Victim Six

Chapter Forty

February 2, 12:40 p.m.

Port Orchard

If there is a neighborhood of distinction in South Kitsap, most would consider it to be McCormick Woods, on the eastern edge of Port Orchard. It was an enormous development of rambling acreage surrounding a golf course and dotted with an eclectic mix of custom homes that showcased dreams, sometimes at the expense of good taste. Look here: a Mediterranean villa. Over there: a Craftsman-style monstrosity. Next door: a block-stretching rambler built for older people who disdain stairs.

The Godding place was an Italian-styled affair with stucco and archways that were meant to inspire oohs and aahs from the architecturally challenged folks who drove by, wishing they’d be able to get a peek at the interior.

Unfortunately, the grandeur of the house’s exterior was a cover-up for the heartbreak that resided there.

In fact, Carol Godding’s birthday present from her husband the previous year was her abandonment. Dan Godding, a former Kitsap County Commissioner, left Carol, the house, the dog, and everything they owned when he drained the couple’s liquid assets and moved to central Florida with his high school sweetheart. A plucky woman, Carol sucked it up (as her ex likely knew she would), kept current on the mortgage, and started to sell off everything that reminded her of Dan. She’d worked her way through most of the items in the garage: tools, a decrepit Porsche that Dan was going to restore, and a golf cart. Next on her hit list were the sporting goods-hers and his. That week she listed on Craigslist a canoe that had been a favorite of hers. Dan had refused to take the classes at the South Kitsap High School pool. He just didn’t see the purpose of paddling when he could use a powerboat.

Later, when hurt turned to anger, Carol saw that as a watershed moment. How could she love a man who thought the loud noise of a powerboat was preferable to quietly gliding through the water in a canoe?

She downloaded a photo showing her canoeing on the protected waters of Sinclair Inlet, not far from McCormick Woods. In the photograph she looked younger than her years in a chartreuse polar fleece vest and hat, smiling from ear to ear as she held up her paddle as if to say “I did it!”

Sam Castile was among the first of a half dozen callers.

“Saw your ad,” he said. “Is the canoe still available?”

“I think so. I had some lookers earlier today. Said they’d be back.”

“My son and I are in the area. Would it be convenient if we came by?”

“Now?’

“I can be there in ten minutes.”

Carol looked at the time. She’d been planning on making a Sunday Costco run before the day got away from her. But she wanted to get rid of that canoe. As much as she loved it, she was determined to downsize everything from her old life, sell the house, and get out of the neighborhood, where she had never wanted to live in the first place.

She gave him the address.

“I’ll be waiting. What’s your name?”

“Rick Davis,” he said. “See you in a few.”

The human body is a cocoon of skin. No matter the color, the condition, the age, the membrane that stretches over the bony frame of a person’s skeleton and musculature is the key to understanding the demise of so many. A knife. A box cutter. The shattered neck of a beer bottle. All had been deployed by those who seek to do harm. Kendall had seen the evil that men-and even an occasional woman-do with the sharp edge of a tool meant to slice the cocoon that holds a person together. Skin was so fragile, like a tissue paper cover on a drum; it could be punctured by the prick of a sharp tool.

She twirled through the autopsy photos on the CD that Dr. Waterman had burned and sent over. In total, there were more than 400 images, all gruesome and tragic as they told the story of what happened. Skye’s skin was chalky white. The gash that severed her carotid artery was more than an inch wide, the tissue pushing out like the screaming lips of a clown, red, full. On her back in the vicinity of her shoulder blades were two large puncture wounds, narrow at the top like a pair of inverted keyholes. The young woman had been hung like a deer carcass and left to bleed out. The county’s forensic pathologist indicated that the killer had done a thorough job. She’d had lost around two pints of blood in her body-one fifth of the volume of a woman of her weight.

Wounds postmortem [Dr. Waterman had written in her notes]. The wound on the left is a quarter-inch larger, shows some hesitation. Serrated blade. The wound on the right is crisper, cleaner. It is possible that perpetrator of these postmortem injuries gained confidence as he gained experience. There is one bit of caution here. The angle of the second cut is about twenty degrees different than the first. This kind of differential suggests the possibility that the same person did not make both cuts.

