At Rope's End

by Edward Kay

  “So what do you know about her?” he asked.

  “Rachel Friesen was twenty-two years old,” replied Maclean. “She attended University of Washington, same campus you’re at.”

  He didn’t recognize her. UW Seattle was a large campus. Hundreds of students passed through his lecture hall every year. Even so, he didn’t like to think that the halls of academia had become quite as depersonalized and factory-like as the critics claimed.

  “She had a double major, English and theater,” Maclean continued. “She also took an intro to psychology course.”

  Verraday’s face relaxed slightly. “I’ve never taught Intro to Psych. So she wouldn’t have been one of my students.”

  “I know. I would have warned you if you had.”

  “So what makes you think that this murder is linked to the Carmichael case?”

  “For starters, the victims’ profiles are similar.” She led him toward the body. “They were about the same age. Similar look. The tattoos, the piercings.”

  Verraday now saw that Rachel had a number of tattoos that weren’t visible in the photo that Maclean had laid out on his office desk the previous afternoon. One scripted tattoo followed the cleft line beneath her left breast. It read, “If you don’t live for something, you’ll die for nothing.”

  On the inside of her left ankle was a Buddhist mandala, a symbol he was familiar with because his sister Penny had a pair of them tattooed defiantly on the feet that she could no longer feel.

  Verraday examined a small hole in the skin at the top of her navel. “Was she wearing any jewelry in this piercing when they found her?”

  “No.”

  “If she was wearing a piece there when she was murdered, the killer probably took it as a souvenir. We should find out what she wore there and keep an eye out for it. If the killer took something from Rachel, he would have done the same with Alana Carmichael.”

  “The way in which the victims were murdered is distinctive,” said Maclean. “Take a look at the strangulation marks.”

  Verraday leaned in close and examined a pattern of bruises as well as an ugly brown line encircling her neck.

  “So those two bruises on the throat indicate thumb pressure,” he commented.

  “That’s right,” said Maclean. “But according to the medical examiner, death was the result of strangulation with the garrote that left that ligature mark around her neck.”

  Verraday nodded agreement. “The killer started off choking her with his hands,” he said. “He would have gotten more and more aroused. Then when he got really turned on, he switched to the garrote. That’s his end game.”

  Verraday looked at Rachel’s chipped upper left incisor.

  “According to the examiner,” said Maclean. “The killer probably broke Rachel’s tooth using her necklace.”

  Maclean pulled out a transparent evidence bag holding the piece of jewelry, a string of black beads separated by silver links. It was not, as he had first thought, a rosary. The pendant was a hieroglyphic cross with a loop at its head. The cross bar was dented.

  “An ankh,” said Verraday. “The Ancient Egyptian symbol of eternal life.” He knew from seeing students around the campus that it was popular with goths, though he guessed that their concept of eternal life owed more to late-night B horror movies than to pharaohs and sun worship. He balled his hand into a fist and tensed his arm muscles as he played out in his mind the force that must have been necessary to chip that piece off Rachel’s tooth and dent the ankh.

  “He must have punched her with the beads wrapped around his hand like a set of brass knuckles,” said Verraday. “The force necessary to do that implies extreme sexual rage.”

  “Wait till you see this,” said Maclean.

  She turned to the medical technician, a large, impassive-looking man who had stood by silently throughout, and instructed him to turn the body over. The technician gently tilted Rachel until her back was exposed, revealing more tattoos. In silhouette, a small flock of black birds took flight in a line that ran from just inside her left shoulder blade diagonally across her spine and upper back to a point just behind her right ear. There were marks on her back and shoulders that appeared to have been made by a belt or a strap. There were large, ugly welts on her buttocks.

  “Besides the academic background, what else do you know about her?” Verraday asked.

  “Not a lot yet. That she was an only child. Grew up in Phinney Ridge with her biological parents.”

  Verraday knew Phinney Ridge well. It was a fifteen-minute drive northwest of the campus, just beyond Green Lake. When he needed to clear his head, he would go up to Green Lake and go for a run along the three-mile path around its shoreline. It was a comfortable neighborhood that had gotten its name from Guy C. Phinney, a lumber baron who made a fortune by clear-cutting the virgin forest then shrewdly subdividing the denuded land into housing lots and selling them to middle-class families at a huge profit.

  “What about her parents?” he asked. “What do you know about them?”

  “Nothing unusual about them,” answered Maclean. “The father is a dental equipment salesman. The mother manages a women’s clothing store. No criminal records. Not so much as a speeding ticket.”

  “Were they the ones who reported her missing?”

  “No. When the body turned up, I checked the missing persons reports and photos. When I found the match, I discovered that the report had been filed by an ex-boyfriend. There’s no record of anything from the parents.”

  “Nothing from the parents. Got to be a story there,” said Verraday.

  “There is. Apparently she was living at home up until last May. Couldn’t get a job after graduating from university the year before, except for working part-time retail. The parents say she had anxiety issues on and off through childhood and high school. It got worse after she finished university and couldn’t get a job. She started self-medicating. Smashed up their car. Things were getting out of control. Her parents asked her to get counseling, but she refused and moved out.”

