Victim Six

by Gregg Olsen

  “Look,” he said, as the pair took chairs opposite a desk loaded with paperwork that needed tending, “you two are great detectives.”

  Josh glanced at Kendall. “I have a feeling we’re getting an award,” he said, his tone sardonic and a little resentful.

  “Or about to be fired,” she said.

  Jim McCray allowed a rare smile.

  “Neither. But the fact is we need some help here. The FBI is going to assign some resources out of the Seattle field office. Mason County and Pierce County are going to put a guy—or gal—on the team, too.”

  The gal reference was a nod at Kendall, and it wasn’t meant to be sexist, just a correction from a man who was still working on his human resources skills.

  Josh didn’t like what he was hearing one iota. “Sounds like you really don’t think we can do the job,” he said.

  Jim shifted his frame in his chair. “Not that at all. We’re getting pressure. And I’m not just talking about the Lighthouse.”

  Kendall knew that he was referring to Serenity’s latest story and the accompanying editorial that called for the obvious: JUSTICE NEEDED FOR CUTTER’S VICTIMS NOW.

  “Who’s leading the task force?” she asked.

  “The FBI has enough to do with their terrorism investigation in Blaine,” he said, referring to an Iraqi national who had been caught at the Canadian border crossing with a trunk load of plastic explosives and a schematic of Seattle’s Space Needle, “but to answer your question, they’re leading.”

  “Jesus,” Josh said, “we’ve just started here, and you’re letting us get stepped on.”

  The sheriff tightened his mouth and munched on his response. “We blew it with Delgado, and everyone knows it. We have to pay the price for our blunder by eating a little dirt.”

  Kendall looked at Josh. He was fuming.

  “It was a mistake,” she said. “And I’m sorry about it.”

  Josh looked out the window. He’d been written up for outbursts in the past. He’d been to anger management training. He counted to five. There was no need to count to ten.

  “Fine,” he said.

  A discernable pattern marks the surge of Puget Sound. Most currents follow the ebb and flow from the Strait of Juan de Fuca, that choppy channel of Pacific blue that isolates Washington from Vancouver Island. The currents are swiftest there, petering out considerably as islands and peninsulas impede the natural movement of tidal waters.

  Kendall maneuvered her SUV into a tight space in the visitors’ parking lot adjacent to the Veterans’ Home in Retsil, only a few minutes east of Port Orchard. From the water, ferry passengers on the Bremerton–Seattle run caught a glimpse of the building, looking stately and grand on a bluff that soared above the lazy tide lines of the beach that scurried over to Rich Passage.

  Kendall reviewed the locations of where Celesta, Marissa, and Skye’s bodies had been discovered. While nothing was absolute in the investigation, she and Josh shared the general feeling that the killer lived in the northern part of Kitsap County.

  “Shoving a dead woman into the water is a nighttime activity,” Josh had said after a short meeting with the sheriff and a speakerphone connected to members of the task force. “The killer cruised to the Theler Wetlands and plunked Celesta where he thought no one would find her—in the shallows near Belfair. Reedy there. Weedy there.”

  “He didn’t really hide her,” Kendall said. “He wanted us to see what he’d done.”

  Josh shrugged. “Maybe. But my gut’s been at this longer than you, and I don’t agree.”

  Kendall found her way across the lot to the front entryway of the Veterans’ Home. She had a date with an old family friend.

  Peter Monroe was eighty-seven—a still-with-it eighty-seven—and lived on the second floor in the remodeled section of the nearly century old institution. He was reading Clive Cussler’s latest tale by the window when she appeared in the doorway. He looked up and moved his book to his lap. His hands were twisted into gnarly kindling; his eyes were now faded denim. He slowly got up and gave Kendall a hug.

  “Hi, Mr. Monroe,” she said as warmth came to his white-whisker-stubbled face. Though he told her after high school graduation that she could call him Pete, she never could do it.

