by Spencer Kope
“Abitha is mannequin number one,” I inform Jimmy.
He nods and studies the old house. “When was she last here?”
“Two to three years ago, though I’m leaning toward three.”
“And when was she last arrested?”
I lean into the Ford through the open door and flip through the notes in my folder. “She was booked for drugs by Seattle PD a year and a half ago, and then nothing. No hits in CLEAR, no new driver’s license or registered vehicles, no parking tickets.”
“Meaning she was grabbed shortly after her last arrest,” Jimmy summarizes. “At least we can put a date range on her disappearance.”
If we didn’t already know she was dead, we’d consider her disappearing trick rather remarkable. Abitha was a frequent flier, someone who was contacted by law enforcement with such regularity that the only way they’d possibly drop off the map is if they died, relocated, went to prison, or changed their ways, and Abitha showed no inclination for the latter.
Fishing in his pocket, Jimmy extracts his phone and speed-dials Diane. When she answers, he passes on our predicament in two short sentences and asks her to dig deeper. “She must have a mom or dad someplace, right? Maybe a brother or sister?”
I can’t hear the other side of the conversation, but I can imagine Diane assuring him that yes, she’s almost certain that everyone has a mother and father, whether they know them or not.
Or perhaps she saves that kind of sarcasm just for me.
* * *
The twelve-mile drive from Beacon Hill to Burien takes twenty-five minutes as the Seattle-area traffic thickens and begins to congeal. When we finally turn onto Amber Bartlett’s street, I pull my glasses down an inch and study the terrain for just a moment before pushing them back up and crossing Chelsea Younger of Covington off the list. I circle Amber’s name four times in slow, encompassing circles, marking her among the dead.
“Amber Bartlett is mannequin number seven,” I say to Jimmy, feeling the heaviness of my words as they leave me.
During our brief discussion with Amber’s mother, who reported her missing a year ago, we learn about her history of schizophrenic episodes, which began when she was nineteen, and the various antics that landed her in trouble with the police. On several of these occasions she’d been hospitalized on a seventy-two-hour hold, something referred to as an involuntary, or by its longer name: involuntary mental health evaluation. Either way you say it, the key word is involuntary. It’s like jail without the bars.
“She’s fine when she takes her meds,” her mother assures us.
The problem with Amber was that she frequently refused her meds, claiming they made her light-headed or sick, or that they gave her constipation. And during those times when she did follow her prescription, it was only until she started feeling better, at which point she’d declare that she felt fine and no longer needed the pills. It was a vicious circle of meltdown, medication, normalcy, rejection, and back to meltdown.
In the year before her disappearance, Amber spent several months at Western State Hospital, an inpatient psychiatric facility in Lakewood. She was also attending regular therapy sessions.
“A place called BrightPath something,” Mrs. Bartlett says. “They have an office on Glover Street, not far from here. That’s where I’d take Amber for her visits. It was the only way I could be sure she’d go; I’d take her there and read magazines in the waiting room until she finished.”
When Jimmy asks for the address, the woman just shakes her head. “Couldn’t tell you that, but it’s next to a two-story dental office that’s god-awful blue. You’d have to be blind to miss it.”
* * *
“Notice a pattern forming?” I say to Jimmy as we pull away from the curb.
“If you mean mental illness and drug addiction, I’d have to say yes.”
“Don’t forget BrightPath Wellness.”
Jimmy nods. “I wouldn’t put too much stock in that, at least not yet. They own a whole chain of clinics, so it’s hardly unusual if two of our seven victims have been treated by them. And let’s not forget that Jennifer Holt was treated at a BrightPath clinic in Everett, which is over an hour away in good traffic.”
“And Seattle traffic is never good,” I chime in, seeing his point. Still, I’m not ready to concede just yet. “Glover Street is just two miles west of here,” I suggest. “It wouldn’t take long to do a quick drive-by.”
