by Lisa Preston
She felt Seton’s protracted consideration and wondered what he knew as he studied her. Struck by her category—the surviving sister of the murder victim in his first suspended case—Daphne fell silent.
Suzanne’s life was suspended and so is mine.
“I hate that it was suspended,” she said at last.
“So do I,” came his immediate response.
“You guys thought maybe the guy she was seeing at the time did it.” The thought made her father’s voice play in her head. Remembering his bitter complaint—that boy should be in jail—put her mentally back in the jail cell, afraid to touch anything, wanting out of her cage. Yesterday. Just yesterday, she’d committed a crime, been jailed.
Tipping his head to one side, Arnold Seton looked at the high branches of hemlocks along his driveway, then over her head. “Do you have a boyfriend, a husband?”
She nodded. “Fiancé. Kind of.” The word was newly personal and she was interested to try it out. Vic didn’t know she’d gone into the park days ago to think about whether or not she could handle a future with him. He wanted to marry her.
Fiancé. It felt odd. Or did Vic not count as a fiancé since she hadn’t yet responded to his proposal?
“If you were murdered, he’s the first person detectives would look at.”
“You’re all that cynical?”
“That experienced.”
“Seriously? It’s like that?” When he nodded, she shook her head, but in defeat, not argument. “Was my sister’s case the only one you never solved?”
“Please understand that numerous detectives, officers, and technicians are involved in an investigation as important as murder.” He cleared his throat. “And we did our best, the very best we could.”
“But …” Daphne chewed the inside of her lip, realizing questions would pour out of her mouth before she’d thought about them, before she identified what she wanted to know. She must not offend him or shut him down. She should know what she wanted. “But I mean … you said she was your first—”
“No, your sister’s case was not the only one I failed to solve. Yes, it was my first … failure.”
“Oh.” Daphne grimaced, rolling her lips tight against her teeth. “In my sister’s case, I mean, you probably don’t remember it well enough to discuss it in detail. Even if you’re willing to.”
And please don’t tell me you remember, but you won’t discuss details because of some rule or confidentiality thing. She’d lost so much. A sister and a father. A decade and then another. Let no propriety block the balm of answers.
He rubbed his jaw and shifted his weight before saying, “I remember it pretty well. Murder scene never determined. Boyfriend acted hinky. Got himself thrown out of the funeral. Had a good alibi for the assumed night of the disappearance.”
“Assumed?”
He shrugged. “We can’t know, right? On the information we had, we didn’t know exactly when your sister went missing.”
Daphne nodded. “No, we didn’t. Not the exact time.”
He nodded. “Sometime in the afternoon, evening, night of, or next morning. It was a span of about twenty hours, if I recall.” Then he added, “And I do.”
“Do you remember talking to Ross Bouchard?”
“That the boyfriend’s name?”
She nodded. “You interviewed him. He failed his polygraph.”
Seton grunted and seemed lost in thought.
At last, Daphne said, “It wasn’t him? You don’t think he did it?”
“It could have been him, someone else she knew, or it could have been a stranger.”
“The Green River killer was active back then,” Daphne said, ready to show that while she hadn’t been a part of the investigation as a child, she’d paid attention since adulthood. She’d looked up the old news articles and wondered. She’d prayed, like her father told her to.
“We thought about him, of course. But he was killing another woman that day.”
“God,” she said. Imagine the alibi: I didn’t murder her; I was busy murdering someone else.
“Still there were a couple of other serial possibilities.”
“Other serial killers?” The possibility seemed remote, and she shook her head.
“Yes.” He nodded and studied her truck.
“Dear God,” she said, feeling repulsed by his world. Under his silent, watchful look, she added, “Serial killers.” The notoriety of it had occurred to her before, long ago. She’d been eleven and wondering who killed Suzanne. With the passing of decades, she came to realize it was a thing she might never know.
The not knowing, that was the killer.
“Don’t you guys identify a serial killer’s victims? Once you catch the bad guy?”
“No, not all, not always. There are other cases, like your sister’s. Suspended cases, which means they’re unsolved, in Seattle and outlying areas. Some of those killings are no doubt related. The Green River killer didn’t corner the market on killing women.”
Daphne shook her head again. “Well, there aren’t that many serial killers, are there?”
“You’d be surprised.”
“I’ve been surprised before,” Daphne admitted, her voice worn. “But, serial killers? It’s pretty rare, right?”
“Rare is a relative term. Most murders are not done by a serial killer. Many serial killers are never caught. At any point there are numerous active serial killers. Right now, there are several in process, I promise you.”
“Seriously?”
“Welcome to the West.”
“You mean …”
“We have more serial killers out here,” he said.
Daphne shook her head. “But, I mean, but in my family, Suzanne … I never thought it was unsafe before she died. I’ve lived here all my life.”
“Me, too.”
“We have more killers than other areas?” Her voice sounded as small as she felt.
He nodded. “This coast is the capital for serial killers.”
“Why?”
“Isolation’s a factor.”
“You mean, because there’s more land out here? A lower population density?”
“I mean we have a bit higher divorce rate, a bit less religion, a bit less history in our communities. Less structure and other social support. People are more isolated from each other, from help.”
