Ava’s mother scoffed. “How do you know what Sadie’s mom’s fingernails look like?”
Ava ignored her mother.
It seemed odd that the teen could recognize her friend’s mother by her fingernails. Then I thought of something. “I just have one more question.” I pulled up the picture of the victims’ tattoos on my cell phone screen. “Have you seen this image before?”
Immediate recognition flashed in her eyes. It was the tattoo made her think of Sadie’s mother.
“Tell me, Ava. Where have you seen this before?”
Ava’s mother watched her daughter carefully.
The teen shook her head. “I haven’t seen it before.”
I set the cell phone down on the coffee table between us. “Ava,” I said, “we need to know everything to help these victims.”
“Jesus, Ava,” her mother said. “If you know something, tell them.”
Ava suddenly burst into tears. When her mother didn’t move to comfort her, I nudged Harvey to remove the mother from the room. It was clear we weren’t going to get anywhere with her hovering over her daughter’s every word. Once Harvey had the mother in the kitchen and out of earshot, I moved over to sit beside Ava. She took the fresh tissue from me.
“My mom would kill me if she knew some of these things.”
I made an X over my chest with a fingertip. “Cross my heart, Ava. I’ll do my best to keep everything you say between us.”
She sniffled and dried her eyes. “I saw that tattoo on Sadie’s mom. Her wrist. When I saw that lady’s arm in the water, I was so scared because I thought it could be Sadie’s mom. I didn’t want to have to tell my best friend I found her mother dead.”
A shot of anxiety ran through me. Since we still hadn’t identified either of the bodies Ava found, it was entirely possible one of them could be her friend’s mother.
“Why doesn’t your mother want you to see Sadie?”
“She says they are all trash.” Frustration came through in her voice. “She says they will only hold me down and get me into trouble.”
“You said they all. Whom are you referring to?”
“Sadie, her mom, and her grandmother. Sadie’s dad died, and her mom is a drug addict, so she lives with her grandma. My mom went to school with Sadie’s mom and says she was trash back then, too.”
“What do they do that could get you into trouble?”
“I’m not sure what my mom means by that. She thinks that since Sadie’s mom is a druggie and prostitute that Sadie will end up the same. She won’t, but even if Sadie did, it doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
“Have you been in contact with Sadie today?” I asked.
“She doesn’t talk to her mom much, but Sadie said someone saw her mom today at that bar where she works.”
The rumor mill dissolved some of my concern about the identity of the body. The last thing this girl needed was to find that her fear was a reality. I noticed, however, she hadn’t answered my question.
“What does the tattoo mean?”
Ava shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“But you remember seeing it on Sadie’s mother.”
“I saw it when she handed me something.” She wiped her nose. “I thought it was cute.”
“Have you ever seen this tattoo on anyone else?”
Ava shook her head. She watched me quietly while I scribbled a few notes. Then she added, “I want to help you catch this killer.”
“I appreciate that, Ava. You’ve already helped us quite a bit. Thank you.”
“I want him out of my town.”
“Him?” I questioned.
“You know. The killer.”
“I’m curious—what makes you think this is a male killer and not a female?”
Ava looked at me like I was the dumbest person on earth. “All the serial killers in shows and movies are guys. Women can’t do that stuff.”
I chuckled. Nothing like the mass media dictating the profile for a serial killer. “Fair enough, Ava.”
When Harvey and I walked out of the Washingtons’ trailer, though, I’d learned two valuable pieces of information. One: the tattoos weren’t only located on dead women, but on living women as well. Two: Ava Washington knew a lot more than she was letting on.
*
The nostril-burning odor of fresh chlorine. My body sank into its watery depths and into a safety beyond measure. It had been too long since my last swim. For years, water had been my refuge from panic, the place I went in my mind when I felt the crippling seize of my breath and the uncontrollable racing of my heart. During the Willow’s Ridge case, I found out that water had been more than just the escape hatch I needed for a mental time-out; it had literally saved my life when I was fifteen. The killer had been terrified of water. Since those secrets of my past had been revealed, the role of water had changed in my life, but its purpose of safety and refuge had not.
