by G. M. Ford
“It’s a name out of a fantasy book I read years ago,” Corso said.
She snapped her fingers. “Yeah, those Donaldson books. There’s three of them. What’s it called…?” she asked herself.
“The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.”
“Yeah. And the Saltheart character…he was like the last of a race of seagoing giants or something.”
“That’s the one,” Corso said.
“Cool name for a boat.”
Corso shivered inside his coat. “Come on,” he said. “I’m freezing.”
He climbed onboard, turned, and offered Dougherty his hand. She plopped the pile of papers into his palm and then hoisted herself over the rail in a single motion.
Corso slid the door aside and then followed her in. “Oh,” she said. “It’s warm. Feels so good.” She rubbed her hands together. Looked around. “Hell…it’s bigger than my apartment,” she said.
He took her coat and laid it on the chart table. Dumped his on top. Corso put together a pot of coffee while she gave herself the grand tour.
“It’s definitely you, Corso. All tidy and self-contained,” she announced.
“I’m thrilled you think so,” he said, handing her a cup. “How’d it go at the medical examiner’s?”
“I got everything except the lie-detector test results. They claim they were destroyed or maybe lost. They couldn’t seem to make up their minds.”
“That figures,” Corso said. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
It took a little over two hours and another pot of coffee to sort it all out. To get the paperwork and the photographs into eleven separate piles. When they’d finished, Corso took the primary crime-scene photos and stood them up along the pin rail behind the settee. Piled the paperwork pertaining to each case on the cushion directly below the picture. He left a space between the first eight victims and the more recent casualties.
Dougherty held her cup against her ample chest. She moved her eyes slowly along the row of standing photographs. “God, this is eerie,” she said. “Seeing them all lined up like that. Makes me feel like I ought to cover them up so’s nobody can see them all dirty and naked like that.”
Corso walked over to the first photo. Picked up the crime-scene report. Susanne Tovar. Twenty. Last seen at about ten in the morning on January 7, 1998. Doing her laundry at the Sit and Spin Laundromat on Fourth Avenue. Found by a janitor twelve hours later in a Dumpster behind a bakery in the 2300 block of Eastlake Avenue. Raped, sodomized, and strangled. No fluid residue of any kind. Perp presumed to have worn a condom. Green polyester carpet fibers found beneath her fingernails.
The cops had worked their way back through Susanne Tovar’s social life. Found an angry ex-boyfriend named Peter Nilson who looked good for a while. Then Kate Mitchell was found thirteen days later, this time in a Dumpster in Fremont. Same MO. Same fibers beneath the nails. So much for the boyfriend.
The words “serial killer” do not appear in the detective’s field notes until the last day of January 1998. When Jennine Tate is found dead in the alley behind the Broadway market. Detective Sergeant Feeney notes that the crimes appear to be both random and stranger-related. Next to the notation he wrote “serial killer?” and drew a circle around the words, as if he was afraid they’d escape.
If Sergeant Feeney still harbored any doubts, they were dispelled when Jennifer Robison disappeared from the Northgate Mall, in broad daylight. Wearing a pair of leopard-skin stretch pants, no less. Told her shopping companion Francine Limuti that she was going to run out to the car for a blouse she wanted to return to Nordstrom. Never seen alive again. Turned up the next morning, three blocks away, behind a Red Robin burger joint, sans the stretch pants.
Sara Butler’s picture was the saddest of the lot. Only eighteen years old. The youngest of the victims. Not discovered until she’d made it all the way to the dump. Found by the gulls. Traced back to the Dumpster behind the coffee shop on lower Queen Anne, where she’d worked. Manager said she’d stepped out back for a smoke and never returned. He figured she’d quit—you know how these kids are—and didn’t bother to report her missing.
Nine days later, it was Melody Williams. A tourist from Redfield, South Dakota. On her honeymoon. Strolling the Pike Street Market with her new husband, John, who ducked into the men’s room, came out two minutes later to find his wife missing. Cops interviewed nearly a hundred people. Nobody saw a thing. She was found a day and a half later, in a First Avenue construction site less than a mile from where she’d disappeared.
