by Gregg Olsen
Tori shrugged as though the remark was nothing. “She has an overactive imagination. Comes from being a nerd in high school and fantasizing about being a detective.”
“Oh, really? You seem to like her a lot.”
She shifted on the bench. “I honestly came here to check in on the investigation. You know, to make sure everything is just fine.”
“We’re good,” he said, noticing a beat cop coming their way. “Thanks for coming by.”
The young officer from the crime scene happened by with some paperwork, but his eyes stayed on the beautiful blonde.
Tori got up to leave. She looked Robert Caswell up and down.
“The uniform suits you,” she said.
“If you say so,” he said, accepting the compliment.
She smiled as she walked away toward the door on a cloud of perfume.
“She’s hot,” Robert said.
“You can put your hard-on away,” Kaminski said.
But yeah, falling for her is slipping into a danger zone, for sure, he thought.
Kaminski noticed Kendall Stark’s number pop up on his phone as he walked toward the elevator, but he ignored her.
Not even your case, detective, he thought. This one belongs to me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Port Orchard
Fifteen years ago
There were lots of bland names for the place. Euphemisms, really. Kitsap County authorities and those who worked there liked to call it a Secure Crisis Residential Center, or S-CRC. It sounded so civilized, so ordered. The facility off Old Clifton Road, tucked behind a curtain of evergreens, was institutionally bland in every way.
Except for the goings-on inside—and the reasons why anyone had been sent there.
Eight units called pods made up the living quarters for the 100-bed juvenile justice facility. Despite the best efforts of the custodial staff, each pod was vile, smelly, ripe with the odors that come with boys who refused to shower, girls who won’t change their clothes.
Defiant teens times ten.
S-CRC, not hardly. The inmates who did time there thought of it as juvy, or jail.
The place hadn’t been remodeled for twenty years and it needed it. When government funds finally came through in the late 1990s, it was decided that floor-to-ceiling renovations were in order. New furniture, too. The place was closed and “students” (times had changed and the teens incarcerated there were no longer called “inmates”) were sent to facilities in Belfair and Bremerton.
A pair of day laborers who’d started carrying the bed frames out of 7-pod (“Unlucky 7”) were the first to notice the messages.
“Check it out,” one man said to the other.
The other bent down and started reading.
“Shit. We’re talking screwed-up kids, for sure.”
“Yeah. Big-time. Wonder what became of this twisted little puke?”
Under the widely spaced wire mesh of the bed frame was a smooth, almost melamine-like surface. The writer was not the first to scratch out words of rage there. Others had done so, too, using everything from a jagged shard of glass to the bloody tip of a fingernail.
I want to kill my family.
Deb is a whore.
My mom cheats on my dad.
Officer Hector is the devil.
All of those things might have been true. The writer, who was adding to the litany of wrath made by others who had lain there to look up at the backside of the upper bunk bed, took out an X-ACTO blade that was contraband of the highest order. Worse than drugs probably, but stupidly available in an art resource classroom down the hall.
Scratch.
Carve.
Scratch.
Particles rained down into the eyes. But the angry scribe kept scratching out a message that would be seen by only a few. Only those who’d suffered. Those were the ones who might understand. Tears, designed to give the eyes relief from the irritants that spiraled downward, only blurred the action at hand.
A hard blink and then more scratching.
No one will ever do this to me again.
It was only three letters.
D-I-E.
Satisfied, the writer slipped the blade into the space between the mattress and the bed frame.
It would always be there at the ready.
Just in case.
The ladies of the Port Orchard Kiwanis Club donated a kit for a three-foot-tall Victorian dollhouse as a project for the teens incarcerated in juvenile detention. The concept was simple and, detractors thought, naive. Give the troubled kids something to do that was constructive in every sense of the word and just maybe they’d see that creating something for a greater cause would lead to improved self-esteem and compassion for others. The world was not always about them, drugs, hot cars, and the erratic behavior that put them behind bars in the first place.
The kit for the dollhouse was prepackaged and labeled by the manufacturer. It was foolproof. The model selected by the women’s group was called “Summer Time” and featured a turret, widow’s walk, and windows that actually opened—though they were made of clear Plexiglas.
“Real glass poses a real danger,” said the administrator responsible for recreational programming at the detention center, when first approached with the idea.
The woman who had been going over what would be in the kit appeared confused.
“Nothing that can be used as a weapon can be brought into the rec center.”
“I see.”
“No nails,” he went on. “No sharp corners. Nothing at all.”
“The shingles are fish scale, so they’re rounded,” the woman said as if the design had been in sync with the agency’s concerns.
“No toxic glue. Elmer’s only. No soldering. Burns, you know.”
Six weeks after she dropped off the kit, the woman returned to pick up the finished dollhouse. She planned to auction it off that weekend, with the money raised to support a food drive.