True to his word, Sanders found a hotel for me with an indoor swimming pool near the Wallace Lake highway exchange. The block of a building was only half full of travelers who were on their way somewhere else. I appreciated Sanders’s efforts. He could have set me up in the hole-in-the-wall motel near the police station and saved the Bureau fifty bucks a night.
“You need to eat and swim every day,” Sanders had said once he cleared the billing at the hotel, his wallet fat with yearly school pictures of two grown children he rarely saw. “Promise me you will—every day you’re here.”
I nodded and patted my bag. “I have a suit, remember?”
“Good,” he said tucking his wallet into his back pocket. “And consider getting some therapy when you get back to Columbus, for God’s sake.”
When I rolled my eyes at him like a petulant teenager, he stopped me cold in my tracks. “I’m not speaking to you as a supervisor right now, Luce, but as your friend. The body has needs and you aren’t tending to them,” he said. “You don’t always make the best decisions for yourself. I’m only trying to help.”
The problem, I wanted to tell him, was that I have never been good at accepting other people’s help. I nodded anyway. It had been a long day, and I only wanted to swim.
Honestly, I was surprised that Sanders supported my long swims. Most of our team worked out in the weight room and used the track the BCI headquarters offered its employees. Because there was no pool at headquarters, I always worked out alone and was generally able to surpass most of my teammates on our yearly physical tests. Despite my physical strength and endurance, Sanders wanted me to be a part of the workouts and the team-building experience. He wanted us to bond over repetitions and build community through runs that made our thighs burn and our chests heave. I preferred to sweat alone and continually ignored those yellow notices in my box warning of the missed team workouts. Sanders never missed a chance to point out that these lone wolf moves of mine held me back and ultimately hurt my chances of promotion. Here he was, though, pushing me to swim. Perhaps he was worried I wouldn’t be able to surpass my teammates on the physical tests again this year. Judging from the difficulty I was having getting back into my stroke, he could have been right.
I was also surprised that Sanders was willing to let me work the Wallace Lake case without him. He didn’t hide his concerns about my mental health. Sanders, however, had many smaller cases that needed to be closed and a lot of paperwork waiting on him at headquarters. He promised to return to Wallace Lake in five days if we hadn’t made sufficient progress on the case. My goal was to find the killer in less than five days, not only to save any future victims, but also because I wasn’t ready to work so closely on a case with Sanders yet.
Air bubbles streamed from my nose, and the water churned past as I did a flip turn. The hotel’s pool was smaller than what I was used to, and given its kidney shape, it was hard for me to calculate three miles. It didn’t really matter; I’d been swimming for only an hour, and my body felt heavy and awkward. I was fighting the water rather than moving with it, struggling to carr
y all the cheap beers and takeout I’d consumed over the last few months. It was clear I wouldn’t be able to make my usual three-mile workout, so I focused on acclimating my stroke and strengthening my kick.
Earlier, Harvey and I located Sadie’s biological mother at a strip club near the freeway exchange. Records indicated that Sadie’s grandmother did, indeed, take custody of her when she was eight; Sadie’s mother, Wilma Henderson, did not contest the proceedings and declared herself as drug and alcohol dependent. Henderson also listed her place of employment as Gary’s Girls at the time of the custody hearing. Gary’s Girls, I found, was a local bar known for prostitution and a favorite of many lonely long-haul truckers on the Midwest interstate. To entice clientele, the owner, Gary, offered free overnight parking for rigs in his lot along with abundant showers and laundry facilities. According to the local PD, Gary’s Girls was standing room only most weekend nights, and with its 24/7 open door policy, lonely long-haul truckers rolled in and out at all hours during the week.
