“How did you know that Denny was the one?”
The question came out of nowhere surprising Ellie with her bluntness and making her feel a little bit embarrassed, soliciting love advice from a woman ten years her junior. Laura didn’t seem thrown by it at all.
“Gosh Ellie, I don’t know. What’s your favorite food?”
Ellie paused, eyeing Laura with perplexity.
“Ice cream, I guess.”
“And the first time you tried ice cream did you know you liked it?”
“I loved it.”
“Well the first time I saw Denny I knew I loved him.”
Laura never ceased to amaze her. She seemed to look at the world with the simplicity of a child, never questioning her first instincts, and content with her decisions in life. She was one remarkable twenty-four year old.
“Mommy! Mommy watch! Chubs chases me wherever I go!” Aiden yelled and ran about the lakeshore brandishing the stick in his small hands. Chubs bounded after him barking and enjoying the game even more than Aiden. They came barreling up the dock. Ellie’ face twisted with worry.
“Aiden no running on the dock!”
“Awe mom, I’m okay.” Aiden shouted as he rushed past her.
He threw the stick off the end of the dock and Chubs plummeted after it manifesting a giant splash that soaked the girls causing them to shriek out loud.
“Aiden and Chubs, you’re washing off all of my suntan lotion.” Laura bellowed.
Ellie tried to suppress her laugh but it escaped her lips anyway causing Laura to give her an annoyed glare.
“Oh relax Laura. Have another Corona.”
Ellie handed her the bottle relishing the opportunity to be the calming influence for a change. Laura smiled as she snatched the bottle from Ellie and grabbed another lime from the bowl.
Randall came trotting up the dock. Ellie couldn’t help but stare at his bare chest as he jogged. He was in remarkable shape for a man his age, and though Randall didn’t see it in himself, she thought he was the sexiest man she had ever seen.
“Looks like you two got soaked.” Randall said, his smile flashing in the bright sunlight. “Can you spare another Corona for a thirsty cop?”
“You can have this one officer.” Ellie handed him a bottle. The sun was starting to take a toll on Randall as well, he could feel his skin begin to redden by the minute.
“As long as I’m asking for stuff, I wouldn’t mind having some of that sunscreen either.”
“Well have a seat and let me get to work.” Ellie patted the beach towel beside her and squirted a healthy amount of sunscreen into her left hand.
“I didn’t know that I was going to get the full service treatment.” His face reddened, and this time it wasn’t just from the warm rays of the sun.
“Are you complaining?”
“Not at all.” Randall said and plopped down beside her.
Ellie rubbed the lotion into Randall’s back, working on the knots at the same time. Randall let out a small sigh of pleasure.
“Would you two knock it off? You’re making me sick again.” Laura said as she turned over letting the sun tan her back.
Ellie knew the comment was meant in good nature but she still thought Laura had some nerve considering she was wearing a thong bikini and her backside was utterly exposed. Randall didn’t seem to mind. What guy would? Ellie thought to herself. Randall’s radio crackled filling the air with static. Now what? Ellie wondered. Randall took that damn radio everywhere and it seemed that the thing was never quiet. How much could possibly happen in a town like Saltar’s Point?
“Randall, come in buddy.” Denny’s voice had an urgency to it.
Randall picked up the radio and depressed the button.
“This better be good Denny.”
“You better get down to Walter’s right away.”
Walter Hagstrom ran the only service station in town, a Shell station with two pumps.
“What’s the problem?” There was a moment of silence with static filling the void. Randall depressed the button again. “What’s the problem Denny?”
“Jesus Christ Randall.” Denny’s voice trembled just a tiny bit. “I think we got a 187.”
Randall put the hammer down in his Cherokee, he flipped on the police lights without the siren and accelerated to ninety miles an hour heading northbound on highway 3. He had pulled his jeans over his still wet bathing suit and slipped his Polo shirt over his sun burned shoulders, not wanting to take the time to go back home and change. He had left Ellie and Aiden with Laura, fortunately she had met them there and had her car. The lake was thirty-five miles southeast of town and Randall was determined to make it back as soon as possible. Denny had sounded frantic and Randall couldn’t blame him. 187. Homicide. In all his years as sheriff of Saltar’s Point Randall had never seen a murder case and he thought he never would. Dark thoughts kept reverberating through his head, life in Saltar’s Point was about to get a lot more complicated. He took the exit a little faster than he should, after all the body wasn’t going anywhere. Still he wanted to get there before the Jefferson County Sheriff’s department did. They would send their homicide unit Randall knew, and they would take jurisdiction over the case but he wanted to make sure he was involved as much as possible and the best way to do that was to be the first on the scene. He took a sharp left and headed down Anders Lane, the dirt road that lead down into town. The Cherokee kicked up a swirling cloud of dust coating the sides of the truck and dirtying the windshield. He would wash it later. Walter’s was fast approaching. The gas station sat just inside town limits and Randall began to slow his speed. As he pulled up he saw Denny’s cruiser parked in front. He pulled into the spot next to it and exited the truck.
