by Edward Kay
Verraday steeled himself for the task at hand by going to the kitchen to pour himself a large brandy. He took his Seattle World’s Fair tumbler from the dish rack then grabbed the bottle. It felt very light, and as he poured the last of the contents into his glass, he saw that there was less than half an ounce in it. He was annoyed at himself, couldn’t believe he’d forgotten to pick up a fresh bottle after making a mental note the previous evening. He didn’t feel up to viewing the evidence photos from Cody North’s apartment without the numbing effects of the brandy and resigned himself to going out to buy some more. Verraday put his jacket and boots on, grabbed the umbrella off the hall tree, and stepped onto the front porch.
The showers had grown heavier throughout the evening, and now the wind had begun to blow in hard from Puget Sound, whipping the rain diagonally toward the ground. Verraday opened his umbrella. A sudden gust nearly pulled it out of his hands and began to turn it inside out. As Verraday angled the umbrella into the wind to keep the metal frame from snapping, he heard his front gate bang. He saw it swinging freely, rattling against the latch. He knew that he’d pulled it shut behind him when Maclean dropped him off. All the other gates on his street were closed. He bent down to see if there was something faulty with the latch, but it was fine. He stepped out onto the sidewalk and made sure the gate was now properly secured. He had planned on walking the four blocks to the liquor store, but the rain was so heavy that even if his umbrella survived the trip, which was uncertain, he knew he’d be sopping wet by the time he got there and back. He felt vaguely guilty about driving his car for such a short journey but decided it was the lesser of two evils.
When he arrived at the liquor store, the parking lot was deserted. So was the store, and he was in and out with his brandy in less than two minutes. The thunderstorm was so intense now that Verraday was obliged to open his umbrella just to make the ten-yard dash from the store to his car without getting soaked. Even with his umbrella held close above him, the rain pelted his shoes and jeans from the knees down. When he reached his car, he set his brandy on the roof and slid his free hand into his jacket for his keys. Still holding his umbrella in his left hand, shoulders hunched, he fumbled around for them, finally locating them wedged crosswise in a corner of his pocket. He was prying them loose when he was suddenly blinded by an intense white light.
He looked up to see a Seattle Police Department SUV parked across the lot, partially hidden behind a dumpster, with its high beams trained on him. With the whoop of a siren and a flash of red-and-blue lights, the SUV crept toward him. Verraday couldn’t make out the driver until the vehicle had pulled up close enough to him that he was even with the door. The rain-slicked driver’s side window slid down, revealing the officer within: Bosko. Verraday gave him a sour look.
“Nice of you to come out in such lousy weather just to pay me a visit, Officer. But then again, you’ve been spending so much time hanging around my house you must be getting used to it by now.”
Bosko returned Verraday’s disapproving expression.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just here doing a routine stakeout for the Drunk Net program, looking for DUIs. Liquor store seems like a logical place for it, don’t you think?”
“Are you kidding me? On a night like this?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised at what kind of lowlife come out in this kind of weather. You know, pissheads who’d rather get drenched than go a night without booze.”
“I should have guessed it was you who’s been following me around, Bosko.”
“I’m not following you around. I’m just here in this parking lot doing my job.”
“Do you really think you can get me to drop my lawsuit by fucking with me, leaving my gate open all the time, putting a dead rat on my doorstep?”
“Doc, I don’t know anything about your gate or any dead rat. And I don’t know how much time you psychologists spend around crazies, but I’d suggest you cut back on your hours. I think the nut jobs are starting to rub off on you.”
“Oh yeah. Deny, deny, deny. It’s the oldest trick in the playbook.”
“Have you consumed any alcoholic beverages this evening, sir?”
“Yes. Two glasses of wine. If you have reason to suspect I’m lying, I’ll be happy to blow into a Breathalyzer. Otherwise, I’m a free citizen going about my lawful business, and if you want to continue this conversation, I’ll go ahead and call my lawyer.”
“Two glasses of wine, huh? Okay. You’re free to go. Have a good night.”
Verraday was completely soaked from the knees down now. He pulled out his remote and unlocked his car, fighting a losing battle against the pelting rain. As he lowered himself into the driver’s seat, he closed the umbrella, then cursed as a cascade of cold rainwater ran down from it onto his crotch. Fuming, Verraday put the key in the ignition and started the car.
He looked out the window to see Bosko gazing at him quizzically, motioning with his chin to get his attention. Verraday lowered his window.
“What is it now?” he snapped.
Bosko gestured to a point just above Verraday’s head.
“Don’t forget your bottle, Doc.”
“Fuck,” whispered Verraday as he realized that, rattled by the confrontation, he’d left it on the roof of his car.
Bosko raised his window and backed the patrol SUV across the parking lot into its lair beside the dumpster so that it was invisible from the street. As Verraday climbed out to retrieve his bottle of brandy, even through the rain, he could see Bosko shaking his head, a derisive smirk on his face.
CHAPTER 30
At Verraday’s request, he and Maclean met in his office at Guthrie Hall instead of at the café to review the evidence. Between the previous evening’s confrontation with Bosko and the photos of the trophies in North’s apartment from the murdered women, he wasn’t in the mood to deal with anybody’s bullshit. He was feeling pretty jangled, though he took pains to hide it from Maclean.
