The Ophelia Killer

by Valerie Geary

  Twenty seconds pass before Rausch shakes his head, disappointed. “Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

  The door slams shut, rattling the pictures hanging on the wall. Jimmy locks the deadbolt, then bends over and unclips the leash from Trixie’s collar.

  She bumps against him, sticking close to his heels as he moves through the apartment, pulling a duffel bag from the closet, stuffing it with clothes and toiletries, enough for a couple of nights. He moves into the kitchen to start packing some food for Trixie but hesitates, wondering if he should leave her behind, and ask Brett to come over and stay with her. There’s no time for that. He should have left for Crestwood the day he read through Margot Buchanan’s file, the second he realized what he’d found.

  Rausch was never going to be helpful. Jimmy knew that from the beginning, but he didn’t think the man would be so completely arrogant that he would ignore what so obviously needed to be done next and fixate on Jimmy instead.

  The phone hanging on the kitchen wall jangles Jimmy from his single-minded panic. He answers with a frustrated, “What?”

  “Jimmy? What the hell is going on?” His editor sounds furious, but beneath that is a layer of fear and of relief, too. “You left for lunch and never came back. Then this bumbling oaf of a detective bursts into my office asking all sorts of bullshit questions about you. What have you gotten yourself caught up in? Jimmy? Are you there?”

  “I’m here. I’m sorry, Tadd. I don’t really have time to talk right now.”

  “Well, you better make the time, buddy, because I did you a favor today that could get me fired, so at the very least, you owe me a goddamn explanation.”

  Jimmy sighs. “Meet me at O’Shanty’s in ten minutes.”

  It will take Jimmy five minutes to get to the pub down the street from the Statesman Journal. He spends the other five packing Trixie’s things and turning off the lights in his apartment. Trixie’s tail wags uncontrollably when she realizes she’s coming along.

  “Don’t get your hopes up, girl,” Jimmy mutters to her as they step into the hall. He locks the door behind them.

  Chapter 13

  Before Jimmy has a chance to settle onto the stool beside Tadd, the bartender sets a beer in front of him.

  “I didn’t order that,” Jimmy says.

  “I ordered it for you,” Tadd says. “And I’m glad I did because you look like shit, my friend. Shit that got run over by a train. Maybe I should have ordered us shots instead.”

  “I can’t. I’m driving.” Jimmy takes a sip of beer.

  Tadd nods his approval and says, “You gonna tell me where you’re headed?”

  “Remember I told you about that possible lead up in Washington, right?”

  Tadd nods again and gestures for the bartender to bring them two more beers.

  “I’m serious, Tadd. This one beer’s enough. My car’s packed, and Trixie’s waiting. As soon as I’m done here, we’re headed north.”

  Tadd gives Jimmy a long look. “Do you know what that cop said to me?”

  “I can take a guess.”

  “He thinks you killed those girls, Jimmy.”

  The bartender stiffens and gives them a look that’s hard to read. Jimmy can’t tell if he wants to know more or kick them out. When the bartender catches Jimmy watching him, he looks away and busies himself with stacking pint glasses. O’Shanty’s is the kind of bar where people show up after all the other bars close down for the night. It’s barely two in the afternoon. Jimmy and Tadd are the only customers here right now.

  “He thinks you’re the Ophelia Killer,” Tadd says.

  “What do you think?”

  “He’s a blustering windbag full of shit, obviously. I don’t know how he can even see anything with his head so far up his own ass the way it is. But what I think doesn’t really matter, does it? It’s how he spins the story. You and I both know that plenty of innocent men have gone to jail based on less evidence than what he claims to have on you.”

  “It’s circumstantial,” Jimmy says. “No, it’s not even that. It’s nothing. He has nothing. Because there is nothing. He would have arrested me if he had anything more than bullshit.” Jimmy drains the rest of his beer and slams the empty glass on the bar top with frustration. “I feel crazy. Tell me I’m not crazy.”

  “You know I can’t do that.” Tadd laughs. “You gotta be a certain kind of crazy to do this work.”