Kendall looked at the photograph that Dr. Waterman had referenced with that last point. The angle change was not visible in the photo. An idea rolled around in her thoughts. Was there a pair of killers? There was a kind of timidness suggested by one of the perpetrators. There was also the idea that Marissa’s face had been enhanced, likely in death, with makeup.

Was one a woman?

Like all who vanish, Carol Godding had no idea that it was the day of her disappearance. When she laid her clothes on her freshly made bed, she was unsure if the brown slacks really could be worn with the foggy-blue top that the saleswoman at the Tacoma Mall Nordstrom had insisted was “to die for.” It just didn’t look right, and she was unsure if the old trick of trying to tie the outfit together with accessories was really going to work. She put on blue jeans and a sweater instead, facing the mirror over the antique pecan-wood bureau that had belonged to her grandmother. She set a couple of necklaces out and held them to her throat one at a time. The first, a chunky gold link that was supposed to be Italian in design, had been purchased by her mother from QVC.

Not working for me, she said to herself, setting the chain down. She held up a strand of blue and brown beads that had a far more inspiring origin. She’d purchased them herself the summer before when she traveled to Peru with her best friend, Connie.

Former best friend, she thought, fastening the lobster-claw clasp and refusing to revisit the incident that had shredded their bond. Over a man, no less. She gave herself one more look in the mirror and shook her head.

This is as good as I’m going to get with this ensemble.

“I see you beat me to it,” Gary Wyatt said, watching the man and his young son try to hoist the yellow canoe into the back of his long-bed pickup.

Sam Castile spun around and slapped on a quick smile.

“Yeah, your loss,” he said. “Early bird, all that stuff.”

Gary, a sandy-haired grandfather of six, shrugged as he lumbered over to the rear of the truck.

“Can I give you a hand?” he said, his eyes lingering on the prize that he’d missed out on.

Max Castile stepped back so the older man could help.

“Sure. Bought a bunch of other stuff too.”

The inside of the canoe was covered with a brown plastic tarp. Gary bent at his knees and started to lift.

“Jesus, did you buy some bricks or what?”

Sam laughed. “Something like that. Some old cinder blocks she had out back.”

“Oh. She said she was selling as much of her ex-husband’s stuff as she could. Wonder what else she has left.”

The canoe was now in the back of the truck, and Sam ran a nylon rope from hooks on either side of the tailgate through a steel loop on the end of the boat.

“She’s gone,” he said. “Took off for church or something. Took the money and ran.”

“Just my luck,” Gary said.

Sam turned to his son. “Ready to go, buddy?”

Max, who hadn’t said a word, nodded like a bobblehead.

“Thanks for the help. Nice to know there are still good people in Port Orchard.”

“No worries. Have fun with the canoe.”

Sam waved as he pulled away slowly, watching Gary as he went back to his car.

It was Carol Godding’s sixty-two-year-old Kitsap Sun paperboy who noticed that something was wrong. Three days worth of Suns crammed the bright blue plastic paper tube affixed below Carol’s mailbox. He remembered how she’d mentioned she was heading to Southern California for a few weeks and figured he’d got the dates wrong. He pulled out the newspapers and put them in the backseat of his car. Next he called her number and left a message.

“Ms. Godding, call me when you get back to town. I’ll start up the paper lickety-split.”

Several days passed, and no one else noticed she was gone. The Goddings had not fostered ideal relations with their neighbors. Dan had waged war with the people on both sides over a wall of prolific Leyland cypresses that he’d planted to create some privacy but ultimately blocked others’ views of the golf course.

Carol had apologized for the less-than-neighborly attitude of her husband and tried to make amends. But by then battle lines had been drawn, and she was considered to be a bitch married to an asshole. It was a stigma that, despite her kind and outgoing nature, she couldn’t shake. When she volunteered at the community garage sale to raise money for the Port Orchard food bank, she got the cold shoulder from the women in charge. As a result, no one cared enough about Carol to notice if something was amiss.

There were no second chances in McCormick Woods.