He poured some strong dark roast coffee and milk from a thermos into two cups and handed one to Maclean. She took a sip. He noticed that she closed her eyes for the briefest instant as she tasted it. This was a woman whose life only allowed for fleeting pleasures.
“Mm, this is good. Thanks.”
“So? What’s the score?” asked Verraday.
“They’ve got the champagne chilling down at headquarters, all set to pop the corks. The captain of homicide and the chief say they’re both ready to hand the case over to the DA if I am.”
“What do you think?”
“I think it would make a lot of people happy. But we never did turn up any evidence connecting Cody North to Alana Carmichael. So it doesn’t get Cray off the hook. And it doesn’t expose Fowler as the fraud that he is. Unless I’m wrong, and the Alana Carmichael case isn’t related to this one.”
“Why are you suddenly doubting yourself?”
Maclean absentmindedly rotated her coffee mug on the desk, a nervous reaction that Verraday noticed was extremely unusual for her.
“I’m wondering why we only found trophies from Rachel Friesen and Helen Dale at Cody North’s apartment. None from Alana Carmichael. What if Cody North didn’t kill her? What if I’ve blinded myself to that possibility, lost my objectivity because I hate Fowler so much? And swayed you as well. Plus Fowler would love for me to be wrong. If I don’t have all my ducks lined up, and soon . . .”
“I know what it will mean,” said Verraday. “And you know what I think?”
Maclean stared into her coffee. He didn’t wait for her to answer.
“I think you’re a good cop. And a decent person. And because you’re a good cop and a decent person, you’re questioning yourself and your motives. But you have good instincts, and you’re one hell of a detective from what I’ve seen. Your gut is telling you that something’s not adding up here. And I think your gut is right.”
She looked up from her coffee, but didn’t speak.
“So, Detective, wha
t are your instincts telling you right now?” asked Verraday.
“That it’s very strange that we haven’t found any trophies related to Alana Carmichael.”
“Putting your feelings about Fowler aside, do you think she could have been killed by someone other than whoever killed Rachel Friesen and Helen Dale?”
“It’s possible, but I’d say it’s unlikely. I agree with your assessment of Cray, your profile of him, and I still don’t think he killed Alana Carmichael. Plus there were no other murders with this MO. I just can’t figure out why, if Cody North did it, he would want souvenirs of Rachel and Helen but not of Alana. As a psychologist, can you think of a reason a murderer would have one particular victim whose personal effects didn’t interest him?”
“No. I can’t.”
“Then why would we find trophies from two victims, but not from all three?”
“To determine that, you also have to determine what Rachel Friesen and Helen Dale have in common that’s different from Alana Carmichael.”
“They have almost everything in common. All three are of the same type physically and aesthetically, and they all traveled in the same circles. There’s only one thing different that I can think of: as far as any member of the general public or even the police department knows, there’s already a suspect in custody who’s confessed to killing Alana Carmichael. And that the only thing standing between that suspect and a conviction is the trial coming up next month.”
She paused.
“James, only you and I know that we’re looking for somebody who also killed Alana Carmichael.”
“So whoever the real killer is, he thinks he’s off the hook for the Carmichael murder. He’s only worried about getting caught for killing Rachel Friesen and Helen Dale,” said Verraday.
“Yes, and that would mean that he did it by framing Cody North, killing him or having him killed, then making it look like a suicide to tie a ribbon on the whole thing,” Maclean continued. “But why frame Cody North? Why choose him?”
“Because whoever did it was smart enough to realize that Cody North had the right profile to be believable as the killer. And that it was also believable that he’d commit suicide rather than go back to prison. Who do you know who would know all that about North?”
“Son of a bitch. Griffin sponsored Cody North and brought him to Seattle just before Alana Carmichael was murdered!” exclaimed Maclean.
Verraday nodded agreement. “And he kept him around as insurance against the day that he’d need a scapegoat for the murders.”
“Plus they’re the same age and race,” said Maclean. “Someone looking for a person with Jason’s profile could easily fall for the sleight of hand and be directed toward Cody instead.”
“Jason Griffin planned this very carefully. He probably looked through the profiles of hundreds of ex-felons before he found just the right one.”
“But how do we prove any of this?” asked Maclean. “How do we know we’re even right? There’s not a shred of Jason Griffin’s DNA on any of the bodies.”
“We’ve got to shake him up,” said Verraday. “Jason thinks he’s smarter than everyone else. He thinks he’s outwitted us at every turn. So we have to throw him off balance, find his Achilles’ heel. He’s got to believe we’ve got so much on him that there’s no point in putting up a fight. And we’ve got to figure out how to do it as quickly as possible before there’s time for the shit to come down on you for openly questioning whether Fowler got it right.”
“There’s something you said early on that’s stuck with me,” said Maclean.
“What’s that?”
“That whoever the perpetrator is must have committed killings before to be this good at it. Since there were no bodies fitting the killer’s signature found in Seattle before Alana Carmichael was murdered, we have to assume that if Jason Griffin is the killer, he committed his previous murders somewhere else. So what happened in Jason Griffin’s life that would have changed his MO? Made him started killing the way he’s killing now?”
