Might be able to get some prints or something off of those, Mackenzie thought.
They ventured into the other bedroom and when they turned on the light, Mackenzie’s heart skipped a beat.
There were several boxes and bins pushed against the far wall. In front of each one was a doll or some sort of tea party paraphernalia.
Mackenzie walked over to the boxes and plucked the top of the first one open. She peered inside and all saw all manner of dolls. They were dirty and scarred, their hair matted. Some of them were missing eyes or appendages.
“This has officially gotten creepy,” she said.
Ellington popped open the next box and peered inside, Mackenzie looked over his shoulder and saw a collection of teapots, tea kettles, tea cups, and little ornate play snacks—crackers, little cakes, fruit, and pastries. Most of the pots, cups, and kettles were wrapped in bubble wrap or plastic sheeting. Still, there were fragments of a few that had broken and shattered.
“How’s he living here under a fake name?” Mackenzie wondered out loud.
“Ten bucks says he rents it,” Ellington replied. “It would be much easier to use a fake name that way. Still, I’d like to talk to the person that owns this property.”
“We should get Rising to look into that.”
They checked the other boxes and bins—two more boxes and three bins—and found more of the same. Tucked inside one of the bins was a decorative tablecloth and picnic blanket.
With the contents of each package checked, they headed back throughout the house. Ellington checked the bathroom and kitchen while Mackenzie looked over the bedroom. The bed was unmade and she knew there would be stray hairs in it. But without anything to compare them to—say, from one of the crime scenes, it would ultimately do no good. Still, she made a mental note to come back in with an evidence kit to collect any loose hairs or other detritus such as dead skin or even bodily fluids.
She met Ellington as he was coming out of the kitchen. “Anything?” she asked.
“Nothing. The medicine cabinet is empty, with the exception of a bottle of Motrin. No prescriptions with a name. No mail anywhere that I can see, either. It makes me think he doesn’t live here.”
“Maybe he brings the victims here at some point.”
“Why would he do that?” Ellington asked.
She thought of the boxes of dolls and tea party staples in the back bedroom. “To play,” she said.
They exited the house quickly. The hour was getting very late and they had been yanked around enough. Mackenzie popped the trunk to the car to retrieve the evidence kit while Ellington pulled out his phone to dial up Rising for an information request on who the house belonged to.
As Mackenzie leaned into the trunk, something to the left caught her eye. For a moment, her hand went back to her Glock before she realized that it was not a person, but a structure. It was out there, at the edge of the woods, fairly small. She took her flashlight back out and pointed the beam in that direction.
“Got something?” Ellington said, his fingers paused in pulling up Rising’s number.
“Just a doghouse,” she said.
But that wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t just a doghouse.
She walked slowly toward it, feeling certain there was no danger there but hesitant all the same. When she was standing directly in front of it, she knelt down and shined her light inside.
A length of old chain, maybe once belonging to an actual dog, was coiled in a perfect circle in the center. A single ceramic teapot sat in the middle. Positioned around the circle of chain sat three dolls. One stared directly out of the doghouse, its dead black eyes glaring right at Mackenzie.
Ellington stepped up behind her and hunched down as well. “Jesus,” he said. “Do you think based on what we’re seeing here we can start to assume the killer is at least a little crazy?”
It was a tempting thought to consider, but there had to be a lot of planning and meticulous detail involved to get them to go along on this little chase. If he was mentally unstable, he also had a vast set of strengths to compensate.
“Let’s get out of here,” Mackenzie said.
She got to her feet and turned back for the car without waiting to see if Ellington was following. Yet when she was back in the car and Ellington was pulling out several seconds later, she could not help but look back out to that doghouse. She could not see the dolls any longer, but God help her, she felt like she could sense their lifeless eyes on her all the same.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Mackenzie fell into bed at 2:35 with no clear idea of how tomorrow would go. Rising assured them that they’d know who owned the property with the creepy doghouse and possibly even have spoken with him by the time they woke up the following morning.
After what she had witnessed and experienced the night before, Mackenzie desperately wanted a shower. But a mix of a long day and several surges of fear-induced adrenaline had wiped her out. She barely managed to strip out of her clothes before slipping under the covers.
Ellington moved a bit slower as he readied himself for bed. He seemed lost in thought, a pensive look in his eyes as he brushed his teeth. Mackenzie considered asking him what was bothering him aside from their argument but decided against it. She was just too damned tired.
She had just drifted off to sleep when Ellington slid into bed. She could tell that he was intentionally trying to keep his distance. She respected his decision and was glad that he was able to read her so well but at the same time, she badly wanted to be held. Something about this case was stirring something quite deep inside of her. And although it would take a bit of prodding and discussion for Ellington to draw it out of her, she knew that he could tell.
She nearly rolled over to him and took him in her arms. In light of all of the death they were dealing with as of late, some stupid argument about the way he’d described her to his mother seemed utterly foolish.
But the day had taken its toll on her and she was drifting off to sleep before she could so much as roll over onto her side.