Kirsten Potts was called “The Enforcer” or “The Landscaping Nazi” behind her back. Kirsten didn’t care. In fact, when she first heard of the moniker she only feigned indignation. To her, backbiting and fear brought results. She lived in McCormick Woods because she liked the orderliness of a neighborhood with strict covenants. She wasn’t really supposed to patrol the streets of the development, looking for bushes that needed to be trimmed or lawns that needed to be mowed. She’d been told several times by the homeowners association president that they were “not to seek out infractions like a police force but to wait for neighbors to bring things to our attention.”

Kristen didn’t care. She routinely drove around McCormick Woods with a camera, a ruler, and a wary eye. She’d been watching the Godding place for the past week. The Goddings had been on her radar for years after the Leyland cypress brouhaha, but they’d kept the place in tiptop condition. Lawn edged. Pines trimmed poodle perfect. The fountain in front never foamy. She’d heard gossip about the Goddings from the committee after Carol started writing the homeowners’ dues from a new account. Dan’s car was gone too.

The yard was looking shaggier and shaggier, and Kirsten Potts decided action was the order of the day. She rang the bell; no answer. She knocked as loudly as her tight little fist could pound.

She leaned close to the sidelight next to the door, but the house was quiet. She went around to the garage, noticing the sorry state of the lawn.

Jeesh! Talk about letting a place go to seed! she thought.

Kirsten Potts didn’t consider herself a snoop. Snoops almost never do. She felt an urge to try the side door to the garage. She turned the knob and pushed it open. When she stepped inside, she immediately knew something terrible had happened there.

She opened her phone and called 911.

Chapter Forty-one

February 4, 1 p.m.

Port Orchard

Kendall Stark ate alone at a small café in downtown Port Orchard. She’d brought a salad Steven had made the night before but had left it in the car. Now it was a soggy mess. The café was no great shakes, but it gave her a moment to think. She watched a woman across the room cut her daughter’s hamburger into small pieces while she talked on a cell phone. The girl was about fifteen and obviously impaired. She sat hunched over her plate while her mother did her duty.

Poor girl. Maybe cerebral palsy? Kendall was unsure. But what struck her was how the mother just went on and on with her phone conversation, cutting the food as if her child were not present. She was grateful for Cody, happy that despite her son’s problems they were connected. They had a bond. He might not be the son of her dreams, but she’d learned to love every minute they shared. The realization had come slowly.

Her phone vibrated. She set down her fork and answered a call from Josh. It soon became clear that the apple pie she had ordered, which the waitress had said was the best in the county, was going to go uneaten.

“I’m way up north in Kingston,” he said. “We’ve got a deputy out at McCormick Woods on a call, Kendall, but since you’re not far, can you check it out?”

She took down an address in McCormick Woods.

Kendall Stark surveyed the interior of the Godding garage. There was a pegboard with outlines of various tools, most of which were missing. Carol’s car, a dark blue Lexus, was in perfect condition. In the space next to the car was what had caught Kirsten Potts’s attention. In the middle of the concrete floor was Carol’s dog, a Doberman named Dolly.

Someone had taken hedge loppers and sheared off the dog’s head.

A pool of dried blood fanned out over the concrete floor. The dog’s decomposing head was separated from its body by about four feet. A rope apparently had been used to choke the dog before it was decapitated. Kendall recorded the scene with pictures and measurements. She sketched out what she was seeing and phoned Animal Control to come get the dog.

A few neighbors had gathered in the driveway, a self-satisfied Kirsten Potts in the center of the group. They seemed to seize the moment to do some neighborhood kibitzing. One woman brought up the subject of the new menu at Mary Mac’s, the clubhouse restaurant, and how it didn’t offer enough vegetarian options.

“Honestly,” said the woman, whose earlobes were stretched into pendulums of flesh by a pair of too-heavy earrings, “the management there seems more focused on cutesy golf-inspired names for their menu items than what they serve there. A Par Four Omelet-come on!”

Kirsten didn’t appreciate that the conversation was being diverted from her, so she ignored the vegetarian complaint.

“I was worried about the condition of her yard,” she told a woman in black stretch pants and a red plaid jacket. “I never thought their dog was much of a problem.”

Kendall approached the group, and they fell silent.

“Here comes the detective,” Kirsten said.

“Does anyone know how we can reach Ms. Godding?” she asked. “Do you know where she works?”