He found Denny around back by the dumpster. He was talking to Walter and asking him questions. Walter Hagstrom was sixty-two years of age, with weathered features and thinning gray hair, his ashen complexion betraying his dismay. Randall strode over to them with fervid determination. Denny gave a sigh of relief when he saw him.
“Christ I thought you’d never get here.” Denny said, still visibly shaken.
Randall nodded at Walter, who returned the gesture in kind. “Walter, you want to tell me what happened?”
“Ain’t much ta tell.” Walter wiped his sweaty palms on his blue jeans. “Came around back this afternoon like always ta toss out the day’s trash and I sees these green garbage bags lying in my dumpster, and I figure the Williams boys been illegally dumping on my premises again. So I get mad and grab one of the bags figuring I can cut it open and find some evidence as to whose garbage it is. The William’s boys ain’t too smart ya see and they’re always leaving some bills or something that points right to them.” Walter wiped his hands again. “But the bag’s real heavy, and I’m thinking what the hell ‘cause usually the Williams boy’s trash is just a bunch of unpaid bills and empty beer cans. So I grab my buck knife off my belt and slice her open. That’s when the blood run out all over the parking lot. Now I’m thinking that someone’s discarded a deer carcass, probably scared of getting caught for poaching on account of it not being huntin’ season and all and decides to dump it here. So I tear open the bag and that’s when I seen the foot. Scared me plum to death.”
The ominous green bag sat just in front of the dumpster amid a pool of blood that had congealed into a slushy puddle, curdling in the sunlight. The wind shifted and Randall caught a whiff of the strong smell of death making him gag just a little.
“How many bags are there?”
“Three of ‘em. I left the other two in the dumpster, haven’t touched them at all.” Walter made it clear by his tone that he wanted as little part of this mess as possible.
“Well let’s take a look.”
Randall walked over to the garbage bag. A knot had been tied into the top and Walter had made his incision just below it, opening an oval hole about the size of a football. When he peered into the bag his stomach wretched at the sight of the carnage. A foot
and lower leg severed just below the knee lay visible. Randall guessed from the worn toenail polish that the victim was female. The sight made Randall sick, not just from the carnage but from the fact that someone was capable of committing such a grisly act. He looked over at Denny.
“You touch the bag or anything else?”
Denny shook his head. “No way, Christ Randall I never thought I’d see anything like this in Saltar’s Point.”
“Neither did I. You radio Jefferson County?”
Denny nodded. “Called them just after I got off the box with you, figured they’d know how to handle this.”
Randall gave a complacent look. His pride wanted him to handle every criminal act that occurred in Saltar’s Point but his brain told him that letting the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department handle this was the right decision. The homicide unit there was equipped and prepared to handle a situation like this, and he and Denny wouldn’t even know where to begin. He glanced at Walter again. The man’s steel blue eyes were glazed over, giving him a morbid appearance.
“Walter, did you talk to anyone about this?”
“No sir.”
“You sure? No one else knows anything about what you found today?”
Walter shook his head. “I’m the only one tending the station today. Found the bag just over an hour ago, and called Denny first thing.”
Randall figured that Walter was telling the truth, he’d know him for years and had never known the man to tell a lie. As soon as Randall had completed his thought an unmarked police unit pulled into the station and drove around back stopping well short of the dumpster and the crime scene. The doors on the Chevrolet Caprice opened near simultaneously and two detectives stepped out. The driver was heavy set with a shock of salt and pepper hair and a mustache to boot. The passenger was tall and skinny and appeared to be twenty years the driver’s junior. They approached Denny and flashed their badges. The driver spoke.
“Detective Peterson, Jefferson County homicide. This is detective Wooding.” The younger man nodded. Peterson glared at Denny. “Sheriff Jackson?”
“Deputy Denny Haskins, this here’s Sheriff Jackson.” Denny motioned to Randall.
The two detectives eyed him openly.
“Sheriff, pleased to meet you.” Randall shook Peterson’s hand.
“Wish we had met under better circumstances.”
“Yeah, well unfortunately I don’t meet many people that way. That the body?” Peterson nodded at the garbage bag.
“What there is of it. We didn’t go searching through.”
“Well then let’s see what we got here.”
The two Jefferson County detectives walked over to the bag slipping on rubber gloves as they went. Wooding began snapping pictures, the camera clicking and buzzing as it recorded the images. Peterson knelt beside the bag and using what appeared to Randall to be a long tongue depressor, he parted the opening and inside. Click. Whir. Click Whir. Wooding’s camera continued to snap.
“Well it appears as if you boys were right. Looks like we got ourselves a homicide.” Peterson’s tone had a condescending air about it.
No shit Einstein, Randall thought. These guys were going to be trouble. After a few more pictures they worked their way over to the dumpster. More pictures followed. Peterson surveyed the scene a few minutes more and then turned back to Denny, tossing him his keys as he talked. Denny snatched them out of the air.
“You know how to rope off a crime scene?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good. Grab some tape out of the back of my unit and get to work. Start at the front of the station and block off the whole parking lot. I don’t want anyone fucking with my crime scene. That includes you two.” He gestured at Denny and Randall.
Randall had a good mind to pop Peterson in his teeth but he knew his hands were tied. Christ almighty he thought to himself. I just lost control of Saltar’s Point.
