Dead Suite (21 page)

He began sputtering and screeching loudly.

“Was that pepper spray?” Sadie asked, not leaving her perch on the man’s rib cage.

“Hairspray,” Rosemary replied.

Sadie was distracted by the fact that Rosemary had hairspray but was completely bald.

“My eyes are burning!” Ed shrieked.

“You stabbed three women to death and then hanged that poor guy in his garage!” Sadie
yelled in his face. “You’re lucky we don’t cut your balls off!”

Chapter 16

Rosemary spritzed Ed Muirhead in the face one more time with her killer hairspray
before the officer made it up and over the fence.

“Argh!” Ed screamed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he sputtered. “I never
hurt a soul! Some guy asked me to play the part of a grieving man hiring you to clean
up after his son who hanged himself.”

Sadie leaned forward and grabbed Ed by his ears.

“Who the hell takes a job like that!” she screeched. “You’re telling me someone asked
you to pretend your son hanged himself? What kind of a sick, so-called actor fakes
something like that?”

“An old actor who barely scrapes by doing community theatre,” Ed gasped.

The officer took over then, snapping cuffs onto Ed’s wrists and hoisting him to his
feet.

Sadie looked into Ed’s pathetic, beady little eyes, which had looked so kindly before.
She totally believed him.

“I’ve called for backup,” the officer said, breathing heavily, as if he’d done all
the work himself. “Let’s go,” he told Muirhead.

This time they discovered a gate and used that instead of climbing over the chain-link
fence. Sadie, Maeva, and Rosemary followed Ed and the cop. Just before he was tucked
into the back of the patrol car, Sadie gave in to a burst of anger. She reached into
the opening of Ed’s button-down shirt, grabbed a handful of graying chest hair, and
pulled.

“Who hired you?” she demanded.

“Stop that!” he cried.

Rosemary and Maeva pulled her back while the officer opened the back of the car.

“Some guy e-mailed me and said he saw my performance and asked if I could do a private
job for him,” Ed shouted to Sadie.

“Women are getting killed! Tell me who paid you!”

“Save the interrogation for the professionals,” the officer said, trying to calm Sadie
down.

“I don’t know who hired me,” Ed shouted from the backseat. “The guy used the same
cell phone he gave me to call you. On the day I met up with you, he slipped a couple
hundred cash in an envelope with my name on it through the mail slot at Stone Soup
along with that phone.”

“So for a couple hundred bucks a murderer hired you to trick me?” Sadie wanted to
beat the crap out of the guy right then and there. The officer, sensing her anger,
pulled her away from the car, but Ed kept talking.

“He . . . he told me you ran a company that did trauma cleaning and that this was
an elaborate prank to get you into the garage. In the e-mail he said he was a friend
of yours and that you were into practical jokes. He said there was a present for you
left in the garage and he told me not to go in, no matter what, because it would ruin
the surprise.”

“Go!” the officer ordered. “Go get your pizza and when Detective Petrovich gets here
you can let him do the talking, okay?”

Sullenly, Sadie walked up the street with her two friends.

“He sure was spry for an old guy,” Rosemary said. “I’m surprised you were able to
hold him down.”

“Do you believe him?” Maeva asked.

Sadie thought about it for a couple seconds as she watched Petrovich’s unmarked car
pull up to the curb with lights blazing.

“Yeah.” Sadie nodded. “As messed up as it is, I think he’s telling the truth.”

They went in and paid for their pizzas but Sadie had lost her appetite. Carrying their
food, they started back toward their cars, where Petrovich was talking to the other
officer.

Petrovich let them tell their story.

“One thing,” Petrovich asked. “How did you know to come here and look at that theatre
for the face of the guy who told you he was Hugh Pacheo?”

Sadie shared a look with Maeva and Rosemary and then shrugged.

“Well . . . actually, we just stopped at Pagliacci’s for pizza. We were taking a walk
while waiting for our pies and when he came out of Stone Soup, I recognized him as
the guy who met me at the garage job.”

“Quite the coincidence.” Petrovich narrowed his eyes. He looked pointedly at each
of them. “You’re sticking with that story?”

Sadie nodded. “Works for me.”

Petrovich snapped his notebook shut.

“Good, because all this excitement has made me starved,” Maeva said. She opened her
pizza box and offered a slice to Petrovich.