To judge from the stubble, Analia Nisovic had shaved her pubic hair into a heart shape about three days before she disappeared from Westlake Center. The See’s Chocolate Shop, where she had recently been promoted to assistant manager, was found unlocked, with the receipts still in the till. Of the eight women, she’d put up the most fight. Her nose and four of her fingers were broken in the struggle.
Then, on the night of April 2, while the city was suffering through the coldest spring in its history, Leanne Samples came staggering down that snow-covered service road and the city heaved a collective sigh of relief. The giddiness lasted for all of three days, until somebody drops a dime and says the body of Kelly Doyle can be found in a trash bin on Sixth Avenue South. Unlike the others, however, the tipster doesn’t wait around for the cops to arrive. Dead body number eight was just different enough from the others to cause concern. Could it be they had the wrong guy in jail? Medical examiner said the cold weather made it impossible to pinpoint the time of death. The body was frozen solid. Same MO. Matching ear tag cinches it. Gotta be Himes. Another giant sigh whooshes through town.
Now, damn near three years later, they’ve got two more. Alice Crane-Carter and the girl they’d seen earlier today. Yet to be identified. Same fibers, different tags. Only difference between the old and new victims was that the level of violence had increased. The new victims had facial contusions. Number nine, Alice Crane-Carter, had suffered a fractured cheekbone and a broken eye socket. No report yet on the unnamed girl.
Corso walked into the galley and put his cup in the sink. Dougherty stood in the salon staring at the photos. “You okay?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’ll tell you what, Corso,” she said. “If this is the kind of thing you do for a living, it’s no damn wonder you’re one weird dude.”
“I used to think I’d get used to it,” he said. “You know…like something inside me would scab over and I wouldn’t feel it anymore.”
“Did it?”
“No. All I got was the urge to be alone.”
He lifted the coffeepot. She shook her head no. “What now?” she asked.
Corso thought it over. “They’re running the new murders story tomorrow. Gives me a full day to pull something out of this stuff. So I guess we call it a day and go to bed.”
He put his coat on and then held her motorcycle jacket out for her. She thought about snatching the coat from his hands, but instead turned her back and shrugged herself into the jacket. Zipped it all the way up. Corso pulled a set of keys from his jacket pocket. He swung the keys between his thumb and forefinger.
“Sometime tomorrow we’re going to have to retrieve the paper’s car.”
She yawned. “I forgot about the damn car.”
“Let’s start early,” he said. “Himes is getting short on time.”
Corso again dreamed of the cobbled street. He stood on the uneven stones and watched, fascinated, as the three soldiers rudely turned one man after another away from the door. Sometimes providing a rough kick in the pants to speed the victim on his way. Laughing heartily among themselves at the joy of it all. Then—suddenly—the street is empty and the soldiers turn their leaden eyes his way. When he comes forward, the sound of boots and rifles snap around the stone walls. Without a word, they form a line to the right of the door and come to attention. They salute.
As Corso closes the door behind him and begins to climb the narrow stairs, the walls on all s
ides seem to float away…leaving the building sheathed in rags. He steps up. His hands clutching the rails as he moves toward the light at the top of the stairs.
Chapter 20
Friday, September 21
9:23 A.M. Day 5 of 6
“Stop,” Corso said.
Apparently this command carried a far greater sense of urgency in North Africa than was customary in south Seattle. The Somali cabdriver locked up the brakes, rocketing Corso and Dougherty forward into the plastic shield separating the front seat from the back. Corso glowered at the driver, who was all shrugs and wide-eyed innocence.
Dougherty looked over. “You said stop,” she said.
“I meant soon,” Corso groused.
“You’re never satisfied, you know that?”
The meter read fifteen and a quarter. Corso gave the guy a twenty and told him to keep the change. Corso and Dougherty stepped out onto South Doris Street. With a chirp of the tires, the cab continued west, turned left at the Aviator Hotel, and disappeared.
