Victim Six

by Gregg Olsen

  She looked down at the photos and the autopsy report, all of which she’d printed out.

  “You won’t be one of the Janes,” she said. “Not if I can help it.”

  Margo stirred some sugar into her licorice tea and turned on her CD player. The liquid notes of a Stan Getz samba filled the air. She’d have played it louder, but she didn’t want to miss a call if her boys or husband tried to reach her. There was something soothing about the samba, with its sliding percussion overrun by a soaring saxophone. It gave her a calm energy.

  “Let’s see who you are, little one,” she said as she undertook her distinct blend of science and art.

  She had no one to consult with as she began to work. In cases she’d worked for the Portland and Boise police departments, she’d had the opportunity to interview witnesses who’d seen a perpetrator. She would inquire carefully, probing into the memory of the viewer. It was a collaborative process as the witness offered up the cues of recognition fixed in his or her memory. The slant of a brow. The flare of the nostrils. Lines on a forehead. So much information was held in a person’s recollections that the true skill came in digging it out as much as the application of any artistic skills.

  But this one had no one to speak for her or who her killer might have been.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  October 1, 11:50 p.m.

  Port Orchard

  They had made love all night long, and as she positioned herself on the toilet in the darkness of his bathroom, Serenity Hutchins knew that she’d gone too far for the story. It wasn’t that she wasn’t attracted to him. He worked out, and, despite being old enough to be her father, he had a nice physique. The last guy she’d dated was much younger, but his body was a doughy mess. She finished going and debated for a moment whether or not she should flush. She didn’t want to wake him.

  If I wake him, she thought, he’ll want to do it again.

  She risked it. Whoosh! She squinted in the faint light coming through the mini-blinds as she washed her hands.

  “Baby, come back to bed.”

  “Coming. But Baby’s tired,” she said.

  “We don’t have to go to work tomorrow,” he said as she moved toward him in the darkness.

  “I do,” she said. “I have to get some sleep. I have an event to cover in Manchester. A salmon feed or something.”

  He put his mouth on hers.

  “Oh, Josh, don’t you have a crime to investigate?”

  He nuzzled her. “Kendall is working the hard stuff. I’ll just lay here and enjoy you.”

  The face staring up at her was young and pretty. She had a slender nose and a mouth fuller on the lower lip that gave her a slight pout. It was very late, and the chill of an early autumn seeped through the windows as Margo Titus stepped back from her worktable. The face she’d painstakingly restored seemed more melancholy than most that she’d created. Margo never created a face that would cause someone to smirk: a cartoonish visage that somehow made a joke out of the victim. Some forensic artists offered up images that, while possibly very accurate, cast a distinctly creepy vibe.

  Margo wanted the kind of countenance that spoke to the viewer. She sought an expression that triggered a genuine emotion of concern. This face looking up at her was a sad one. A heartbreaker. It was the face of a pretty young woman, one who had to be missed by someone.

  Somewhere. But where? And by whom?

  She looked at her wall clock. It was 4 P.M. She had time to finish up, get to Whole Foods, and have dinner going before her family assembled around the table. After working on the rendering with such deliberation, such intensity, she could still set it aside when it came to being a wife and mother. It wasn’t that the morgue photos were expunged from her memory, but they were stored in a place separate from the world that saw her as something other than a woman who draws dead people.

  Margo scanned her artwork and prepared to send it via e-mail it to the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office. It would be quicker than a phone call, and she had to get going.

  Kendall, I hope this helps in your investigation. There’s a little guesswork because of the tissue damage, but I think this should be close enough to get the attention of anyone who knew her—provided they see the rendering. Good luck. Let me know when you identify her. She deserves that, along with justice for her killer.

  Before she pushed SEND her eyes lingered on the damage to the right breast. The cut looked so clean, so precise. It was as if a diamond of flesh had been removed from the dead woman’s breast.

  Sweet Jesus, she thought. What kind of maniac would do that?

