Victim Six

by Gregg Olsen

  She had twenty messages in her in-box, but skipped the others in favor of Cullen Hornbeck’s. She talked to him at least once a week, and for a while, early on in the case, they had traded e-mails daily. But their contact had dwindled, and it pained her.

  The picture of Skye on the ferry appeared, and she felt a lump in her throat. Skye was such a beautiful girl, and if Cullen was correct, this image had to have been taken not long—hours, maybe—before she died. She wanted to write back with a request to publish the photograph in the paper. She stopped herself. Partly because it was opportunistic and she knew it. But there was another reason. The pendant around the dead girl’s neck jolted her a little.

  She’d seen someone wearing one just like it.

  She clicked on the zoom feature and expanded her view. Around Skye’s neck was a silver charm. It was a familiar design, the ancient Chinese symbol of the connection between opposing forces. Good and evil. Light and dark. Laughter and tears. And while its design was common, its construction was unique.

  It was silver and black, with the silver part hammered with a hundred tiny dents. Both of the swirls were accented by a diamond.

  Chapter Forty-two

  February 4, 9:40 p.m.

  Bremerton

  Pillow talk was always the surest way to get a good scoop. As Serenity Hutchins lay next to Josh Anderson, it crossed her mind that she was using him as much as he was using her. Her youth, her figure, and the pleasure that he gained from being with her were undeniable. He kept saying so. As the light crept across his features while he stared into her eyes, she noticed that he was pleading in a way. It was gross. It was demeaning.

  And yet, there she was.

  “You feel like going out to eat?” he asked, rolling closer to her on the bed. “Or we could see what’s in the fridge. I’m a pretty good cook, babe.”

  “Sounds good,” she lied.

  Josh propped his head up on her pillow. She could feel his foot caress her.

  “Which?”

  “Let’s stay in.”

  Serenity knew that what she had been doing was wrong. It was wrong on every level imaginable. She could hear the girls at the paper whisper about how she “slept with her source.” Charlie Keller would probably say something inane like “you gotta do what you gotta do,” as if there could be some excuse for her behavior. She didn’t want the people she knew in town to see her out with Josh Anderson and make judgments about her.

  Even though they would be correct.

  “Let me cook for you,” she said. “You’ve had a tough day.”

  “They’re all tough,” he said, planting his feet on the floor and reaching for a robe slung on the back of a chair.

  “What happened over at McCormick Woods this afternoon?”

  He looked at her, sizing her up a little, wondering if she only cared about what he could tell her. Not about him. Deep down he knew the answer, and for a beat he felt deflated. It was no longer about how handsome he was, how sexy he was, how charming he could be. A pretty young woman like Serenity Hutchins, he figured, was either looking for money or a father figure. With his string of bad marriages and poor financial decisions, money was not the reason she was attracted to him. As for being a father figure, he knew that she had some unresolved family issues. His own relationship with his son was likely the best measure that he was hardly a paragon of fatherhood.

  It was about what he could tell her.

  The sex was good, and whatever she was really doing there in his bed seemed a fair tradeoff. She made him feel younger, virile. She made him think that he could still catch the eye of a pretty girl, even when she was clearly using him.

  “You’re asking about Godding, correct?”

  Serenity tucked a towel around her lithe body, her breasts compressed by the fabric. “I never got the name. I just heard there was something strange going on in Kitsap’s version of Stepford.”

  “Whatever I tell you will be in the paper, right?”

  “You know the rules. You tell me. I write it.”

  They walked into the kitchen of his Bremerton view condo and swung open the door of his stainless-steel refrigerator. The interior held an array of Styrofoam takeout boxes: Chinese, Italian, and something so far gone that it could be either.

  “I hate leftovers,” he said, scanning the shelves. “Always bring ’em home, but never eat ’em.”

  She wrapped her arms around him from behind and leaned over so she could see past him.

  “Eggs are good. I make a pretty good omelet. Cheese in there?”

