Anamnesis: A Novel (11 page)

Then I turned my attention to the room. I
turned the light on which worsened the horror of the scene. Now every detail
was revealed in bright overhead light. I gave the mattress a wide berth,
avoiding the blood saturated carpet, and went to the night stands. There was a
spool of paracord and scissors. The scissors were bloodied. Closer to her now,
I saw her side. Her breasts hung strangely off her chest. I looked at the
scissors again and realized they’d been used to cut her up. I wondered if
they’d been used to stab her everywhere else, too.

I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. The
police would collect evidence. They’d find prints I hadn’t destroyed and might
be able to find the killer. What good would that do me? Kaylee’s killer getting
justice was fine, but who knew how long it would take or if it would ever
happen. I’d taken things into my own hands thus far. There was no point in
giving up now.

When I surveyed the room again, my gaze
fell on the video recorder. The most horrifying thing in the room. Someone
murdered and violated Kaylee with vicious purpose, and had the forethought to
bring a camera. I studied it. The camera was connected to the TV. The same blue
screen on the TV showed on the LCD screen on the camera. Someone was either
playing a video from the camera onto the TV, or displaying the footage they
were recording.

A shudder ran through my body. What if the
killer did it so Kaylee could see, in full, what he was doing to her?

I found the memory card compartment on the
camera. It was open. The two spaces for cards were empty. I pulled open
Kaylee’s drawers and searched anywhere the killer might’ve stored them. Of
course, I found nothing. He took the cards with him. But why not the camera?
Was it an accident?

If there was anything to find, any clue, I
wasn’t going to find it. This was beyond my abilities. And I couldn’t look away
from Kaylee’s body enough to really focus.

I retrieved another wipe and cleaned
everything in the room I touched. Afterwards, I was confident there was no
trace of me anywhere in the house. At least, nothing that would incriminate me.

The bathroom was still covered in blood. I
saw handprints on the faucet and counter. I hadn’t touched Kaylee or the
mattress. The cops would surely get prints somewhere, despite what I’d cleaned
up. I went back downstairs to find Olivia sitting ramrod straight on the couch,
staring at everything and nothing all at once. She held a wireless home phone
in her hand.

“I’m done. You can call now.”

She had the phone up and to her ear in a
split second. “I want to report a murder. 914 29th Street in Queen Anne. I
can’t give you my name. No. No, I’m not. I’ll wait outside.” Olivia placed the phone
in its cradle on the end table beside the couch. “They’re on their way. They
said ten minutes. I said I’d wait in the car until they got here.”

“Why didn’t you give them your name?”

Her head hung low. She spit back the same
reason I’d given her. “You know why. No one can know I’ve seen this. No one can
put me back here, and not just because I don’t want my name tied with it. What
if whoever did this is the same one hurting me?”

“You’re right,” I agreed. Now that the
cops had been called, I didn’t have much time to clear the area. “Do you want
me to wait somewhere nearby?”

“Wait. Please.” She rubbed her neck and
stood. “I don’t know how I’ll be after I talk to them, you know?”

I nodded. I understood. “I’ll wait.”

A
n hour later
Olivia still hadn’t called me. I hadn’t heard any sirens. The night got cold
and I sat huddled on a bench in a nice park about half a mile away from the
condo. Christmas lights twinkled on most of the homes around me.

I was likely to get picked up for
loitering if someone decided to report me. Thirty-something questionable male,
chain smoking, alone in a park at night? Especially once they heard sirens in
the neighborhood. That was grounds for calling the police as far as the
population around here was concerned.

Olivia finally called me. I flipped open
my phone. “What’s up?”

“The police never came.”

The knot that formed when we first arrived
at Kaylee’s had loosened. Now it got impossibly tighter, extending up into my
heart, my throat. The police never came.

“Did you call again?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice meek. “Twice.
Both times they said someone was on their way. They kept asking me who I was
but I didn’t tell them. I don’t think anyone is coming, Ethan.”

“Fuck. That’s impossible. They have to
come.”

“I know.”

We were quiet. I spotted two dog walkers
nearing me. Both wore expensive rain gear. Lo and behold, one sported trekking poles.
Welcome to Seattle. I waited until they passed to continue talking, but
realized I didn’t have anything to say. Olivia was still on the other end,
breathing softly.

“I’ll come pick you up. Where are you?”

I described my route. She hung up after
repeating the directions and I was alone again. It only took her minutes to
drive over. I crossed the damp grass and quickly got in her car, tossing the
remainder of my cigarette onto the sidewalk before closing the door. Olivia’s
face had dried, but her eyes looked puffy and her hair rumpled. The second the
door closed she was driving.

“I’m going back. We’ll park down the
street so they won’t see you,” she assured me. “But I just need to wait a
little longer. What if they show up and I’m not there?”