  As he tore at her, ripping her underclothing, commanding her to do this and that, she flashed on how it had started. The first few times Sam Castile made a shopping list for Melody, she saw nothing interesting in it. He wanted a motion detector, a fourteen-foot steel chain, and four brown tarps. The items were mundane, utilitarian. Melody looked at her husband’s list, added a few things she needed for herself, and pointed her silver-colored Jeep in the direction of Home Depot and Costco. Sam Castile had made it clear that the tarps he required were not blue, which were the ones most commonly sold by local stores. The brown were certainly less conspicuous when placed over a leaky roof, a cord of wood, a chicken yard. He wanted the chains to be polished steel, not galvanized. He said galvanized links were weaker. The motion detector had to be top of the line.

  “If someone’s out there, you know, lying in wait,” he’d said, “I want fair warning.”

  He was concerned about her safety, or so she had first believed.

  The motion detector morphed into a trio of the devices. One was affixed to the side of the house, casting a beam whenever an errant deer wandered by. The other pair stood guard along the winding driveway that meandered through the heavy fringe of salmonberries, sword ferns, and a tangle of ocean spray leading to the house.

  “If you want to run a day care out here, babe,” he’d said, “you’ll need to make sure the kids are safe.”

  In the beginning she’d believed her husband. She thought that Sam’s words of concern, his need for protecting her and the children, were genuine.

  That, of course, was only in the beginning. But there was no day care. There was only isolation.

  Sam installed motion detectors fifteen feet past the farm gate, which they kept chained tightly. Visitors hated the gate more than anything: there was no way of tripping it so that it would open without them getting out of the car, unlatching the chain that held it in place, swinging the gate open, driving through, and then getting out of the car to shut the gate. It was a colossal hassle by any measure. In the early days, at least, if Melody had any designs on sharing a cup of chamomile tea with a girlfriend from next door, the gate obliterated them.

  No one came over unless they absolutely had to.

  Her tuxedo mocha on her desk, Kendall Stark looked intently at the image of the Little Clam Bay victim as Josh Anderson strolled into her office.

  “Hey, you,” he said, sitting down, “what do you have there?” He seemed more upbeat than usual, and certainly more upbeat than the moment called for.

  “Margo’s rendering of our victim.”

  “Let me have a look,” he said, reaching for the photo printout. “Good-looking girl. Sure doesn’t look like what we saw on the scene.”

  “That’s the point,” Kendall said. “We’re looking at trying to find out who she is, not scare people away.”

  “I know. I was talking to the sheriff yesterday. He thinks we should use this case to spark some better relations with the local media.”

  Kendall took her eyes off the photo and studied Josh.

  “I wasn’t aware there was a problem with local media. Are we talking about KIRO TV and what they said about our jail?”

  “No. More local. Local like the Lighthouse.”

  “I thought we were good with them,” she said.

  “There have been some complaints. You know, from the publisher to the sheriff. Says we don’t giv
e them a heads-up on anything. You know, blah blah blah, you only talk to us when we cover your stupid office pancake feed for Kitsap Crime Watch.”

  “No one mentioned it to me,” Kendall said, taking a sip from her coffee.

  “No biggie. Sheriff thought we should toss them a bone now and then. Maybe I could take this over to the paper myself.”

  Kendall thought for a moment. Josh’s ulterior motive was so transparent, she wanted to laugh.

  “I’ll give it to Serenity what’s-her-name,” he said.

  “That’s all right,” she said, pulling the photo back from Josh’s grasp. “I’ll take it.”

  Josh looked a little disappointed.

  “She’s too young for you.”

  “Who is?”

  She scolded him with a cool look before answering. “Serenity Hutchins.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kendall.”

  Kendall nodded. “Never mind. I was only joking.”

  But she wasn’t, of course. She almost never joked.

  Serenity Hutchins was hunkered in front of her computer screen when Kendall made her way across the small newsroom.

  “I want to talk to you. I have something I need to discuss with you.”

  Serenity looked up. “You do?”

