Skye Cree 03: The Bones Will Tell

by Vickie McKeehan

  That night at the loft, Skye deliberated over her decision. Buying a house was a big step. Since she’d never done it before, she was standing at the fringes about to get cold feet. As they relaxed after dinner, both were stretched out on the sofa, her legs propped up in Josh’s lap. While second thoughts nagged at her, she finally said, “It’s a really old house, maybe too old.”

  “Don’t try to talk yourself out of it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it shows we’re on the same page. Don’t think about its age but about how happy we’ll be there together. The present owners added a few nice upgrades. They put in all new appliances in the kitchen, a new hardwood floor in the dining room, and added a new roof last summer. Plus, it’s located right on the water. The view alone is a nice benefit that you don’t normally get with a farmhouse. I love the surrounding land, did from that first Saturday we looked at it. I was hoping you’d come around.”

  “You could’ve just said something. It’s a big house, Josh, too big for the two of us.”

  “Nah, we’ll fill it up with friends and…what about getting a dog? Maybe two?”

  “I haven’t had a dog since…well, a dozen years or more.” Not since her parents had died.

  “What kind? What was his name?”

  “Her. Binky. A little apricot bundle of pug that followed me around everywhere.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “She died of renal failure two months after I got out of the hospital.”

  “Jesus, Skye. You had a lot to deal with back then and you were so young.”

  She looked away and changed the subject. “I do like the hiking trails and bike trails in the area. You’re right. You wouldn’t normally get those kinds of amenities with a farmhouse.”

  “Then it’s a go?”

  “It’s a go. If nothing else we can use it for a weekend getaway.”

  “What about going out every night?”

  “Like you said, I can always take in volunteers at the Foundation. Maybe start making my rounds during daylight hours. Who knows, maybe settle into a normal existence?”

  “You’d do that?” He lifted a hand to her hair, twirled his fingers through several strands.

  “Yes, I would. What’s bothering you? Something’s wrong. I saw it tonight at supper.”

  “One of my employees didn’t show up for work on Monday. She didn’t bother to call in either. When she wasn’t at her desk by four that afternoon to start her shift, her manager sent someone over to her apartment to check on her. Turns out, they couldn’t get anyone to answer the door so they called the cops.”

  Her gut tightened, her instincts kicked into overdrive. She peppered Josh for more info. “Who? What did you do about it? What did they find? How come you didn’t mention it until now?”

  “Down girl. The who? A junior at UDub hired as a part-time tester named Maggie Bennett. She worked twenty to twenty-five hours a week, depending on her schedule. I just learned about it this afternoon myself between meetings. And I’m briefing you mere hours after I was told about it. I suspect Maggie and Tate have been seeing each other, hot and heavy, for the last several months. He was pretty upset about her not showing up and not being able to locate her.”

  Since Tate Brock was the brother of his late wife, Annabelle. Skye knew Josh still considered the man family. “So tell me what happened.”

  “It was Tate who couldn’t get Maggie to answer the door. He’s the one who decided to place a call to the police. But when they got inside the girl’s apartment, there was no sign of Maggie. None. Personal items were still there, her purse, her cell phone, but no sign of a break-in, nothing looked out of place.”

  Chills ran up Skye’s spine. She tried to remember if she’d ever met Maggie. But she couldn’t put a face to the name. “Hmm. Where was she last seen and with whom?”

  “Tate said he dropped her off Saturday night around ten-thirty. Said she seemed to be upset about something. They’d spent the day together and agreed to meet for lunch the next day but when she didn’t return his phone calls on Sunday, he thought she’d blown him off for some reason. He didn’t think any more about it until she didn’t show up for work on Monday. That’s when he got worried, began calling their mutual friends to see if she’d been to class. She was a no-show for Monday and Tuesday morning classes.”

  “Josh, what did Maggie look like? By any chance did she have red hair?”

  Josh wrinkled his brow. “I think so. Why do you ask?”