“They’ll go in. After you calling them
that many times and what you said happened, there’s no way they won’t
investigate.”

“I know. I just need to…”

“I get it,” I cut her off, thinking of
Skid’s tent. “You have to see it for yourself.”

When the squatters told me Skid was dead, I
had to see his tent to know for certain he was gone. As much as you wanted to,
it was hard to draw yourself away from something that causes you pain. Like
picking at a scab, Olivia would mull over what she’d seen for years. I knew I
would. Going back probably made her feel like she wasn’t giving up.

She took a long route back to the condo, taking
ten minutes to get back to the block by the building. She found a free spot on
the side of the road and parked. Kaylee’s house was six condos away from us,
still dark with not a single car besides the Jetta in front of it.

We waited another hour. Neither of us spoke.
I tried to breathe evenly to get my heart rate down and calm myself. Nothing
worked. All I could think of was the body. The blood. The mess of flesh
destroyed between her legs, the stabs and writing that marred her figure. Each
time I brought the memory up it became more vivid.

I had a chance to help her back in the
alley. I knew something was wrong. I did nothing.

“Ethan, look.”

Her voice jolted me from the daze. A van
had backed into Kaylee’s driveway. The logo for a local plumbing company was
plastered on its side. One man got out of the passenger side and went to the
front door. He rang the doorbell. Knocked.

Then walked right in. Minutes passed and
he returned to the van. Four men got out and went into the condo, walking confidently
with toolboxes and some duffel bags. They wore uniforms. They looked normal.

I knew about people like this, though I’d
never seen them myself. I’d heard enough stories from Donovan to know they were
a cleanup crew. Look like you belong, walk in, get the job done and leave.
Later, if something went wrong and cops started asking questions, people might
remember the plumbing van. It would lead to nothing.

“What are they doing?”

“They’re cleaning up the scene.”

“Where are the police?” She was
exasperated. “How are these men here and not the police?”

The question hung in the air as the answer
dawned on us both. Somewhere, someone with authority was involved in this.
Olivia’s call had been intercepted somehow, the call for help ignored. They
must’ve been waiting for her to give up and leave before they came to clean up
the mess. Someone’s mess that they were protecting.

Olivia started the car and pulled out of
her spot. The road was too narrow to turn and go the opposite direction,
forcing us to drive past the condo. As we neared, I watched as the group of men
brought unassuming equipment into the house. I wondered how they were going to
break down the body. How they’d get all that blood out of the carpet, the
mattress. If the killer would ever receive justice for what they’d done.

The killer.

I’d been searching for answers in the
murder room. Then I realized we’d found the most important clue the moment we
walked into the house.

In mulling
silence, Olivia drove back to my apartment. She circled the block twice for a
parking spot, but was forced to go into a garage two blocks away. The greenish
blue light overhead made her runny mascara and puffy eyes look even worse. She
was on the edge of a breakdown. I knew it when I saw it because I rode that
edge almost every day. I wanted to tell her she should just go home until she
was feeling more stable. It didn’t matter what I said; she was hell bent on
talking about what we’d just seen before she left.

I was on the edge myself in that moment,
though for once I was trying to be strong for another person. I wanted a benzo
so bad I was feeling dizzy, my heart fluttering. It was in the front of my mind
before anything else, even the memories of Kaylee now. I had some in the
apartment in the new inventory Donovan gave me. Just two blocks over was a
blissful knockout waiting to happen. Olivia didn’t realize what I’d seen had
hit me hard too. When I closed my eyes, I saw Kaylee’s mutilated corpse right
behind them, plastered to my eyelids. It would take a lot to put me under
tonight.

“I know you’re exhausted,” I said, trying
my hardest to keep any accusatory tone out of it. “I know it’s hard, but we
need to keep going. We’re on to something.”

“You know it’s hard? How can you say that?
My friend was just murdered. No, not murdered. Slaughtered. Abused. And her
remains are being ferried off to God knows where. The killer is never going to be
brought to justice, just like I’ll never find out who is hurting me.”

“Calm down, Oli—”

“No! Don’t tell me to calm down. This
isn’t a time to be calm.”

Her tight grip on the steering wheel made
her knuckles white. Her shoulders were lifted high towards her ears. Even
though we were parked, the engine off, she was ready to peel out at any moment.
Olivia wasn’t going anywhere until we reached some kind of resolve.
Fortunately, I did have one insight.

“I noticed something at the condo. It
didn’t seem like anything at the time, but now it does,” I started. She relaxed
her grip and faced me. There was too much hope in her eyes. Too much
opportunity for disappointment. “When we walked in, the alarm was engaged.”

“So? Whoever was in there could’ve forced
her to engage the alarm before they killed her.”