  “Yes, I do.” She dropped a photo on Serenity’s chaotic desk.

  Serenity looked at it for a long time, her eyes finally returning to the detective’s.

  “She was pretty. Who made this?”

  “A forensic artist from Portland. Her name and number’s on the back, in case you want to interview her. I’m giving this to you first. It goes out to the Seattle, Tacoma, and Bremerton media tomorrow.”

  Serenity nodded. “I’m all over it, Detective.”

  “I’m sure you are.”

  Kendall turned toward the door. She didn’t hear the reporter thank her, although she did. She was focused now on the part of police work that depended on the public and whether or not someone would help her find out the name of the dead woman. She brushed past a girl talking to the receptionist at the front desk. She didn’t know right then that she had walked past a young woman who had also caught the killer’s eye.

  She didn’t know there were others too.

  Melody Castile had one thought that reverberated in her mind. It was a kind of mocking refrain that she knew no longer carried the kind of weight she might have hoped. Better her than me.

  The figure on the filthy mattress was streaked with blood and her own feces. Fear had caused her to let go of all bodily functions. She was weak, barely breathing. Her mouth had been covered by the now-familiar silver-gray duct tape.

  “Clean her,” Sam said, unbuttoning the snaps on his blue and red flannel shirt. Pop. Pop. Pop. His undershirt was torn, and he pulled that over his head, flexing his biceps and his triceps for his adoring audience. “Then Baby and Daddy are gonna play.”

  He stepped out of his jeans, kicked them aside, and stood there nude, his penis already hard.

  “Is she okay?” she asked.

  “She’s alive,” he said, “so I guess not.” He let out a laugh and bent down. The woman on the plastic-covered mattress couldn’t speak, but her eyes were flooded with terror. He slapped her, and the woman shook. “See, she’s alive.”

  “Good. That’s good.”

  “Now, get naked,” he said, looking over at Melody, who was already unfastening her bra, “and let’s have some fun—you know, until one of us can’t anymore.”

  Melody reached for the baling wire and grinned at him.

  “Want me to spin my web?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  October 5, 3:30 p.m.

  Key Center, Washington

  The drive out to her sister Melody’s place took almost an hour. Serenity Hutchins kept her radio on an eighties music station playing hits that were popular before she was born. She listened to the Waitresses’ song, “I Know What Boys Like” and wondered how come music wasn’t fun like that anymore. Her sister, Melody, and her husband, Sam, lived on almost five acres in a log home just outside of Key Center on the Key Peninsula. The Castiles had a son named Max who had just turned eight. In fact, the gathering that afternoon was to celebrate the boy’s birthday and the last sure sunny day before the Northwest rains kicked in and stole the last of the summer. The music was loud in her little black car, but more out of habit than a desire to blast her eardrums. Serenity had gone so long with a loud muffler that after she finally fixed it, she’d gotten used to a decibel level that threatened hearing damage.

  Relationships between sisters are always complicated. Any sibling can vouch for that. But with a ten-year age gap, Serenity and Melody shared little more than the commune-style names their mother had given them.

  Melody had resented her sister from the time her parents brought her home. She’d suddenly been demoted to helper and sister instead of the center of the universe. Whenever her mother and father left Serenity in the care of her sister, she’d feign attentiveness until the door shut behind them.

  She never changed Serenity’s diaper. She never gave her a bottle. She just let her cry it out until she saw the headlights of her parents’ car in the driveway.

  Later, there were hair-pulling, screaming, and setups to get her in trouble. Serenity was far from perfect. She’d learn to give as well as she got. One time she found a condom wrapper in a park and planted it in her sister’s room. Melody got a beating from her dad and a smile from her sister. Both sisters held memories distorted by their own wants and wishes. Theirs was a relationship in a constant mend.

  At least they played at it as though they cared. Attending Max’s birthday barbecue was part of the game.

  Serenity parked her car and knocked on the door.

