by Lisa Regan
Josie took out her phone and pulled up the photo from 2004 and showed it to Starkey. He took the phone out of her hands and held it at arm’s length, looking down his nose and squinting. Then he said, “Hold on.” A pair of reading glasses appeared from the inside of his jacket, and he perched them on the bridge of his nose so he could study the photo.
“That was found pinned to James Omar’s body after he was shot in Gretchen’s driveway.”
He handed the photo back to her. “Never saw the kid before.”
“Did the Neals have children?”
Starkey laughed so hard, his eyes watered. He put his glasses away and drank what was left of his beer. Seconds later, the waitress replaced the empty glass with a full one. He held it in one hand but didn’t drink it yet. “Are you telling me that you think the Seattle Soul Mate Strangler was in your city?”
“I’m not telling you anything,” Josie said. “I’m asking you if his last-known victims had children. There was something missing from Gretchen’s house. A couple of days later, we caught a double homicide. A couple. The husband was bludgeoned but the wife was strangled—and raped. A travel mug with Gretchen’s prints on it was found at the scene.”
Starkey sipped his beer this time, regarding her over its rim with skeptical eyes. “The Neals didn’t have children.”
Maybe Josie was crazy thinking a serial killer from twenty-five years ago who had killed people in a city 3,000 miles away was now killing people in Denton—using methods he hadn’t used before—but there were a lot of strange coincidences that she couldn’t otherwise account for.
“How did Gretchen get away?” she asked. “You said she was the only person to ever survive him.”
Starkey set his beer back down and nodded. His face sagged, and a bone-deep sadness shrouded him. “It was Billy. Initially, he told her to run, and she did. The killer shot Billy in the leg. Gretchen—she hesitated, and the killer caught up with her.”
Josie’s heart paused for two beats and then kicked back into overdrive, fluttering wildly. Her heart ached for her friend, who had been a young wife, a woman in love, trying to make a new life after her mother had spent years torturing her and her sister.
“The killer,” Starkey continued, “he would have the women tie up the men and then he’d make the men lie down on the floor, facedown, and he’d put plates and glasses on their backs.”
“Plates and glasses?” Josie asked.
“Yeah, like dinner plates, drinkware. Anything glass that would make a shitload of noise if you tried to roll over and knock it onto the floor. They actually didn’t know what the hell the stuff was for at the earlier scenes. It wasn’t until Gretchen survived and told them what went down that they figured out that’s what he’d done at the earlier scenes.”
“So he tells the husband if they move and try to get help and make noise—”
“That he’ll kill their wives.”
“Jesus.”
She thought of the plastic plates, cups, and bowls in Gretchen’s kitchen, and the soda burned her stomach. How horrific had the experience been that twenty-five years later, Gretchen couldn’t have glass dinnerware in her own home?
“We think Billy was going to bleed out, and that he knew it, because he didn’t stay put. Gretchen said eventually she heard the plates crash to the floor. The killer was done with her by then. As soon as she heard the racket, she knew he was going to kill her. She knew he was going to kill them both anyway. He hesitated for only a second, got off her long enough to go to the bedroom doorway, and she hit him over the head with a lamp. She kicked him into the hallway, closed and locked the door, and climbed out the window. By the time she got help, the killer was gone, and Billy was dead. From the condition of the living room, the police think they had some kind of confrontation, a struggle, and Billy lost. The killer shot him again in the chest at close range. It was the only time he ever used a gun. They thought he had one—that he was using it to control the scenes—but they didn’t know until he got Gretchen and Billy. Gretchen gave the police a lot of good information, but it never led anywhere.”
It wasn’t lost on Josie that Starkey kept saying “they” and “them” and “the police.” She said, “You’re ATF. How do you know so much about the case?”
“Well, we kept a close eye on it. It was personal, you know?”
“Of course.”
“But the main reason is I did a lot of my own digging. You see, Gretchen was always convinced that the killer was someone in law enforcement.”
