we did. And we have to tell.”

  His buddy was correct. In a morning of doing all the wrong things, they had to do what was right.

  Chapter Twenty

  September 18, 9:02 a.m.

  Port Orchard

  Kendall Stark has just eased into her preferred parking slot—close to the overhang that kept renegade smokers from the Sheriff’s Office and jail dry during the long drippy Northwest autumns and winters, when she saw Josh Anderson grind out a cigarette and approach. He had his cell phone stuck to his ear. The morning had been a difficult one, following one of Cody’s restless nights. After a week in his new school, there were doubts that he was adjusting, and she and Steven argued over it. Cody, who usually did not betray emotion, was always aware when his parents were at odds. Words or tears were not the barometer of trouble in the Stark family. A night without sleep was.

  Cody, what do we do? How do we help you? she’d asked over and over inside her head as she sat in his room, by his bedside.

  She rolled down her window.

  “Some kids found a dead body in Little Clam Bay,” Josh said. “Female, they think. Didn’t want to get too close. Body’s still out in the water. Coroner’s en route.”

  “Nice way to start the day, Josh,” she said, realizing that any hope for a better morning had been jettisoned.

  “For the kids or us?”

  “I was thinking of the woman,” she said.

  “Well, the kid who called CENCOM was crying. Worried not only about the body but about the fact that he’d skipped school today.”

  “Nice,” she said. “That’ll teach him a lesson.”

  “Take your car?” he asked. “Mine’s in the shop again. BMWs are so damn touchy.”

  “Get in,” she said. Josh never missed an opportunity to remind someone—anyone—that he drove an expensive car. Expensive, but always in the shop or the detail center. Josh Anderson practically needed a bus pass to get to work.

  Kendall unlocked the passenger door and scooted aside some papers from Cody’s school, and Josh slid inside. He immediately cracked the window to let the air come in and suck away the condensation. Kendall always seemed to keep the inside too warm for his liking.

  “Hey,” he said. “Did I say good morning?”

  Kendall glanced at him as she backed out and turned onto Sidney Avenue. Rain pecked at the windshield, and she turned the wipers to the intermittent setting. “If we’ve got a dead woman, I’d say the morning’s not so good,” she said.

  “You’re right.” His tone was utterly unconvincing.

  Kendall Stark wasn’t one of the detectives who got an adrenaline rush from the news of death. She’d tracked killers before. Catching them was the rush. Never the pursuit. And never the start of a case. The beginning of a case only seemed to remind her how fragile life was and how, in an instant of someone’s choosing, it could all be taken away. She felt awash with sadness. Not Josh, though. He was nearly giddy. Kendall had seen that look on his face before. It was as if real life kicked in and
stirred him only when it came with a measure of tragedy.

  “Jesus, Josh, you don’t have to be so happy about this.”

  He looked at her but avoided her eyes.

  “Not happy. Just ready to get a little action going. We could use some around here. A homicide gets my juices flowing. Been boring around here all summer.”

  If she hadn’t been driving, Kendall would have slapped him just then. “You don’t even know if it’s a homicide.”

  “It is.”

  “How can you be so sure without even seeing the body?”

  “Because we’ve had no reports of anyone falling off a boat or off a dock. The only floaters we ever have in Puget Sound are drunk swimmers or kids who were left unattended. We know about those. This isn’t the season for that. If the floater fell off a boat, someone would have called it in. She’s a murder vic. Betcha a beer.”

  Kendall didn’t bet.

  “We’ll see,” she said.

  In a very real way, the boys, the sheriff’s detectives, and the dead body were bound forever. The five of them would always be connected by what had transpired that morning. Forever. In the summers when he would finally have a girlfriend, Devon would lie out on the dock and think of the dead body. Whenever Brady came over, they’d probably relive the morning they found it. Kendall would never drive by Little Clam Bay without recalling what had been discovered there.

  Even Josh Anderson would point it out to those he sought to impress—a lover or even a young officer.

  A van with a deputy from the Kitsap County Coroner’s Office pulled in behind them and started to unload with the kind of speed that might have indicated a rescue rather than a recovery effort.

  “You’re the police, right?” Devon asked Kendall and Josh after they’d parked in the driveway. “The 911 operator said for us to stay put until you got here. Are we in trouble?”

  Brady spoke before either detective could answer.

  “We’re supposed to be in school,” he stammered, although it was unclear whether it was due to the chill in the air or the dire circumstances of their meeting.

  “We leave that to your folks,” Josh said as he watched a diver emerge from the black waters of the glassy bay. “You boys sit tight for a second, all right?”

  “Where?” Devon said.

  “Just stay here.”

  “Yes, sir. Will do,” Brady said. The boys took a seat on a metal garden bench.

  Kendall retrieved a pair of rubber boots from the back of her SUV and bent down to fasten them.

  “Shoes are going to get ruined,” she said, drawing her gaze down the wet lawn and glancing back at Anderson’s black leather lace-ups.

  He shrugged. “No kidding. I might have to expense them. They’re almost new too.”

  Kendall doubted that. Josh was many things, but despite his oversized ego and reputation as God’s gift to women, he was no trendsetter. He’d worn the same pair of shoes for the past two years. However, he never missed a chance to fatten his wallet at the county’s expense.

  A shiny red Volvo lurched into the driveway, and Belinda Taylor scurried from the car to the water’s edge.

  “What’s happening here?” she called out. She was a tall woman clad in a Burberry raincoat and leather boots that sank into the damp lawn like a gardener’s aerating tool.

  Step. Squish. Pull. Step. Squish. Pull.

  “Mom!”

  “Don’t ‘Mom’ me!” she said. “You are so grounded for skipping school!”

