by Gregg Olsen
“I don’t know if this is the same person, but if it is, I have no idea why she would have a picture of me coming from the office.” I don’t say anything about the laminated one. I don’t have to. “I could maybe identify her, but it’s been a while.”
“You won’t be able to identify what’s in there,” he says, and hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “Crime scene has her purse and her driver’s license. The address on the license is in Tacoma. Just like you said. Now tell me. Do you know this woman? Don’t try me, Megan.”
I don’t speak.
Tony lets out a sigh and hands the evidence bag with my high school photo to me. I take it this time.
“The photo I showed you on my phone has been collected by Crime Scene.” He starts to say something else and then stops.
I let out a breath. He doesn’t say it but I know what he’s thinking. He’s going to say if the picture has any bearing on the case, he wants me to do the right thing with it. I plan to do the right thing. I’ll burn the damn picture first chance I get.
I look around and there are no other houses close to this one.
“You said the woman who found the body is a neighbor?”
“She is,” he says. “She said she hasn’t seen anyone strange in the neighborhood. She didn’t see anyone come or go. She said the woman, Monique Delmont, moved into the neighborhood about two weeks ago. Alone. They had tea together a few times but not at this house. She said she’d never been inside except when it was owned by the Donaldsons. They moved to Florida and rented the house out. I don’t have their information yet.”
“I can get it easy enough,” I say. “Do you have the neighbor’s address?”
Tony takes out a slip of paper but doesn’t give it to me right away. “This is her name and address. You sure you want it?”
“I’ll take it,” I say with my mouth, but my heart wonders what I’ve just done.
“Do you want someone to work this with you?” Tony asks, and hands me the note.
I shake my head and then think better of it. I’m a loner. It seems the best way to do things because I don’t trust anyone. But Ronnie has softened me a little. Not that we are best friends or anything. But I can stand her being around. Sometimes. When she’s not yapping her stream-of-consciousness crap and won’t shut up.
She’s good with the Internet. Better than I am. And she can keep a secret. The last case we worked together cost her a broken wrist, stitches in her face, bruised ribs and black eyes. The creep came to her house while we were viewing a security camera recording. He shot me point-blank and kidnapped her. He thought he’d killed me. It was his mistake. I assassinated him for it. I’m pretty sure she saw the whole thing, but if she did, she didn’t tell anyone. She claimed to be unconscious. The look she gives me sometimes says something different.
“Ronnie’s on light duty,” I say, “but I can use her help on the computer if it’s okay?”
Of course, he agrees.
Four
I didn’t ask Tony how Monique was killed but instead I said I wanted to see it myself. The note Ronnie had given me just said murder, but my lack of questions told the sheriff that I was up to my neck in this case already. I’m a trained detective. I should have been asking about the victim and not defending my own connection. I lied to him. He knew it.
Monique was an advocate for victims of violent crimes. I didn’t keep in touch with her, but that didn’t mean I didn’t keep track of her. She was in the news many times, lobbying some piece of legislation or another. She had become active with parole board hearings, keeping some of the more violent offenders off the streets. She had most likely made enemies because of that. My gut is telling me that’s not the reason she’s dead.
I haven’t gone into the house yet but I already have a suspect. The way Monique died isn’t as important as the fact that she’s dead in Port Townsend. She didn’t contact me but pictures of me are found at the scene. If she knew where I lived, why didn’t she call? Maybe running from someone? None of this makes sense. I can be totally off base, but I know of only one person with a connection to me who has threatened her in the past.
Michael Rader.
Alex Rader’s brother.
I killed Alex because he kidnapped my mother when she was a teenager. He raped, tortured and meant to kill her but she got away. Not entirely, though, because he’d gotten her pregnant with me. He was a serial killer. And a smart one. Alex killed three girls that I know of. All about the same age as my mother was when he kidnapped her. All blond cheerleaders. All three murders were attributed to different men. All of those murders he committed led to wrongful convictions because Alex Rader was a police detective. He made evidence disappear. He planted evidence. To make matters worse, I believe Alex’s brother, Michael, who is a prison guard, later eliminated all those men in prison. None of their deaths were ever solved. Michael is as evil and dangerous as Alex.