Plaid Jacket shrugged. “I heard that she looked for a job after her husband left her. Couldn’t find anything in her field, whatever it was. I didn’t know her well.”

A truck from animal control pulled up, and the group watched two men go inside the garage.

“She was selling a lot of stuff online,” said Kirsten, proving herself to be the neighborhood know-it-all.

A retired commander from the Navy who lived next door spoke up.

“She told me that she was going to visit friends or relatives down south. She wasn’t too explicit, and I didn’t ask. She traveled a lot.”

Kendall took down the man’s name and phone number.

“So the consensus here is that Ms. Godding is on vacation.”

Kirsten piped up. “If you’re leaving for more than three days, you’re required to alert the HOA.”

“Her ex never followed the rules, either,” Big Earrings said.

The animal control officers emerged a moment later carrying the dog’s corpse in a thick plastic wrapping.

Kendall made sure the garage door was locked. She noticed a large water bowl on the patio. It was elevated in a metal frame, a glossy white ceramic dish decorated with coal-black paw prints and Dolly’s name. Wind chimes in the shape of silvery dog bones spun on a chain from the eaves. That dog was loved, Kendall thought. If Carol Godding was going out of town for more than three hours, she likely wouldn’t have left Dolly alone. She got in her car and drove back to the office, leaving a group of deputies to cordon off the site.

Josh had been working the case from another angle, and Kendall needed to know what he had found out.

Carol Godding had been dumped by her husband, and by all accounts she’d gotten over it-at least, as much as any woman can when the man she loves with all her heart drops the bomb. Until that moment Carol had fooled herself into thinking that she was happy. She was middle-aged and facing the prospect of starting over.

Kendall ’s examination of the Godding residence pretty much told the story. The refrigerator was stocked with flavored waters and diet salad dressings. The guest bedroom had been heaped with things that her husband had left behind: engineering books, workout clothes, and CDs by rock bands that hadn’t been relevant for two decades. The front room was mostly empty of furniture, which had been replaced by a dozen cardboard boxes that held housewares, linens, and books. The boxes weren’t completely full.

When Josh told Kendall that he’d learned from the neighbors that Carol had participated in the McCormick Woods neighborhood garage sale, the state of the home’s disarray made sense.

“Did you see the stack of garage sale signs by the back door?”

Kendall nodded.

“She was on the committee for last week’s big sale. Her job was to put up and take down the signage. One of the neighbors asked for them, and I didn’t see any harm, so I let her take them.”

“I thought the neighbors didn’t care for Carol.”

“Her husband. They hated him.”

“I see.”

“Seriously, I don’t think the woman who asked for the signs cared much about anything other than getting the signs back. She’s having her own sale next door on Saturday. She’s worried that our missing-persons case will bring out the lookie loos.”

Kendall shook her head. “Kill me before I ever move into one of those subdivisions. Promise me, okay?”

Josh grinned. “Deal.”

Steven Stark had used the afternoon to split wood from a cherished madrona that had died two summers before. Madronas were red-barked trees native to the Northwest that were striking in form and color. Anyone who had one growing in his yard felt lucky. The Starks had only one, and Kendall had cried when it started to die limb by limb, all of its characteristic waxy green leaves turning bronze. The wood had cured, making it easier to split. Easier, but not easy: Madronas are a dense hardwood, known to bend a penny nail.

Sweat bloomed under Steven’s arms and ran from his temples as he hoisted and swung a sharpened ax into the heart of each piece of wood. Cody sat on the swing in the backyard not really watching his father but seemingly captivated by thoughts in his head that he’d never be able to share.

“Hi, you two,” Kendall said, emerging from inside the house. She was wearing dark gray slacks with a blouse of sea-foam green that she had put on that morning. Despite the long day, she looked lovely. Her cropped blond hair caught the late-afternoon light, almost making it glow. She kissed Cody and gave his swing a gentle push before planting a kiss on Steven’s sweaty lips.

“You taste like salt,” she said.

Steven smiled at her. Their eyes locked.

“You taste like honey.” He set the ax down. Behind him was a mountain of evidence that he’d been hard at work.

“Long day,” he said. “For you too.”