  He nodded and fished around in the refrigerator.

  “So while I whisk, you tell me what’s going on at McCormick Woods.”

  Josh sat down at the kitchen bar. “We’re not really sure,” he said. “Kendall went out there on the call. One of the neighbors, a real busybody, wanted to give the resident in question the ‘what for’ for not maintaining her yard and made, as you reporters like to write, a ‘grisly discovery.’”

  Serenity turned on the blue flame of the range. A pat of butter hit the skillet and started to melt.

  “Yes, we do love grisly.”

  The pan started to smoke a little, and she lowered the flame.

  “What did she find? I mean, if it was the homeowner, you’d have sent out a press release.”

  Josh nodded. “A dead dog.”

  “A dog.”

  “Not just. Even worse. A decapitated dog.”

  Serenity poured the yellow egg mixture into the hot pan. “You’re kidding? That’s awful. What happened?”

  “We don’t know. Some freak, I guess. Maybe the dog barked too much and another McCormick resident decided to shut Rover up permanently.”

  As the eggs began to set up, she sprinkled from a pouch of pre-shredded Tillamook cheddar. “What did the owner say?”

  “Can’t find her.”

  “How come?”

  “Kendall’s on it. The woman was supposedly going to California or somewhere to visit friends. Apparently she never made it.”

  Serenity ran a spatula along the inside edge of the skillet. “Did she live alone?”

  “Divorced.”

  She folded the omelet and slid it onto a sage-green Fiesta-ware plate. “What’s the woman’s name again?”

  Josh popped some semi-stale bread into a toaster. “Carol Godding.”

  “This isn’t some satanic animal mutilation like those horses in Enumclaw a few years back, is it?”

  Josh took a bite and murmured his approval. “No. Just a nut job from the neighborhood. People in neighborhoods like that would rather poison a dog than confront the person next door about his barking all day. That’s my guess.”

  The next morning, Serenity Hutchins moved her latest article to a folder on the server so that Charlie Keller could edit it. There wasn’t much to it. Serenity knew that sometimes the story that leads to another is as important as a bylined feature above the fold.

  Dog Mutilated in McCormick Woods

  Kitsap County sheriff’s detectives were called out to investigate the mutilation of a family pet on Wednesday in the McCormick Woods neighborhood.

  “It was the vilest thing I’ve ever seen,” said the woman who made the grisly discovery. “The dog—a Doberman, I think—was in the garage. Blood was everywhere. It made me sick.”

  Calls to the owner’s phone have gone unanswered. The owner, neighbors say, is on vacation.

  Brandi Jones was in tears as she read the article in the Lighthouse while she waited for her brother, Nate, to finish his swimming lessons the following afternoon. The Jones family lived two doors down from the Goddings. Whenever the Goddings were out of town, she took care of Dolly. She was probably the only one who really knew Carol and what a wonderful person she was.

  Brandi wasn’t sure who to call, the reporter who’d written the story or the Sheriff’s Office.

  She called 911 and was patched through to Kendall Stark. Brandi began sobbing again before she could even get her name o
ut.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I just called to tell you that I babysit Dolly when Carol is away.”

  Kendall didn’t have to ask the distraught girl to explain what she was referring to. The names Dolly and Carol were fresh on her mind.

  “I’m sorry about what happened,” Kendall said.

  Heaving with emotion, the girl was unable to speak. Kendall waited patiently for her to regain her composure.

  “Take your time. We’re in no hurry,” Kendall said. “Slow down.”

  Brandi’s sobs finally subsided and she took a deep breath.

  “I’m worried about Carol,” she said.

  “We understand she’s on vacation. We’re trying to track her down.”

  The girl started to cry again. Each word was like a fist to her throat.

  “That’s just it. She’s not on vacation. I’m scheduled to take care of Dolly next week.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. My mom put it on the calendar. There’s no way she would have put it there if it wasn’t correct. My mom’s like that…. Something happened to Carol. I just know it.”

