by Kathi Daley
“I found an article relating to a series of house fires between January and April of nineteen ninety-seven,” I said. “Fourteen structures were intentionally doused with gasoline and set aflame. The structures were empty at the time, so no one died, but a lot of people lost their homes. The arsonist, eventually identified as Roger Brown, was shot by his last victim, a man named Jason Willis.”
“I’m not sure a case where the perpetrator was brought to justice would elicit action all these years later,” Finn said, “but put it on the pile anyway.”
“Here’s an article from June of nineteen ninety-seven. A man was shot in the head while sleeping next to his wife in their bed,” Cody said.
I wrinkled my nose. “I can’t even imagine something like that happening. The poor woman. Does it say what happened, or who did the shooting?”
“This article just says that a woman named Margaret Reynolds called nine-one-one, claiming that a masked intruder broke into their home and shot her husband in the head while they slept. It was dark, the shooter wore dark clothes and a dark mask, and as soon as the deed was done, he left. She told the police that as far as she knew, her husband had no enemies, and she really couldn’t imagine who would do such a thing.”
“And they never caught the guy?” I asked.
Cody shrugged. “I really don’t know. As of the time this article was written, the masked man had yet to be identified.”
I looked at Finn. “Can you look it up? I don’t know why I care about a crime that happened more than twenty years ago, but I find myself hoping the crime was solved so that the poor woman could move on and find some closure.”
Finn set the newspaper he was looking through aside. “I guess it would just take me a minute or so to follow up. I doubt this case relates to whatever is going on now; however, if the crime was never solved, maybe someone has decided to pick up where law enforcement failed.”
“So, do you think we’re probably looking for an unsolved crime?”
“Maybe. The only reason I can come up with for anyone to sneak in here to look at an old newspaper is if someone decided all these years later to try to get justice for a crime that was never resolved.”
“I suppose that could even explain why this individual didn’t want to ask us for permission to look at a specific newspaper,” Cody said. “If some guy is shot and killed two weeks from now and it’s discovered that the victim of that shooting had, in fact, killed someone in the summer of nineteen ninety-seven, then anyone who’d come in to look at newspapers from the summer of nineteen ninety-seven would be an automatic suspect.”
“Good point,” Finn said. “I’ll run next door and see what I can find out about our murder victim. What did you say his name was?”
Cody looked down at the newspaper. “John Reynolds.”
“Okay. I’ll go next door and look up the file. It’ll probably be fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“We’ll be here,” I promised Finn.
Cody and I continued to sort through the newspapers. Some we set aside to take a second look at, while others we stacked for reshelving. Neither of us had spoken for a good fifteen minutes when I came across something that seemed not only relevant but uber relevant as far as I was concerned.
“I think I may have something,” I said.
Cody stopped what he was doing to give me his attention. “Oh. And what is that?”
“About six or seven newspapers back, I came across an article about the body of a woman fishermen found floating in the sea. Her left leg beneath her knee was missing, and it was suggested that perhaps she’d been the victim of a shark attack. I didn’t think the article was relevant given what we’re looking for, but now I’ve come across a commentary by Orson as to what he thinks might be going on.”
“Going on?”
“According to this commentary, which is provided on page two in the same location as all the other commentaries Orson wrote, he had a source who was somehow able to lead him to evidence which allowed him to determine the identity of the woman found in the sea. Prior to this occurring, the woman had been labeled as a Jane Doe.”
“Okay,” Cody said. “Why is this relevant to what we’re doing?”
“It’s relevant,” I said, “because prior to ending up in the sea, the victim, a twenty-one-year-old student named Lola Harvey, had been reported as missing by her college roommate. The woman was last reported being seen talking to a man with brown hair in a bar in downtown Seattle.”
“That’s quite a coincidence, but I doubt that missing person is related to our missing persons,” Cody said. “That missing person went missing more than twenty years ago.”
“I know,” I said. “That was my first thought as well, but then I kept reading. It seems that Orson, who we know considered himself somewhat of an amateur sleuth, did some research and found out that other women had been reported as missing persons in the previous months. All were in their twenties, and all were the sort to frequent bars on the prowl for men. Five of the thirteen missing women had told a friend or loved one that they were heading to the islands for a romantic getaway with the man they’d just met.”
“That does seem like quite the coincidence,” Cody said.
“What’s quite the coincidence?” Finn asked after rejoining us. He had a file in his hand, which drew my attention, but I decided to fill him in on the missing women and Orson’s commentaries before asking about it.
“Did Orson say anything else?” Finn asked after I’d brought him up to speed.
“Not really. At least not in this commentary. I think we should look at the next couple of editions.”
Finn sat down at the table and then slid the newspapers I’d had in front of me across the table so that they were in front of him. I wanted to protest since I had been the one to find the commentary in the first place, but he was the cop, and I was just the sidekick. I waited while he read.
