Victim Six (7 page)

April 9, afternoon
Bremerton

The car sped along the back roads of Kitsap County, faster than it should. The driver didn’t care. Speed on a slippery pavement only ratcheted up the excitement of the hunt. It was as if what he sought to do weren’t dangerous enough. It wasn’t enough of a rush without the added risk of being stopped by a cop and assuming the affect of a concerned driver pulled over for a routine traffic stop—and not the look of a killer about to be apprehended. That, he was sure, would never happen as long as he paid attention to the rules.

He got on Highway 16 at Tremont Avenue and drove toward Bremerton. He slowed the vehicle in Gorst, the little burg at the tip of Sinclair Inlet. Gorst was always a possibility for what he had in mind. A topless bar and an espresso stand with baristas in pink leather hot pants was the chief draw for those who just might fit what he was looking for.

Something a little different. A little dangerous. Something pretty.

Nothing caught his eye. No need to brake, just keep going. Around the inlet and the off-ramp that led traffic past the row of Navy destroyers, aircraft carriers, and assorted ships awaiting their turn in the scrap heap. It was known as the Mothball Fleet—or, by those who disdained all things military, “tax dollars at work.”

It amused him how Bremerton, a decaying Navy town always on the cusp of a renaissance, had never been able to shake the vestiges of seedy tattoo parlors, hookers on the stroll, and druggies lurking in the garages of three-story parking lots. Half-million-dollar condos along a revamped waterfront and a horde of fine restaurants did little to ease the reality that places might change, but people’s habits don’t.

Except for some daydreaming, he’d never hunted in the place that, out of the entire Kitsap Peninsula, afforded the most chance for success.

The ferry landing was like raw bait swirling in a bucket and cast overboard. It was surefire. It attracted both people with a place to go and those who had no schedule, no clue, no interest in anything but loitering.

Or maybe scoring some heroin or the warm mouth of a hooker.

Before the enormous steel-hulled car ferries were deployed to shuttle people from one side of Puget Sound to the other, a veritable swarm of wooden steamers plowed the cold blue waters. The flotilla, aptly and lovingly called the Mosquito Fleet, had long since gone by the wayside in favor of so-called “superferries.” Yet, Port Orchard, a town that never really got the hang of redevelopment, held on to the good idea that had come and gone. The old wooden
Carlisle II
served as a link from Port Orchard’s ferry landing to Bremerton’s just across Sinclair Inlet.

It was afternoon, and Sunday’s second shift of shipyard commuters had long since gone to work. The boat was empty, save for Midnight Cassava and a couple of beleaguered out-of-towners heading over to walk the deck of the USS
Turner Joy
, a retired navy destroyer that had been playing host to tourists and war buffs for more than a decade.

“You know of any good places to eat?” a ruddy-faced fellow with gold chains coiled in the neck of his shirt asked her.

Midnight smiled. “I wish I did.” She latched on to the disappointed look on the visitor’s face. “Kidding. If you like seafood, try Anthony’s. A little pricey but good. There’s also a great Belgian beer and fry place not far from the ferry landing.”

The man smiled and then looked over at his wife. “A beer sounds good….”

“In a couple of hours it might,” snapped the tall woman with close-cropped silver hair that was either stylish or unflattering; Midnight couldn’t be sure.

As she looked out across the water pondering her future, tide lines of flotsam and jetsam arced along the steely, flat surface. She knew the job she was doing was a young woman’s game and she had responsibilities.

Soon she’d start over.

Midnight Cassava had spent part of the day riding the boat back and forth from Seattle to Bremerton. She was a slim woman, with olive skin, a full mouth, and eyes that were skilled at never registering much interest in anything. Or anyone. She was twenty-seven on her birth certificate, but the miles on her life’s odometer put her closer to forty. She didn’t like to work late at night: Feeling the chill of the air between her legs in some man’s car was far from a pleasant experience. She’d thought that those days of “lingering and loitering” were behind her. She thought she could score the money she needed by using Craigslist to troll for johns. That, however, was before her computer was stolen and her drug habit escalated. Her plans for becoming a dental assistant or a lawyer had vanished. Midnight wanted out. Anything would do. Even a shipyard clerk’s position, a job she planned to interview for, would be fine. Until then, she was merely hoping to get through the day.