The house was a marvel. Better than she thought it could be. It was painted white and blue, with a burgundy trim around the turret. With the help of a custodian, she loaded it into the back of her minivan.
“The kids did a nice job on it,” she said.
The custodian agreed.
“Yeah. The girls did all the work. Guys wouldn’t touch it.”
As she drove away, the woman noticed an acrid smell. She cracked the window of the van.
That paint sure stinks, she thought.
The next morning she noticed that the rusty trim had darkened to almost a black.
“That’s odd,” she thought.
She didn’t know what the stain had been, nor did she see the message scrawled under the front porch.
I KNOW WHO KILLED JASON REED.
No one would ever see it.
No one would know that the red stain had not been wood stain at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Tacoma
The Hotel Murano was a hipsters’ hangout, upscale and oh-so-cool in a city decidedly short on both qualities. Scattered throughout the chic design of the hotel and restaurant was glass artwork, the equal of which could be found in some museums. In the lobby, a life-size glass sculpture of a woman’s dress and torso looked as though it had been carved from ice. Lainie eyed it, thinking the size and look might work for Tori.
Cold as Tori.
The pair went up the staircase to the fourth floor to Bite, where they were seated in a semicircular orange-colored booth with a peekaboo view of the Thea Foss Waterway. A waiter in a light blue shirt and dark slacks flitted from one table to the next. Flitting wasn’t easy at his age, to be sure. He was old enough to be a grandfather. He reminded Lainie of a waiter at Seattle’s venerable Canlis restaurant, which she’d profiled for the P-I the month before the paper went under. He’d had that job for forty-five years with no sign of letting up. She’d felt wistful about the man, as if working at the same place for so many years should almost be envied.
I’ll bet he
still has his job, she thought.
As the sisters took their menus, the eyes of a few patrons latched onto them. Some might have wondered if they were sisters who merely looked similar; a few might have allowed themselves to wonder if they in fact were twins. Tori was brighter, shinier, and undeniably more alluring than her sister. It was more than her tight, stylish clothes or her shimmering blond tresses.
There was something about her that transcended all the parts that created that stunning image. She had an aura of sensuality that men could not resist and women—those who chose to be honest with themselves—were envious of to such a degree that they instantly reviled her.
“Gold digger.”
“White trash.”
“Harlot.”
“Slut.”
All of those words had been hurled at Tori. She’d deflected them with Teflon-coated talons. A quick flick and away they went.
A new nickname was in the offing and Tori Connelly seemed to know it would take some doing to deflect that.
“Black Widow.”
The Tacoma News Tribune advanced the story of the Junett shooting that day with a photo of Tori and information about her first husband’s death.
DEATH TOOK A HOLIDAY
Connelly’s First Husband
Killed in Hawaii
Despite her newfound notoriety, she was still in Tori mode. The waiter brought San Pellegrino with lime slices with dingy edges and she told him to take them back.
“You wouldn’t want that served to you. Why bring that to me and my sister?”
He nodded and left the table in a blue blur.
“I hope he remembers which glass to spit into,” Lainie said.
They were there to talk about what happened the night of the shooting, but Lainie had another topic on her mind. Her sister hadn’t once mentioned their father. It infuriated her.
“Aren’t you going to ask about Dad?”
Tori set aside her water and poured some wine from a decanter that probably cost a week’s salary—if, that is, she still had a salary, Lainie thought.
“How is he?”
Lainie looked sharply at her sister.
“Like you care.”
Tori let out a breath and shook her head. “I stayed away because I care.”
The response was maddening because, as far as Lainie could see, her sister didn’t care. Couldn’t, really. It was beyond what she was able to feel.
“Don’t give me that, Tori. Remember, you and I have the same DNA. I know what makes you tick, how you feel, what you are going to wear when you go to your closet.”
Tori shifted in the booth, buying time to think. Lainie couldn’t be sure. “I’ve always loved that about you, Lainie. You were always so goddamn smug about what you thought you knew about me.”
Lainie took a sip, twirling the wine in her near-empty glass. “Don’t go there. I’m here because you needed me.”
“Right. And I do. And you, my other half, owe me.”
Lainie looked at her and said nothing. Her face was devoid of emotion. Tori knew how to feed off others in a way that seemed both remarkable and scary. She could tap into a weakness and drill out whatever advanced her cause.
“You know you do. You’re my blood.” Tori sipped her wine. “We’re probably closer than blood.”
There was truth to that, but Lainie didn’t want to acknowledge it. The relationship was complicated and it was better to change the subject.
“Did you shoot him, then yourself?”
Tori sighed. “I knew you’d think that,” she said.
“Well?”
“Are you my lawyer or my sister?”
“Being your lawyer would be a choice. No, I’m your sister.”
Tori looked directly into her sister’s eyes. “No, I didn’t shoot him.”
Lainie finished her wine, and the salads arrived. She would not have another drink. She never wanted to give Tori the upper hand. “Then who did?”