  “Harry dropped by the apartment this afternoon. I was there watering the plants. We compared notes. He has one missing woman from Tacoma that hasn’t turned up yet. A hooker named Andrea Harkness, last seen by her friends hopping into one of her john’s vehicles. Wanna guess what he was driving?”

  Josh sat up straighter. “A Jeep Cherokee?”

  “You got it. And get this. I knew Andrea Harkness through Dee Dee and Lucy Border. Remember Dee Dee and Lucy?”

  Josh nodded. “They worked Sixth and Wheeler Streets here in Seattle as I recall.”

  “At one time so did Andrea. She was roommates with both girls during tough times. Had some disagreement with them and ended up turning tricks in Tacoma.”

  “So our guy resorts to hookers in a pinch?”

  “Wouldn’t be the first serial killer to do so, that’s for sure.”

  “Okay, so what does Andrea have to do with my tester, Maggie Bennett?”

  “As of this morning, Harry also has one new murder investigation. Joggers found a girl’s body dumped in the park. She had ligature marks around her wrists. And Josh, she had red hair.”

  “Are you certain of that?”

  “Positive, a natural redhead, I saw the crime scene photos myself. Harry wanted to know if I knew her, if I recognized her or had a connection to her in some way. If this is your Maggie, your tester, he dumped her there, nude and battered. To me, the girl looked to be no older than twenty-one.”

  “Damn it. You don’t think…?” Josh took out his iPhone, punched in a series of numbers. “I need to find out one way or the other if it’s Maggie. Her family’s been frantic for news, tearing their hearts out with worry for two days. Harry needs to get on this.”

  “Then get him on it.”

  It took several minutes but Josh finally got Harry to pick up. Josh could tell a detailed explanation about Maggie’s disappearance piqued Harry’s interest right up front. “A missing person report was filed Monday. She missed her classes at UDub now for three days in a row, which Tate assures me is unusual for her.”

  “Okay, I’ll contact my office and give them an update. Sometimes these missing person reports fall through the cracks and we don’t make comparisons as quickly as we should. I’ll make up for it though. After I get the desk sergeant to fax me a copy, I’ll call you back.”

  At the click in his ear, Josh hung up. “It’s amazing to me how many times information doesn’t get to the right person, falls through the cracks. It’s like two ships passing in the night and each one has no idea they were in the same general vicinity of the other.”

  “Just one more reason so many people disappear and are never heard from again unless friends or family hit the ground running with a lot of fanfare and legwork.”

  “Harry’s overworked. He sounded beat.”

  “This afternoon he looked it, too.”

  About that time Josh’s cell phone rang. “Hi, Harry.”

  “Your tester’s general physical description matches our victim. I’ll get the coroner’s office on board and notify the parents that the body might be that of their daughter. Thanks for the heads up, Josh.”

  Again Josh heard a click in his ear and the detective was gone.

  Skye mulled over what they knew. “Maggie’s been missing since last Monday, possibly longer, maybe even as long as Saturday night. That’s when Tate dropped her off. In the photo I saw, her throat had been cut. She also had rope marks around her wrists and ankles, which means whoever kept that gir
l held her for days before the killer decided he was done with her and put the body in the park. He’s keeping them for shorter periods of time, Josh. That’s a similar method to the college coed we talked about who was found two weeks ago.”

  Josh got up to check his notes. “Vanessa Farrington was last seen around midnight when she left a frat party to walk back to her room. Alone. When they did find Vanessa’s body she’d been dumped naked with signs of major trauma.” Josh looked up from his iPad. “He’s trying to impress you with a number count.”

  “I think you’re right.” Skye went to her own laptop, tapped the screen with her index finger where she’d brought up the map they’d created online with the data they knew. “Vanessa was found a week later in Bellingham. Here. But she disappeared in Olympia. That’s over a hundred and fifty plus miles. On the other hand, Maggie was found in a Seattle park. Closer to home. Here. Roughly ninety miles separates each woman’s case, but that short distance involves two different jurisdictions.”