Working the Washington State Ferries system was a tough gig, but with a little one at home, Midnight needed to be able to turn a trick, get off the boat, feed Tasha, and get back to work. The two-hour ferry ride back and forth worked into a schedule that she could manage.

Morning runs from Seattle to Bremerton were useless for her particular endeavor. Most of the men and women (Midnight would perform a sex act with a woman on rare occasions, and preferred it to having sex with men: it was less invasive) were in too much of a hurry to get to where they were headed. They had jobs to get to. Meetings to prep for. No one was in the mood for sex. That was fine. Midnight liked to sleep in as late as Tasha allowed her. She usually started up the ramp to the car deck around 4
P.M
. That ensured she’d catch a couple of blue-collar guys looking for a blow job in the bathroom. She even had a regular, a physician who had a Lexus with black tinted windows. He’d invite her down to his car, and they’d have “around the world” in the backseat. With the noise of the ferry’s enormous engines a perfect cover, the doctor would cut loose with the most vile epithets that a woman could ever hear. But he paid well, never coming up short like some of the others who “swore” they had another fifty, but could produce only a twenty-dollar bill.

Midnight hung around the magazine and newspaper rack near the bathrooms. The racks were filled with brochures and flyers for getaways and activities that targeted the interests of the out-of-state traveler. There were also scads of publications with names like
Coastal Homes
and
Saltwater Residences
advertising the good life. Midnight sat across from the racks at a table bolted to the floor, prison-cafeteria style. The tops of her breasts and her pretty eyes were her calling card. She had the kind of emotional intellect that could determine who wanted to look and who wanted to touch. She laughed about it with her girlfriends.

“To get a guy, all you have to do is look at his package, then flick your eyes to theirs,” she said. “And bam! If they look back at you, you’ve got a shot.”

She’d give a nod, and the fellow with the lustful look in his eyes would slip into the bathroom. Making certain the room was empty, she’d follow. The stall next to the urinal trough was ideal. The engines below rumbled as they churned the water, obscuring the muffled moans of pleasure. She’d shut the door, turn the lock, and go to work.

Her friends asked her how it was that the ferry crew, the skipper in particular, didn’t bust her or at the very least kick her off the boat, but she just laughed.

“Who do you think Tasha’s daddy is?”

That evening, work done, Midnight sat on a bench on the plaza near the ferry landing and watched a fountain that she thought spurted water like ejaculate: one pulse, then another, weaker one. She put on a pair of walking shoes and slipped the pumps she wore for most of her “shift” back into her oversize purse.

“You look lonely,” a man’s voice said.

“You look horny,” she shot back, after a quick check of his crotch.

“I might be.”

“You might be a horny cop too. Are you a cop?”

“Nope.”

“Then Midnight just might be able to take care of your problem.”

The man flashed a smile, his teeth white and straight. He was clean-cut, and even from five feet away she could smell his cologne. He wasn’t some dirty, trashy john.

“My car’s over there,” he said, indicating the parkade.

“All right,” she said, glancing at her watch. A half hour until the last ferry took workers from Bremerton to Port Orchard. “Let’s get going. I have things do to.”

He showed that big white smile again. “Me too.”

Darrin Jones had answered service calls for Otis Elevators for twenty-seven years. It was a business, he unfailingly said whenever anyone inquired about the work he did, that had its “ups and downs.”

The Monday morning he was called out to the Bremerton parkade was cool and breezy, with a band of silver clouds heading over the Olympics and on their way to bump into the Cascades. The parkade job was considered a low priority, as there were adequate stairways and reasonable access for disabled drivers on the first level. The call that the elevator had been jammed was ten hours old.