  Sam, dressed in blue jeans and a faded red shirt, answered. He was forty-four, broad-shouldered, and a little more than six feet tall. On this particular afternoon his black hair was wavy and a little long, swept back from his forehead. Sam Castile was a man of a thousand looks—facial hair that changed from a full beard to a goatee and then back to a Fu Manchu. He was handsome in a Marlboro Man way, weather-beaten and a little too tan.

  “Your sister was thinking you forgot,” he said, letting her inside.

  “She always thinks the best of me.”

  Sam shook his head. “Now, now.”

  “She started it. Or you did.”

  There was some truth in what she said, and it only made Sam Castile suppress a smile. He loved lighting the fuse between his wife and her little sister.

  Max ran up to his aunt, eyeballing the small package wrapped in blue tissue paper she held at her side as he hugged her.

  “For me?”

  Serenity kissed the top of his head. “It sure is, Max.”

  The boy reached for it, all smiles.

  “Video game?” he asked, taking the present.

  “You’ll see.”

  She followed her brother-in-law into the kitchen, where her sister was slicing onions and lemons.

  “Need some help?” she asked, finally.

  “I thought that was you driving in. Do you really have to blast the neighborhood with your music?”

  Serenity wanted to say, “What neighborhood? You live out in the middle of nowhere.” But she kept quiet.

  “Really, what can I do?” she asked.

  Melody went about her chopping. She was a pretty brunette who wore her hair pinned back even when she wasn’t in the kitchen. A silver pendant hung around her neck like a swinging pendulum as she attacked an onion with her knife. Melody had light blue eyes, so pale, that sometimes, when the light hit them just so, they looked like shiny black beads floating in pools of white. Her skin had always been flawless, although Serenity thought she could finally see the tiny creases around her mouth from smoking and too much sun.

  You’re getting old, sis, she thought.

  Sam took a beer from the refrigerator and held it out to
Serenity.

  “No, thanks,” Serenity said.

  He removed the top and started to drink.

  Melody just kept slicing, filling the air with the scent of onions and lemons, the garnish she’d planned to adorn the salmon that her husband had caught on one of his overnight fishing trips.

  “How’s work?” he asked.

  Serenity shrugged. “Oh, you know, boring most days.”

  Melody ran a fillet knife along the fish’s spinal column, expertly separating the bone from the rosy flesh.

  “I’m glad you’re getting so much out of your college degree.” Melody never missed an opportunity to say something about how her parents had put Serenity through school when she herself had had to drop out.

  “Seems like you’ve had some interesting things to write about lately,” Sam said.

  “You mean the election of the Fathoms o’ Fun Queen?” Serenity said, her tone deadpan.

  “I missed that one,” he said. “I’m talking about the dead girl in Little Clam Bay.”

  Serenity nodded and started to talk about the forensic artist in Portland and how she’d been the first to publish the photograph, but her sister cut her off.

  “Grill hot enough, Sam?” Melody asked, interrupting the conversation.

  Sam winked. “Always. Come on, Serenity, you can help.” He set down the last of his beer and headed for the French doors with the salmon.

  While Serenity held the platter and he scraped tiny bits of burned-on black off the grill and into the fire, they talked about the murder case, the weather, the fact that her sister could be such a bitch.

  Serenity looked across the backyard while he worked the grill. Sam was using charcoal briquettes instead of gas, and she liked the old-school touch. Sam was a traditional guy, and, coming from a family with a father who wasn’t, Serenity could see why her sister was attracted to him. Sam’s hair was still licorice black, as thick as it had been in high school. The lines on his face only accentuated his handsomeness, as if dimples and prominent cheekbones needed to be underscored. His eyes sparked intelligence and fire, more golden than brown. He was a man’s man, the kind who put in a full day as an inspector at the shipyard, a soda with his buds at Toy’s Topless in Gorst, then went on home to his wife and son. All in all, Serenity figured, her sister had been reasonably lucky in love. As lucky as she deserved. On the other hand, Sam could have done a little better.