***
She stirred awake at the sound of the door opening. She tensed up and nearly sprang out of bed before hearing Ellington’s voice.
“It’s just me,” he said. “Sorry I woke you. I went out and grabbed breakfast.”
She glanced to the clock and saw that it was 7:37. In her own personal view, this was far too late to sleep—particularly when they were in the middle of a case. But after how yesterday went down, she felt she deserved it.
She rolled out of bed and joined Ellington at the small table by the window. He had grabbed a few sausage biscuits and a parfait from McDonald’s, as well as two coffees. As she took one of the biscuits, she checked her phone.
“Nothing from Rising on the owner of the house?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
She sipped from the coffee, smiling at the fact that Ellington knew her so well. A splash of cream and a ton of sugar. Just how she liked it.
“I’ve been thinking,” Ellington said. “The dolls and the tea party stuff…could the killer be placing them in the units just to throw us off? Maybe to just add another layer to what might be an otherwise simple case?”
“He could be. But then that rules out your comment last night of him being potentially crazy.”
“If you think about it, the dolls are almost generic. Creepy dolls are a pretty common trope of horror these days. He may as well just carve some pumpkins and paint BOO on the inside of the units.”
“That’s exactly why I don’t think they’re there just to throw us off,” Mackenzie said. “Why go through the trouble of using something so cliché and generic?”
“You know,” he said, “I was thinking about something else, too. Our argument yesterday. I really don’t know why you—”
The ringing of her phone interrupted him. She thought it might be a good thing, too. The tone in his voice and the way the sentence had started made her feel like he was going to be defensive and try to blame her.
&n
bsp; Pushing these feelings to the side, she answered her phone. “This is Agent White.”
“Agent White, it’s Deputy Rising. I think you might want to come out to Osborne Storage,” he said. “A smaller little business just outside of the city.”
“You find something?”
“Yeah,” Rising said, his voice low. “Another body.”
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
When they arrived at Osborne Storage, the sun was peeking through the clouds. Mackenzie was pretty sure it was the first time she’d seen genuine sunlight since they’d arrived in Seattle. She’d managed to grab a quick shower before leaving the motel; that, combined with the sunshine, had her feeling uplifted and positive.
It was a fleeting feeling, though. Rising met them at the entrance to the front gate of Osborne Storage. He had not been exaggerating when he’d said the place was tiny. It had only a dozen units and while they looked relatively new, the grounds they were located on were in need of some maintenance. The units sat in the center of a gravel lot that was bordered on all sides by undeveloped fields.
There was a man standing with Rising, a tall older gentleman who looked like he might jump right out of his skin at any moment. He looked very uncomfortable as Mackenzie and Ellington approached.
“Agents, this is Barry Osborne, the owner of Osborne Storage,” Rising said. “He came out this morning to open up and do some maintenance. Mr. Osborne, do you want to tell them the rest?”
Osborne nodded, anxious to get his story out. “Like he said, I came out early because I try to make the place look presentable at least once a week. I was going to do some weed eating around the edges and sweep up at the unit entrances. I was sweeping up when I came to Unit Five. I saw something sort of seeping out from under the door. I knew what it was but just didn’t want to believe it, you know?”
“What was it?” Mackenzie asked, already knowing the answer.
“Blood.”
“Thanks, Mr. Osborne,” Rising said. “You mind if me and the agents take it from here?”
“Please do,” Osborne said. “If you need me, I’ll be in the office.”
Osborne took his leave, looking quite happy to do so. Rising then led Mackenzie and Ellington across the gravel lot. Each unit had a small concrete loading area, ramped at an angle to make moving heavy things in on dollies and carts much easier. She could see where Osborne had swept up around the first four ramps. And then, just as he had said, there was something dark and sticky coming out from beneath the door of Unit 5.
It was unmistakably blood.
“You haven’t opened it yet?” Ellington asked.
“Oh no. I wanted you two here first. Mr. Osborne has already unlocked it for us, though.” He reached down and grabbed the handle. “Ready?”
Mackenzie and Ellington nodded in unison.
Rising lifted the door and revealed the inside of the unit. It was easily the most cluttered one they had seen, though it was still stacked and organized in a fairly consistent manner. There was about seven feet of space between the entrance and where the boxes began. Lying on the floor of that space was a blonde female, her face turned toward them.
“The blood is fresh,” Ellington said.
Mackenzie nodded and, feeling the slightest glimmer of hope, she knelt by the body and felt for a pulse along the neck. There was no pulse but she found the flesh almost warm.
“She hasn’t been dead for long,” she said.
She looked to the blood on the floor, trying to figure out how it had ended up seeping out from under the door. It looked as if the floor wasn’t perfectly level. It wasn’t too hard to accept, given that the state of the entire place was a little shoddy. Mackenzie assumed the units here were much less pricey than ones at a place like Bellevue Storage or U-Store-It. And you apparently got what you paid for.
“This might be our killer’s first oversight,” Mackenzie said.
“What’s that?” Ellington asked.