I tried to erase my trail, my existence, and I believed I was successful. I should have been dead to the world. But Michael knows because Monique told him. She told me he had threatened to kill her family if she didn’t. I didn’t blame her for that, but I’d entrusted her with the evidence I’d found in Alex’s house. The evidence that proved he had killed other girls. She’d promised to take the evidence to the authorities so those families could finally find closure for the loss of their daughters. She’d given it to Michael instead and it still hurt to have the only person I trusted betray me. I’d had to keep running to protect myself and my brother Hayden from Michael.
Only three other people, besides Michael and Monique, know I am still alive: Hayden, an ex-boyfriend, Caleb Hunter, and Dr. Karen Albright, my therapist.
Hayden hates me for the same reason I hated our mother. I betrayed and abandoned him. He has a right to hate me, but he would never do anything like this.
I haven’t had contact with Caleb for years. I think he would like to keep it that way. I’d burnt my bridges with him. He knew what I’d done and it sickened him, but he isn’t capable of murder.
I spoke to Dr. Albright last month. But she isn’t capable of murder, either.
But someone else knows I am alive; someone who sends me emails: “Wallace,” is how he signs off. It’s someone who knows who I am and who I was. They know where I live. They knew about me and Monique.
So, for now, discounting Hayden, Caleb and Dr. Albright, I have at least two suspects for this murder: Wallace and Michael Rader.
The photograph taken of me leaving the office proves I’m being watched. And my high school photograph shows a connection to my past. Is Wallace the killer, is Michael Rader? Is Michael my stalker?
“Are you ready?” Tony asks as I take one more look around the outside. The house is surrounded by tall trees on both sides. I have a clear view of the harbor and nothing but trees to either side. There is little to no traffic. A woman is walking her dog. She stops to clean up after the dog and continues on. I look at Tony but he shakes his head. That’s not the neighbor. Several boats are anchored with people on the decks. It’s a nice day. In one sailboat two guys are drinking; a girl dives in the water. There’s another with some fishermen and a sailboat with a woman sunning on the deck. Most of the boaters are curious about all the police activity. I’m surprised neighbors haven’t gathered in the yard.
Deputy Copsey is standing beside the front door. He’s hard to miss with his strawberry-blond hair and biceps that are barely contained by his uniform shirt.
The door is open to the unmistakable smell of decay. It burns my eyes and nose. Sheriff Gray offers me a tube of eucalyptus ointment. He’s rubbed some under his nose. I decline. I’ve done this before. It’s best to push through it. I know I’ll have to take my clothes to a cleaners when I get off and the smell will take a while to get out of my nostrils.
“Ma’am,” Deputy Copsey says with a nod and a grin as Sheriff Gray and I come up on the front stoop. He knows I hate being called “ma’am.” It’s his way of telling me I’m
one of the crew. One of the guys. One of the troops. I don’t care if I am. I have a job to do.
“Deputy,” I say, and smile.
Copsey writes our names on the log. He will note everyone’s comings and goings and record the times.
A crime scene deputy I don’t recognize is laying a folded white sheet on the left side of the carpeted stairway. He’s wearing white Tyvek coveralls with the hood pulled up, gloves, seafoam-green paper booties. He comes back down the stairs, careful to stand on the folded sheet. He hands us gloves and booties. Sheriff Gray has a little trouble with the latex gloves. His hands are sweaty and the gloves stick to his skin. The crime scene guy offers me a hair net. I decline by staring him down. I’m getting good at that.
He gets me back. “This way, ma’am. Sheriff. Stay on the sheet.”
I don’t correct him about the “ma’am” shit. I’m standing at the base of the stairs. My imagination is on crack. Sheriff Gray hasn’t remarked on the condition of the body except that I won’t recognize the victim. That speaks volumes.