Jimmy rolls slowly up to the stop sign at the intersection just south of Amber’s house, the SUV’s left blinker flashing and ticking. He pauses, starts to make the turn, and then abruptly flips the turn signal all the way up so that the right blinker begins to pulse.
When I grin at him, he mutters, “I just don’t want to listen to you complain all the way to Tacoma.” But then his face melts into a small grin, confirming what I already knew. It’s always the same with Jimmy: he’s just as curious as I am, but it takes longer to settle in his bones.
When we roll onto Glover Street, I spot the god-awful blue from a block away and can’t help thinking that this amalgam of dentists either hired the world’s worst decorator or there was an emergency clearance sale of God-Awful Blue at the hardware store. The only other explanation is that they want to shock their patients into numbness before they enter the clinic.
It saves on lidocaine.
“BrightPath,” I say, my finger pointing to a modest building just north of god-awful. By comparison, the mental health facility is a marvelous two-story with wonderful aesthetics and ample parking on all sides.
Somewhere between turning onto Glover and pulling into the parking lot at the clinic, my special glasses leave my face and I find myself holding them in my right hand as a world of shine fills my vision. Filtering through perhaps a million different footsteps and colors, I quickly find Amber’s pleasing yellow-green. I look for Debra Mata next, but she’s nowhere to be seen. It’s the same with Erin Yarborough, Sheryl Dorsey, and Jennifer Holt. It’s only when I get to Abitha Jones that I find another match.
“How about mannequins two and five?” Jimmy asks after I pass on my findings.
We’re pretty sure mannequin number five is going to be Sheryl Dorsey, since she was reported missing five months ago. As for number two, we’re hoping— No! That’s the wrong word. We’re expecting that it’s going to be Gabriella Paden of Tukwila, only because the other candidate is dead.
Scanning the lot and sidewalks thoroughly, and then doing it once more for good measure, I glance at him and say, “They’re not here.”
Jimmy nods. “As I said, it’s not unusual to have—”
Like a shot, my left hand finds his forearm and clamps on, squeezing until he winces. He digs at my fingers to pry them loose, but I’m oblivious. It’s an involuntary spasm, as if my soul suddenly convulsed with some celestial epilepsy.
“It’s him!” I finally manage. “It’s the Onion King.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“You know perfectly well they’re not going to give out that kind of information,” Diane argues. “You could tell them Ted Bundy just returned from the grave and is stalking their clients, and they’d yawn and tell you the same thing I’m telling you: get a warrant. The HIPAA laws are clear when it comes to medical privacy, and they don’t make exceptions, even for the likes of Jimmy and Steps.”
“Yeah-yeah-yeah,” Jimmy blurts, tired of the lecture. “We’ll wait until we have the last two names and then request a warrant, but in the meantime, get hold of Jason or Nate and see if Charice Qian is still at the hospital. We need to know if she ever went to one of the BrightPath Wellness clinics, and if so, where?”
“I talked to Angie Eccles this morning,” Diane replies in a softer tone. “Charice is being released tomorrow morning. So, yes, she’s still at the hospital, and, yes, I’ll call Detective Sturman and pass on your request. The sheriff also asked me to pass on the lab results from Charice’s blood work.”
Jimmy readies his pen. “Go ahead.”
&n
bsp; “She had two different drugs in her system; one of them you may have already guessed, and that’s propofol. The other is sevoflurane.”
“Never heard of it,” Jimmy mutters.
Diane continues. “They think she was first injected with the propofol, which is fast-acting and would have rendered her unconscious in seconds. The effects of an injection are short-lived, maybe ten or fifteen minutes, as I’m sure you know. The point is that the abductions would have been quick and the propofol would have given him time to move the women to a vehicle or other location where he could administer the sevoflurane.”
“Why not just use the fluoride stuff from the start?” Jimmy asks.
“Se-vo-flu-rane,” Diane corrects, enunciating every syllable the way she does when reading Doctor Seuss to her grandkids. “Because it has to be inhaled,” she explains patiently, “and I can’t imagine Mr. Onionhead bogeyman rolling a canister of gas down the street asking his intended victims to take a sniff, can you?”
