Water's Edge: A totally gripping crime thriller (Detective Megan Carpenter Book 2)

by Gregg Olsen

  Mindy Newsom’s white van rolls in just then. The name of her flower shop is on the sides, but she isn’t there delivering flowers. She has been my friend since I arrived in Port Townsend. She had just graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in forensic science and was new to the Sheriff’s Office when I started there. Sheriff Gray even converted an old conference room into a lab for her. Just when she was certified by the state as a criminalist, the job became part-time. Very part-time. Jefferson County didn’t seem to need her skills on a regular basis. She left, got married to a mill manager, and had a baby. While she was on family leave, she opened a flower shop downtown.

  “Is this the only way we get to see each other?” she asks, coming right for me.

  I give her a hug. I’m not that close to other women. Not really close to anyone. Mindy is fun, smart. She makes me laugh too. If I had a sister, I would want her to be just like Mindy.

  But I don’t. I barely have a brother.

  “Sheriff says this is related to the body you found yesterday,” she says, surveying the scene.

  “I’ve got her identified by two people from her crime scene photo,” I say. “It will be good if you can get a match some other way. Is the sheriff coming?”

  “He just said you needed me.” Mindy opens a side door to the van and pulls out white coveralls. “Are you coming inside?”

  Ronnie comes over and I make the introductions.

  “I’d like to go in,” she says, and Mindy and I exchange looks.

  “Suit up,” I tell her. “But do exactly as Mindy tells you. Don’t touch anything. And stay right behind her.”

  Ronnie gives a comical little salute.

  I shake my head and it passes through my mind that if I had a sister, I would not want her to be like Ronnie.

  Mindy gives her a set of Tyvek coveralls, booties, and a mask.

  While Ronnie dresses, I show Mindy a couple of the crime scene photos from the cove and a good face shot from the morning’s autopsy.

  It’s a face that no longer belongs to Jane Snow.

  Leann is her name.

  I sit on the hood of the Taurus and read the documents in the file folder while Mindy and Ronnie enter the cabin. Now I have a name and an address, or at least a GPS fix. I have the landlord, who in my book, was a little cold. I have the hiker, Boyd, who found the body. I have a statement from Cass at the Nordland General Store concerning the victim’s habits, and she did have habits. She shopped at the general store every Sunday for groceries. Like clockwork.

  Patterns are a magnet for killers.

  I think of what I haven’t done and what I still have to do when Sheriff Gray calls.

  “I’ve got Leann Truitt’s driver’s license information if you’re ready to copy.”

  I don’t need a pen and paper.

  “Go.”

  He reads off the information. The physical description matches perfectly. The address on the license isn’t where I am at present, but she moved here a year ago according to the Bobbsey twin. Gray tells me she owns a ’93 Subaru. Forest-green. He gives me the plate number.

  “The vehicle isn’t here,” I say, adding, “How does she go to the grocery store like clockwork every Sunday?”

  Before I let him answer, I say, “Either she has a regular ride, or her car has been ditched somewhere.”

  “That’s what I was going to say,” Sheriff Gray says.

  “Sorry. Just thinking out loud.”

  I wish I’d stop saying sorry. I’m almost never sorry.

  Next I get on the phone and call Susie at Dispatch directly. I don’t want Truitt’s name released just yet. I still have to find Jim Truitt. I have Susie run the Subaru VIN and plate number to see if it has been tagged and towed. If it was reported as abandoned, officers might have towed it. She finds nothing. I tell her to keep me advised if that license plate or VIN is run by anyone.

  “Put out feelers to law enforcement asking them to notify me directly if the vehicle is found. I don’t want to make a big deal of it yet.”

  “Got it,” Susie says.

  I have sworn to do whatever it takes to find and stop serial killers. This guy isn’t one—not yet, as far as I know—but I’ve got a gnawing in my gut that’s about to change. I also don’t think Mindy is going to find any evidence of foul play inside the cabin. Call it a hunch.

  Leann went to meet someone. And she didn’t make it back home.