Darrin pulled into the parkade, disturbing a couple of crows that had found the confines of the concrete structure, invited by its debris field of fast-food leavings. He parked his gray panel truck in front of the elevator and looked at his wristwatch. He’d made good enough time that he could kick back and smoke before getting to work, despite signs posted that admonished him not to light up. On the seat next to him was a folder holding the details of a Caribbean cruise that he and his wife, Lynnette, were scheduled to take the following Monday, the day he officially kicked off his retirement.

Five workdays to freedom!

Another car pulled in and drove up to the next level as he crushed out his cigarette and made his way toward the elevator doors. He noticed a thin brown smear two thirds of the way down at the point where the facing doors met one another.

People are pigs,
he thought.

For a second his mind flashed on his retirement and how dealing with anyone he didn’t want to bother with was almost over.

Darrin pushed the button, but the elevator didn’t respond. He checked the fuse box around the corner.

Looks good. Damn thing’s just jammed.

And then Darrin did what anyone in his position would do, despite hundreds of hours of training and being told that a “machine should never be forced” by the operator. He punched a slot-head screwdriver between the door gaskets and worked it like a lever. It was jammed, but not so much that he couldn’t wrestle it open as he’d done a thousand times before. He widened his stance, tucked his fingers into the opening, and grunted.

The doors slowly moved, but the second he could see inside, Darrin Jones wished he’d bailed on that service call.

The floor had a spray of blood.

“Holy shit,” he said under his breath.

He knew that he was required to call the police whenever there was anything suspicious to report. Company policy was precise on it. But he also knew that a call to the police would mean irritating discussion and paperwork.

I’m going to the Caribbean,
he thought.
Lynnette and I don’t deserve this.

Darrin looked around. It was quiet. He went back to his van and retrieved some rags and a canister of cleaning fluid. He hated the company. He hated the people who pissed, defecated, or bled in his elevators.

He wasn’t going to call it in, and he sure wasn’t going to miss the rum punch he’d been dreaming about.

April 10, 9 a.m.
Port Orchard

Evil can lodge in the psyche like a
Partridge Family
song that catches a clock radio listener off guard as they wake from a night of steady slumber. The words that spewed from the man who’d called Serenity to detail what he claimed he’d done to the dead woman in the bay were like that. She replayed his words as she showered, brushed her teeth, and dressed in her work uniform: a pair of black jeans and a white sweater. She grabbed her notebook, purse, and car keys. She skipped breakfast, not feeling hungry.

She had a million more questions for the man, and she half hoped he’d call again, although the thought of it made her empty stomach turn. She wondered why he’d called her instead of another reporter for a bigger paper. The timbre of his voice had resonated in a strange way too. It wasn’t that he had an accent or anything distinguishable; it was kind of an average voice. Slightly mechanical, maybe.

Charlie Keller met her by the office door.

“I asked Josh Anderson to come up,” he said.

Serenity rolled her eyes. “Great, Charlie. He’s always hitting on me.”

Charlie lowered his voice as he led her into the conference room, “You’ll be sorry the day dirty old men
don’t
hit on you. But you’re too young to know that right now.”

Josh was already ensconced in the boardroom/interview room. He had a Seahawks mug of burned-on-the-bottom-of-the-pot newsroom coffee and a rolled-up copy of the
Seattle Times
.

“No mention of any missing girl,” he said, thumping the paper on the back of a chair.

“Maybe no one knows she’s missing,” Serenity said, taking a seat across from the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office detective. He was handsome, confident. Maybe a little too cocky, she thought. Her eyes landed on his open shirt collar, and she wondered why he felt compelled to expose that tuft of slightly graying chest hair.

“Charlie says you got a nasty crank call,” he said, eyeing her.

She nodded at the understatement. The call had been nasty indeed.

“If it was a crank,” she said.

“Tell the detective what he said to you.” Charlie fished a powdered donut from a box that Serenity suspected was left over from the day before, when the ad staff had brought in the fried pastries to kick off their “Donut Make Sense to Advertise” promotion. White confectioner’s sugar drifted like snow onto his robin’s-egg-blue tie, but Charlie didn’t appear to notice.

“Look,” she said, “I’m really not comfortable relaying all of the disgusting things that creep said to me.”