I raise my eyebrows at Jimmy, mostly in appreciation of the sarcasm, but also because she’s right.
“Point taken,” Jimmy concedes. “Call us when you have the information on Charice.” Before Diane can reply, he disconnects the call.
I stare at him with widening eyes, which quickly drop to the silent phone, and then back to his set and stoic features. Sucking a long and intentionally slurpy breath through my clenched teeth, I say, “Dude, you hung up on Diane.”
“Mm-hmm,” he hums, looking at me without an ounce of care or concern, as if he really means it, as if saying, You want some too?
I shake my head in disbelief and mutter, “Your funeral.”
* * *
It’s a short drive from Burien to Tukwila, where we discover that Gabriella Paden is alive and well and living in suburban splendor. That eliminates our second and final candidate for mannequin number two, which means we have an official Jane Doe on our hands. I don’t let it bother me, and I don’t think Jimmy is concerned either. These things have a way of working themselves out as an investigation progresses.
Swinging back onto I-5, Jimmy is just getting the Ford up to traffic speed, the nose pointed south to Tacoma, when his phone rings. He glances at the caller ID before answering, expecting Diane. It’s not.
“Nate! How are you?”
“Doing good,” the detective replies. “Diane called about twenty minutes ago and filled me in. Sounds like you guys are having some luck out there.”
“Not bad,” Jimmy says, playing it down, as usual. “We just struck out at Gabriella Paden’s place—which is good for her because it means she’s alive, but we have no other candidates for number two—mannequin number two,” he quickly corrects, likely sensing my head swiveling his way. “Did Diane tell you what we’re up against?”
“That depends. Do you mean the part where you have your panties in a knot, or the part where you need to ask Charice about her therapy sessions?”
“The latter.”
Nate chuckles. “Yeah, she filled me in. It’s a short drive from the office, so rather than calling Charice, I came to the hospital. I’m with her now, just let me switch to speakerphone.”
“Perfect,” Jimmy says. Reaching for his notepad, he tosses it into my lap and makes head motions that I’m supposed to take notes.
Nate’s voice sounds hollow when next he speaks, like we’re all ten years old and talking through tin cans connected by string. We obviously sound just as bad to him, because he apologizes for his cheap phone.
“Okay, go ahead,” Nate says.
“Hi, Charice,” Jimmy begins. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” she replies in an airy voice. “Still a bit sore, but I’m not complaining. That first day, the doctors were trying to decide whether they should amputate two of my toes. I guess I had frostbite.” She gives a humorless laugh. “I didn’t even care; I was just worried that my shoes might not fit. Weird, huh?”
“Not so weird,” Jimmy says, and even though she can’t see him, he has a consoling smile on his face. “I take it they saved the toes.”
“Yep. Still got my ten little piggies.”
“That’s good. You had a close call all the way around.” He hesitates a moment, and then plunges on. “I was hoping I could ask you something … about before? I don’t want to pry, but we need your help if we’re going to catch the guy who did this to you.”
“No, sure. What do you need?”
“I understand you had some issues with heroin.…”
“Yeah.” Her voice is resigned, ashamed.
“Did you ever go to counseling, either for the drugs or other issues?”
She sighs, and this time her voice is more withdrawn. “Yeah. It didn’t take. I went through rehab a couple times, but as soon as I’d finish, I’d hook up with my old friends and be right back where I started from.”
“Where was the rehab?”
“One was in Spokane, the other was in Portland.”
“What about other counseling, maybe something closer to home?”
She laughs that same humorless laugh. “Sure. I’ve got all the usual demons. Depression, anxiety, paranoia, and some anger issues—or at least that’s what they tell me. I’ll admit to the first three, but I never thought of myself as angry.”
“Why do you think they said that?”
You can almost hear her shrug on the other end. “I took a baseball bat to a vending machine after it ate my money.” She quickly adds, “Everyone gets mad once in a while; that doesn’t mean you have anger issues.”