  She turned to Kendall. “What’s going on here? The boys are truant. They’re not felons. What gives with the entire Sheriff’s Office camped out on my front yard?”

  “Mrs. Taylor,” Kendall said, “I’m afraid the boys have made a frightening discovery.”

  She looked over to where Josh Anderson was crouched next to a body. Ms. Taylor instantly knew what she was seeing, even at fifty yards away. She worked in a hospital. She’d seen her share of stiffs, though not in her own backyard.

  “They found a body floating in the bay,” Kendall said.

  Belinda Taylor’s face went a shade paler. She reached for her son and pulled him close. Ordinarily, with his best friend present, Devon would have resisted. Right then, despite his age, a little motherly reassurance felt pretty good.

  “Mom, I’m sorry we skipped school.”

  “Ms. Taylor, it was my idea,” Brady said.

  She shook her head. “That’s not important. What’s important is that you need to tell the detective what you boys saw. We’ll deal with the other issue later.”

  A black Tercel in need of a new muffler pulled in behind the coroner’s van. The detectives looked up and offered a slight nod to Serenity Hutchins as she stepped out of her car.

  “The reporter is here,” Josh said, letting out an exasperated sigh. “I’ll handle her.”

  Kendall made a face. “Be nice.”

  Serenity started toward them, but Josh intercepted her before she got close enough to see what was going on.

  The teens told Kendall that they had no idea who the victim was. In fact, they were a little embarrassed to admit they really hadn’t gotten close enough to see her features clearly.

  “It kind of creeped us out,” Devon said.

  “Big-time,” Brady said.

  Even if they had found the courage to get a closer view, it was apparent to everyone within ten feet of the body that there was one major obstacle.

  The victim had no face.

  Kendall made a few notes and looked back at Josh and Serenity, who were still talking.

  Jeesh, she thought, we’ve got a dead woman down here. Can’t you give a quick quote and tell the reporter to back off?

  She left the boys and Ms. Taylor and joined a pair of coroner’s assistants as they hoisted the corpse into a body bag.

  The woman was about twenty. She was white, with small hands and thin ankles. She wore no shoes. Her blue jeans were tiger-striped on the crotch, markedly visible even with the fabric sodden with seawater. Too perfect to be the casual striping of an expensive pair of jeans that had been crafted to look old. She wore a pale green top that had been carelessly buttoned: the top button had been fastened to the hole in the second position. The blouse was cotton and had absorbed blood in two patches aligned with the dead woman’s breasts. A cursory examination of the body indicated nothing out of the ordinary that might help ID her quickly. No special jewelry. No tattoos were visible. No purse and no wallet.

  No nothing.

  Whoever the young woman was, whatever she’d been in life, it would be up to an autopsy to tell her story.

  “Tell Dr. Waterman I’ll be around for the autopsy in the morning,” Kendall said to one of the assistants. Dr. Waterman’s place was the county morgue.

  “Jesus,” Josh said, “and I was beginning to think our dry spell would last into the holidays.”

  The summer had only brought one other murder: a Port Orchard teenager had been stabbed by his brother over a twenty-dollar bill. Before that was the springtime murder of Celesta Delgado, the Salvadoran brush picker who had apparently been killed by a rival over salal and huckleberry.

  “Yeah,” Kendall said, “you were wishing yesterday for something other than a gun or drug case. Looks like your prayers have been answered.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  September 18, noon

  South of Port Orchard

  The drive from Little Clam Bay took longer than the trip there. The county evidently had some money in its coffers, because a couple of flaggers in orange vests were planted on Little Clam Bay Road as a yellow backhoe prepared to cut into the ditch. A row of twenty-four-inch drainpipes sat on a flatbed truck parked off to the side; at least, it was supposed to be off to the side. It jutted out into the roadway just enough to turn a two-lane into a one-lane.

  Kendall rolled down her window and addressed the flagger, a woman of about twenty.

  “Can’t we just scoot by? I think I can make it.”

  “Sorr
y, but no. Yesterday’s rain did a number on the shoulder. Be about five minutes, max.”

  Kendall pushed the button to raise her window. Rain had sprayed over her left side. As the car idled, she looked over at Josh, who was lamenting his ruined shoes and how he was sure to catch a cold. He’d unlaced his shoes in an effort to speed up the drying process.

  “Turn the heat up, will you?”

  Kendall obliged.

  “She looked young,” she said. “Maybe a teenager.”

  “The flagger?”

  “The victim,” she said, knowing that he was just playing with her.

  “Yeah. She was.”

  “What do you make of the boys, Josh?”

  “Young and dumb and full of…you know the rest,” he said. “Just unlucky enough to skip school and more scared that their parents would find out they’d been smoking cigars than they were about getting in trouble for cutting class.”

  “Devon made a big point of saying that we’d find his DNA on the cigar he dropped in the bay.” The flagger waved them on, and Kendall put the car in gear. “Maybe she was a student at their school,” she said.

  “Doubtful. They go to junior high. That girl looked older. But we can check it out. Let’s get back and run the missing-persons database and see what pops up.”

  “I’ll be surprised if she’s from around here,” Kendall said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because she looked like a girl who’d be missed, that’s why. The people around here call us if their kids are an hour late from the movies.”

  A sly grin broke out over his face. “That they do.”

  Kendall nodded without remarking.

  “Let’s run by Sedgwick,” Josh said. “We ought to check out the boys’ story, and it’s on the way.”

  John Sedgwick Junior High was one of those immense edifices that looked authoritative and utilitarian at the same time. Its chief bits of architectural interest were the four pillars that flanked the front of the building: they were massive tubes of painted concrete. That was it. Form, no style. When Kendall Stark and Josh Anderson made their way toward the front door, a kid called out.