“He said his father died last year. He was the head of the business until then.”
“Yes,” said Maclean, “which means that now, Jason can use the hangar as the kill and cleanup site. It’s perfect.”
“He would have had to take his victims somewhere else to dispose of them,” said Verraday.
“But where?”
“Robert Pickton’s family owned a forty-acre farm in Port Coquitlam. That’s how he was able to hide the bodies of so many women.”
“There was a picture of Jason with his mother at the controls of a floatplane,” said Maclean. “Professor Lowenstein mentioned that they used to fly floatplane charters.”
“Right, and if the Griffin family had a lot of money at that time, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume they had a vacation property some place.”
“I can do a search of land titles. It’s all electronic nowadays. It’ll only take a few minutes.”
Verraday vacated his seat so that Maclean could come around and use his desktop computer. She punched in the surname and a string of properties came up, both for ones currently owned and ones sold within the last several years.
“Look at this,” said Maclean. “There are only three recent property transfers in the state listed for a Fred Griffin. One is the family home in Fremont, which, as you can see, was transferred from Jason’s father to Jason’s mother when they divorced four years ago. Fred also owned a condo that Jason inherited after his father died last year. The third one is a twenty-acre waterfront vacation property up on Suquamish Island, in the San Juans. It was sold off less than a month before Fred died.”
“You know anything about the San Juans or Suquamish?”
“Never been there. Let’s check it out.”
Maclean Googled it and in seconds had some results.
“No ferry service to Suquamish,” she said. “And no airstrip. The only way in is by private boat or—get this—floatplane. Only about thirty full-time residents. Very lonely, very remote. The kind of place where something terrible could happen to you and nobody would ever know. Fred inherited it from his father, so his ex-wife couldn’t touch it as part of the divorce settlement. But as next of kin, Jason would have been in line for it. If his dad hadn’t sold it first.”
“But then the father dies suddenly a few weeks later. I wonder if the new owner has received any generous offers from mysterious strangers wanting to buy it?” asked Verraday.
“I’ll check on that,” said Maclean. “And I wonder what he died from. The obituary suggested a mental health organization for donations.”
“Suicide?”
“If that’s the story, I’m going over that coroner’s report with a fine-toothed comb, and if anything’s out of place, I’ll have the case reopened. I want to find out if the father had any help dispatching himself. And I’ll speak to the new owner and the real estate agent,” said Maclean, “find out if Jason’s tried to buy back the property. There’s something else I’ve been wondering too.”
“What’s that?”
“When you asked Jason Griffin if the numbers matched on the engine and frame of his Dodge Charger, I saw a flicker of something on his face. I’m going to run Jason through the DMV registration system, make sure that car’s registered in his name. And if it is, I’m going to find out if that’s the original engine. You’re the vintage car expert. The VIN code would indicate what the original engine is, right?”
“Yes, it would.”
“If it’s not the original, we should get the serial number off it and find out where it came from. Might be hot. Now, how about Cody North’s death? What are your thoughts on it? Forensics says there were no fragments of skin or clothing under the fingernails. Jason’s lawyers will use that.”
“If Cody North was close enough to the edge of the trail to go down without a fight, or to not see it coming, then if there was someone else there, it had to be someone he trusted, someone he’d let get close to him. Someone like Jason
.”
“But Jason was in Port Angeles. He’s got the proof. Unless he hired someone to kill Cody for him.”
“Not necessarily,” said Verraday. “I was thinking about that. Port Angeles is only two and a half hours away by car. He would have had just enough time to call Cody, arrange to meet him, drive down, kill him, and drive back in time to fly that plane into Seattle at eight AM.”
“But he had the car rental contract that showed only twenty miles on the odometer.”
“You know, if I was looking for an alibi for where I was when someone was killed, and the place was driving distance from where that killing took place, I would order a bottle of wine from room service. Then I would take a glass down to the beach in front of the hotel where everybody would see me. Then just to be really certain I’d been noticed, I’d leave my rental car parked as close to the office as possible, so everybody could see it too, see that it was parked there all night.”
“And then?”
“Do they have more than one car rental agency in Port Angeles? There’s no law against anybody renting more than one car, is there?”
“You’re saying he rented a second car in Port Angeles, then drove it down to Issaquah and back?”
“It’s possible.”
“You have a devious mind, James.”
“I try.”
“Okay. I think it’s time for me to head downtown, access the DMV registration system, and make a few calls to Port Angeles.”
CHAPTER 31
Jason Griffin sat on the other side of the desk in interrogation room number six. He had an earnest, serious expression on his face, like this was all just some terrible misunderstanding that could be quickly cleared up so he could be on his way. If Griffinair was in financial difficulty, it wasn’t evident from Jason’s choice of attorney. Rod Tarleton was an eight-hundred-dollar-an-hour defense lawyer who had expensive tastes and a reputation for pulling rabbits out of hats. Griffin had called him so quickly that Maclean had barely had time to read him his Miranda rights.