  “As we’ve learned in the past, different jurisdictions often mean the cops don’t share info about their cases, especially in homicide. Throw in the fact that in Vanessa’s case, the tox screen showed no alcohol in her system.”

  “Even though the story on the Internet indicates she left that party so intoxicated witnesses said she had trouble walking, which means she had plenty of time to get it out of her system. He kept Vanessa a week, Maggie three days at minimum,” Skye determined. “Depending on whether or not your tester went missing Saturday night after Tate said his goodnights.”

  “Yeah, Maggie could’ve been taken then or sometime on Sunday. Either way, he didn’t hold her as long as he did Vanessa. And yet, Vanessa was dumped farther away from where she was last seen while Maggie is left practically around the corner.”

  “Which means he covers a lot of ground,” Skye finished. “And there’s no pattern to speak of.”

  “Both locations are well within the range of the military base though,” Josh pointed out.

  “We keep circling back to that.”

  “For a reason.”

  She stalked to the windows and back, rested her hands on her hips. “So where’s Willa? She vanished well after Vanessa, and a couple of days after Maggie did. I don’t want to think about Willa ending up like the others.”

  “We don’t know a hundred percent that it’s Maggie.”

  She tilted her head to give him a look that said he knew better. “You probably need to talk to Tate, prepare him for the worst.”

  Josh groaned. “Maybe it’s another missing redhead.” He paced in front of the bank of windows alongside Skye, looked out into Seattle’s skyline and on past into Puget Sound. “So we have a string of recent abductions where the killer is now leaving the bodies in obvious locales knowing full well they’ll be discovered instead of burying them as we suspect he’s done in the past. We touched on this at the coroner’s office. He’s changed the way he does things—for you.”

  “We have more than that, Josh. Think about it. These women all had a connection to me or now, to you. Willa worked at Country Kitchen. I go in there at least four times a week to talk to Velma or Travis or to grab a meal. Vanessa had stopped by the Foundation months ago. Even if it happened some time back, it’s still a connection to me. I knew Andrea Harkness through Dee Dee and Lucy. Now there’s Maggie who worked for you. This is freaking me out.”

  “A ‘six degrees of separation’ kind of thing? You’re onto something, Skye.”

  “But how does it help us, Josh? How do we catch this guy?”

  “I’m not sure exactly. I do know we need to find the owners of every Jeep Cherokee in the state and run the numbers through the database. I’ll call Leo. See if he can meet us here tomorrow night for an all-nighter.”

  Chapter Eleven

  A pall fell over Ander All Games. Tate took the news about Maggie’s death especially hard. Josh knew the younger man felt a chunk of guilt for not checking on her Sunday.

  “You couldn’t have known,” Josh told his brother-in-law. He studied the man from across his desk. Tate didn’t look like his usual self at all. There were circles under his eyes as if he hadn’t slept all night. His clothes were the same as the day before and wrinkled.

  “But I certainly know something about how you’re feeling. After Annabelle died…well, you know what a hard time I had dealing with her death.”

  Tate nodded. “Maggie was such a sweet person. Like Annabelle, Maggie didn’t deserve this. When I didn’t hear from her, I should’ve gone over to her apartment Sunday to make sure she was okay. But I thought she was playing head games with me, you know? So I left her alone to stew and teach her a lesson. Imagine that. The whole time some sick bastard had her…raped her…while I…I…played video games.”

  “You couldn’t have known what would happen, Tate,” Josh repeated. “The day Michelle killed Annabelle, the day I walked into the house and found her dead on the floor, we’d had an argument that morning. Did I ever tell you that?”

  “No.”

  “It was part of the guilt I carried around for so long. I don’t want to see you doing the same.”

  “Her funeral’s Saturday.”

  “I know. The entire company plans on going.”

  “Rumor has it you and Skye are looking for the guy who did this. What kind of sick person does this to another human being, Josh? Tell me that.”

  “You said it, Tate, a very sick bastard. Now get out of here and go home.”