  “When did they last hear from her?”

  “About a month before her body was found.”

  “And they weren’t concerned when she didn’t get in touch with them for a whole month?”

  “The father said it wasn’t that they weren’t worried about her. They just couldn’t handle her any more. He said after she moved out and started seeing this new boyfriend, Kyle Davis, the guy who eventually reported her missing, she sounded happier. When they didn’t hear from her for a while, they hoped she was working through her issues, getting her life together.”

  By now, Verraday’s fingertips were getting numb. He rubbed them against his palms and folded them under his arms and against his chest to try to warm them up. Maclean noticed his discomfort. She thanked the technician for his time.

  * * *

  Verraday was relieved when they stepped out of the morgue and into the relative warmth of the hall. Seeing that they were alone, he turned to Maclean.

  “Did you mention the similarities of the cases to Fowler?” he asked in a tone of voice just above a whisper.

  “I let him know,” replied Maclean. “He didn’t have any interest in pursuing it.”

  “Have you two ever worked together on anything before?”

  “No. I just know him from around the department. But he and I don’t exactly have a happy history together. He doesn’t like the idea of female cops, and he doesn’t hide it. Says no woman is worth a detective’s salary. At least not standing up.”

  “Sounds like a real charmer.”

  “He’s not much of an investigator either. Fowler’s convinced that he’s got the right guy solely because there was semen on Alana Carmichael’s clothing that matches his suspect’s DNA.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “I think that just because this girl was working in the sex trade and had his semen on her doesn’t mean that he’s the killer. All it proves is that Cray had sex with her at some poi
nt that night. He’s in jail awaiting trial now and couldn’t have committed this latest homicide, so Fowler will refuse to admit there’s any possibility of a link between the two murders. Because if he did, he’d have to admit he was wrong. He’s got too much riding on this.”

  “Tell me about the suspect in the Carmichael killing.”

  “Guy named Peter Cray. He’s been in trouble with the law before. Minor drug convictions. Small-time robberies. Breaking and entering. Sex offenses. Done time for beating up prostitutes. I’ll give you his rap sheet with the case files for Alana Carmichael and Rachel Friesen.”

  “What do you know about Davis, Friesen’s ex-boyfriend?”

  “Not much yet. After I matched the body together with the missing persons report he filed, I called him and gave him the news.”

  “How did he take it?”

  “He seemed pretty broken up. For real. And there’s something else. Rachel Friesen’s body was found almost two weeks after he filed the report.”

  “But what if he killed her then reported her missing just to cover it up?”

  “The coroner says she had been dead for less than a day when her body turned up in the cranberry bog.”

  “He’s either an innocent man or a criminal genius.”

  “I’m hoping you’ll help me figure out which. I’m interviewing him this evening.”

  “My class ends at five thirty. Any time after that is good.”

  “All right. I’ll arrange a sit down with him, hear what he has to say. I’ll pick you up at your place at six thirty.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Verraday checked his watch and saw that it was 6:29. He looked out the window of his small two-story house just north of the campus and saw the unmarked Ford Interceptor SUV pull up by his front gate. He slipped his Blundstone boots on, grabbed his leather jacket, and stepped out onto his front porch. Despite the early hour, there was only the faintest glow of twilight through a thick layer of gray clouds. The long nights and short days were upon the Pacific Northwest now. The sensors in the garden lights along the pathway had already switched on automatically, having judged that the evening was gloomy enough to qualify as night.

  Verraday unlatched his gate, stepped out onto the sidewalk, then closed it carefully to ensure that it shut behind him. Then he climbed into the Interceptor where Maclean was waiting.

  “Just so you know,” he said, “this is the first time in my entire life that I’ve ever voluntarily taken a ride in a police vehicle.”

  Maclean grinned. “I’m honored to be present on such a momentous occasion.”

  She checked the street behind her and, finding it clear, hit the accelerator and pulled out before Verraday had gotten his seat belt buckled. He wondered if it had been retaliation for his comment and took a sidelong glance at her. But Maclean’s sphinxlike expression revealed nothing; she was either concentrating entirely on the road or was damned good at pretending to be.

  * * *

  The rush-hour traffic that choked Seattle’s streets with tidal regularity had thinned out, and within a few minutes, they were heading west on Fiftieth, passing neat blocks of low-rise apartments. Drizzle had begun to fall, so light that Maclean only had to put her windshield wipers on intermittent. Verraday noted that she didn’t reduce her speed, which was consistently over the posted limit—enough that he couldn’t help musing to himself that if this wasn’t a police cruiser, she would probably be pulled over for speeding. That aggressive driving style was something that Verraday noticed almost all cops did when they were behind the wheel of a cruiser. He found it interesting that although they were tasked with enforcing the law, they didn’t feel any need to obey it themselves.