  Tadd nudges the second glass of beer in Jimmy’s direction. Jimmy pulls it close but doesn’t drink. He hunches over it, watching the bubbles rise to the surface and pop.

  “How did you do it for so long?” he asks.

  Before he was promoted to editor, Tadd worked the crime beat. He spent over a decade rooting out man’s darkest sins and turning them into half-page articles.

  “How did you stare so long into the abyss and not lose your mind?”

  “What makes you think I didn’t?” Tadd takes a drink, then says, “I miss it sometimes, you know. What? That surprises you? It’s true. Sometimes I think I’d like to give up this editor gig and go back to rolling around in the mud with the rest of you.”

  “Sure, you think that,” Jimmy says. “Until you find yourself staring down at a dead girl with her tongue cut out.”

  Tadd winces.

  “If we don’t find this guy, it’s going to happen again. I don’t think I can do it. I don’t think I can bury another one.”

  “Then don’t.”

  Jimmy shakes his head. “It’s not that simple.”

  “Of course it’s that simple.” Tadd shifts his weight on the barstool, turning so his body is angled toward Jimmy. “Look, it’s true. You see a lot of terrible shit when you’re working stories like the ones you chase. And you can let it crush you, or you can turn it into something good. Think about it. You are the only one who can tell the story, the true version. The cops won't. They'll always have their own agenda. You’re learning that the hard way right now. But the family sure as hell won't tell the truth either. They'll leave things out, intentionally or otherwise. They’ll always say the victim was perfect. No one's perfect. Remember that. But what you can do, what we do, is show them everything. We tell the whole goddamn truth and nothing but the truth. The good parts, the terrible parts, the parts no one else cares about. We get all these jumbled pieces, and we fit them together until it makes sense. You think you know where to find this guy?”

  “I think I know where to start looking.”

  “Then what the hell are you waiting for?”

  Jimmy turns the pint glass. More bubbles rise. “What if my hunch is wrong? What if I’m letting my personal feelings get in the way of the truth?”

  “Is that what you think is happening?”

  Jimmy stares at his reflection in the mirror hanging behind the bar. The glass is cracked and distorted, making him look ten years older. He might be chasing the wrong story, chasing his feelings for Brett straight into a dead-end, but his gut tells him otherwise.

  “Jimmy, my boy, you’re in too deep to slow down now,” Tadd says. “That detective who came by the office this afternoon wasn’t messing around. I bought you a few days, sure, but he’ll be back, and the next time he comes around, he’ll find whatever it is he’s hoping to find, even if he has to make it up as he goes along. If you’re onto something with this Crestwood lead, if you think it might be enough to get him off your back once and for all, then there’s really no decision to be made here, is there?”

  Tadd’s right. Jimmy has to go. If there are answers in Crestwood, he needs to find them now before Detective Rausch convinces the county prosecutor that behind Jimmy’s pen and a stack of papers lurks a monster.

  “You think you can get this story wrapped and ready by Sunday?” Tadd claps Jimmy on the shoulder.

  “Ha, very funny.”

  “What makes you think I’m kidding? Two days seems plenty long enough to me.” But Tadd flashes Jimmy a toothy
smile and gestures to the full pint of beer still sitting in front of him. “You sure I can’t talk you into another one for the road?”

  Jimmy drops a couple of dollars on the bar and waves to Tadd on his way out.

  * * *

  Five and a half hours later, after one stop to fill up on gas and two stops to pee on the side of the road, Jimmy and Trixie pull into the parking lot of a roadside motel on the southern edge of Crestwood, Washington. He leaves Trixie in the car to ask about room availability.

  The motel manager smiles warmly at him and says he’s in luck. “We’ve got one room left at the end.”

  He asks about the pet policy.

  “Dogs are fine. Bears have to sleep outside.” She hands him a room key with a playful wink. “You sure are lucky, you know that? I tell you, if you’d come even a few minutes later, chances are you’d be sleeping in your car tonight. The Memorial Day Holiday always draws a good-sized crowd. What better way to kick off summer than whale watching tours, fireworks shows, crab cookouts, and Mary’s fresh-baked apple pies? Are you planning on staying the whole weekend or just tonight?”