  “I can’t. I have to stay busy otherwise it’ll just drive me nuts.”

  About that time Leo Martin sauntered into the office. Long and lean at six-three, Leo sported dreadlocks down to his shoulders. Two gold earring studs pierced both of his earlobes. The look made him seem more musician than seasoned programmer slash hacker.

  Leo’s contractor gigs paid the bills. Companies like Ander All Games hired him to supplement their work force. In many instances, he made sure people such as himself couldn’t hack their way into a secure system.

  Added to that, Leo had a rep for helping out his buddies any time they needed it. Skye and Josh qualified when the situation warranted it. Working for them, it was almost like being part of a team to two of Seattle’s own crime-fighters. The fact that he could hack into any website, retail or otherwise on behalf of The Artemis Foundation, made the work seem almost legit.

  Leo had come to terms with how much time he spent in front of a computer screen at fifteen. Hacking came natural to him. He’d always been a risk taker.

  After all, he never hacked to steal anyone’s credit card info, unless of course they happened to wander across Skye’s radar as a bad guy. He didn’t make a habit of using the info for any other purpose than to narrow down a perp’s particulars, to pinpoint a location, to zero in on whatever would aid in their capture. He didn’t hack to obtain anyone’s ID, or personal information, unless they were hunting and killing kids or women. In those cases, Leo made it a point to come through for Skye and Josh. If they needed the deets and he could supply the tools necessary to capture one of the bad guys, Leo intended to do what he could to put the scum where they belonged—off the streets and behind bars.

  That’s why when Skye and Josh had asked him to help them narrow down the names of Jeep owners through the state’s DOL, Leo hadn’t hesitated.

  “Hey, how’s it going?” Leo finally said shifting his feet when he spotted Tate. Not sure how much he should divulge about what was going on later, he traded glances with Josh. “Wanted to let you know, you can count me in for tonight.”

  “What’s tonight,” Tate wanted to know.

  Josh and Leo exchanged another long glance. “Poker game.”

  “That’s bullshit. You don’t play poker, Josh. If this is about Maggie, I want in, too.” Tate dropped his head into his hands and muttered, “I have to do something. You have to do something, Josh.”

  “Tate, I will. But first you need to clear your head. Rage won’t help you think, let
alone help Maggie. Now go home. Get some sleep. Don’t come back to work until you get at least eight hours. And if you need to talk, call me.”

  When Josh got off the elevator at the loft, he had Leo in tow.

  “Something smells terrific,” Leo said as he put his computer bag down in the living room.

  About that time, Skye made her way into the dining room carrying a stack of plates to set the table. “I hope you guys are hungry. I made a meat lover’s pizza.”

  “From scratch?” Leo asked.

  Josh slapped the programmer on the back. “You haven’t lived until you’ve tried Skye’s pizza.”

  Over gooey slices of pie, they prodded Leo for what he’d learned on the Jeep owners. But he went them one better. He took out a printed list from his computer bag and handed it off to Josh. “I also have that data on my laptop. The problem is the DOL doesn’t always distinguish between Jeep models in their records. You have Wranglers, Wagoneers, Libertys, which by the way, took the place of the one we’re looking for, the older model, the sporty Cherokee XJ.”

  “There must be ten thousand names here,” Josh groaned.

  “But that isn’t the issue. Not all DOL records reflect the vehicle model. They do provide year though. That’s why I’m moving on to plow through surveillance tapes the night Willa Dover went missing.” He’d already used his skills with protocols and firewalls to pull anything he could get on the surrounding buildings from the area around Country Kitchen to the ramp leading up to the interstate.

  After dinner the three of them spent several hours at the keyboard until Leo finally announced, “I’ve got nothing but a grainy video from the bank opposite the I-5 onramp that shows a Jeep Cherokee crossing in front of the building at twelve-thirty-three. That doesn’t help much because we already knew the make of the car.”

  “What about a license plate?”

  Leo shook his head. “I got a side view. And as bad as the images are it wouldn’t yield a number anyway.”