Kendall sat down on the swing next to their son. “An incident out at McCormick Woods today.” She looked at Cody; his gaze was fixed on a small flock of Canada geese overhead. She wouldn’t give any details.

“I’m worried,” was all she could say.

Steven knew what that meant. Kendall could be completely poker-faced during an interrogation, but not with those she loved. She had a face that invited those who loved her to see the need for comfort. Later that night, with Cody asleep, she would tell her husband about the dead dog and the missing woman.

She’d even use the words that had been the invention of the Lighthouse news staff:

Has the Cutter struck again?

Ultimately she dismissed it. Carol was not a young woman. She didn’t have anything in common with the others. On the surface, she was a professional woman of some means. Skye was a free-spirit wannabe; Celesta was a food service worker and brush picker; Marissa was a prostitute.

There was very little reason to carry on without his daughter, and Cullen Hornbeck had considered becoming one of those tragic statistics that make the TV news now and then: the one that sadly reminds the world that it is too painful for many parents to outlive their children, that when the rhythm of life is disrupted to such a degree, only death, it seems, can salve the wounds.

Skye had been dead and buried for months, and there was no getting over it. When Cullen logged on to his computer to compose a suicide note, he ran through some of the old e-mails that she had sent him. His heart ached with the loss and memory of his beautiful little girl.

He hadn’t told anyone they had argued the day before she left. Skye had told him in no uncertain terms that her life was her own and that her college degree would always be there for her, like a savings plan for rainy day.

“But I won’t always be young, Dad. I want to do something other than what you and Mom see for me. I don’t know what it is, but I’ll know it when I see it.”

He had told her she was ungrateful. The next day she was gone.

As he rolled though his e-mails, he noticed that his spam filter was full. He opened the file and, one by one, started deleting the unwanted offers of sex, larger breasts, and a bigger penis. Near the list’s end was a two-meg file-too large for the settings of his free e-mail account.

It was from Skye, sent the day after she disappeared.

He clicked on it.

The message was brief.

Dad, Don’t worry about me. Don’t be mad. I’m going to do what you always told me you wanted me to do: be myself.

I’ll call you tomorrow.

Love, S

The e-mail included a large, uncompressed photograph. Cullen clicked on the image, and slowly the pixels found focus and a picture filled his computer screen. It showed Skye standing on the deck of a Washington State Ferry, the cloud-laden Seattle skyline in the background. She had a big smile on her face and a backpack slung over her shoulder. She was wearing a red hoodie, halfway unzipped. Around her neck was the sterling silver yin-and-yang necklace that her mother had made for her when she graduated from high school. Not only did the sight of his daughter looking at the lens with a smile on her face bring tears to his eyes, it brought him newfound resolve. There would be time to be together in heaven. But not yet.

He forwarded the e-mail to the two women who seemed to care most about his daughter’s fate; neither woman was Skye’s mother.

Cullen tapped out a short note:

Just found this… She made it to Bremerton… Please find my daughter’s killer. She said she’d call me “tomorrow”-there was no tomorrow for Skye.-CB

Kendall Stark opened Cullen Hornbeck’s e-mail on an office computer and deliberated on the photograph while Josh looked over her shoulder.

“She was a beautiful girl,” Josh said, as if such a remark had anything to do with the reason they were viewing the last known image of the Cutter’s second victim.

“Notice something?” Kendall asked.

“One thing jumps out, for sure.” He pointed to the name of the vessel, visible on a flotation device in the foreground. It was familiar to most native western Washingtonians. “She was on the Walla Walla, which means she made it to Bremerton.”

Kendall nodded. “Also, look: she’s not wearing the green blouse she had on when we found her body in Little Clam Bay. That can only mean she either changed her outfit that day-not likely-or she was picked up by someone after she got off the boat.”

Josh processed what Kendall had said. “Not only that,” he said. “She promised to call her dad the next day, which we know she never did. Look at the time stamp on the photo. It was Sunday.”

It was not a night for eighties music. Her cat, Mr. Smith, at her feet and the sounds of a Seattle classical music station filling the apartment, Serenity Hutchins went about the task of checking her e-mail before calling it a night. She resisted the urge to Twitter, or log on to Facebook. Those were extras after a long day. E-mail, however, was just part of staying connected with those friends and family members who really mattered.