Dougherty looked around. “And why in hell are we stopping here anyway? The damn car’s up around the corner.”
Corso jerked his thumb back over his shoulder. The alley gate to the murder scene was open. “Let’s have a look.”
“No way.”
“Come on.”
“The last time I listened to you I ended up in jail.”
Corso swung a hand around. “All the cop stuff is gone.”
“Smelling like cat shit.”
“Come on.”
The alley ran between a Peterbilt truck-parts distributor and a boarded-up auto-body shop. Ahead in the courtyard, somebody was whistling in between grunts, making it impossible to catch the tune. Dougherty tugged at the back of Corso’s coat. Corso kept moving forward until he cleared the buildings.
A turquoise pickup truck from the late fifties was backed up to the rear wall of the Aviator Hotel. Next to the truck, a man knelt on the ground, pouring something from one red plastic bucket into another and then back. Grunting each time he hefted a full bucket. Whistling between grunts.
“Excuse me,” Corso said, moving forward.
The man looked up. He was about seventy, a bit bent but still powerful-looking. He wore the same clothes as the day before when Corso had seen him talking with Densmore and Wald, red plaid shirt, jeans, worn through at the seat, short rubber boots, and long rubber gloves. He grunted as he levered himself to his feet.
“I hep you?” he asked.
Corso strode quickly forward with his hand extended. “I wanted to apologize.”
“You best not be sellin’ somethin’,” the man said.
“No, sir. I just wanted to apologize for any trouble or inconvenience we might have caused you yesterday when we…” He pointed upward. “The roof.”
“That was you they busted up there?”
“Miss Dougherty and I.”
The old man gave a hearty laugh. “Wasn’t that just sumphin’,” he chuckled. “That fella thinkin’ I was gonna let him come in the hotel after. Cop or no cop, you ain’t comin’ in nothin’ of mine smellin’ like that.” Just as suddenly as he’d laughed, his face fell into a frown. “Almost enough to make a body forget about that poor girl…layin’ there like that. All by herself and such.” He pulled the glove from his right hand and shook with Corso.
“Buster Davis,” the old man said. “Given name’s Clyde, but my mamma took to callin’ me Buster, on account of how I always wanted a pair of them Buster Brown shoes I seen on the TV. Wid the kid and the dog inside the shoe. Name just sorta stuck.”
Corso introduced Dougherty, then asked, “You the one found the body?”
“Sure did,” he said sadly. “Damnedest thing to be findin’ that early in the mornin’ too. Doin’ what I do every mornin’, just comin’ out see what kinda stuff I gotta paint over and I notice the Dumpster lid’s open. I keep ’em shut on accounta the raccoons.” He stroked his chin as he recalled the moment. “And there the poor thing was, laying there in her altogether and all. Damnedest thing.”
Corso pointed at the gate. Eight feet of chain link with four rows of barbed wire decorating the top. “That gate lock?”
The old man eyed him narrowly. “Wouldn’t be much point to it bein’ there if it didn’t lock, now would it?”
“Whoever left her there must have come through the gate.”
“Same thing the cops said and I tell you the same thing I tol’ them. Whoever it was musta climbed over and opened it from the inside. Ain’t but two keys to that gate. I got one and the security company got the other.” He waved a gnarled hand. “For all the damn good they doin’ me for the money I’m paying ’em. Can’t even keep the kids from paintin’ on the damn wall. I got to come out here every damn day and waste my time painting over crap like that.” He pointed up at the windowless back wall of the hotel, where someone had taken spray paint and written “FUR” in ornate, sweeping letters.
Dougherty stepped around the men and walked over to the wall.
“Just painted the damn wall, last thing Wednesday night, ’fore I went down to the Eagles for the evening. Get up in the damn mornin’, find that poor little thing in there wid the rubbish.”
“It’s not finished,” Dougherty said. Both men turned her way.
“What’s not finished?” Corso asked.
“The tag.” She pointed up at the letters on the wall. FUR in gold. “It’s supposed to say ‘fury,’ with the tail of the Y making a circle around the whole thing. I’ve seen this one before. It’s all over the place.”