“That’s true. Sometimes burning off anger is better than bottling it up.”
“So my baseball bat wasn’t such a bad thing?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” Jimmy replies, and then quickly changes the subject. “So, where did you go for therapy?”
“It was a clinic in Olympia.”
“Do you remember the name?”
“Yeah, it was the Bright Path, or something like that.”
Jimmy and I exchange a look, our minds dissecting the odds and possibilities. We’re silent so long that Charice eventually says, “Hello?”
“Sorry,” Jimmy apologizes. “We’re still here; just … processing.” His gaze never leaves me—or should I say his gaze never leaves whatever is just beyond me. He has a habit of doing that; staring and not staring all at the same time. I don’t know if it’s something he picked up in the military, or if it’s just Jimmy. Maybe it’s the thousand-yard stare you always hear about in the movies. In any case, he’s focused on something or nothing that resides on the other side of my head.
“Was there one particular counselor you worked with, or was it just whoever was available?”
“I almost always worked with Thomas Chambers, well, Dr. Chambers, but he had everyone call him Thomas.”
I scribble the name down in Jimmy’s notepad as he says, “That’s great; that’s all we need. Thanks for your help, Charice. And I was glad to hear you get to go home tomorrow. Just make sure you keep up with your counseling. It helps.”
“Thanks.” The word comes out as if others were meant to follow but somehow got lost on the way to her mouth. Then she spits them out, late, but all accounted for: “I hope you get him.”
“We will.” He lets the sentiment settle, says goodbye, and then asks Nate to pick up.
We hear the phone switch off speaker and Nate’s voice suddenly booms crisp and clear. “Yeah, Jimmy, whatcha got?”
He quickly fills Nate in on the other two victims linked to BrightPath, though the story loses a lot of its potency since we can’t tell him the clinic we just left is swimming in the Onion King’s shine. Then he updates Nate on our progress with the facial recognition list.
“Four confirmed matches, one Jane Doe, and one unconfirmed match. The latter is Abitha Jones,” he explains. “She wasn’t at her last known address, so Diane is working on a better location. We’re pretty sure she’s going to be a match.”
By “pretty sure
” he means we know it for a fact, but we can’t tell Nate that.
“At this point we just need some DNA to compare against.” He pauses, reaches over, and yanks his notepad from my hands. Resting it on his lap, he flips through three pages of notes before finding what he’s after. “The last name on the list is Sheryl Dorsey in Tacoma. We’re heading there now.” He finishes with Nate and disconnects the call.
Jimmy has a thing about pens, so after he so unrighteously yanked the notepad from my hands, I make a big show of clicking the ballpoint closed—his ballpoint—and placing it in my pocket.
He scowls at me, eyes darting wordlessly between my face and my pocket, until finally saying, “That’s my pen.”
I don’t say a thing. I just turn and look out the passenger window, letting myself sink into the hum and rhythm of the road noise as I watch the tree-lined berm alongside the highway. The mound follows us, never leaving our side. It’s like when you were a kid and the moon followed you on the ride home. Only the moon never changed or wavered, whereas the berm rises and falls and morphs so that it could be just one horizon or a thousand, and all the while it hides the ugliness of industrial sprawl on the other side.
My urban meditation is broken by four insistent words that make me smile: “Steps, that’s my pen.…”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
I’m not a fan of labeling neighborhoods as good or bad based on first impressions, mostly because I’ve been to a lot of villages, towns, and cities during my time with the Special Tracking Unit and have found that there are plenty of good people living in allegedly bad places, and a healthy dose of bad people living in good places.
So, when we turn onto Gardner Street and roll up to the residence of Peggy Camp, the mother of Sheryl Dorsey, I don’t judge her, nor do I judge the neighborhood … but the two sketchy dudes leaning against the fender of a 1980s-era Caprice parked in the center of the front lawn give me pause. The unrestrained bellowing of some song by Five Finger Death Punch doesn’t help. The thundering music pulses from every corner of the property, but nowhere in particular.