She had twenty messages in her in-box, but skipped the others in favor of Cullen Hornbeck’s. She talked to him at least once a week, and for a while, early on in the case, they had traded e-mails daily. But their contact had dwindled, and it pained her.

The picture of Skye on the ferry appeared, and she felt a lump in her throat. Skye was such a beautiful girl, and if Cullen was correct, this image had to have been taken not long-hours, maybe-before she died. She wanted to write back with a request to publish the photograph in the paper. She stopped herself. Partly because it was opportunistic and she knew it. But there was another reason. The pendant around the dead girl’s neck jolted her a little.

She’d seen someone wearing one just like it.

She clicked on the zoom feature and expanded her view. Around Skye’s neck was a silver charm. It was a familiar design, the ancient Chinese symbol of the connection between opposing forces. Good and evil. Light and dark. Laughter and tears. And while its design was common, its construction was unique.

It was silver and black, with the silver part hammered with a hundred tiny dents. Both of the swirls were accented by a diamond.

Chapter Forty-two

February 4, 9:40 p.m.

Bremerton

Pillow talk was always the surest way to get a good scoop. As Serenity Hutchins lay next to Josh Anderson, it crossed her mind that she was using him as much as he was using her. Her youth, her figure, and the pleasure that he gained from being with her were undeniable. He kept saying so. As the light crept across his features while he stared into her eyes, she noticed that he was pleading in a way. It was gross. It was demeaning.

And yet, there she was.

“You feel like going out to eat?” he asked, rolling closer to her on the bed. “Or we could see what’s in the fridge. I’m a pretty good cook, babe.”

“Sounds good,” she lied.

Josh propped his head up on her pillow. She could feel his foot caress her.

“Which?”

“Let’s stay in.”

Serenity knew that what she had been doing was wrong. It was wrong on every level imaginable. She could hear the girls at the paper whisper about how she “slept with her source.” Charlie Keller would probably say something inane like “you gotta do what you gotta do,” as if there could be some excuse for her behavior. She didn’t want the people she knew in town to see her out with Josh Anderson and make judgments about her.

Even though they would be correct.

“Let me cook for you,” she said. “You’ve had a tough day.”

“They’re all tough,” he said, planting his feet on the floor and reaching for a robe slung on the back of a chair.

“What happened over at McCormick Woods this afternoon?”

He looked at her, sizing her up a little, wondering if she only cared about what he could tell her. Not about him. Deep down he knew the answer, and for a beat he felt deflated. It was no longer about how handsome he was, how sexy he was, how charming he could be. A pretty young woman like Serenity Hutchins, he figured, was either looking for money or a father figure. With his string of bad marriages and poor financial decisions, money was not the reason she was attracted to him. As for being a father figure, he knew that she had some unresolved family issues. His own relationship with his son was likely the best measure that he was hardly a paragon of fatherhood.

It was about what he could tell her.

The sex was good, and whatever she was really doing there in his bed seemed a fair tradeoff. She made him feel younger, virile. She made him think that he could still catch the eye of a pretty girl, even when she was clearly using him.

“You’re asking about Godding, correct?”

Serenity tucked a towel around her lithe body, her breasts compressed by the fabric. “I never got the name. I just heard there was something strange going on in Kitsap’s version of Stepford.”

“Whatever I tell you will be in the paper, right?”

“You know the rules. You tell me. I write it.”

They walked into the kitchen of his Bremerton view condo and swung open the door of his stainless-steel refrigerator. The interior held an array of Styrofoam takeout boxes: Chinese, Italian, and something so far gone that it could be either.

“I hate leftovers,” he said, scanning the shelves. “Always bring ’em home, but never eat ’em.”

She wrapped her arms around him from behind and leaned over so she could see past him.

“Eggs are good. I make a pretty good omelet. Cheese in there?”

He nodded and fished around in the refrigerator.

“So while I whisk, you tell me what’s going on at McCormick Woods.”

Josh sat down at the kitchen bar. “We’re not really sure,” he said. “ Kendall went out there on the call. One of the neighbors, a real busybody, wanted to give the resident in question the ‘what for’ for not maintaining her yard and made, as you reporters like to write, a ‘grisly discovery.’”