“Best not be all over the place for very damn long,” the old man said. “City fine you a hundered-ninety dollars you leave that stuff up on the wall.”
“Really?” Corso said. “Even if it’s your wall?”
“Specially if it’s your wall. Were up to me, I’d just leave it up there. Looks better than them old bricks anyway. Not like anybody gonna see it back here. But the city says no. Got them an ordinance, you know.” He threw up his hands. “Which reminds me, I better get myself to work here, ’less it starts rainin’ again and I never get the damn thing done.” He offered his hand again to Corso, who took it.
“Nice meetin’ you folks,” he said, nodding at Dougherty. “You-all try to stay out of trouble now,” he said with a grin before turning back toward his work.
Dougherty took Corso by the elbow and steered him back through the gate. They turned left on South Doris and began walking west, toward the hotel.
“Did you hear what he said?” she asked.
“About painting over the graffiti on Wednesday night?”
“Which means the place was tagged sometime before Thursday morning, when he found the girl’s body.”
“And you’re thinking the vandal might have been at work when the murder came down. Maybe saw something.”
“No self-respecting tagger would leave his tag unfinished. The tag is their whole trip. It’s their artistic identity.”
“How is it you know so much about it?”
“I did a photo journal on taggers for The Stranger,” she said, naming Seattle’s most visible alternative paper. “Got to know quite a few of the artists.”
“Artists, my ass,” Corso scoffed as they reached the corner of South Doris and Homer and turned right under the bare trees.
“Lighten up, Corso. Expression comes in a lot of different flavors.”
“Graffiti is hardly art.”
“A hundred years ago they said the same thing about photographs.”
The Chevy was right where they’d left it the day before. While Corso warmed the engine, Dougherty unlocked the back door, leaned in, and checked her camera case. Satisfied that everything was intact, she slid into the passenger seat.
“What now?” she asked.
“You think you could find the kid?”
“Probably,” she said. “I know some people.”
Corso wheeled the car around the block, turned left on Airport Way, and headed back dow
ntown. “Where to?” Corso asked.
“It will have to be after dark,” Dougherty said. “Taggers aren’t morning people. The whole scene is kinda nocturnal.”
“You want to come with me? I’ve got to work my way through that stuff we got from the cops.”
Her eyes turned inward. She shook her head. “If I never see those pictures again, it will be too soon. Besides, I’ve got a treatment on my face this afternoon. Why don’t you take me home? Pick me up again at…say…six or so.”
She flipped on the radio. Rob Thomas singing “Smooth” in front of the Carlos Santana band. She began to move in the seat. Corso reached over and turned it up.
Chapter 21
Friday, September 21
4:20 P.M. Day 5 of 6
Like Mad Fred said: The only thing the dead knew for sure was that being alive was better. Corso sat backward in the teak chair, resting his forearms across the top rail. He moved his head slowly, taking in the dead women one last time, as if, in their final eight-by-ten ignominy, they might yet have a tale to tell.
Outside, the wind had died. The slap of waves against the hull had stopped just after noon. By three, the fog had come rolling in from the Sound, advancing over Queen Anne Hill like a gray-clad army, reducing C dock visibility to twenty feet.
He’d been through it all. Just over two hundred pages. Ten women. All brunettes. The youngest, Sara Butler, had turned eighteen only a month before her disappearance. The oldest, Kelly Doyle, had been twenty-seven at the time of her death. Nine locals, one tourist. Williams, Mitchell, Crane, and Tovar had been married. The rest single. Each of the women still wore her jewelry, but no trace of the clothes or shoes had ever been found. No connection, be it personal or professional, had ever been found among the victims. Husbands, boyfriends, and bosses had been systematically eliminated as suspects. Every known sex offender within five hundred miles had been hauled in and questioned. The first eight ovine ear tags had been of a type not used since the late sixties, a fact that made the tags not only impossible to trace, but which, at the same time, squelched any possibility of a copycat killer. The new tags were sold in forty-four locations in King County alone. The cops were working that angle.