“Maybe. Or maybe they knew it already,
like you. There were two mugs of tea on the counter. I’m not an expert host,
but I’d imagine when someone visits you, you turn off the alarm and let them
in. You don’t reengage it when you have company. Not until they leave.”

“I see what you’re getting at,” she said,
dismayed.

“Someone she knew killed her,” I finished.
“She knew them, invited them in. Had tea. There was no sign of a struggle
downstairs. Either they drugged her downstairs and took her up, or she went
willingly.”

“What about the police?”

“What about them?”

“Shouldn’t we report the murder?”

“You’re fucking kidding me. After what
just happened, you still think the police will help?”

I needed a cigarette and wasn’t going to
hold off any longer. I opened the car door and squeezed between the narrow
space separating the Immaculate Car and a giant SUV. I leaned on the back of
the Immaculate Car. A moment later Olivia was beside me. Her energy had changed
and she’d become more agitated than shocked.

“It would be a miracle if we could carry
on a conversation without you having to smoke or drink or do whatever it is you
do.”

I tapped the cigarette box against my
wrist, then pulled one out to light. The nicotine soothed my lungs. My shaking
hands calmed down a little. I blew smoke upward towards the ceiling and didn’t
speak until it dissolved.

“The police are in on this, Olivia. That
should be pretty damn obvious. Whoever is behind it, their reach goes far and
wide. You called 911 over and over, and did anyone ever come? No. When you
called 911, they didn’t inform the police. And when someone
did
come it
was to clean up the evidence. The killer could’ve called the cleanup crew, but
no matter what, this proves whatever is happening goes beyond any normal gang
around here. This is bigger.”

“So you’re saying some kingpin intercepted
my 911 call, and just didn’t pass my message onto the police?” She threw her
hands up in the air and laughed. “That’s ridiculous!”

“Do you have any other way of explaining
it? It’s simple. The operators are dirty. They’re told to flag any calls from
you, or to do with Kaylee, or that address. They tell you help is coming, but
it isn’t because they never passed it on.”

“There has to be a reason. How could
someone pay off
every
operator? What about this: I left, and maybe the
cops came right after.”

My skin broke into a cold sweat. An acidic
taste bubbled in my throat as my stomach threatened to seize. I’d been telling
Olivia to calm down when I was pretty fucked up myself. My 911 theory was a
little insane. Now that I’d sat on it, I saw that. In the heat of the moment I
got ahead of myself.

“The police didn’t come. We waited long
enough and they were no-shows. I will admit it would require a lot for all the
operators to be bought,” I said. “There’s other possibilities. You called from
Kaylee’s home phone. It could’ve been tapped. Taps are easy, Donovan’s family
does them all the time. You might not have called 911 at all.”

She picked at the hem of her jacket.
Finally, she nodded. “That seems possible.”

Satisfied with myself, I tapped ash onto
the ground and took another long drag to finish the smoke off. “And the known
person thing, too. The person that used Whiteout on Kaylee killed her, too.”

“Possibly.”

I groaned. The tension between us doubled.

 “Why are you denying this? You’re smarter
than this. You know the people who are slipping you Whiteout must be people you
know. People who know girls like Kaylee enough to know their alarm codes and
have tea with them before killing them.”

“We don’t know for certain who is drugging
me. Besides, that isn’t the issue right now. The issue is that my friend was murdered
and we’re not doing anything about it.”

“If you care so much, call from your phone
right now. See if you get the actual police. That cleanup will take hours.
Plenty of time.”

“I can’t.”

“Call from a fucking payphone then. You
have no excuse right now.”

I was at wits’ end with her. Thus far
Olivia had been rational and eager to find out who was behind the Whiteout. Now
she was slipping away, denying what was right in front of her. Knowing it was
likely someone who knew Kaylee put me one step closer to finding out who was
supplying Whiteout. I needed to work my way up the ladder, from users to
dealers to suppliers to creators, and eventually I’d get my answers. Olivia was
between me and the best way up.

“Why are you doing this? We’re finally
onto something useful and you’re trying to backtrack. Don’t you want to find
out who’s been drugging you? Don’t you want all this to end?”

Olivia wrapped her arms around herself and
hugged tightly. Her chin was tilted downward, her gaze focused on the filthy
concrete ground. “Not if it means I could get killed.”

“You could get killed anyway. You have no
idea what they do to you while you’re on Whiteout. You could be next. Wouldn’t
you rather know the complete truth than live every day knowing it will happen
again? That you’re in danger?”

“It isn’t that easy, Ethan! To admit that
people I trusted, that I’ve worked with and am friends with, could be violating
me. My career is at stake. My life,
everything
. I did want to know who’s
doing this, but after I saw Kaylee lying there I realized how dangerous this
is. I’m a fucking fundraiser coordinator! I’m not a detective. I’m not Rambo.
This is too dangerous.” She ran her hands through her hair, tugged the ends and
sighed. “I can just see myself now. Everyone would feel sorry for me, tsk-tsk
me. They’d talk to me but never work with me. I can escape this. I’ll just
move. I’ll move and start somewhere far away from Seattle.”