  “How’s my favorite marine biology student?” he asked, a reference to the classes he had taught at the university before retiring at seventy-nine.

  “I’m fine,” she said. She’d taken a couple of courses from him out of personal interest, but also because she’d known him growing up in Harper. The Monroes had lived down the street from her family’s home on Overlook Road. “Still looking at the water from my front window and appreciating all that goes on under its surface.”

  “You said you wanted to talk about currents.” He lowered his rimless glasses and looked at her. “What’s this all about?”

  As Kendall pulled a folded paper from her black leather shoulder bag, she noticed a framed photo of Mrs. Monroe on the bed stand. She’d been gone for at least ten years. She felt a flush of sadness. He’d been alone a good long time. He had children, of course, but she wondered if they visited often. It was too personal to inquire, so she didn’t ask about them.

  He took the paper and moved it into the sunlight, and Kendall sidled up next to him, so she could view her chart as he did. “The red dots are the locations where the bodies were recovered,” she said. “I’m wondering how the killer can get around so easily, dumping victims without any detection. They’re not really a cluster of dump sites.” She stopped herself.

  Kendall hated that she’d even used the word “dump,” as if the women were nothing but trash.

  “Hood Canal is interesting,” Pete said, sliding his glasses back up the bridge of his nose to get a better look at the swirling rings laid out by an oceanographer and a cartographer. The rings were spaced at varying widths, like the lines on a piece of driftwood. “I used to go shrimping there with Ida and the boys.”

  “Those were happy times,” Kendall said, catching the look of a specific memory in his blue eyes.

  Pete peered at Kendall over the brims of his glasses. “Yes, but that’s not why you’re here. You’re wondering if the perp—that’s the word you detectives like to use—went all the way to Belfair to drop off Ms. Delgado’s remains?”

  Kendall hadn’t used Celesta’s name, nor was it on the map. Just Victim One, Victim Two, Victim Three. Mr. Monroe still read the paper. Good.

  He went on. “Rough weather notwithstanding, the currents and tidal oscillations are a little sluggish here by the bridge,” he said, indicating the floating bridge used to traverse the narrowest part of the channel from Kitsap to Jefferson County. “Not knowing where he put her in the water, of course, my guess is that she couldn’t have been dumped off the bridge and floated all the way to Belfair. Not likely. If he put her around here,” he said, pointing to a location about a quarter mile from the bridge, “she’d ride the tide to the location in the wetlands.”

  “How long would it take her body to travel that far?”

  His answer was immediate, though not precise. “A few hours. Half a day at most.”

  Kendall pointed to Little Clam Bay and Anderson Point, on Colvos Passage across from Vashon Island.

  “Currents flow northerly on the Seattle side of Vashon,” Pete said, “and southerly on the side where you’ve indicated here and here.” He tapped a twiggy fingertip on the two red dots.

  “So if we found some evidence related to one victim here near Anderson Point,” Kendall said, taking it in, “you’re telling me that the perp likely dropped the evidence north of Olalla.”

  Pete nodded. “Yes. The passage is busy there, but not as busy as the east side of the island. I’d say if someone wanted to get rid of something overboard he would do it around Fragaria, maybe a little further north around Southworth. Not as far as Harper, where you live. The current’s too weak there.”

  “Right,” she said, looking at the boat launch at Southworth. “
That’s the only place along the whole passage where he could launch a boat other than here. No other ramps until way south until you get to Olalla.”

  Little Clam Bay, where Skye Hornbeck’s remains were found, was less problematic.

  “No doubt that the body caught a current right about here,” he indicated a location off Blake Island to the east of Manchester. “Current flows this way,” he said, drawing a line near the Naval Supply Center. “The body likely got sucked into the bay, here. Not easy to do. But doable. Terrible clamming there, by the way.”

  Pete folded the paper and returned it to Kendall. “Sure, it’s possible that your perp is flitting around in a speedboat; my guess is that the boat’s a larger one. It would need to be a boat of some size to chug through the waters from Hood Canal to Southworth.”