“ATF or Seattle PD?”
“We didn’t know.”
“What made her think that?”
“I told you Billy was undercover. His undercover identity was Benji Stone. He was in deep with the Devil’s Blade for nearly two years when he was killed. Almost patched in. You know what that is?”
Josie nodded.
“Everyone called him Benji Stone. His driver’s license said Benjamin Stone. The lease to his house was in the name Benjamin Stone. Utilities, vehicle, everything. Even Gretchen had a driver’s license for Gretchen Stone. The only people who ever called him Billy were us guys.”
“In the ATF,” Josie clarified.
Starkey nodded. “Yeah, and in the Seattle PD. We coordinated with them on an illegal arms bust not long before Billy went undercover. Wasn’t related to any biker gang. Anyway, he got hurt, had to go to the hospital. Was there a few days. So some of the Seattle guys knew him from that bust.” He picked up his beer again. Josie wondered if she should have ordered an appetizer or something. Then again, this conversation was killing her appetite.
“So everyone called him Benji,” Josie said. “Go on.”
“When the killer heard Billy knock the plates off his back, Gretchen said he muttered under his breath. He said, ‘Goddammit, Billy.’”
“So the killer knew his real name,” Josie said. “Is there any chance he heard Gretchen call him that?”
“That’s what I thought. Truth is we’ll never know for sure, but then what happened afterward really convinced me.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
“What happened after Billy was killed?” Josie asked.
Starkey sipped on his fourth beer. “She didn’t have anywhere to go, and she couldn’t go back home. There was a female officer on Seattle PD, a uniform, who took pity on Gretchen. Gave her a couch to sleep on for a week or two. Then someone tried to break into the officer’s house.”
“Let me guess,” Josie offered. “By prying open a window?”
“Bingo. That was the Strangler’s MO. Anyway, Gretchen found people to stay with, but every time she moved, something would happen. Someone would try to break in, or she would get… phone calls.”
“What kind of phone calls?”
“It was him. He always found out where she was, and he’d call for her—they eventually figured out he was calling from pay phones.” He chuckled. “Remember those?”
“Vaguely,” Josie joked.
“Well, he would call and taunt her. For a while, the police tried to use her as bait. They stayed wherever she was, waited for him to call, tried to track him. It never worked out. She came to me and told me how she thought the killer was in law enforcement. We checked out every guy we could on the Seattle PD, but none of them looked good for the Strangler. So we tried hiding her.”
“The ATF?”
“Nah, not officially. It was just a bunch of us guys who knew Billy. We knew he would want us to help her. We kept moving her around, letting her stay at our houses, but the windows kept turning up disturbed and the phone calls went on. Originally, since she was such an important witness, the Seattle PD had to know where she was at all times. Then we decided we wouldn’t tell them anything. That if they needed her for anything, they could call me, and I’d bring her to them. It stopped after that. That’s what made us think it was Seattle PD. I mean, I guess it could have been ATF, but there were only about four of us handling her safety, and when we stopped reporting her whereabo
uts to the Seattle PD, the killer stopped his antics.”
“But the Devil’s Blade found her?” Josie asked.
Starkey signaled the waitress and asked for shots of tequila. They waited until she brought them over. Josie declined with a shake of her head. Starkey just shrugged and slugged hers down as well. “When Billy got killed,” he said, “the local police responded. Things moved pretty fast, and somehow it leaked to the press that he was an undercover ATF agent. Believe me, we were not happy, but we never thought that Devil’s Blade would retaliate. I mean, Billy was dead, right? He never got patched in. There was no case. No harm, no foul.”
“But Linc Shore didn’t see it that way,” Josie said.
“Apparently not.”
“How did they get to her if you were protecting her?” Josie asked, keeping her tone as non-accusatory as possible.