“The floor here isn’t level. The blood flows down a very gradual slope towards the door. If the floor were level here, there’s no telling how much time might have passed before someone discovered her body.”
Ellington got down on his haunches and cocked his head, looking at the floor. “Yeah, I see it. Shit…it’s so fresh it’s still pooling out. If Osborne had gotten here an hour earlier…maybe…”
“I don’t know,” Mackenzie said. “This is a lot of blood. It makes me wonder if the killer is in a hurry now. He’s allowed the others at least a little bit of time to suffer…to maybe even starve to death. So why not this one?”
She didn’t expect an answer, nor did she get one. As they both looked to the lightly downward angle of the blood flow, Rising stepped into the unit. “Agents,” he said, nodding toward the back of the unit.
Mackenzie followed the direction of his nod and saw two little dolls sitting together on top of one of the boxes. One looked rather new while the other had clearly seen some rough times.
“Any cameras in this place?” Ellington asked.
“None,” Rising said. “As you can probably guess from the state of the place, Mr. Osborne is clearly not sinking much money into the care or maintenance of the place.”
“We need to get an ID on the body,” Mackenzie said. “And then an address. My guess is that she hasn’t been dead for more than three or four hours. That means she was dumped here less than a day or so ago. This might be the first time we’ll be able to trace any sort of path the killer might have made.”
“Well,” Rising said, “we can’t use any bank transactions to find out an ID. Osborne accepts cash only.”
“Damn,” Ellington said. “Can we just catch one single break?”
“What’s the name on the application for the unit?” Mackenzie asked.
“I didn’t ask,” Rising said.
A voice spoke up from outside of the unit. “The application is under the name Mark Riley.”
The voice was Osborne’s. He’d apparently elected to stay behind and watch from a distance rather than return to the office as he had originally said.
Mackenzie looked at Ellington and saw that he was getting frustrated. She was, too. In fact, she was quickly growing livid. With units paid for in cash and a fake name at each one, there was no telling how long this guy would remain free.
“You ever meet this Mark Riley guy?” Mackenzie asked Osborne.
“Once, about a year or so ago. When he filled out the application. He pays regularly, but it’s always with cash, in an envelope that comes through the mail. I thought it was weird, so I checked the return address one time and it’s just the central Seattle post office.”
“Crazy or not,” Ellington said, “this fucker is smart.”
She hated to admit such a thing, but Ellington was right: their killer was very smart. No witnesses. No footage, with the exception of the cars coming in and out at the first crime scene—a lead that would take weeks to land a suspect.
“Do you recall what he looked like?” Mackenzie asked.
“I don’t, I’m sorry.”
Mackenzie stepped out of the unit and then looked back inside, trying to see it in the same way the killer might see it. What was the appeal? Why was he using these units?
“Mr. Rising, can you get some officers to go through these boxes?”
“Sure,” Rising said.
Ellington, as if curious to get started, opened the lid of the one closest to him. He peered inside and shrugged. “Shredded paper. It’s like the boxes are just stage dressing or something.” He went to the next one, opened it, and chuckled. “Unopened rolls of toilet paper,” he said. He gave the box a weak little punch in frustration.
“In the meantime,” she said, “we also need to get a list of all storage complexes in Seattle and the surrounding areas. We need to let them all know what’s going on. If we don’t have a lead in another day or so, we may need to get them all to shut their businesses for a day or so.”
“Or we could positi
on an undercover cop at each location,” Rising said.
“That’s up to the local PD,” Mackenzie said. “But even if there’s only thirty or so locations, that’s using up a lot of resources.”
“Well, we have to start somewhere,” Ellington said. “This is starting to get out of hand.”
“Starting?” Rising asked, defeated.
“I’ve got two friends that own storage places,” Osborne said. He was still keeping a respectable distance from the unit. “I can call them and let them know. Maybe see if they’ve seen anything alarming as of late.”
“Thanks,” Mackenzie said.
She looked at the woman’s blood on the floor and then at the dolls. Like the ones in the doghouse from last night, these seemed to be staring at her—almost taunting her.
“You okay?” Ellington asked, coming in close to her.
“No.”
And with that simple answer, she left the unit. She felt her emotions welling up inside of her—something that never happened to her on the job.
This one is getting under my skin, Mackenzie thought. If we don’t wrap this one up soon, I feel like I’m going to break…
She wondered if it was the stress of the upcoming wedding or maybe even some resentment that she had buried toward McGrath, making sure she and Ellington knew that this would be their last time working together. She honestly didn’t know what it was…why this case was getting to her so badly.
But she felt that if she didn’t wrap it up soon, it could very well be the first blemish on what had so far been a remarkable career.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
The morning stretched on like she was stuck in some wretched sort of purgatory. The only real information they were able to get came an hour later when the victim was identified as twenty-four-year-old Kelly Higdon of Seattle. Her only local relative was her grandfather, who was currently residing in a retirement home with a severe case of Alzheimer’s disease. Seattle PD ran Higdon’s record and found it clean.
Mackenzie White 10-Before He Longs Page 10