  “A commercial boat? Tug?”

  “Possibly, but also a large pleasure craft. My point being, I’m doubtful he’s launching his boat off some trailer at Harper or Southworth. Must be moored somewhere around here.”

  Kendall bent down and kissed his forehead.

  Pete Monroe actually blushed.

  “What did I do to get that?” he asked.

  “Just because you’re a great man and I want you to know it.”

  He smiled broadly as she gathered her things to leave.

  “Come back and see me soon, okay?”

  “There’s no doubt about that,” she said.

  Max Castile knew that his parents had their secrets and there was no asking about them. The mobile home was off limits, of course, but so was the old Navy trunk kept at the foot of their four-poster. It had his dad’s name stenciled in block letters, CASTILE, and the black-and-white dial of a combination lock of the type that he’d seen used by kids to secure bikes to the metal railing behind the school.

  For as long as the boy could remember, his father kept the trunk locked. The one occasion that it wasn’t was the time he looked inside. His dad was at work and his mom was doing something in the back of the house when Max’s curiosity got the best of him. The lid was heavy, and he had to pull hard to swing it open.

  On top was a covering of thin, dark fabric. Max turned the edge and immediately caught a glimpse of silver. Chains. He pulled back more of the fabric to reveal a leather whip coiled and twisted into a figure eight, just like all the electric extension cords hanging on pegs in his father’s garage. He wanted to play with the whip, but he didn’t dare reach for it.

  Something else caught his eye. He blinked. Next to the whip were various flesh-colored tubes: replicas of enormous penises. They reminded him of a horse’s he’d seen once when he was over at a friend’s house when he was five. The kid had told Max what it was, and he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off the stallion. He looked deeper into the trunk and saw a pile of magazines with covers showing men wearing masks and woman bound with cords.

  Pleading. Begging. Screaming.

  The images scared the boy, and he let the lid slam shut. Thud! He heard his mother’s footsteps and ran out of the room.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, catching him near the kitchen doorway.

  “Nothing,” he lied, not looking her in the eye.

  Melody studied her son, taking in his fear and wondering what he’d been up to.

  Twenty minutes later he returned to his parents’ bedroom, drawn to whatever he’d seen. This time the box was locked.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  October 20, 8:30 p.m.

  Key Center

  Melody Castile turned to her husband and flashed an uneasy smile. It was subtle, and she turned her head as quickly as she could and faced the window. Rain splattered against windowpanes with broken seals, making the trailer fifty yards away hard to see. She knew what was coming.

  “You coming to the Fun House or not?” Sam asked.

  “The boy’s restless, Baby.” Melody looked in the direction of the TV room. Max was watching some kind of Japanese anime cartoon that held his imagination captive. He wasn’t restless in the least.

  “Daddy wants you there,” Sam said. He was demanding, his meaning implicit: either you come now, or you’ll pray you did later. “Don’t make me get angry.”

  She looked directly at him. “Baby wants to be there, but you know the boy needs me too.”

  He shifted his weight on heavy work boots that had tracked in fir needles and the leaves shed by the willow she’d planted when they first moved onto the property. Corkscrew willow. She’d imagined that she’d be harvesting the curling stems for floral projects and craft shows. She had no idea that she’d have to abandon all that she’d dreamed of in order to fulfill his needs in the Fun House. The best she could say of herself was that she was a reluctant participant. But not all that reluctant. She’d done everything he’d wanted, when he told her to do it. She knew that if the unthinkable had ever occurred and they were found out by the police or someone else, she was going down too. She’d been there. She’d helped him.

  And sometimes she had even enjoyed it.

  “Fun House,” he said. “Now!”