  Eighteen

  Ronnie emerges from the cabin, strips off her white cocoon of protective coveralls, and gets into the Taurus. She wears a perplexed look on her face.

  “What is it?” I ask as she fastens her seat belt.

  “I don’t understand. There was nothing in the cabin,” she says. “Mindy looked everywhere. Not a sign of blood or a fight or anything broken.”

  “It’s not our scene,” I say. “Leann was held captive and killed somewhere else.”

  “Right, but I hoped we’d find something.”

  Hope is a nice idea, I think, but it doesn’t get a detective anywhere.

  I watch the road now as we drive, still thinking about what Ronnie found in Boyd’s social media. “Killing Box,” he’d called it. The pictures she pulled from his pages were of dangerous obstructions on a river or stream where tree roots or limbs are down in the water. I think of a fish trap in the river: water passes through, but animals and people are caught up in the current and get sucked in. It’s nearly impossible for them to fight their way out and get free. Boyd had pictures of small animals and even deer that had drowned there.

  A “killing box.”

  Sick.

  I need to concentrate on talking to Jim Truitt, Leann’s father. DMV records put him in Port Ludlow. I have to know more about her.

  “What did you think you’d find in there?” I ask as my thoughts turn back to Ronnie.

  “I wanted to find something. Anything that would give us a lead.”

  I smile inwardly. Ronnie is already talking like a detective on television. She isn’t wrong, though. I, too, hoped she and Mindy would find a note or something to indicate this woman had a life. A picture of a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. Ronnie said there were no photos. Not on the walls, the dressers, anywhere.

  “Walk me through everything again.”

  I haven’t been listening for a while.

  “There was nothing unusual about it.”

  “Close your eyes and visualize walking in the door. I’ve found the technique to be helpful. Try it.”

  It is helpful. When I was sixteen, my stepfather was murdered, and my mom was kidnapped. I drove all night, desperately trying to find her. I had only just gotten my learner’s permit. My knuckles ached and I pulled into a rest stop next to a minivan. The windows of the minivan were steamed up.

  A little girl was in the back, sleeping, and when I stopped next to the van, she opened her eyes and I nodded at her. I wondered if she was on the run too. I’d been that little girl in my past. Sleeping in our car, waiting, always waiting. This girl looked to be four or five years old. The minivan was loaded to the ceiling with stuff. It wasn’t camping stuff, but it looked like she and whoever was with her was living in the van. I saw a man behind the wheel and wondered where the mother was. The little girl was pretty. She had dark hair, dark eyes. She saw me watching and moved her finger through the condensation on her window. She made a circle with two dots inside. Then an arch. I’m sad. I’m on the run. I couldn’t help her. Not then. But later. When I caught the bastard who killed my stepfather and I rescued my mother, I went looking for the girl in the van. I used the visualization from that day I first saw her. I remembered everything. Everything about the minivan, the man sitting behind the wheel, the sad look on the girl’s face, the license plate number…

  I had to rescue her.

  The license plate number was what led me to find her and set her free.

  I am still caught up in that memory when I feel Ronnie tug at my arm. I swerve a little across the centerlin
e and a truck blares its horn. I get back in my lane. I’m tired and this case is bringing back ghosts of the past. I had to become someone else to do what had to be done back then. I don’t want to be that girl anymore, but I have to be.

  Leann needs me too.

  “I thought you nodded off,” Ronnie says. “Didn’t you get any sleep last night? Or are you like me? I eat heavy food and I go into a carb coma.”

  Ronnie keeps chattering and I don’t feel like interrupting her. She was disappointed that there wasn’t a note from the killer in the cabin:

  Hey. It’s me. I killed Leann Truitt and I’m waiting to be arrested.

  Here’s my name, date of birth, and location…

  That isn’t fair and I know it. Ronnie has tried to be helpful. And she hasn’t yet asked when she can get off work.

  “I think you saw more than you realize,” I tell her. “That’s all. I know you know this stuff, but it really works.”

  She closes her eyes, theatrically leans her head back against the seat. “Okay, but this seems weird.”

  “What did they say about listening to your training officer?” I ask.