“Orson did follow up,” Finn said. “In the next edition, he mentions a witness who saw the woman who’d been found floating in the sea having a drink with an average-sized man with dark hair she referred to as Jack.”
“There is no way this missing woman isn’t connected to our missing women,” I said.
“But why the long period of dormancy?” Cody asked. “If there is some guy out there named Jack who is picking up women in Seattle and then bringing them to the islands where he kills and disposes of them, why the gap?”
“Maybe there isn’t a gap. Maybe he’s been doing this the entire time,” I suggested.
“I doubt it,” Finn said. “The pattern would have been noticed long before this if women had been turning up missing every few months for more than twenty years. It seems more likely that something occurred that resulted in this killer going dormant. Maybe he’s been in prison on another charge and just got out, or maybe he met someone, fell in love, and gave up his life of crime. Or maybe it was something else that made him stop only to start up again for an equally unknown reason.”
Cody rested his arms on the table and leaned forward. “What else does it say?” he asked.
Finn looked down at the newspaper in front of him. “This commentary seems to suggest that Orson believed there was a serial killer at work, but he hadn’t been able to convince law enforcement of that.” Finn looked up. “I guess I can understand that. Orson had been able to identify the woman in the ocean as a missing person from Seattle, but at the time this commentary was written, it appears that’s all he really had. Unless he had something that he hadn’t yet published, it looks as if he hadn’t come up with any sort of evidence to link this woman to the other twelve women who were missing from the Seattle area, and he certainly didn’t have a basis to claim those women were dead. A lot of missing persons turn up much later, and many, it seems, have simply run away from a life that had become too overwhelming.”
“Does Orson outline a plan to get the proof he needs?” I asked. “Orson would have done that. He was a man after the truth.”
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br /> Finn nodded. “This article does promise his readers that he is hot on the trail of new evidence and will keep them updated as events unfold.” He stopped reading. “I bet local law enforcement was not at all happy about that.”
“Probably not,” Cody said.
“Keep reading,” I said.
Finn picked up the next newspaper and turned to page two. He raised a brow.
“What is it?” I asked. I should never have let Finn take the newspapers away from me.
“Orson keeps referring to a source he has yet to identify. In this edition, he tells his readers that his source was able to obtain copies of missing persons reports for thirteen women who had gone missing from Seattle between January of nineteen ninety-six and May of nineteen ninety-seven.”
“How was he able to do that?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Finn said, “but I doubt the reports were obtained legally.”
“Maybe Orson’s source was in law enforcement,” I said.
“Maybe,” Finn said, although his expression conveyed doubt.
“So go on,” I encouraged. “Orson managed to get his hands on the missing persons reports for thirteen women who went missing over a seventeen-month period. Based on those reports, what conclusions did he come to?”
“He offers the reports as proof that a pattern existed,” Finn said. “All the women were in their twenties, and all were reported as missing from Seattle or other towns along the Interstate 5 corridor. Additionally, all were last seen on a Friday, and all had a reputation for hitting the bars on the weekends.”
“Sounds like our current missing persons cases to me,” I said.
Finn frowned. “Yes, I’m afraid it does.”
“I guess this guy might be dumping all these women in the sea once he’s done with them,” Cody said.
“Possibly,” Finn acknowledged. “There is really no way to know for certain at this point, but it would explain why none of the bodies of these missing women have turned up, assuming, of course, they’re dead.”
“What does the next newspaper say?” I asked.
Finn set the one he’d been looking at aside and opened the next one on the pile. He opened to page two. “Nothing. It’s a guest commentary about zoning laws, which was written by Mayor Bradley.”
I frowned. “And the one after that?”
Finn opened the next newspaper on the pile. “This commentary is about tourism and the effect of so many weekend visitors on the island.”
“Someone shut him up,” Cody said.
“But why?” I asked. “It sounds like he was really starting to get somewhere.”
“I’m not sure,” Finn said. “These commentaries have been printed in newspapers leading up to the beginning of tourist season. The idea of a serial killer on the island probably wouldn’t have been good for tourism, so perhaps the mayor had a hand in ending the series.”
That sounded like something Bradley would have done.
“Does anything in any of those commentaries help us figure out who is doing this now and how to stop them?” I asked. “Assuming, of course, that the same person was killing women back in the nineties and then again in current times.”
Finn sighed loudly. “Not that I can see, but I’m going to go over everything again.” He picked up the newspapers with commentaries relating to the missing women as well as the one about the woman found in the sea. “I know you don’t usually allow these to leave the building, but I’m going to take them anyway. I’ll be careful with them, and I’ll bring them back when I’m done.”
“Sure. No problem,” Cody said.
“So, what did you find out about John Reynolds?” I asked. “Was his killer ever found?”
Finn shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. According to the report I managed to dig up, the house was searched extensively for any evidence linking a killer to the home. Nothing was found. Not a hair, not a fingerprint, not a single thing. Less than a month after her husband had been killed while sleeping next to her, Margaret Reynolds took her ten-year-old son and moved to the east coast. It appears that the sheriff filed the case away shortly after she left, and it’s been collecting dust ever since.”