  Melody took a bottle of olive oil from the kitchen cabinet and followed him outside, across the wet grass, past the drippy willow stems, and between two firs that acted like shutters to the doorway of the mobile home. She filled her lungs with air and followed him. It was a single-wide, in decent shape, but outdated in a world in which only a lowlife Kitsap meth-head would call such place home. He’d ripped out the kitchen and knocked out the wall between the two bedrooms. He’d burned most of the garbage, filling the air with black smoke.

  She was sure a neighbor would call in the illegal fire, and when she told him so, he’d looked at her with those cold eyes.

  Eyes that she found full of cruelty, but in a way that made her lust for his touch. She’d never recoil from him.

  But that was before the Fun House became what it was to be.

  One afternoon he showed up with two old queen-size mattresses he’d purchased from Craigslist. She looked at them and made a face. She indicated a big stain that looked like dried blood.

  “Those are nasty,” she said. “Someone had her period all over that one.”

  “Baby, don’t worry. I’ll make it nice for us.”

  She helped Sam carry the mattresses one at a time across the yard into the single-wide. She heard the laughter of children on the acreage next door as they played with the family dog, a German shepherd that they insisted would protect them from prowlers. With the truck bed empty, she noticed a box of chains and a spool of wire.

  “What’s that for?”

  He offered a smile, his lips barely parted. “That’s for me to know and you to find out, Baby.”

  In time, yes, she’d find out.

  From the beginning, Sam reminded Melody what was at stake and that any failure of their secret would be her fault alone.

  “Look, I’ll kill you and go have a pizza before I do any time.”

  She simply nodded. Her heart fluttered, but she only agreed.

  “No one knows what goes on here besides you, me, and the girls we pick up here and there. They won’t say anything, that’s for sure. They’ll never get the chance to.”

  “I love you,” she said. “I just want you to be happy.”

  “I might have been happy if I’d have married someone other than you. But you’ll do what I want nine times out of ten, and that’ll be enough to keep you breathing.”

  It was a threat, and it excited her.

  “I promise to be good.”

  “Good isn’t what I want or need. I like my women a little on the rough side, bitch. You know, sweet like a soft cookie, but with the crunch of nuts inside.” He let out a laugh.

  She laughed, too, as if what he’d said was the funniest thing she’d ever heard.

  It was too much of a reaction, and his eyes shot her a shut up glance. She shut up right away.

  Kendall answered Dr. Waterman’s message with an in-person visit. She needed some space to think, and the w
alk across the parking lot from the Sheriff’s Office to the morgue was about as good as it was going to get. She found the county’s forensic pathologist eating some slightly congealing ramen at her desk in what had been the dining room of the sad little house that served as the county morgue. Birdy set her mug of noodles down and greeted her with a smile.

  “Such service,” she said.

  “We aim to please, Doctor.”

  Birdy motioned for her to sit, and Kendall obliged. “I know. I’m glad you came over. I have something for you. Lord knows you could use it.”

  The last sentence wasn’t meant as a dig, and Birdy regretted how it came out. “You know what I mean. We all could use a break.”

  Kendall nodded. “You can say that again. Have you got something for us?”

  Birdy folded back the metal clasp of a manila envelope and pulled out a four-page report, most of which was boilerplate and protocol.

  “About those paint specks.”

  Kendall scooted forward on the chair. “You’ve got something, haven’t you?”

  “Nothing as definitive as you’d like, I’m sure, but something yes. Lab results came back this morning. Not only did the ladies in Olympia—with an assist from the feds’ lab—confirm the chemical makeup and date of the paint—1940, prewar—they determined that the outer surface of the paint indicated some wear.”

  “‘Some wear?’”

  “That’s right,” Birdy said, drumming her fingernail on the report. “It appears that the object inserted into our victim was likely a household item: eggbeater, rolling pin, potato masher.”

  Kendall didn’t say anything, and Birdy filled the silence with more information.

  “The postmortem damage to her vagina fits the kind of shallow penetration of a painted dowel pin—you know, four inches or so. Whoever raped her after death used some kind of old kitchenware. I’m about sure of it.”