Starkey ran a hand over his face. The skin of his cheeks glowed red, whether from memories or alcohol, Josie couldn’t tell. Maybe both. “She had to go home to pack things up. She couldn’t afford rent without Billy. For a couple of days, I dropped her off at the house before I went into the office. One of my colleagues met us there and stayed with her, helped her pack up. It was tough, but she said she wanted to do it. Having someone there with her made her feel better though. She couldn’t stand being there.”
“I don’t know how she could have,” Josie said.
“On the second day, I swung by there around lunchtime to see how they were making out, and she was gone. My buddy was unconscious near the front door, bleeding from his head. I thought he was dead. They cracked his skull. He had quite a long recovery. Didn’t remember a damn thing about what happened. His gun was a few feet from his body, and his wrist was broken. He never got off a shot. House was all torn up like there’d been a struggle. There was a ripped piece of a Devil’s Blade bandana in the living room. We don’t know if it was Billy’s from before, or if it was from her trying to fight off the Devil’s Blade guys.”
Again, Josie had to think long and hard about having a real drink. She couldn’t imagine being so young, having just lost your husband in a brutal home invasion, being taunted by his killer, and then being kidnapped by an outlaw biker gang. On one hand, Josie wondered if any one person could truly have such horrible luck. On the other hand, Billy’s undercover assignment had put him and Gretchen at risk. Had she not been married to him, and had his true identity not been leaked, she would have been able to put her life back together without the added violence and trauma.
Starkey continued, “But we found out pretty fast they had her. Like I said, through informants. I pulled out all the stops. We kept it out of the press though. We didn’t want the Strangler to know we had lost the star witness against him. As far as he knew, she was still in hiding.”
“But you didn’t find her,” Josie said. “They let her go.”
Starkey nodded. The waitress returned with the bottle of tequila, and Starkey touched her arm. “I’ll pay for the bottle, sweetheart,” he told her.
With a smile, she put it on the table. She shot Josie a subtle raised-brow look and pointedly asked her, “Anything I can get you, Sugar?”
Josie smiled. “I’m fine, thank you. I’ll let you know.”
With a nod, the waitress left them, and Starkey poured more shots, drinking them down as he continued his story. “A couple times we thought we had good leads, but they didn’t pan out. Then one day they dumped her in front of the building. Early morning. ’Round 5 a.m. Tossed her like a sack of potatoes. We had CCTV of it, but it was grainy, and we couldn’t make out the license plates of the bikes. But we knew it was the Devil’s Blade.”
“How long did you say she was gone?”
“Thirteen months.”
“Why did they let her go?” Josie asked, although she knew Starkey wouldn’t really have the answer to this. Only Gretchen and Linc Shore knew why Devil’s Blade had let her go after thirteen months in captivity. Linc Shore was dead, and Gretchen wasn’t talking. She wanted Starkey’s theory.
He took two more shots. The amber liquid of the tequila sloshed over this time and dribbled down his chin. “Don’t know,” he said.
Josie waited for more, but Starkey offered nothing. She said, “I’m sure they kill plenty of people. Make them disappear. Why did they let her live?”
His eyes were glassy now. Josie had lost track of just how much he had had to drink, but the tequila bottle had only a finger left in it. “I can’t figure,” he said. “It’s always bothered me. Gretchen would never talk about that time.”
She wondered if he really had no theory after twenty-five years, or if he was just too drunk now to comment. With a sigh, she said, “Why did you ask me to come here? You could have told me these things over the phone.”
He reached across the table as if to grasp her hand, but Josie put both her hands in her lap. “The Strangler is still out there,” Starkey said. “I mean, he could be dead, but we thought he was dead before, and he came back. With the law-enforcement connection… Gretchen was really paranoid. She made me promise if I ever talked with anyone in law enforcement about the case, that I would check them out first. No matter how much time had passed. I had to meet you. Make sure you were really who you said you were.”
This sounded dubious, and he must have seen the skepticism on Josie’s face, because he said, “You don’t understand what it was like for her. He always found her. Always.”