  Kendall made a few notes and took down Brandi’s information, promising to let her know if she tracked down Carol Godding.

  “Detective Stark,” Brandi said, “Carol really loved Dolly. She really loved her dog.”

  Kendall thought of the dog toys and the food dishes she’d seen.

  “I’m sure she did,” she said, her mind beginning to race.

  Celesta, Skye, Marissa, and now Carol.

  The Fun House was a dump in most ways, but Melody found herself spending more and more time there. Sam had told her that as long as she “watered the bitch” and “fed her some table scraps,” so she’d be in good condition when he got home from work, he didn’t care what Melody did.

  She looked at her watch and knew she had about a half hour before Max came home from school and she’d have no more time for herself. She sat in the red-plastic-covered recliner and turned on the TV.

  A moan came from the back bedroom, but she turned the sound up.

  Seattle Now was on, and she enjoyed the soap opera updates provided by a perky woman with a chatty style that made her enjoy the plot points on the shows she didn’t even watch.

  A louder moan from the room…

  “Shut up!” Melody called out. “You want me to shut you up? Don’t make me!”

  The host started previewing the next day’s show, and an electric charge went through Melody’s body.

  Oh God, it’s happening! People are talking on TV about us.

  Melody heard a ping and looked at her laptop. As quickly as she could, she clicked on the space to enter her bid on the online auction site. She was going after a pair of Depression-glass salt and pepper shakers that she considered especially lovely. She no longer knew why she collected such things, but it was an old habit. She had filled the log home’s kitchen with old eggbeaters, ceramic juicers, rolling pins, and salt and pepper shakers, and other kitchenware. Sam had his collection, and she had hers.

  She looked at the photo on the screen.

  I’m going to get you, she thought. I don’t know what I’ll do with you or where I’ll put you, but I’m going to get you.

  Her smile faded at the sound of more moaning.

  “Goddamn you! I’m trying to get things done, and you won’t shut up!”

  Chapter Forty-three

  February 7, 10:15 p.m.

  Key Peninsula

  Even in the fog of her fear, Carol Godding’s first thought was about Dolly. Had she let the dog out? Why had she barked so loudly? Had it been all night? Dogs weren’t against the rules at McCormick Woods, although the Welcome to the HOA newsletter highlighted how Basenjis were “ideal, quiet companions” and “the dogs of choice” for a quiet neighborhood. Carol hadn’t heard of Basenjis before coming to McCormick Woods, and she asked her husband about them.

  “Barkless dogs,” Dan had said, rolling his eyes upward as he signed the homeowners association contract, which held the Goddings to the strictest standards of yard maintenance, house color, and noise level—even stipulating that the driveway “must be free of all vehicles excepted for visitors.”

  As her consciousness stirred, Carol thought that she’d overslept and that if she didn’t haul herself out of bed right away, then she’d screw up her entire day.

  Got to wake up. Got to get out of bed. Now!

  She couldn’t move. It was as if she were being held immobile in a straitjacket. She opened her eyes, but she could see nothing.

  Where am I?

  She tried to wriggle; she tried to speak. Nothing worked.

  Have I had a stroke? Am I paralyzed?

  She twisted once more, moving her frame an inch or two. She wasn’t paralyzed; She was bound. Her mouth was sealed shut.

  She spun through the events of the day moment by moment. The skirt. The beads from Peru. The recollection that Connie had been a double-crossing, man-stealing whore. A conversation about cutting through the slate waters of Sinclair Inlet in her canoe.

  Nothing after that.

  She turned her head slightly, her face pressed against cold plastic. As awareness came, so did a deep shudder. It rolled through her constricted body like a wave trying to break over an earthen dam. A slight crack. She shivered. Tears came to her eyes.

  The little boy. The man who’d come for the canoe. And nothing after that.