Detective Richardson lived up to his stellar reputation with the search engines and databases. It only took him a few minutes to pull up police records and mug shots for Wilma Henderson along with court documents and leases associated with her. Sadie’s mom had a lengthy record of drug and prostitution charges. She was what we call in law enforcement a Frequent Flyer—an individual who commits nonviolent crimes regularly. They serve their short sentences, usually no longer than eighteen months, and end up back in jail on similar charges within a year or so. Frequent Flyers like Henderson jack up the country’s recidivism rates and drive law enforcement crazy. Whether it is due to lack of familial support, poverty, or addiction, these individuals struggle to figure out how to make it on the outside for long. Sometimes the entire process for law enforcement feels a whole lot like the plight of Sisyphus, the poor guy who was charged with pushing the boulder up the hill only for it to roll back down again, eternally.
I wanted to interview Sadie, but Harvey convinced me we needed to start with the woman who had a matching tattoo with our victims. I was interested in both the girl and the mother that Ava’s mom deemed a bad influence. Sadie could wait, though, at least for the time being.
Ava told me she’d been terrified that one of the bodies could have been Wilma Henderson. Once I saw Henderson’s most recent mug shot, I understood why. She physically resembled the type of women who’d been found murdered along the Powell River in the last eleven months in every way. I imagined Henderson would be scared of becoming the target of a killer, just like any other woman in this area matching the description. I was wrong.
Henderson wanted nothing to do with Harvey and me. We waited almost an hour to speak with her while she worked the crowd onstage. I nursed a soda at the bar while Harvey weaved through the tables to the bathroom. Songs from Prince’s 1999 boomed from the stage, and I was willing to bet Henderson spent her early thirties hanging on Prince’s every song and interview. Her dance moves were straight out of a Prince music video circa 1980.
I settled onto my bar stool and watched the attractive bartender mix drinks. The ponytail at the crown of her head gave the woman a punkish eighties look. She had a smile that lit up her entire face. She caught me looking and gave a quick wink as she made her way over to me.
“I’m Rhonda. What can I get you?”
“Hi, Rhonda. I’m here to see your boss, not for a drink.”
She shrugged and went back to her mixing beside us. “Suit yourself.” It was only when she turned to walk away that I saw the large scar running up the side of her neck from her shoulder area.
The older man beside me nudged my arm. “She’s not bad, huh?”
I nodded then asked, “Rhonda or the dancer?”
He laughed. “Both.”
“Are you local or just passing through?”
“Local. Been in Wallace Lake, Ohio, my whole life.” He nodded to Henderson on the stage. “She’s local, too. I like that Gary uses our own girls.”
This man obviously spent a good deal of his time hanging out at the bar and with prostitutes. Morally, he might not be upstanding, but I could tell he wanted to talk. “Do you know her?”
“Who, Wilma? Sure. She was a few years behind me in school. We socialized together after I graduated.”
I offered my hand. “I’m Luce Hansen.”
“Albert Finley.” His cracked, worn hand pumped mine. I took him for a woodworker, possibly a retired craftsman. His hands read of the years of hard labor and nicks from tools. “You passing through?”
I flipped my jacket open to reveal my badge. “I’m in the area to work the recent crimes.”
Albert leaned back on his stool, and his eyes grew wide. “Those poor girls. What an absolute shame.” He shook his head. “You know those drugs. They get into the system, and you can’t live without them.”
“You think it was drug related.”
“Don’t you?”
I shrugged. “We’re looking into it.”
His hand wrapped around the beer in front of him. The sight of the near-full mug made my mouth water, but I’d made a promise to myself not to drink while in the field.
“Do you think it could be someone around here killing these girls?” he asked.
“Could be.”
Albert’s face showed visible signs of distress at my answer. “Oh, I hope you’re wrong about that. I’m not sure our little town could take that.”
“Have you seen anything out of the ordinary this past year? People or events that you don’t normally see?”
Albert shook his head. “We sometimes get the weird out here, you know? But nothing weirder than usual.”