“Loneliness,” Daphne said.
“Yes, loneliness explains part of the problem. Our killers lack support growing up.”
“Our killers,” Daphne mumbled. Was this a stock resource every community had to some degree? Like, our industry? Our rivers? Our killers.
“And not just our killers. Our victims lack support, too. With fewer resources, being more on their own, they make better prey for our somewhat more common killer than is found in the Midwest, in the Northeast.”
Prey. “I had no idea,” Daphne said, shaking her head, shaking inside as his single word resonated. Prey. Prey.
Pray to God, her father said. Before he wanted vengeance, he sought prayers.
Arnold Seton shrugged and gave a wry smile, indicating something she couldn’t decipher. That it wasn’t her job to know? That she wasn’t expected to understand, nor to do something about it?
He waved his arms, gesturing to include all points of the compass. “It’s all linked. More death penalty sentences are handed out here than, say, in New England. Folks opposed to it say violence breeds violence but you are not talking to a guy who supports that theory. Violence often has to be responded to with violence, but chicken and egg arguments aren’t too useful.”
Uninterested in a death penalty debate, Daphne raised her hands in a gesture for peace and they stood in silence for a minute. Geese honked, out of place. The big birds shouldn’t be here now. Water wasn’t ready, the rivers icy with snowmelt.
“But I thought killers, I mean, a murderer … it’s not usually a stranger, a random bad guy, right?”
“Well, most killings are done by someo
ne known to the victim—”
“But when it’s a stranger, like in my sister’s case …” And she realized where she’d erred. “I mean, if it was a stranger who killed Suzanne, then why …”
He waved her speculation down. “It could make you crazy, trying to puzzle out the why. There are no good reasons. Movies would have you believe killers get into games with the police. Like we’re playing chess with each other or something. Bad guy leaves little clues, maybe wants to get caught. Movies are full of nonsense. Bad guys don’t want to get caught. And good guys, the regular citizens, they suffer Bystander Syndrome.”
“Bystander Syndrome.” She whispered the words with dread. “That’s when someone doesn’t help someone who needs help? A stranger?”
He hesitated. “It’s … a collective response. When a group of bystanders see, say an accident, an altercation, something suspicious, but none of them move to help. They all think someone else will do something. Or should do something. Or someone else knows better what to do. And none of them moves a muscle.”
“Bystander Syndrome.” She sucked in a long breath, feeling gutted. He knew nothing more or new about Suzanne and her death. Of course he didn’t. No one did. Conversation twenty years after the fact hollowed. Her mission failed. All she’d learned was there was a name for her inaction toward Minerva Watts in the Peace Park, and the West won the prize for the most serial killers.
Gravel crunched as Arnold Seton turned and retrieved his tackle box, then plucked a rod and reel from the carport wall, coming out with a smile as he waved it at her. “You fish?”
Daphne shook her head, not trusting her voice anymore.
“I’m a lunker,” he said. “Spoons and bait. Don’t get those fly fishermen. They say they’re playing chess with the fish. That’s giving a trout too much credit in my opinion.”
She looked away from his tackle box. “That … syndrome …”
He raised his eyebrows, waited.
“Is there a name for it when there’s one lone bystander?”
“You have”—he stopped, and raked his fingers through his hair in one slow motion—“you have something you want to tell me.”
He wasn’t asking, just stating the obvious, Daphne decided. But why not tell him about Minerva Watts? Arnold Seton wasn’t Vic or Thea. He didn’t know her and had no reason to push her into or away from getting involved.
And he’d been a cop for a long time.
“Do you have time to hear about this?” Daphne asked with a deep breath, checking for his nod. Then she launched into the whole deal, starting with seeing the old woman in the park Wednesday night and the couple hustling her away in a car. Vic’s belated call to the police. The reassurances from the responding officer who said he’d put out a locate. And how, like Vic, the officer on Wednesday night thought the chance of there being a real problem was minuscule.
“And then that night, we walked back into the park and I remembered her name. Minerva Watts.”
“Did you call that in to dispatch?”
“Yes,” Daphne said, pleased when he nodded, like she’d just given the right answer on a pop quiz. “And the next day my friend who’s with the newspaper, banged around on a bunch of websites or databases or something and found an address for Minerva Watts on Eastpark.”
“And did you call that in to dispatch?”
She shook her head. “I went over there.”
“To the lady’s house? To this Minerva Watts’s residence?”
Nodding, Daphne told him about those few minutes of her life. The hesitation. The odd, muted alarm that passed between the man and the woman. The sight of Minerva Watts inside, her face etched with barest fear. Her comment about the brooch. The other woman calling her lady, then Mother, then shouting for Guff.
“So he tells me to stand there and he grabs me. I kind of slipped out of my jacket—he was holding on to my sleeve—and I ran.” She pointed a finger in the air, thinking it out. “When the policemen came the first time, I could hardly give them a thing, hardly describe the people I saw take the old lady—Mrs. Watts—or the car they drove. I couldn’t even remember her name at the time, even though she’d told me her name a couple of hours before.”