“What about when she moved back East?” Josie asked. “Did he ever make contact?”
“I don’t know. If he did, she never told me. We lost touch…” He trailed off, his eyes tracking the waitress across the room, his tongue flicking along his lips. Josie wondered if they’d lost touch or if Gretchen had cut off contact. She also wondered if the Soul Mate Strangler had in fact followed Gretchen to Pennsylvania. If not all those years ago, perhaps more recently.
She needed more information about the killer and his victims, but clearly Starkey had reached the limits of his own usefulness.
Good thing for Josie she knew just who to ask.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Josie watched Trinity pace the short length from one end of her apartment to the other, her cell phone pressed to one ear. Behind her, the lights of New York City dazzled, making it hard for Josie to focus on her sister. She’d been on the phone for twenty minutes, working a source she claimed knew everything there was to know about the Seattle Soul Mate Strangler. She stopped at the kitchen counter and tore a paper towel from the roll by the sink. Grabbing a pen, she scribbled something down on the towel. Finally, she said into the receiver, “I really appreciate this. Yes. You’re a lifesaver. Of course. I promise.”
Josie suppressed a groan. She didn’t know what Trinity had promised this guy, but she was quite certain it had something to do with exclusive interviews, since that was the currency Trinity most often dealt in. Trinity ended the call and brought the paper towel over to Josie.
“What did you promise this guy?” Josie asked.
“If this helps Gretchen and solves a few cases, does it really matter?”
This time, Josie didn’t bother to withhold her groan.
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” teased Trinity.
“Please. You’re not the one who has to do these interviews. You know I hate press.”
“Not press. Just information this time. He’ll want to know whatever you know, before things break, if possible. He can be trusted.”
Josie looked at what Trinity had scribbled onto the paper towel. A website with a username and password. “Who is this guy?”
“A very good and very useful source who has proven to be extremely discreet over the years. He also happens to be an expert on serial killers—well, the ones who haven’t been caught yet. That web address will take you to a set of online forums where bloggers, journalists, and other people basically try to solve these cases by sharing information.”
Josie gave her a skeptical look. “Internet trolls and loon
s are not what I need right now.”
Trinity smiled and tapped the paper towel in Josie’s palm. “No trolls. No crazies. These forums are all by invitation only, and the members are carefully vetted by my guy.”
Josie thought about Starkey and Gretchen and their paranoia. “He’s not law enforcement, is he?”
“No. No law enforcement allowed. He likes to maintain a ‘fresh set of eyes’ approach. People who come at these cases from different perspectives. Don’t get me wrong, he has law-enforcement contacts, and many of the members are journalists outside of the anonymity of the forums, and they do have access to a lot of information from law enforcement. By the way, he asked that you not make any posts or comments. You may take a look around, but don’t engage. He wants you to be as discreet as possible since you actually are law enforcement.”
“Who is this guy?” Josie asked.
“I can’t tell you that. He’s a protected source. I told you, valuable. I can’t compromise that. Also, when you sign in there will be a set of rules on the home page—no public sharing, no violating the privacy of other forum members—that sort of thing. You must follow them. You understand, I hope?”
“Of course.” Josie looked again at the information. “Is this some dark web stuff?”
Trinity laughed. “No, not the dark web. Although I do have a contact with dark web expertise if you need it.”
“No, just a laptop will do for now.”
Trinity set up her laptop at the kitchen table while Josie changed into sweats and a T-shirt. She had a feeling it was going to be a long night.
Chapter Forty-Nine
The Cold Serial Case Forum was relatively easy to navigate, and within moments, Josie found a discussion board with several threads on the topic of the Seattle Soul Mate Strangler. There were maybe two dozen users who had contributed to the various conversations, and as she clicked through the more recent threads, there appeared to be about five or six people who regularly pitched in. The titles of the threads included everything from Will SSMS’s Brain Be Donated to Science When Caught? to SSMS—Dead or in Prison?