At Rope's End

by Edward Kay

  “Well, then I think you’ve got a problem. Because when I ran a check on him last night, along with finding out about his extensive criminal record, I also got his address. And I went by there to question him. But guess what I found? An empty apartment.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about. He moved to a new place at the beginning of October. His new address won’t be in the records until my bookkeeper processes the next cycle of paychecks, which is next Friday. His new address is in my office. Everything’s cool.”

  “No everything is not cool, Mr. Griffin. Because Cody North is supposed to be here and he isn’t.”

  “He’s always been super reliable. This is literally the first time he’s ever been late. Why don’t we go inside; I’ll call him and find out what’s going on and we’ll sort this out.”

  “Okay, let’s go,” said Maclean.

  Jason unlocked the front door, turned off the alarm, and flicked the lights on.

  “Cody? You here, man? Cody, yo!”

  There was no answer.

  “Does Cody often lurk around in here with the lights off?” asked Maclean, betraying more than a little sarcasm.

  “No,” replied Jason patiently, “but once in a while if he’s working late and starting early, he sleeps here in one of the planes or in the back of the van.”

  “Does he own a vehicle?”

  “No. I’m not able to pay him much ’til I get this place back on its feet. He can’t afford a car of his own, so I let him use the company vehicle after hours.”

  “You trust him with your own property. How magnanimous,” said Maclean. “But I didn’t see your van parked outside. And I don’t see it anywhere in the hangar either. This makes me very concerned, Mr. Griffin.”

  “Look, I know Cody’s done some pretty bad things. But when they showed me his criminal file, and I found out his background, it seemed a lot of it was because of circumstance and lousy breaks. I mean, you read his life history and you think, ‘There but for the grace of God go I,’ you know?”

  “There but for the grace of God go you indeed. Because if Cody North turns out to be the murderer and you helped him get away because you concealed his criminal past from me, I will charge you with being an accessory to homicide. And the fact that Cody North is not here when he’s supposed to be gives me great cause for alarm.”

  “Look, I’m calling him right now. You’ll see that everything’s fine.”

  Jason took out his cell phone and hit the speed dial. He listened impatiently as the phone rang through to voice mail. “Hey Cody, it’s me. Where are you, man? I’m at the hangar. You’re supposed to be here. Call me as soon as you get this, okay? It’s urgent.”

  “I’m getting a very bad feeling about this,” said Maclean. “I would like Cody’s new address right now.”

  “Yeah, sure. 345 Tamarack Way, Apartment 202. Maybe he slept in or something. Like I said, he’s super dependable, but he does like to party, and he does like the ladies.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Maclean. “He likes the ladies so much he may have killed two and sexually assaulted several more. That we know of.”

  “Look, I’m sure if you go to his apartment, this will all be sorted out.”

  “Assuming he’s not halfway to Mexico by now. What’s the make and plate number of the company van?”

  “It’s a 2010 Ford Econoline. 954TDZ.”

  Maclean called her dispatcher. “This is Detective Maclean. I’ve got a follow-up on that APB on a Cody North. He may be driving a 2010 Ford Econoline, license nine five four Tango Delta Zulu. He’s a person of interest in a homicide and may be trying to flee the area in that vehicle.”

  Verraday looked into the darkness of the hangar and noticed that the Dodge Charger was gone.

  “What happened to your Charger?” he asked.

  “He didn’t drive away in it, if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s not running. I had it towed to an upholstery shop yesterday. It’s got some interior panels that are rotted and need to be replaced. I’m planning to sell it as soon as I get it fixed up so I can use the cash for the business.”

  “By the way, are its numbers matching?” asked Verraday.

  “Why?”

  Verraday gazed at him for a moment before replying. “Just curiosity. Most of the 1968 Chargers were sold with 318 V-8s, like the one in my dad’s Belvedere. The 426 Hemi was an expensive option. There were fewer than five hundred sold that first year. And if it’s the original engine that came with the car, that makes yours worth a lot more than one that had a 426 dropped in from some other donor car. Be good for your cash flow.”

  “Oh, right.”

  Maclean listened as the dispatcher came back on the line. She sighed. “Okay. Put in a request that they don’t move anything until I get there.” Maclean clicked the end call button.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Jason, his brow furrowed with concern.

  “Cody’s dead.”

  “What?” exclaimed Jason, disbelieving. “How?”

  “His body was just found at the bottom of a canyon below a hiking trail in Issaquah. The Griffinair company van was found nearby.”

  “Ah, shit,” said Jason. He looked stunned for a moment, just stood there with his mouth hanging open. “Ah, shit,” he said again. “How could he do this? I believed him. And he lied to me.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Maclean.

  “He told me he’d never go back to prison. Ever. I thought that meant that he’d gone straight, that he’d never do anything to make anybody put him back in there. I didn’t think it meant he’d kill himself.”

  “No one said he committed suicide,” replied Maclean.

  Jason looked ashen.

  “When did you last see him?” asked Maclean.

  “When we closed up last night. He told me he was going home. He took the van.”

  “And what about you?”