Dean was never one to turn down pizza, so he was about to accept the slice when Sadie
gave him her entire box.

“I’m not hungry.” Then she turned to Rosemary. “Go ahead and drop off Maeva and I’ll
meet you at your place once I’m finished here.”

They agreed, and once the Mini Cooper had left the street, Petrovich turned to Sadie.

“You believe this Ed Muirhead was just hired by this e-mail guy?” he asked, biting
off a piece of Sadie’s Brooklyn Bridge-style pizza and chewing a mouthful of pepperoni,
sausage, and mushrooms.

“He seemed believable but then he’s an actor by trade, right?” Sadie shrugged. “He
seemed pathetic but not like a serial killer.”

“Probably women said the same thing about Gary Ridgway,” Petrovich pointed out.

Sadie shuddered. She didn’t want to think about the Green River Killer who had terrorized
Washington in the eighties and nineties. She sure didn’t want to think about the forty-nine
women he was convicted of killing, or the dozens more he confessed to.

“If it’s not him, you
will
catch the guy doing this,” Sadie told Petrovich vehemently.

“Yeah.” Petrovich stubbornly stuck out his chin. “Gotta go,” he added. “I’ve got a
suspect to interview.” He turned to walk away and then stopped and looked at Sadie.
“You’re going straight to your friend’s place, right?”

“Absolutely.”

***

Sadie had full intentions of driving straight to Rosemary and Rick’s house, but she
was halfway there when she received a panicked call from Maeva. She said that when
they’d arrived to relieve the babysitter they found Osbert was running a high fever.

“Rosemary’s taking the two of us to the emergency room.” Maeva’s voice was filled
with emotion.

“He’ll be fine,” Sadie said, trying to reassure her friend. “Do you want me to meet
you there?”

“Rosemary wants you to know that Rick should be home from work in an hour to let you
in the house. Will you be okay until then?”

“I’m fine. You go take care of my godson and get back to me as soon as you know anything.”

She ended the call and debated how to spend the hour of her life before Rick Thingvold
came home. She turned the radio to a news station and continued to drive. An idea
occurred to her and she found herself cornering right onto Nickerson Street, and within
ten minutes she was driving up Halladay Street. She pulled to the curb in front of
the neighboring blue house.

She was just about to climb out of her car when a reporter announced on the radio
that there was breaking news about the Seattle Slasher.

“We have reports that all three of the women who were brutally killed by the Seattle
Slasher were connected by a local theatre company called Stone Soup.”

Sadie cranked up the radio.

“We’ve confirmed with one of the acting instructors at Stone Soup that a select group
of young people received free acting classes at Stone Soup on a regular basis. In
addition, an organization called Women Against the Streets, or WATS, routinely sent
street workers to attend classes, along with inspired youth in the community, as a
way of getting them interested in life outside the sex trade.”

Sadie thought about the connection to Stone Soup and wondered if, in fact, she was
wrong about Ed Muirhead’s innocence. He had access to all three women and it would’ve
been easy for him to find the girls he liked through the school and then lure them
to a hotel to kill them.

Her phone rang and she recognized the number from the Bay Eminence Hotel.

“Hello?”

“Sadie? It’s Herbert. How are you?”

“I’ve had better weeks. What can I do for you?”

“It might be what I can do for you,” he said.

Sadie pinched the bridge of her nose. She wasn’t in the mood for games.

“Okay, I’ll bite. What can you do for me, Herbert?”

“I remember you saying that business was slow, and I recently had an opening at the
hotel and I thought of you.”

“You’re offering me a job? Was another body tucked away somewhere at the prestigious
Eminence?”

He chuckled loudly. “No. Actually, I have a need for someone to oversee my housekeeping
department. Given your experience—”

“I have no experience whatsoever working in a hotel,” Sadie interrupted.

“No, but you certainly have experience cleaning. The job would entail overseeing staff,
scheduling, and that kind of thing, but also ensuring everyone’s cleanliness standards
are up to par.”

Sadie had a brief vision of housekeeping staff at the Eminence donning hazmat suits
and respirators and then entering rooms carrying supercharged toilet brushes.

“I’m really flattered, but I don’t think I’m suited for that kind of position.”