  “Uh. They said the training officer is always right. Do what they tell you to do.”

  “That’s good. So I’m your training officer today. I want you to remember everything that you did at that cabin.”

  “Sorry, Detective. I’m just nervous, and when I get nervous, I talk.”

  Understatement of the new millennium.

  She keeps her eyes shuttered. “I signed my name on a clipboard for the deputy guarding the door. Mindy went in and I tried to stay in her footsteps.”

  I interrupt. “What is the floor made of?”

  “Wood. Planks. Worn smooth.”

  “Is it dirty? Dusty?”

  “Not dusty. Not superclean. I wouldn’t eat off of it. For a cabin, it’s pretty clean.”

  “Look around you,” I say, my eyes secured on the road. “What do you see?”

  She takes a breath.

  “There is barely any furniture. A couch. Blue. The arms are padded, but there is a torn spot and stuffing is coming out of one of the arms. An upholstered chair with a high back. Old. Wood legs and arms. Green. A television. Flat-screen. Turned off. A counter separates the front room from the kitchen. The bedroom and a bathroom are behind the kitchen through a door.”

  “Is there a table in the front room?”

  She stirs a little but keeps her eyes closed. “A small one. Beside the chair. Round. Drop-leaf. There’s a plant on the table and a glass of something beside the plant. A clear tumbler. Red liquid. I didn’t smell it, but it looks like a cranberry gin and tonic. I like them too.”

  I make a note of that in case I invite her over someday.

  “The kitchen?”

  “No table. Just the countertop. A coffeepot. Electric. Mr. Coffee, I think. There’s burnt coffee in the bottom of the pot. The switch is in the ‘on’ position. She’s left the pot and the coffee burnt up. It must have shut itself off. I don’t smell it.”

  I push for more. “Any papers on the table or countertop?”

  “An envelope on the counter. Mindy peeked. It was a money order made out to Joe Bohleber. Eight hundred dollars.”

  She’s doing damn good for not wanting to do this.

  “Stove?”

  Ronnie cocks her head slightly, remembering. “Gas. There must be a propane tank outside. I looked at the burner knobs. All off. I was worried. She left the coffeepot to burn up. Nothing on top of the stove. Wait. There was. An iron skillet. The skillet looked like there was bacon grease in it. Old. I didn’t smell it. I didn’t smell anything except for in the bathroom.”

  “Go to the bathroom, then.”

  “No door. It’s missing. The sink is rust stained. Formica countertop. A bar of soap… lavender… and a jewelry thingy. You know, one of those ceramic hands with fingers spread so you can put rings and necklaces and stuff on the fingers? There are no rings. A gold chain with a locket.”

  “Did Mindy see the locket?” I ask.

  Ronnie’s head bobs a little. “Yeah. She opened it. It was gold. Real old looking. Inside was a picture of an older man on one side, a picture of a baby, a newborn on the other. Mindy let me take pictures of it with my phone. Want to see?”

  I do and start slowing the Taurus.

  I pull over onto the shoulder to see. The old man’s picture is one of those old black-and-white shots. A stern-looking face, sharp nose, and dark, bushy eyebrows. He looks to be in his forties, which I suppose is ancient to Ronnie. The baby is not much more than a face shot. This one in color. The baby looks chubby, but I guess most babies look chubby. It is definitely a newborn. Its dark hair looks like it was glued down in swirls.

  “It’s odd that she’d have a locket with these pictures, don’t you think?” Ronnie asks, her eyes now open.

  “Maybe it was her mother’s. Or she bought it like that,” I say. “What else do you remember? Clothes? Posters? Bills lying around? Anything?”

  Ronnie shrugs and looks upward, thinking. “The closet was stuffed with clothes. I mean, she was a real clotheshorse. Anyway, there were several sets of clothes scattered on top of her bed. Three tops, one long-sleeve button-down, beige. One light blue, short-sleeve. One pullover with sequins. A couple of slacks, beige and black. A pair of jeans. They were all pretty old, but still nice. Her house was very tidy. It wasn’t like her to leave those lying out. I thought she must have been deciding what to wear. I didn’t see a checkbook or purse or anything.”