I start up the stairs and the smell gets stronger with each step. I wonder if stink rises, like warm air. The carpeting is a deep-pile mix of gray and black and tan fibers. It’s been a while since it was vacuumed. I always assumed Monique was a clean freak. She must have changed.
With each step I expect to see blood. Yet there isn’t any. I get to the top of the landing and the tech leads us down a short hallway. Doors are open on the left and right. Straight ahead a door is partially open to what looks like a half bath. There are little decorative towels hanging beside the sink. Unused. The neighbor told the sheriff that Monique had moved in about two weeks ago.
She wouldn’t have used this room.
The tech leads me to the door on the right. I know the room on the left will be facing into the woods, and so I suspect this room will have a view out over the water. The room comes into view in slices as I slowly move up to the doorway. A tallboy dresser is against the wall to my left. The top is bare. No photos or trinkets. I take another step and see a door just beyond the dresser. Probably the master bath. The door is open and another white-clad tech is bent at the waist, a camera clicking away.
On the far side of the room is a bay window with sheer curtains and room-darkening shades. The shades are halfway open and the sheers distort the light. A bed is to my right with a king-size mattress and an expensive-looking royal blue duvet. The carpeting is thick, cream colored. The tech in the bathroom doorway is straddling what looks like bloodstains.
The body is not on the bed or on the floor. It helps to think of her as “the body” and not Monique. I have distanced myself from her as a person.
There are faint smudges, pinkish smears, on the carpeting between the bathroom and the bed. Someone has stepped in the blood and tracked it across the room to the foot of the bed. It passes through my mind that there’s something odd about the smudges. If a shoe had smeared the blood, the edges would be defined, sharp, rounded. Instead, it looks like a hand was dragged across the carpeting.
Then I see it.
Toes and a heel.
The killer had been barefoot.
There’s no indication of a struggle in the bedroom. There was no sign of that downstairs unless it was in another room. A squat double dresser is set against the wall under the bay window. On top of this are several framed pictures. Monique and her daughter, Leanne. Another of just Leanne. Leanne with another older girl and a young boy. The boy is maybe six years old and is looking up at the girl with a smile that reaches from side to side. Leanne’s older sister is Gabrielle. The boy is Gabrielle’s son, Sebastian.
I dread notifying Gabrielle that her mother is dead. I know Sheriff Gray will offer, but I have to do it.
Five
Early Monday morning
From the boat she could see a truck with SHERIFF’S OFFICE markings arrive. She had binoculars with her but didn’t use them yet. She wanted Rylee to come. The truck had parked in the yard and an older, heavyset man got out. She focused the binoculars on his face. It was Sheriff Anthony Gray. He was approached by the old woman with the dog. The woman was pointing at the house and then holding her nose. The dog was straining against the leash. The smell of rotting meat must be intoxicating to an animal. It had been two full days since the killing. Before she’d left the house, she’d turned the thermostat all the way up.
The sheriff was telling the woman something. Probably to stay there. Then he went up the yard and inside. He came out within minutes and went to his car without speaking to the woman, who was trailing along behind him, nearly dragging the dog behind her.
It would be a while before Rylee was called. She went below deck, made a strong drink, got the camera with the zoom lens, put on a wide-brimmed beach hat and went back out. She turned her deck chair to face the shore. She was wearing a black one-piece with a cover-up and sandals. She focused the camera on Sheriff Gray and the old woman and snapped a few shots. The sheriff was writing something in a notebook and then motioned for the woman to leave. He didn’t have to insist. She tottered off, dragging the pooch on his leash.
The next to arrive was a white van with a flower shop logo on the side. Then another van, this one with two deputies. She had pictures of them, too, but didn’t have their names. Yet.