  “I stuck around to flight test the Citation. I flew it up to Port Angeles.”

  “Did you file a flight plan?”

  “Yes, of course. You can check.”

  “And what time did you get back?”

  “Just now. I was near Port Angeles when I started getting some gremlins in the instruments. False readings. It was dark and there was low cloud cover moving in. I didn’t want to risk flying on instruments alone, so I put down there for the night.”

  “Where did you stay in Port Angeles?”

  “At the Red Lion Hotel.”

  “Can you prove it?”

  “Sure. I always put everything on the company credit card.”

  Jason showed Maclean the hotel invoice and the Visa receipt.

  “How did you get from the airport to the Red Lion?”

  “I rented a car. Got a last-minute deal that was way cheaper than the price of a taxi to and from the airport.”

  Jason retrieved the rental contract from his briefcase and presented it to Maclean. The odometer reading showed that he had put less than twenty miles on it.

  “I called you several times last night. Why didn’t you answer your phone?” she asked.

  “I was exhausted. I turned my phone off. I just didn’t want to talk to anybody. I ordered a bottle of wine, poured a big glass of it, and just sat on the shore in front of the hotel, watching the ocean. I’ve been pretty stressed over the financial situation around here and tired from getting that Citation ready to fly to Mexico, and now this thing with that poor girl being murdered.”

  “All right, Mr. Griffin. I’ll leave you to get on with your day,” said Maclean. “You’ll be needing to find yourself a new mechanic. Also, I don’t know when you have those flights to Mexico planned, but I’d prefer if you stick around town for the next day or two until this is wrapped up. I may want to speak with you again.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Issaquah was less than an hour from downtown Seattle but was rugged enough to have trails that were challenging even for seasoned hikers. Maclean and Verraday spotted the Ford Econoline near a gua
rdrail with a King County Sheriff’s department patrol car parked nearby it. A solitary deputy was at the scene. He waved to them as he spotted their vehicle approaching.

  Maclean spoke quietly to Verraday as they pulled up. “The good news is that this is under the jurisdiction of the King County Sheriff’s department. They’re not particularly tight with the Seattle PD, so having you along won’t raise any red flags. Even so, it will be best if you leave the questions to me.”

  The Deputy led them down a steep trail toward where the body lay. It had taken a beating during the fall and was crumpled like a rag doll at the bottom of the rocky canyon, one hundred feet below the trail. But there was no doubt about the identity. The battered face was that of Cody North.

  “I didn’t touch the body except to remove the wallet for identification purposes,” said the deputy. “It was in the pocket of his down-filled vest. The registration for the van was in there too. So was a set of keys. He’s got a cell phone on him too. I heard it ringing just after eight o’clock, but I didn’t want to touch it in case whoever was trying to reach him could be part of an investigation.”

  “Good call, Deputy. Did you examine the van?”

  “Just a cursory inspection. It was locked, but one of the keys that the deceased had on him fit the vehicle. I had a look inside. Not much to see though. Just the usual stuff: junk-food wrappers, empty coffee cups.”

  “Mind if we take a look?”

  “Be my guest.”

  After climbing up out of the steep ravine, Verraday and Maclean walked over to the Econoline. They donned latex gloves and leaned in through the open side doors to inspect it. As the deputy had described, there was nothing much visible except food wrappers and empty coffee cups. Then Verraday looked up toward the ceiling at the same moment as Maclean.

  “You see what I see?” he asked.

  “Oh yeah,” she replied.

  Tucked into the driver’s sun visor was a dream catcher. The same small dream catcher that Rachel Friesen had worn as a navel ring in her Assassin Girls page. Maclean turned to the King County officer.

  “Deputy, this site is now part of a homicide investigation.”

  * * *

  “I’ll need to have a Seattle PD forensics team go through Cody Walker’s apartment,” said Maclean as she and Verraday headed back to Seattle in her Interceptor. “I’d love to have you there to have a look, see what it tells you about Cody, but it would raise a lot of questions. Sorry.”

  “No worries,” said Verraday. “I have several days’ worth of e-mails from students to read when I get home. That ought to keep me busy and in a bad mood.”

  “Well, hopefully I’ll have something to cheer you up with after we’ve finished the search. I’ll be in touch again as soon as we’re done there.”

  CHAPTER 28

  While one forensics team examined the van, Maclean led another to the address that Jason Griffin had given her for Cody North’s new apartment. It was in a dumpy low-rise building in Yessler, not far from the original Skid Row that had lent its name to Skid Rows all over the world. They were let in by the superintendent, a thin man with grayish skin and a ragged smoker’s cough.

  The white paper masks and coveralls that Maclean and the other members of her team wore prevented them from accidentally contaminating the site. But those measures wouldn’t stop the site from contaminating them.

  Maclean recoiled slightly as she took her first breath of the apartment. The air was pungent and close. It smelled of stale tobacco, stale beer, and stale takeout food. Maclean caught a faint whiff of mold too. Dirty laundry spilled out of a vinyl hamper onto the floor, adding to the gamy cocktail they were forced to inhale.