“I don’t know.” She looked back down at her glass. “Pour you another?”
Lainie ignored her offer. “You seem to be hiding something, Tori.”
Tori studied her sister; this time her eyes glistened with tears.
Oh, yes, Lainie thought. I’ve seen those tears before. They come whenever she needs to get her way.
“I’m in trouble. I’m afraid,” Tori said, speaking in a plaintive manner that didn’t seem like the sister who’d been out of sight but not completely out of mind.
“What happened, Tori?”
No response. Just more thinking, buying time, scanning for the right words.
“What happened?” Again, Lainie restrained herself from ending the question with the words “this time.”
Tori told her about the night of the shooting, how she hadn’t really seen all that much. How quickly everything happened. She mentioned that one of the detectives had been rude to her, almost suggesting that she wasn’t being truthful.
“I really don’t know how much more forthcoming I could be,” she said. “I was a victim here, too. I was shot. If I didn’t get out of there, I probably would have been raped, then murdered.”
The old but speedy waiter awkwardly took their order. Lainie selected grilled tofu with a miso vinaigrette, peanut noodles, and curry coconut butternut squash. Tori ordered a pan-roasted organic chicken breast with kalamata and green olives.
“Don’t tell me you’re a vegan now,” Tori said.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Tori smiled. “It would be so like you not to eat meat.”
Lainie changed the subject. She motioned to Tori’s leg.
“How many stitches?
“Three or four. I’ll never be able wear a bikini again.”
At thirty-three, Lainie doubted she’d ever wear a bikini, and it had nothing to do with a scar.
“What do you want from me, Tori? I mean, really, you call me up out of the blue. You walked out on Dad and me. You didn’t even come when he was so sick. He almost died! Where in the hell were you?”
Tori stared into Lainie’s eyes. “I have issues with the past. You of all people should know it.”
If they were playing a game of chicken, neither was going to blink.
“You can’t use that forever, you know that, right?”
Tori held her sister frozen in her stare. “Who says? You?”
“Let’s move on,” Lainie said, realizing she had blinked. “Your husband is dead. You’ve been shot.”
“Yes and yes.”
“I don’t know anything about him. About Alex, your husband, whose name you seldom use. Honestly, I don’t know anything about you.”
When the words left her lips, Lainie O’Neal knew that she could not have been more accurate in her description of the state of affairs between the twins.
“Fair enough. But I don’t expect you’ll like much of what I have to say,” Tori said, showing no emotion. Her eyes could be filled with charm and sparkle one moment and completely dead the next. She could play the center of attention or the woman no one wants to make eye contact with for fear of a cruel remark.
“You’ve always been such a bitch, Tori. Glad to see that hasn’t changed.”
Tori smiled. “Remember,” she said, “I’m the bad one.”
Lainie didn’t take the bait. “That brings me to the next question. Were you having an affair? The detective thinks so.”
“It wasn’t an affair. It was a mistake. A big one. And I think that’s the reason all of this happened.”
“Who was it? Did your husband know?”
Tori lowered her head and put her palms against her forehead, gently. Not so much that she’d muss her hair or smear her makeup. She rolled her forehead against her hands, as if coaxing the memories.
“My neighbor, Darius,” she said, looking up. “I was lonely and stupidly got involved with him. Alex was always working and I was in that big old house all alone. I didn’t mean for it to happen. I really didn’t. I was .
.. just so alone.”
Cue the violins, Lainie thought. She’d heard her sister’s attempt at contrition plenty of times before. In fact, a cascade of memories poured over her as they sat.
“What happened?”
“He just wouldn’t take no for an answer, Lainie. I swear it. He kept coming over. He told me he loved me and that he couldn’t live without me. Then he told me that he’d do anything to be with me again. I told him no. I told him that the sex was a mistake.”
“When was this?” she asked, thinking of the condom wrapper.
“It has been over for a while. At least as far as I was concerned.”
Lainie didn’t believe her, but she didn’t want to confront her about what she’d found.
“Did he shoot you? Did he kill Alex?”
Tori shook her head. “I wish I could say he did. But honestly, I didn’t see the face of who did it. It happened so fast. I heard the gunfire. I ran into the room, bent over Alex . . . a man in a black mask shot me. . . .” She started to cry. At least, tears rolled down her cheeks, and if it was any other person it would have been genuine tears.
With Tori, Lainie wasn’t so sure.
“You didn’t see him well enough to identify him?” she asked.
“No. I ran over to Darius’s house to confront him. I thought it could be him . . . I stood there bleeding and I told him that I would kill him myself. I don’t know if it was him. He didn’t seem to be out of breath or blood soaked or anything. I passed out, and he called nine-one-one.”
Lainie leaned forward to make sure her sister got the point. “You need to tell the police.”
Tori looked away, then back at her sister. “I’ve tried, but considering my history, I’m not sure anyone would believe me.”