  Her eyes, blurry with tears, adjusted to the darkness. She was not outside. She hadn’t fallen in her garage in some freak accident. She hadn’t been rushed to the hospital. She’d been taken. She could feel the chill of a draft pour over her body, and for the first time she noticed that she was no longer wearing her blue jeans and sweater. Her panties and bra were missing too. The bands around her wrists and ankles and the tape over her mouth were all she had on. She knew what that meant, and if she could have screamed just then, she would have let out the kind of bloodcurdling shriek that would wake the dead in a cemetery a county away. But she couldn’t. All she could do was squirm, wait, and pray.

  Carol saw a fleck of light, but she didn’t know if it was coming from the floor or the ceiling…from heaven or hell.

  The slit of light widened, then narrowed. She could feel hot, damp hands on her. She was on her back, and the hands swung her legs up into the air. She could say nothing, although in her mind she was screaming at the top of her lungs.

  “Keep your legs loose, okay?” he said.

  For the first time she could feel the air against her naked vagina. She tensed.

  “That’s it. Fight me. I like it when one of my girls fights me.”

  One of your girls?

  She noticed then that her eyes were partially taped shut too.

  “You belong to me,” he said. “I’ll do whatever I want to you and then toss you away like a used Kleenex.”

  Unable to scream or cry out, Carol tightened her body once more. She felt him push himself inside her, and her revulsion was so great, she nearly vomited.

  “Tighten, bitch.”

  He was growling at her, commanding her to be his bitch. He was saying something about her being put on this earth to serve him. With each word, each grinding thrust of his pelvis against hers, she cried. Through the slightest opening under her taped eyes, she could see the light widen again.

  Then she heard another voice. “How’s our bitch doing today?”

  It was the voice of a woman.

  She felt someone touch her on the inner thigh.

  “Nice skin. Soft, creamy. The way you like it, babe. The way I like it too. I want to play too. Let me play with our new toy.”

  The words coming from the woman confused Carol.

  New toy.

  Chapter Forty-four

  March 1, 3 p.m.

  Seattle

  The lights went up, and the affable host of Seattle Now, Jerry Porter, forty and holding, peered into the camera. He had a kind of manufactured int
ensity: dark eyes and tawny powdered skin that in the age of high def looked more coated than the naturally smooth, youthful glow he and his makeup artist had tried so hard to project. His jacket was Nordstrom navy and his tie a red and yellow argyle. It was a preppy look that had been his trademark since he first landed in Seattle on his way to a top-ten market.

  A trip that never found its final destination.

  “We have a shocking story today.” He paused, pretending to correct himself on the script that he’d written—“a horrifying story today. If you’ve been watching this station or reading the paper, then you know across Puget Sound from here in sleepy Kitsap County at least three women have been brutally murdered by a man who has come to be nicknamed the ‘Cutter.’”

  In rapid succession a series of photographs filled the TV screen. First the now-familiar image of Celesta Delgado at her high school graduation; next, a photograph of Skye Hornbeck taken a few months before she went missing—judging by her quilted attire, during a ski trip; finally, a photograph of an almost unrecognizable Marissa Cassava looking oddly demure, long before heavy eyeliner and piercings masked a sweet charm that probably no one apart from her mother had known.

  The host continued as the camera panned away to reveal two men and two women sitting in a row of swivel-based dinette chairs that had been welded by the stage crew to keep from turning.

  “At least three women have been brutally murdered in Kitsap County, and family members want to know why the killer is still at large. I’m Jerry Porter, and this is Seattle Now.”

  Cullen Hornbeck, Tulio Pena, Donna Solomon, and Serenity Hutchins blinked away the lights.

  In her office, Kendall reached for her phone and dialed Josh’s number. She hadn’t seen him all day.

  “Are you watching this?” she asked.

  “Yeah, if you mean Seattle Now, never miss it.” His tone was deadpan. He didn’t tell Kendall that he was in the show’s green room waiting for Serenity.

  “Did you know Serenity was going to be on it?” she asked.