The First Victim

CHAPTER 43

"Ms. McNeal?’’ a woman’s trembling voice inquired.

Stevie recognized that voice immediately. ‘‘Ms. Klein?’’

‘‘I saw you on TV. The reward and all.’’

Klein sounded nervous. Stevie took that to be in her favor.

‘‘I didn’t have anything to do with a woman going missing. I want you to know that. But. . what I was wondering. . about that reward. If I could help you out, where would that leave me in terms of that reward?’’

‘‘If you-’’

Klein interrupted. ‘‘You’re gonna get me killed. You understand? Those people would kill me in a heartbeat.’’ She added, ‘‘So we gotta work this out, you and me.’’

‘‘I’ve tried to work this out-’’

‘‘I know, I know. My husband says I’m gonna bring a world of hurt down on this family, and my family’s everything to me, absolutely everything, and if there’s ten thousand dollars in it for me, then maybe I’m better off talking to you, on account I’m already involved with these people and all and they’ve got me scared half to death.’’

Stevie felt as if she’d swallowed a bubble of air, or eaten ice cream too fast. She spoke a little too quickly for the professional she was trying to be. ‘‘My sources are protected by the First Amendment. Better you talk to me than call the police. We can work this out. I think we should talk, Ms. Klein. Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell me everything you know?’’

‘‘I’m standing at a pay phone in a mobile home park. You want to talk, you gotta come to me, on account I don’t want to be seen in my car.’’

‘‘Who is it you’re afraid of? Give me a name, Ms. . Gwen. I need something, anything, in order to know you’re telling the truth. You understand?’’ You could be setting a trap, she was thinking.

‘‘Forget it. I’m not doing this over the phone.’’

‘‘Then where?’’ Stevie asked. ‘‘Tell me where you are.’’

Klein described a mobile home park east of Avondale. She would be waiting.

Just before cradling the receiver, Stevie heard a click on the line. At the time, she thought it was nothing more than Klein hanging up.

One of the sports teams had played. The traffic was bumper-to-bumper at a complete standstill. Stevie took the floating bridge to Bellevue, a fifteen-minute drive that took forty-five. She drove north toward Redmond, home of the Microsoft campus, still caught in traffic. Well over an hour since Klein had called. Residential communities had popped up everywhere in an area once predominantly second-growth forest. Condominiums, co-ops, single-family homes-cul-de-sac neighborhoods where dinner conversations centered around ‘‘bandwidth’’ and ‘‘port speed.’’ She drove through the surviving forest on Avondale Road, twilight glimpses of Bear Creek to her right, consternation mounting as she became suspicious of the constant stream of headlights behind her. An hour and a half. Any of these cars might have been following her. She pushed against her own paranoia and stuck to the job at hand: The key witness in the case had just agreed to talk. An hour forty-five.

With less than a mile to go, Stevie turned right and finally lost all the headlights.

Blood drumming in her ears from excitement, she licked her lips and spoke a few words to clear her throat.

She rechecked her note to be sure she wanted number seven, where lights burned. She climbed out. Conflicting television shows battled their laugh tracks across the asphalt, past the propane tanks and the mildewed laundry lines. A telephone rang down a ways and a woman’s voice cried out, ‘‘I’ll get it.’’

The aluminum screen door on number seven had been hung incorrectly. It was pocked and blackened with corrosion. She banged on the frame and called out hello. The trailer’s redwood steps were slick and treacherous. The air smelled loamy, wet and dark with rot. This was a place that did not know sunlight.

She caught a whiff of propane gas coming from the trailer itself. She pressed her nose closer and confirmed this. The blinds were pulled, but the smell leaked from the slatted windows as well. Her heart lodged in her throat.

Still on tiptoe, she leaned heavily to her right and pushed her eye to a crack between the interior blinds. Two legs. A woman sitting, perhaps. She knocked again, checked back: Those legs had not moved. The surge of adrenaline seemed to start in her toes and race up toward her face, which became hot with panic.

She tested the door. Locked. Pounded on the door in frustration.

She jumped off the steps and hurried around the trailer, leaping to steal looks inside. On the far side of the trailer another, smaller door. Also locked. She pushed against the door, creating a gap between the cheap molding and the door itself. She used a credit card to open the latch. The door swung into the trailer, unleashing a sickening stink of propane. Her stomach wretched as she leaned away and gulped for fresh air.

‘‘Hurry!’’ she pleaded with herself.

She charged inside, aware that the slightest spark would ignite the gas. The quarters were small and cramped. Her eyes stung, her lungs ached. Klein sat in a chair, head slumped, eyes shut, her swollen tongue a black-violet rage. Stevie wretched bile, coughed and staggered. Her head swooned. She took hold of the woman’s body and pulled her violently from the chair. The body thumped onto the floor. She weighed several tons. Stevie shoved the woman out the door, got caught up with her and somersaulted down the steps, buried under the dead weight. Stevie grunted, heaved and thrust the corpse off her, that bloated tongue aimed at her cheek as if asking for a kiss.

Stevie vomited again, frantically extracting herself from the mud, the cold, the ooze. She struggled for her cellphone and dialed 911.