  “Why would she be deciding what to wear?” I ask.

  Ronnie locks eyes with me and says what I’m thinking.

  “She must have had a date.”

  Nineteen

  Jim Truitt’s house is a mini-mansion facing the Twins, two small uninhabited islands that lie between the Bay Club and the peninsula known as Bull’s Head. Strike that: it’s a full-blown mansion. Nothing mini about it. I can see a dock behind the huge house. Several slips are occupied. Sailboats, a yacht, a cabin cruiser, and some smaller but not less-expensive-looking vessels. I take the twisting, rhododendron-lined drive and come to a parking area off to one side. The driveway continues on behind the house. A black BMW is parked under a covered portico.

  “The mah-stuh is home,” Ronnie says in a haughty voice.

  I ignore her.

  I get out and Ronnie opens her car door with a screech that I’ve never noticed before. Being surrounded by wealth, out in the playground of God’s country, the BMW makes my Taurus look like the Beverly Hillbillies have arrived. As I look around, I spot the surveillance cameras. One on each side of the portico. I press the intercom button beside the door and wait. And wait. Finally, a man’s voice asks, “Can I help you?”

  “Detective Megan Carpenter.”

  The door opens to reveal a tall man with dark red hair styled in a spiked crew cut. His features are sharp, angular. He has full pouty lips, and his nose is too wide for his thin face. His ears protrude from his head like the handles on a Rookwood vase. He’s dressed in blue jeans shredded at the knees and a purple T-shirt with “Priestess Warrior” silk screened on the front. He’s also wearing a smile. It doesn’t look real. He’s somewhere in his mid-forties, and I wonder if we’ve come to the right house or if there is a cult gathering inside that’s passing around Kool-Aid.

  Priestess Warrior?

  “I’m Detective Carpenter. This is Deputy Marsh.” I hold up my credential case again. He doesn’t look at it, but he does ogle Ronnie’s badge—or her breasts. “I’m looking for Mr. Jim Truitt.”

  His smile changes to something more akin to a cat spotting a bird.

  “Really? To what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from the, uh”—he checks out Ronnie’s badge/breasts again—“Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office?”

  “I’m here about your daughter,” I say.

  The smile recedes but isn’t replaced with concern. It’s more like I said something distasteful. “What’s she
done now?”

  “Can we come in?”

  He thinks a beat, then steps aside and leads us in to a room the size of my apartment and then some. One entire wall is floor-to-ceiling glass that takes in a sailboat with a candy-striped spinnaker that skims the bay’s lead-gray surface. The furniture is expensive and has that unused look of a showroom display. There are framed photos everywhere of Jim Truitt: on the deck of a yacht; with a trophy catch; at the wheel in the cabin of what I figure is his classic mahogany-deck speedboat. Dozens more of sailing vessels, fishing catches, underwater shots; Truitt in diving gear, Truitt in Bermuda shorts, Truitt fly-fishing.

  The tableau of photos is a testimonial to him.

  None of his daughter, a wife, or any other living being if one didn’t include the gasping fish he was dragging from the water. In none of the images, however, was he smiling.

  And here I thought money made you happy.

  “Is Mrs. Truitt home?”

  A shake of the head. “The ex-Mrs. Truitt is living on St. Lucia in the house I bought as a divorce gift.”

  He doesn’t ask about his daughter. That’s very strange. I bring her up.

  “When is the last time you saw or spoke to Leann?”

  “I haven’t seen or spoken to my daughter in two years.”

  A man of few words and lots of toys.

  “Do you have other children?”

  “What’s this about, Detective?”

  I open the file folder. “I’m going to show you a picture. It’s not pleasant.”

  I hand him the five-by-seven face shot of his murdered daughter. He lets out a little gasp as he looks at it, but he pulls back whatever emotion he’s just exhibited. He passes back the photograph.

  He doesn’t say, “That’s my daughter. That’s Leann” or “What happened to her?” The only emotion I detect is a slight change in his voice.

  I try to hand the photo back to him. “Can you take another look. I need a yes or no.”