Harvey made her way back to my side. “Only a few minutes left in her set,” she said. “Gary wants to see us.”
“The owner himself,” Albert marveled.
“Good to meet you, Albert.” I slipped him my card, and while I was at it, I handed one to Rhonda, the bartender. She’d heard every word of our conversation, though she was good about hiding her eavesdropping. “Let me know if you think of or see anything out of the ordinary.”
I followed Harvey to a side door marked Employees Only where a man waited for us. We followed him down a long musty hallway to an open dressing room for the girls.
Gary turned to talk to us over his shoulder. “I want you to know my club has nothing to do with the murders. I run an up-and-up business. Nothing shady about it.”
Gary surprised me with his youth and fashion sense. I expected an older man in his late sixties, sleazy as all get-out with a comb-over and a polyester suit. This Gary was far from that in his Gucci shoes and hundred-dollar haircut. “We are looking into every angle of the case,” I told him. “We appreciate your cooperation, and we will keep our presence here quiet as long as you do so. We’ll need to talk to all the women who work here.”
His shoulders relaxed when he realized we weren’t there to shake the place up. He led us to Wilma Henderson’s area, the room strewn with bikinis and brightly colored feathers. “Anything to help—we all want this guy behind bars,” he said. “It’s hard, knowing someone is out there targeting women, you know?”
I nodded and handed him my card. “How long have you owned the club?”
Gary smiled, and his tanned skin showed off his perfect white teeth. “I bought the place from my uncle. He was the original Gary, and the one who ran the finances into the ground.”
Henderson exploded into the dressing room from the stage breathing heavily and sweating profusely. Overweight and soft around the middle, she hid it well with boas wrapped around her torso and a long rope of beads that settled between her heavy breasts. She stomped through the dressing area and groaned when she saw us waiting for her. She threw herself on the bar stool in front of a mirror.
Gary pulled over two stools from a neighboring station. “Give these officers your full cooperation, Wilma. Don’t let me hear any different.”
She grumbled something in response and leaned into the mirro
r until Gary left us, dabbing her sweat-filled brow with a dirty towel.
“I don’t know what you all think I know,” she said, licking the tip of her pinkie and smudging away black streaks from the wrinkles around her eyes as she touched up her eyeliner. “I don’t have time for this.” She crossed one leg over the other, and her miniskirt revealed the loose skin of her thighs. I could see the remnants of track marks on her legs, telling me that her arm veins were most likely blown.
“Make it quick,” she barked.
I pulled up the tattoo image on my phone and held it out. “We’ve been told you have a similar tattoo.”
The image stopped her a second, and then she tossed the eyeliner down. “You were told wrong.”
“Was I?” A thick red bandana had been wound around Wilma’s left wrist. Ava’s call to Sadie had obviously done more than confirm Wilma Henderson’s life; it tipped her off that we’d be coming, and the tattoo would be questioned. Sadie’s mother might have abandoned her daughter, but that didn’t mean the teen wouldn’t do whatever she could to protect her mother.
“I’ve never seen that before.” She looked away from the photograph and stared defiantly at me.
“You mind taking off the bandana?” Harvey pointed to Wilma Henderson’s wrist.
“Not today, darlin’.” Her words slurred against a chipped front tooth.
Harvey reached for her wallet and spread it wide. Henderson’s hand closed over the wallet. “Girl, I’m more than you can afford.”
“I’m sure,” I said, and tried another angle.
Slowly, I laid a photograph of the woman from the land bar and one of the woman pulled out of the river on the dressing table. We didn’t know who the women were yet—the ME had pulled fingerprints from one of the victims and Robinson had them crawling the national registries—but Bennett had confirmed that the blood tests revealed traces of antifreeze in both of the recent victims just like the two before them.
Henderson turned away from the photos of the women in autopsy. “I don’t know her.”
“Which one?”
“None.”
Forsaken Trust Page 4