“Fine. If you’re out, at least tell me
people who’d know Kaylee’s alarm code.”

Olivia shook her head. She turned to get
back into the car. I grabbed her shoulder and jerked her backwards. She inhaled
sharply, turned, then pushed my chest hard enough to make me stumble back.
“What are you going to do, Ethan? Beat it out of me? I should’ve figured that’s
what someone like you would do.”

“Yeah? I should’ve figured
this
is
what
you’d
do. I had you pegged from the moment I saw you at my
doorstep. Privileged girl who thinks it’s fun to take a break from her happy,
rich life to try and solve a mystery. Then when things get serious, she runs.”
I closed the space between us, using the extra inches I had on her to try and
intimidate. “I can’t run, Olivia. This is my fucking life. You barge in here
bringing up something I’ve worked for years to ignore and now want to drop it
like it’s nothing?”

“You can run. You
have
been running
you hypocrite! Did you ever do what I told you to? Did you ever search the
missing persons database for yourself? Why is it that my life is the one we put
in the most danger to find out what’s happening. Why can’t you look at
your
life
to help us figure this out?”

“Don’t try that. You know I’m not doing
anything that involves putting me near the police. In fact, I’m still kind of
hazy on how you found out where I lived or found my blog. That blog was from
seven years ago and you magically stumble upon it?”

Olivia fidgeted. I hit something. I wasn’t
sure what, but I was getting warmer. “You’re not telling me something. I don’t
know what it is, but you’re not being honest with me. You’re all over the place
with me. You could be doing all of this on your own. That whole ‘I’m too afraid
to do it on my own’ story is bullshit. You’re perfectly capable of doing all
this on your own. Why me, Olivia?”

She turned her back on me and opened the
trunk of her car. It was almost empty, save for an emergency bag and a small file
carrier. Olivia opened it and pulled out a thin manila envelope. She tossed it
on the ground at my feet, not unlike the first time we met. I crouched down and
snatched it up, tearing open the top. Inside were two photocopied pages. On the
top was a photo of a young man. The name on the right said William Grigg.

“You looked a lot better when you were
young. How old were you then? Probably just about nineteen. Do you have any
idea how easy it was to get these? I went to the police station and asked to
see old missing persons files from the years you were gone. They didn’t care
once I told them who I was and how I was working on an outreach program.
Advantages to being a privileged girl. I spent hours poring over them. Then I
found you. It was so easy. There’s your social security number, your parents’
names, every-fucking-thing.” Olivia slammed the trunk closed, her gaze locked
on me. “I wanted you to do it yourself. I figured it would be good for you to
get to a point where you were ready for it. But since we’re trying to force
each other to do things we don’t want to, there you go Ethan. Sorry;
William
.”

Olivia walked to the driver’s side. This
time I didn’t stop her. I was still in shock by the slips of paper telling me
who I was, resting in my hands so casually. I couldn’t believe she’d had them
all this time. That she knew who I really was. She flung open the door, grazing
the car next to her. She didn’t care.

Whatever suspicions I had retreated to the
back of my mind. Olivia wasn’t telling me something, but with my true identity
staring back at me, I didn’t give a fuck about her motives anymore.

“Don’t think I didn’t see what our
relationship was. From the very beginning I knew you didn’t care about me or
what’s happening to me.” Olivia said. “You’re in this for yourself. I was okay
with it because I’m in this for myself, too. But I’m more afraid than I’ve ever
been and I need a break. I need time to figure this out. Like you said, we both
need to take a break then come back to this.”

“Oh, so now that’s a good idea? You were
fucking pissed when I suggested it before.”

“I know,” she said. “Now I’ve thought
about it and I believe you’re right.”

For a moment, we looked at each other,
neither saying a word. If Olivia was waiting for me to say something, to stop
her, to keep badgering her, she was out of luck. I was angry she’d done this
without my permission. That she’d thrown the secret at me just now, to make me
feel bad.

I slid the papers back into the envelope
and folded it, neatly tucking it in my jacket pocket. Olivia shook her head,
still quiet, and got into the Immaculate Car. It barely made a noise as the
engine turned over and she pulled out. She didn’t look behind once as she left
the parking garage.

My mouth was dry. I was more aware than
usual of the ashy taste in my mouth from the cigarettes. A headache was
brewing, induced from the argument, the terrible parking garage lights, and
every other little fucking detail. I felt alone in the garage, not just
physically. Olivia was gone. Skid was gone. All I had now was the darkness
staring back at me, and now it had a name.