  Jimmy isn’t sure how to answer since so much depends on how quickly he finds what he’s looking for. He says, “Let’s start with two nights,” and hopes it’ll be more than enough.

  It’s almost eight o’clock at night, too late to do much of anything as far as an investigation goes. But Jimmy feels the press of time and doesn’t want to waste a single minute. He takes the sketch of the man he believes to be the Ophelia Killer from his back pocket and slides it in front of the manager. It’s the copy he showed Brett last night. It’s sheer luck he wore the same pair of jeans today, and luck, too, that Detective Rausch only searched his apartment but left his person alone.

  “Have you ever seen this man before?” Jimmy asks.

  The manager perches a pair of reading glasses on the end of her nose and squints closely at the picture. She shakes her head. “Can’t say I have. Friend of yours?”

  “Just someone I’m looking for,” he says.

  The manager takes her glasses off. Her shoulders are stiff. She’s no longer smiling. Something has changed in how she perceives Jimmy. He’s no longer a harmless tourist to welcome and coddle. He’s here for something else. Something she doesn’t want to be involved in. Her hand inches toward the motel room key still sitting on the counter between them, and he can see it in her eyes that she’s about to tell him to keep driving.

  He flashes a smile, hoping to soften her again, and snatches the key out of her grasp. “He’s a friend of a friend,” he says, stretching the truth. “She’s got something of his she wants to give back. Last she knew, he was hanging around Crestwood. I’m hoping someone around here might recognize him and point me in the right direction.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know anyone who looks like that.” She’s still suspicious of him, but less so now.

  “That’s fine.” He keeps smiling at her. “You mind telling me where I can find the police station?”

  Her frown deepens again. She jerks her thumb at the wall behind her. “Two miles that way.”

  They’re not very good directions, but Jimmy thanks her anyway.

  With a grunt, the woman goes back to flipping through a home and garden magazine, all the charm gone from her voice when she says, “Enjoy your stay.”

  Jimmy drops his suitcase in the room. He clips on Trixie’s leash and walks her around outside the motel for a few minutes, giving her a chance to sniff and do her business. When he brings her into the room, she sniffs a few minutes more before settling onto the carpet beside the bed with a loud sigh. Jimmy scratches her head and gives her a dog biscuit. As she crunches her way through the treat, Jimmy picks up the phone sitting on the nightstand and dials Brett’s number.

  She picks up after three rings.

  “Hey, Bretty.”

  “Jimmy? What did you say to Rausch? He’s losing his damn mind. He’s been locked in his office all afternoon, screaming into the phone, trying to get the prosecutor to charge you with murder. You were supposed to show him the file, Jimmy. You were supposed to—”

  “Brett. Shut up a minute and let me talk. I showed him the file. And it didn’t do a damn thing to change his mind.”

  “So, what now? You have to go up there, right? You have to go to Crestwood.”

  “I’m already here. I drove up right after he was done trashing my apartment.”

  She falls silent. Then he hears the smallest of sighs. “Oh, Jimmy, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “Luck’s been on my side so far, and if it keeps up, I’ll be back before Rausch even knows I’m gone, but can you do something for me? Can you keep him distracted? Bug him about those tips you gave me again. Try to get him pointed in the right direction.”

  “You know he won’t listen to me.”

  “Try, okay? But don’t let on that you’ve been talking to me. That’s only going to make things worse.”

  “You don’t think I know that?”

  A beat of silence falls between them, then Brett says, “Go talk to my grandmother tomorrow.” She gives Jimmy the address. “I’ll call her and tell her you’re coming. She’s lived in Crestwood most of her life. She knows practically everyone in that damn town. If she doesn’t recognize the sketch, she can point you in the direction of someone who does.”

  “I’m going to find him,” Jimmy says. “I’ve got a feeling. Someone here knows something. I just have to knock on the right doors.”