“The pay is substantial and we have an extensive benefit package and an impressive
retirement plan.”

And Sadie needed all those things, so it was really hard to turn him down.

“It’s very nice of you to think of me, but I’m sure there are hundreds of people more
qualified.”

“How about we have coffee just to discuss it?” he offered. “If you still say no, then
I can share with you all the secrets I know about banishing evil.” He chuckled.

“You mean there’s more to that than holy water?”

“You have no idea. I have an opening in my schedule right now, as a matter of fact.
Are you free?”

Sadie hesitated. She thought the coffee date with Herbert Sylvane was a waste of time,
but she didn’t like to burn bridges with clients either.

“My life is chaotic at the moment,” Sadie said honestly. She didn’t want to worry
Rick Thingvold if he was expecting her when he got home from work. “How about I call
you back when I know how my day is shaping up tomorrow?”

She ended the call with Herbert and dialed Rosemary and Rick’s house, but there was
no answer. She didn’t have Rick’s cell number so she had to wait until he got home
before she could head to his place. She glanced over the blue house next door to the
crazy house. She might as well talk to Roy Huett and find out what history, haunted
or otherwise, he had on the house left to him by Della Prior.

The rain showed no sign of letting up, coming down in angled sheets. Sadie reached
over to search for a ball cap she kept under the passenger seat. When her car had
been searched by detectives, they’d moved it, but she finally located it squished
into her glove compartment. Obviously the tech guys weren’t ball fans. As Sadie yanked
the cap out of the tight compartment she knocked her large purse off the passenger
seat and its contents dumped everywhere. She really needed to learn to zip up the
half dozen pockets, or go back to her old purse that had only one section.

Sadie grabbed hold of the bag from its bottom to turn it right-side up and felt a
hard square object slide around inside, but when she looked into her purse she saw
nothing. Curious, she began rifling through the pockets, but virtually all the random
purse paraphernalia had fallen onto the floor and passenger seat—except for the odd
receipt and a random tampon. She snagged the large handbag by the bottom corners and
shook it upside down until the lining itself fell out. It was then she noticed a small
cut in the cloth seam. She stuffed her hand inside the hole and it ripped a bit further.
Maybe she’d get lucky and find a random wallet stuffed with cash. More likely, Maeva
had left a powder compact and it had slid inside the lining. Her fingers managed to
grab hold of something small, smooth, and rectangular. Sadie pulled it out of the
bag and stared. It looked like a black garage-door opener without buttons.

Just then her phone chirped, announcing a message. A smile touched her lips as she
saw a text from Zack.

I got that Seattle job and I’m coming back into town tonight. Can I buy you dinner
tomorrow?

“Hell yeah.” Sadie smiled and felt her heart go thumpity-thump with joy as she replied
with a simple
Sure.

Then she used her phone to snap a picture of the device in her hand and then sent
the photo to Zack with a message:
Do you know what this is?

The phone rang in her hand a second later.

“That’s a covert GPS tracking device,” Zack said, his voice sounding concerned. “Tell
me you found it on a job and not, like, in your car or something?”

“It was in my purse.”

“Someone’s tracking you, Sadie! Why would someone be doing that? Have you been working
a dangerous job I should know about?”

Sadie didn’t want to tell him all that had been happening over the phone.

“We can talk about it tomorrow,” she said. “What should I do with it?”

“You should turn it over to the cops right away,” he said firmly.

Sadie promised that she would and then told him she’d see him tomorrow.

Once they’d disconnected, Sadie called Petrovich and told him about the GPS device.

“It’s small and black and it has a USB connection on the side.” Sadie turned it over
in her hands as she described it. “I sent a picture of it to Zack and he says it’s
a covert GPS. I feel like I’m in a James Bond movie.”

“You can get those things at any electronics store.” Petrovich cursed. “Guess we know
how the guy was finding your vehicles to leave you baggies of fingers.”

Sadie agreed.

“I’m guessing Owen Sorkin had access to your purse at one time or another?” the detective
asked.

Sadie thought about the night they spent together and blushed.

“Yes.”

“And Ed Muirhead could’ve accessed your purse when you met him at the Bellevue house?”

Sadie thought about it.

“I don’t see how, but I guess anything is possible.”

“Stay with your friends and try not to handle the thing too much until I can see if
I can get prints off it.”