  Darnell Rivers, a young civilian forensic tech with a high fade and an expression of perpetual surprise, was next in after Maclean. He whistled in amazement at the claustrophobically small bachelor apartment.

  “Holy crap, I didn’t know they made ’em this tiny. Place is like the Munchkin Manor.”

  “He spent the last four years at San Quentin,” said Maclean. “The occupancy rate there is one hundred and thirty-seven percent. I guess this looks like the Trump Tower by comparison.”

  The parquet floor was bare. The varnish was worn down to the wood by the entranceway and the bathroom, where the ill-fitting door brushed against it enough to have scraped a track. Three empty beer cans and the remains of a recently consumed pepperoni pizza in a greasy box sat on the coffee table. Beside the unmade bed, there were copies of Maxim and Hustler, as well as a magazine that Maclean had never seen before, something called Duty Bound. On the cover was a girl in a suggestive version of a policewoman’s uniform, breasts exposed, short skirt torn and riding up her thighs. She was gagged and handcuffed, an alarmed expression on her face as she gazed wide-eyed at something out of frame.

  “Okay, listen up,” said Maclean. “The individual who lived here is dead. His body turned up in Issaquah this morning. We believe it was suicide. He is a suspected serial killer who liked to torture his victims first, and he liked taking souvenirs. If this is our man, he saved the justice system a lot of time and money by offing himself. But that doesn’t mean our work is done, because the victims’ families and significant others need closure. We have no idea how many people our perp may have killed. So it’s very important that we find every possible clue that could identify a victim. Is that clear?”

  The team members nodded. Even Rivers looked serious.

  “All right then. Let’s close this case right here and now.”

  Maclean’s team eagerly set to work. Rivers pulled back the clammy bed sheets and raised an eyebrow with an exaggerated expression of distaste that was only partly mugging. He waved a hand in front of his face as though waving away a bad smell.

  “Baby, you need a hazmat suit to go down to this funky town.”

  “I’ll be sure to write you up for a bravery commendation,” said Maclean. “Keep looking.”

  Maclean began taking notes on her iPad, taking her own photos and listing every object that caught her eye, any detail that could be a clue. Rivers felt around in the sheets, working his way down to the foot of the bed where the top sheet was tucked in tightly.

  “Something wedged down here,” he said.

  He gave a gentle tug. Then grinning, he pulled back the sheets and triumphantly held up his prize, a pair of women’s black lace panties.

  “Unless this guy was a Frederick’s of Hollywood model, I’d say we’ve got some evidence here, boss.”

  “Bag it up, Rivers,” said Maclean. “And get it UV tested to see if there are traces of semen on it.”

  “I don’t need a UV light to give you the answer to that one.” He furrowed his brow into another look of distaste. “I’d say these were somebody’s playmate of the month. Only question is whose.”

  “Let me get a shot of them,” said Vasquez, a slim young woman who was the team photographer.

  Vasquez snapped photos from every angle before moving on to the hall closet. She reached into the closet with a small flashlight and probed the recesses.

  “There’s something here that you should see, Detective.”

  Vasquez pointed to a long two-pronged object, partly hidden behind a mop and broom.

  “You know what that is?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” replied Maclean. “It’s a cattle prod. That’s evidence. Get some photos.”

  Rivers looked over.

  “Judging by this place, that cattle prod got a lot more use than that mop or broom.”

  “Keep digging, people” said Maclean. “I want everything.”

  CHAPTER 29

  By the time Verraday’s cell phone rang that evening, he had already had a couple of large glasses of red wine. Between that, the gas flames from the fireplace, and the patter of rain on the windows, he had been lulled into a pleasant state of drowsiness. Maclean’s call changed all that.

  “North’s apartment is a fucking gold mine, James,” said Maclean. He could hear the excitemen
t in her voice.

  “What have you got?”

  “Panties that match Rachel Friesen’s in the Assassin Girls photos. We’ll have to check them for her DNA as well as North’s to confirm. But it looks like a positive. There was a cattle prod that could have been used on Helen Dale. The dress that they both wore is here. It’s got blonde hair in the zipper. Could be Helen’s. Found two small tins, one with a locket of dark-brown hair, the other blonde. I’m sending it all to the lab for identification.”

  “How about Alana Carmichael? Anything of hers there? That Cupid’s arrow maybe?”

  “No. Nothing’s turned up yet. But we’re not done looking. When I get off the phone, I’ll e-mail my notes to you along with the photos of everything we’ve got so far.”

  “Good. I’ll take a look as soon as I get them.”

  “Okay. Let’s talk in the morning. And thanks.”

  Verraday watched as the inbox of his laptop began to fill up with the files Maclean was sending him. He was excited, but also apprehensive. He was relieved that the killer might have been stopped in his tracks once and for all, but he also felt trepidation at having to examine the evidence. The intimate articles of clothing and jewelry that the young women had worn, both to please themselves and their clients, had instead become the perverse trophies of a psychopathic killer. It would be a disturbing process to examine all the evidence piece by piece, but it was necessary in order to conclude the case and provide closure to the survivors.