“But why? Didn’t he want to find the killer?”
“I’m sure he did, but you have to understand the man had nothing. What was he supposed to do?”
“There must have been blood spatter. A bullet to try to match to a gun.”
“There was blood everywhere,” Finn confirmed. “It was all over the bed, all over poor Mrs. Reynolds, all over the ceiling and the walls. The scene of the crime was a total bloodbath, but a gun was never found, there was no physical evidence, and like I said, the only witness was the wife who couldn’t make out any details in the dark.”
I slowly shook my head. “That poor woman. I really can’t imagine.”
“Other than the commentaries left by Orson, did you find anything else relevant to our current break-ins or the women who are currently missing?” Finn asked.
“Not really,” Cody said. He slipped his hand over mine. He knew me well enough to know that I’d be upset by such a brutal murder. “It is possible, however, that Orson left notes behind that correspond with the commentaries. There may be notes to indicate what he eventually found out and why he stopped working on the case he seemed to be very involved with.”
“Do you know where these notes might be?” Finn asked.
“At the house. Orson was a note taker, and he left boxes and boxes filled with notebooks, note pads, sticky notes, and even napkins with notes scribbled on them. I didn’t want to throw them away, but they were taking up a lot of room down here, so I took them home and stacked them in an extra bedroom on the second floor we use for storage. I can take a look if you want,” Cody offered. “There are a lot of boxes, and they aren’t really organized, so it might take a while.”
“Actually, looking for notes relating to these commentaries might be a good idea,” Finn said. “Let me know if you come across anything.”
Chapter 7
Cody and I picked up Italian food on our way home. He grabbed some wine while I grabbed the plates. I knew that Mr. Parsons valued having dinner with Cody and me when we were home for dinner, so we made a point of being home at least several times a week. Neither of us was really into cooking given our current schedules, so more often than not, we picked up take out and bought extra to leave in the refrigerator so that Mr. Parsons would have leftovers he could eat on the nights Cody and I ate out.
“So did you figure out who’s been breaking into the newspaper?” Mr. Parsons asked after we’d settled in with our meals.
“We aren’t certain, but it appears the break-ins might be related to a series of commentaries Orson wrote back in nineteen ninety-seven about women who’d gone missing from the Seattle area and he suspected had been brought to the islands to be killed and disposed of,” Cody shared.
Mr. Parsons narrowed his gaze. “Now that you’ve mentioned it, I do seem to remember something about that. I should have thought of Orson’s commentaries before, given the current situation with the missing women, but my mind isn’t all that it once was.”
“It appears Orson’s theory was based on research he conducted after a woman was found floating in the sea,” I added.
He nodded slowly. “I remember that. The woman looked to have been a shark attack victim. Part of her leg was missing. Orson, however, for reasons I don’t quite remember, was certain the woman had been weighted and tossed from a boat. His theory was that when the shark attacked the weighted body, he freed her from the weight, which allowed the victim to float to the surface where she was found by fishermen passing by.”
“I guess that makes sense,” I said. “And if this guy is weighting his victims before dumping them into the sea, I guess that explains why the bodies of the other women were never found. Of course, there really isn’t any way to prove that one way or another.”
“That’s true.” Mr. Parsons stabbed at a
meatball. “I remember Orson being quite determined to figure out what exactly was going on and to prove it.” Mr. Parson chuckled. “I have to say that of all my friends, Orson was the orneriest. Once he latched onto a bone, he wasn’t letting go for anyone.”
“He said in the commentaries that he published that he had an informant he was working with,” Cody said. “I don’t suppose you know who that might have been?”
Mr. Parsons moved his head slowly from left to right. “No. I can’t say as I ever did know.”
“He also said he had been able to obtain copies of the missing persons reports for other women he felt fit the pattern,” Cody continued. “Any idea how he got his hands on those?”
“No idea. As we both know, Orson was a sly one,” Mr. Parsons said. “He had a way of getting whatever he needed to get to accomplish whatever it was he wanted to do. He was intelligent, persuasive, and, if need be, downright intimidating.”
“Do you remember anything at all that he might have mentioned to you that he didn’t publish in the newspaper?” I asked.
He paused to think about it. “I do remember that Orson rented a boat at one point. I seem to remember he had a couple of suspects in mind, although he hadn’t settled on anyone. I remember that Orson got his hands on photos of the missing women and started looking for individuals who had seen them. He eventually determined that while most of the women had never been seen, a few of the missing women had been spotted in a variety of locations on several islands. It was Orson’s theory that this killer made the rounds rather than bringing the women to the same location time and time again to avoid suspicion. He also seemed to think the killer had a home on one of the private islands where he could take these women and do whatever it was that he intended to do without being overheard or seen.”
“There are a lot of private islands in the area,” I said.
“Too many to check them out without knowing exactly what you’re looking for,” Mr. Parsons agreed.