  She’s quiet again, and he wishes he could see the expression on her face, though even then, he isn’t sure he’d know what she was thinking. Her silence over the phone is empty and unreadable, so the words he says next are more for him than anything, for the fear knotting his own stomach.

  “Don’t worry,” he says. “Everything’s going to work out fine. I’ll be back in a few days.”

  “You’d better be, or I’m coming up there to get you.”

  “Don’t make promises you don’t plan on keeping, Bretty,” he says, his tone teasing, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Don’t do anything stupid, Jimmy,” she teases him back. “Call me if you find something, okay?”

  After they say goodnight, Jimmy slips out of his shoes and changes into a T-shirt to sleep in. It’s not even nine o’clock, but after the long drive and tussling with Rausch earlier that day, he’s exhausted. He climbs into bed and turns off the light, holding on to the sound of Brett’s voice, wrapping it close as he drifts into a restless sleep.

  Chapter 14

  When Brett told Jimmy about the summers she spent as a girl in Crestwood, he imagined a ramshackle cluster of sea shanties huddled on the edge of wind-shorn cliffs. He imagined narrow alleyways, dead-ends, stone walls slick with brine and rimed in salt. He imagined haunted, hungry eyes peering out at him from behind burlap curtains, townsfolk raised on cold wind and fish bones, rumors and suspicions. When Brett talked about Crestwood, it was always with a certain amount of claustrophobia in her voice, and Jimmy thought he’d be able to drive from one end to the other in the time it took to blink. Now that he’s here, driving through the major highway that bisects the town, he can see how wrong he’s been in his assumptions.

  Crestwood, Washington sprawls along the coastline, tracing the horseshoe shape of Sculpin Bay. There are wind-shorn cliffs, but there are also sandy beaches and green parks and sprawling forests of cedars and pines. There are large industrial areas, too, and several docks, shopping centers, and neighborhoods clustered throughout. A person could live at the base of the Cascade mountain range surrounded by forests or near the Pacific Ocean with sweeping views that extend forever. The town’s heart is clearly the historic downtown area, a cluster of red brick buildings nestled steps from Sculpin Bay.

  Through gaps between buildings, the ocean shimmers. The breeze smells faintly of salt and fried dough. The streets are old cobblestone and clean. Brightly colored flowers spill from b
askets hanging on every lamppost. Flags flap in the wind, advertising an Arts Festival and Fireworks Show happening this weekend. Booths are being set up on the sidewalks. One of the side streets that leads to a beachfront park is blocked off. People wander in and out of small shops, holding bags and coffee cups and the hands of excited children. But they all seem friendly enough, smiling at Jimmy and tipping their heads in greeting as they pass him on the sidewalk. Some even stop and ask if they can pet Trixie, who is all wiggle and excitement from being in a new place with new smells and new people who fawn over her charming brown eyes and soft, floppy ears.

  The only haunted, hungry creatures in this town appear to be the seagulls who lurk on eaves and signposts, waiting for someone to drop a muffin.

  Jimmy studies the face of every man he walks past. He doesn’t actually think it’s going to be as easy as that. He still looks because, even though he doesn’t think the man he’s hunting is here in Crestwood today, if he ever was, perhaps there is some remnant of him left behind. His lingering shadow in the tilt of a chin or the sharp point of a nose or the callous stare of glacial blue eyes.

  Jimmy isn’t desperate enough yet to stop strangers on the street, show them the sketch, and ask if they recognize the man. But the day is young, and depending on how things go, he and Trixie might very well be back on Main Street later this afternoon, grabbing elbows and making a nuisance of themselves. Before that happens, though, he puts Trixie back in the car that’s parked in the public lot beside the library, cracks the windows so she can sniff the cool breeze, and heads to the police station across the street, a gray cement building that looks about as inviting as a shoebox.

  A bored-looking man sits behind a glass-enclosed booth in the front lobby. No one else is waiting, so Jimmy goes straight up to the counter and asks to see Stan Harcourt. The man blinks slowly at Jimmy, yawns, stretches his arms over his head, then picks up his desk phone and punches a few numbers.