TWELVE
Virginia Shore was the school whore, and it was no coincidence that her life played out like a dirty limerick. Her stepfather was a loving man, a little too loving. His hands had a knack for finding their way underneath her shirt and inside her panties, always groping, touching, and fondling her. He never penetrated her –at least not physically- but the sexual assaults she suffered at his hands pierced her soul, leaving her empty and devoid of emotion. Her mother had named her Virginia after the virgin queen of England, and the striking irony was quite apparent by the time she entered middle school. She started giving hand jobs and blowjobs behind the bleachers on the football field at age eleven. By the time she was thirteen she had lost her virginity to a senior at the local high school. When she entered high school herself she had traversed the point of no return, utilizing her body to exert control of the boys. She loved the power she had over them, the sense of control. The girls had names for her of course, slut and skank to name a couple, but they were just jealous of the clout she had over their boyfriends and the persuasion she held on the cute guys they whispered about at slumber parties. Once she got past the shame and the degradation she became unstoppable, the queen of sexual experimentation, teaching the boys that they were yet to become men and reminding the girls that they were not yet women. The drugs followed soon after, offering her an escape from the searing pain of her existence. Pot, cocaine, acid, mushrooms, anything that would blur her perception of reality was on the table and Virginia was a hungry patron. At sixteen she ran away from home, preferring the harsh solidarity of the streets to the rampant discord at home.
She began to work the streets around Seattle, turning tricks for cash to score her next fix, but the competition was intense and the police pressure was relentless. As soon as she started using heroine her problems escalated. The tracks on her legs and arms had become unsightly to say the least and she was forced to wear more concealing clothing, a fashion statement unbecoming to her line of work. Business began to dry up and she was forced to move west across Puget Sound to Bremerton. The naval base there provided ample business and Virginia was fervent about making her rounds, soliciting the horny sailors who had just stepped off the boat after months at sea.
The last round she made did not involve a sailor however. It involved a driver of a brown Econoline van. It had been two days since her last trick and Virginia was getting desperate. She had smoked her last crack rock just an hour before and she hadn’t shot up in almost a week. The withdrawals were beginning to get bad and if she didn’t make some cash soon she was going to have to take another trip to the methadone clinic where they would try to put her back in a program. If there was one thing Virginia couldn’t stand it was being in a program.
It was a Tuesday night and the next carrier wasn’t due in until Friday. She had been arrested for soliciting on base premises twice before and was reluctant to press her luck. MP’s were far less tolerant than the cops and she didn’t want to deal with that hassle again. Instead she walked the main drag downtown, hoping to catch a drunken straggler making his way out of one of the tittie bars before going home to his wife and kids. What she caught instead was much more than she bargained for.
Darrow spotted her immediately. The kind of filthy whore his momma had warned him about, strolling down the boulevard and flashing her tits and ass at the passing motorists. He slowed the van down to a crawl and pulled up beside her, reaching awkwardly across the passenger seat to roll down the manual window. Virginia’s mood brightened as she anticipated an easy trick.
“Looking for a little company tonight sweetheart?” She drawled out the last word and fiddled with her top letting her breasts jiggle just a bit as she had learned to do.
“Well I am a lonely man. Come on get in.”
Darrow opened the door and Virginia climbed inside. She eyed the potential john up and down. He was a middle-aged man with a potbelly and scraggly unkept hair but he would have to do. She put on her best smile. After their negotiations Darrow drove them to the secluded spot behind the ferry terminals where Virginia turned most
of her tricks.
“Why don’t we get in the back where it’s more comfortable?”
Had she not been so desperate to turn a trick Virginia might have been reluctant to accommodate his request, and had she not been under the influence of crack and alcohol she might have noticed that the back of the van was lined from floor to ceiling in plastic, warning her that the man with the pot belly and scraggly hair had less than noble intentions. Instead she climbed in back. Virginia Shore the school whore was four days past her twenty-fourth birthday. She would not see twenty-five.
The whiskey splashed into the bottom of the glass, spraying droplets over the rim and forming a small circle around its base. Darrow gulped it down, relishing the slow burn. It had been twenty-nine years since the last time he had killed someone, and the adrenaline coursing through his body and he was both invigorated and terrified.
Fuckin’ whore deserved what she got, spreading disease and peddling her ass for money.
He scrubbed his hands together violently under the water in the laundry room sink. He nearly screamed aloud when the hot sudsy water poured over his still bleeding thumb. The jack had slipped in the loose gravel, pinching his thumb between the lug nut and the wheel, ripping the nail clean off and leaving a soft pulpy mound of flesh complete with an army of searing nerve endings that screamed bloody murder with their first taste of fresh air. The grease had imbedded itself in the folds of his skin and worked its way deep underneath his remaining finger nails. It had taken him well over a half hour to change all four tires, but Darrow knew that it was time well spent. Saltar’s Point had too many unpaved roads and the tracks left behind in the soft clay would be incriminating evidence, pointing right at the Econoline and Jack himself. Until now that was. He had purchased four new tires from an auto body shop in Tacoma, about an hour and a half southeast of Saltar’s Point, making sure to pay cash.
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