“I can take it,” Josh said. His tone was breezy, almost tauntingly so.

Serenity let out a sigh. “Of course you can.”

“Tell him,” Charlie finally said, dusting the sugar from his tie.

She took out her notepad and hurled what that man had said to her across the table.

The last one caught the detective’s attention.

“Sounds like a commercial on late-night cable.”

“Yeah, if your channel is Hell TV. Seriously, Detective Anderson—”

“Call me Josh,” he said.

He was hitting on her again. Charlie winked at Serenity—at least, she thought he had.

“Okay.
Josh
,” she said. “The man was a freak and enjoyed every minute of the call. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was masturbating while he talked.”

“That wouldn’t surprise me, either. Get his number?”

“Do you mean did I write it down so I could call him back for more of his vile talk?”

Josh narrowed his brow. He seemed to almost enjoy making her squirm a little. “No, that’s not what I mean. On your cell phone. Did you capture his number?”

“He called my landline. And no, there was no number. ‘Private caller’ was the designation that came up.”

Serenity picked at a cinnamon twist but determined it was beyond stale.
Almost petrified
, she thought.

“Did you notice anything about his voice—anything that might help ID him? You know, while the conversation is fresh.”

Serenity thought for a moment while the two men looked on. “His voice was odd.”

“Odd?” Josh asked.

“Yes. Kind of bland.”

The detective pressed her for details. “Old or young?”

She studied him with a prolonged stare, in a manner that was meant to show she was doing so. “Old. About your age.”

Charlie reached for another donut, an attempt to mitigate the tension in the room—or simply because those donuts were pretty tasty. Sugar and all.

Josh’s face with a little red, but he tried not to let on that the insult had struck a nerve.

Almost immediately, Serenity amended her answer.

“I didn’t mean that he was an old man like you,” she said. “I mean
mature
. You know…someone middle-aged.”

Josh Anderson grinned. The pretty young reporter had challenged him a little, and he liked it. If she was a little sorry that she hurt his feelings, that meant that she was interested.

All the pretty girls were.

“Every time I do this, I sound like Mickey Mouse,” Melody said, setting down the voice changer while her husband impatiently looked on. “I just can’t do it.”

Sam took the device and moved the slide control, modulating timbre and pitch.

“You can. And you will,” he said. “It just takes practice. First time I did it, I thought I sounded like Darth Vader.” He pushed the headset back at her, and she took it.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll practice.” She dialed Sam’s cell number, and he answered.

“Hi,” she said.

“Slide the settings,” he said.

“Okay. Here I am.”

Her voice sounded unsure but more masculine. Not quite an automated digital tone but something less than human.

“Lower,” he said. “But just a bit—don’t overdo it, babe.”

Melody moved the control almost imperceptibly.

“How’s this?” she asked in a voice that sounded distinctly completely male.

“Love it,” he said. “Now, say what I want you to say.”

She looked down at some notes that she’d written to remind her just how she was supposed to play it.

“You’re a hot little bitch,” she said, hesitating.

“Tell her,” he said.

“I like that top you wore the other day. The one that showed off your body.”

He looked at her from across the room. One hand was in his pants; the other clamped the phone to his ear.

“Why are you doing this to me?” he asked.

“Because you deserve it, bitch,” she said.

“I’m going to hang up right now.”

“Hang up on me, bitch, and you die.”

He took his phone from his ear and motioned for her to come. Melody took off the headset and started toward him.

“Pull off your panties,” he said. “You’re a very good student, and you need a reward. I got something for you.”

Melody did what she was instructed. It wasn’t about being acquiescent or afraid. The fear just gave way to the thrill of what they did together. She didn’t think that what her husband was doing to her just then was any kind of a violation. It was a gift. She accepted him and whatever he put into her. She knew deep down what he wanted. He’d told her time and again.

“You’re an obedient bitch, but you’re not as pretty as she is. And I’ll bet she’s a whole lot more fun in bed.”

“All I want to do is please you,” she said, dropping to her knees.

“Then shut up and suck. You talk too much.”