The sheriff spoke to them and they began putting white coveralls on. She ignored them. She only wanted to see Rylee. The bitch had taken everything from her. She would wait until she could see the look on Rylee’s face when the sheriff told her what had happened inside. She wished she could be inside the house when Rylee saw the body. She should have put a nanny cam in there. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say. Even if they’d found the nanny cam, she wouldn’t have cared. She could buy one at Walmart with cash and it would only add to the fun. “Next time,” she muttered.
She leaned forward and focused the binoculars on a car pulling in. It was the Taurus driven by Rylee, who was going by the name Megan Carpenter here. Her real name was Alexandra Rader, Alex Rader’s illegitimate daughter. But she would always think of her as Rylee.
She’d taken plenty of pictures of the car and Rylee in the parking lot outside the Sheriff’s Office and in front of Rylee’s place in Port Townsend. The car’s paint had oxidized. Rust spots were already blooming around the pitted wheel wells. That was how much her Sheriff Gray thought of her. She didn’t deserve a better car. In any case, she wouldn’t need it much longer.
She’d learned about Monique from Michael Rader. Michael had led her to Monique, and Monique had led her to Rylee.
The plan had gone well. She’d befriended Monique and convinced her to find Rylee in Port Townsend and warn her about Michael. Monique had asked her to help and, of course, she’d agreed. Monique would go ahead, and she would come in a few days’ time. She needed the time to locate Monique’s daughter and obtain the drug she would need to create the perfect crime scene.
She focused the binoculars again. She watched as Rylee talked to Sheriff Gray. He was old and tired looking. He should be retired. She might help him along. But not yet. There were others she had to deal with first.
She watched Rylee’s face closely and was disappointed when she didn’t go pale or cry. In fact, the bitch didn’t show any emotion. She was either a sociopath or very good at hiding her feelings.
Another deputy had shown up before Rylee. He was guarding the front door. This one was a bruiser. She’d like to meet him in a dark alley. The thought made her laugh. One of Alex’s sayings was, “You wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley.” She liked dark alleys. She’d worked in plenty of them when she was on the street. “Never again,” she said out loud.
The sheriff and Rylee spoke to the big deputy at the door and then went inside. Now she’d settle back and wait. She’d left plenty of evidence of who the victim was. Plenty to point to Rylee and identify her to the sheriff. But the bitch would probably talk her way out of it. She changed names like she was ordering off a menu. She was slick.
Six
I look at all the picture frames on the dresser. When I first met Monique, she showed me a photo taken a week before the kidnapping of her daughter Leanne. In it, Leanne was sitting on a driftwood log at Point Defiance Park in Tacoma. She was looking over her right shoulder with a wary but somewhat shy pose. Leanne and her father had moored a sailboat off the point and taken a skiff in for a picnic. This was that picture.
The sheriff said Monique had only been here a couple of weeks. Why did she bring all these photos with her? They must comfort her. I have two photos of Hayden. They don’t comfort me.
Another picture frame is lying face down. I imagine it will be a picture of Leanne too. Maybe it was too painful for Monique. I approach the crime scene tech.
“Can I look at that?”
“It hasn’t been fingerprinted yet,” he says, and turns back toward the bathroom.
I lift the frame while he’s not looking. It’s a picture of a young woman who bears a strong resemblance to the murdered Leanne Delmont. A boy is in the background playing on monkey bars at some park. She’s smiling and clapping. The boy is maybe four or five. The glass is fractured into a spiderweb. I put it back like it was.
Sheriff Gray gives me a cautioning look and clears his throat. He speaks to the tech: “Let her look in the bathroom and we’ll get out of your hair.”
“Yes, sir.” The tech isn’t happy but he calls the other tech out of the bathroom. “Don’t touch anything. And be careful of the blood.”
I already don’t like him. I straddle the blood on the carpet like I’d seen the other tech do. I lean forward and try not to touch the doorframe. I feel like a contortionist, and although it’s almost a month since I was shot, my chest seizes. Pain radiates out from my solar plexus and runs down both arms, but I have time to see all I want to see.