Seton shrugged. “That’s normal. Quick description isn’t something civilians get tasked with. I see you, I can spit into a radio ‘white female adult, thirty-five, average size, brown hair pulled back, jeans and a black shirt.’ But how often have you ever needed to immediately, succinctly, and accurately describe someone? Most people don’t do description.”
“I’ll be thirty-two my next birthday.”
“Close enough,” he said with certainty. “My point is, civilians do not have to describe someone in a few words, in a manner that can let another cop hearing the description grab the target out of a crowd.”
Daphne nodded. It made sense, everything this retired detective said made sense, but the words weren’t a salve. Had she done everything for Minerva Watts? Had the police done everything for Suzanne? And how could anyone know? Maybe just one more question, one more option considered would have meant so much more, would have solved something. Maybe if she’d finagled an address earlier, then gone to Mrs. Watts’s house Wednesday night instead of Thursday afternoon, things would be different. She wouldn’t have ended up chasing after the Town Car.
What if the police had known Suzanne was missing a bit sooner? What if Daphne had reported how risky her sister ran, all the sneaking out and naughty things she did?
“Suzanne slept with one of her teachers once.” Daphne’s blurt surprised herself.
He rubbed his jaw again. “I don’t recall if we had that detail. There’s a cold case investigator at the department who should hear that from you.”
“And something would happen? He’d investigate? Or he’d just write a little report with that little detail?” She heard the trace of bitterness in her voice and saw his lower jaw extend, set. She sniffed. “I’ve always wanted an explanation. I want to know who did it. And why.”
“I get that. And I’m sorry.” Seton set down his rod, balancing it with care against the carport. He faced Daphne with his thumbs hooked in his pockets. “Now, this deal over at the Watts residence—”
“He chased me,” Daphne implored. She knew she sounded like a victim. She didn’t want to be a victim. To not be chased, one just didn’t run, right? But what if the feeling of menace told every fiber of her being to flee? “He chased me on foot.”
“And then?”
“I got away.” Now, she decided she sounded as nutty as Minerva Watts flailing in the Peace Park. They’re trying to kidnap me. They’re trying to rob me.
He pursed his lips, his glance flitting left and right, then checked his watch.
“I got arrested.”
Seton cocked his head. “Not for running from that man you didn’t.”
“No. You see. I saw them leave …”
“While you were running?”
“While I was hiding. Then I followed their car and I caused an accident and got arrested for reckless driving.”
There, she’d said it. She’d been wondering how to summarize the debacle for anyone else. Her mother? A lawyer, at some point?
“You were cited and released?”
“They took me away. I didn’t have my driver’s license with me by then because it was in my jacket and the guy who chased me got my jacket. My wallet and phone were in the pockets. The car was my boyfriend’s, but it’s in his dad’s name and I forgot about that and I guess maybe I looked or sounded—”
“More than a little suspicious.”
She nodded, glum. “I guess.”
He folded his arms across his chest. “Tell me, why did you want to talk to me?”
“Because of my sister.” Daphne heard the plaintive tone she used and squeezed her eyes shut. “It … just wasn’t … enough. We never knew who or why or anything. I never understood. It never ended and it never got better.”
“You mean because
we never made an arrest.”
“Yes. Sure. And, I mean, if you’d caught the guy—” Daphne opened her hands in front of him, looking for agreement. “It was probably a guy, right?”
He nodded, waiting with his lips pressed together.
“If you’d caught the guy, wouldn’t you have gotten some information from him? Wouldn’t we have gotten to know what happened? More or less? When and how? Where it happened. And why? Just, why?”
His shoulders softened as he exhaled and his tight grimace became sympathetic. “You know, when we go to the homicide unit, we get all kinds of training. From the best. And it’s scary what we know about why twisted people perpetrate heinous crimes. Astounding what we can discern from analyzing the crime scene. One who’s organized, one who’s disorganized. Links. Quirks of the killer. A killer who knew the victim, one who didn’t. One who feels bad about himself. It’s scary. But it’s also scary … what we don’t know.”
“I don’t know why I had to lose my sister. She was so … great.”
He gave the gentlest smile and a little commiserating nod. Probably he did that for every grieving family member he came across, Daphne thought. But he couldn’t do more. He couldn’t answer the unanswerable questions.
She swallowed. “I’ve taken up enough of your time. More than enough. Thanks very much for talking to me. I apologize for coming, even. I won’t bother you again.”
He heard all this without expression. If he’d been ready to admonish her, he’d changed his mind and instead walked the driveway to her car, holding her truck door when she opened it.
“There were,” he said, “unanswered questions.”
“Besides who killed her? And why?”
He studied Daphne. “Why is not a question with an answer that could satisfy you or any other reasonable person. There isn’t and never will be a good answer to: For what reason was your sister murdered? Now, I hate that we didn’t get a case built on anyone, but that is the way it goes sometimes. Otherwise, we’d be expecting that every single time we could point a finger at someone, say ‘he did it,’ we could know and be satisfied that we got that far. That would be perfection. Perfection doesn’t exist. You had the misfortune to lose your sister through a senseless murder, then to be one of the families stuck with a suspended, cold case.”