  They were skirting the southern edge of Woodland Park when the yellowish-green eyes of a large creature glowed suddenly in the dark, directly ahead of them. Maclean hit the brakes, and for an instant, the cruiser lost traction and skidded on the slick pavement. Verraday shot a hand out onto the dashboard, bracing for the impact. In a stroboscopic flash of light and shadow, a large coyote raced across their path, just clearing the passenger-side fender.

  “Shit!” exclaimed Maclean as she recovered. “What the hell is a coyote doing up here?”

  Verraday watched as the creature slipped nimbly through a line of hedges and disappeared, unharmed, into the park.

  “At the risk of sounding pedantic,” he replied, “the zoology department at UW just finished a study on them. There are two separate packs of them out here.”

  “How do two packs of coyotes manage to find enough to eat in the suburbs?”

  “Woodland Park used to be the dumping ground for the city’s unwanted pet rabbits. Every year at Easter, parents would buy bunnies for their kids. And every year about a month or two later, after the novelty of cleaning up rabbit turds had worn off, they’d dump them here. The rabbits bred like what they are and overran the neighborhood. Until the coyotes noticed.”

  “How did the coyotes even get into this neighborhood to find out that the rabbits were here?”

  Verraday shrugged. “That’s the psychology of predators. They’re always out there. We might not see them. But they see us.”

  A few minutes later, they pulled up outside the entrance to a low-rise apartment building tucked in between a crowded espresso bar and a harshly lit pho restaurant. Maclean climbed out of the Interceptor. Verraday followed her the few yards to the lobby. She buzzed apartment 205. A moment later the door clicked open.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Kyle Davis?” asked Maclean.

  “That’s me,” said the young man who opened the door.

  “I’m Inspector Maclean, and this is my colleague, Dr. James Verraday. We spoke on the phone. Again, I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you,” he said quietly. “Come on in,” he added, gesturing to the sparse, open-concept apartment.

  Kyle Davis appeared to be in his late twenties. He had brown eyes that looked out guilelessly from behind horn-rimmed glasses, his face framed by a neatly trimmed beard and a short-sided pompadour. He wore a plaid shirt and jeans with the cuffs rolled up, exposing a pair of brogues. His home and his workplace appeared to be one and the same. Sitting atop a desk in one corner was a Mac Pro with a large video monitor and a printer, as well as the most expensive laptop that Apple had released that year. Verraday noted a shoji screen at the rear of the flat, behind which was a simple futon and dresser. Whatever money this guy had was going straight into his equipment.

  “Have a seat,” said Kyle, gesturing toward three mesh office chairs that seemed more intended for client visits than socializing.

  As they sat down, Maclean gazed at the array of equipment.

  “You’ve got a lot of gear,” she commented. “What do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a video editor, and I do a bit of animation work too.”

  “Sounds interesting. What kind of projects?”

  “Ultimately I want to do feature films. But for now, I’m mostly making explainers to pay the bills.”

  “Explainers?” asked Maclean.

  “They’re short videos, kind of like owner’s manuals, that companies post on their websites and on YouTube to explain how their products or services work. Like how to connect a Bluetooth speaker or do your banking with a mobile app.”

  “Too bad they don’t make them to explain why people are the way they are,” said Verraday.

  Kyle Davis frowned slightly and sighed. “If they did, I wouldn’t be the guy to write one, that’s for sure.”

  He said it like only someone who’s had the stuffing knocked out of him can.

  “How long did you know Rachel?” asked Maclean.

  “Since June second of this year.”

  “You remember the date?” said Verraday.

  “It was my niece Tabitha’s birthday,” Kyle replied. “But even if it hadn’t been, it would have been hard to forget it. Rachel had that effect on people.”

  Maclean smiled at him gently. “How did you two
meet?”

  “Actually, it had been a sort of crappy day with a really difficult client. I was on the way to my brother and sister-in-law’s place, and I stopped at this toy store to get something for Tabitha’s birthday. I was feeling stressed ’cause I’d been so busy that week, I hadn’t had a chance to get anything for her. I walked into the store and saw this beautiful girl serving some customers—a boy about six years old and his parents. The boy was comparing these dragons and their different superpowers. The parents looked bored, but the salesgirl was totally into it, having fun with the boy, making him laugh, asking about the superpowers of each dragon, which one was better, and what kind of superpowers he’d pick for himself if he were a dragon.”

  Verraday leaned forward in his chair and gazed at Kyle empathetically.

  “Rachel must have made quite an impression on you.”

  Kyle looked wistful. “Rachel made an impression on everybody. After the boy and his parents left, she came over and asked me if she could help me. I told her about my niece’s birthday, said she was turning five and asked what girls that age like. Because honestly, I wouldn’t have had the faintest clue except that I hoped it wouldn’t be My Little Pony. She asked me a few questions about Tabitha: what she enjoyed doing, what her personality was like. Then she suggested a few possible gifts in different price ranges. She was so into it. Not in the sense of trying to upsell me, but really into it, like she was taking pleasure from thinking about the effect that the gift would have on the person getting it.”

  “What did you end up choosing?” asked Verraday.