Serenity turned on the blue flame of the range. A pat of butter hit the skillet and started to melt.

“Yes, we do love grisly.”

The pan started to smoke a little, and she lowered the flame.

“What did she find? I mean, if it was the homeowner, you’d have sent out a press release.”

Josh nodded. “A dead dog.”

“A dog.”

“Not just. Even worse. A decapitated dog.”

Serenity poured the yellow egg mixture into the hot pan. “You’re kidding? That’s awful. What happened?”

“We don’t know. Some freak, I guess. Maybe the dog barked too much and another McCormick resident decided to shut Rover up permanently.”

As the eggs began to set up, she sprinkled from a pouch of pre-shredded Tillamook cheddar. “What did the owner say?”

“Can’t find her.”

“How come?”

“ Kendall ’s on it. The woman was supposedly going to California or somewhere to visit friends. Apparently she never made it.”

Serenity ran a spatula along the inside edge of the skillet. “Did she live alone?”

“Divorced.”

She folded the omelet and slid it onto a sage-green Fiesta-ware plate. “What’s the woman’s name again?”

Josh popped some semi-stale bread into a toaster. “Carol Godding.”

“This isn’t some satanic animal mutilation like those horses in Enumclaw a few years back, is it?”

Josh took a bite and murmured his approval. “No. Just a nut job from the neighborhood. People in neighborhoods like that would rather poison a dog than confront the person next door about his barking all day. That’s my guess.”

The next morning, Serenity Hutchins moved her latest article to a folder on the server so that Charlie Keller could edit it. There wasn’t much to it. Serenity knew that sometimes the story that leads to another is as important as a bylined feature above the fold.

Dog Mutilated in McCormick Woods

Kitsap County sheriff’s detectives were called out to investigate the mutilation of a family pet on Wednesday in the McCormick Woods neighborhood.

“It was the vilest thing I’ve ever seen,” said the woman who made the grisly discovery. “The dog-a Doberman, I think-was in the garage. Blood was everywhere. It made me sick.”

Calls to the owner’s phone have gone unanswered. The owner, neighbors say, is on vacation.

Brandi Jones was in tears as she read the article in the Lighthouse while she waited for her brother, Nate, to finish his swimming lessons the following afternoon. The Jones family lived two doors down from the Goddings. Whenever the Goddings were out of town, she took care of Dolly. She was probably the only one who really knew Carol and what a wonderful person she was.

Brandi wasn’t sure who to call, the reporter who’d written the story or the Sheriff’s Office.

She called 911 and was patched through to Kendall Stark. Brandi began sobbing again before she could even get her name out.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I just called to tell you that I babysit Dolly when Carol is away.”

Kendall didn’t have to ask the distraught girl to explain what she was referring to. The names Dolly and Carol were fresh on her mind.

“I’m sorry about what happened,” Kendall said.

Heaving with emotion, the girl was unable to speak. Kendall waited patiently for her to regain her composure.

“Take your time. We’re in no hurry,” Kendall said. “Slow down.”

Brandi’s sobs finally subsided and she took a deep breath.

“I’m worried about Carol,” she said.

“We understand she’s on vacation. We’re trying to track her down.”

The girl started to cry again. Each word was like a fist to her throat.

“That’s just it. She’s not on vacation. I’m scheduled to take care of Dolly next week.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. My mom put it on the calendar. There’s no way she would have put it there if it wasn’t correct. My mom’s like that… Something happened to Carol. I just know it.”

Kendall made a few notes and took down Brandi’s information, promising to let her know if she tracked down Carol Godding.

“Detective Stark,” Brandi said, “Carol really loved Dolly. She really loved her dog.”

Kendall thought of the dog toys and the food dishes she’d seen.

“I’m sure she did,” she said, her mind beginning to race.

Celesta, Skye, Marissa, and now Carol.

The Fun House was a dump in most ways, but Melody found herself spending more and more time there. Sam had told her that as long as she “watered the bitch” and “fed her some table scraps,” so she’d be in good condition when he got home from work, he didn’t care what Melody did.

She looked at her watch and knew she had about a half hour before Max came home from school and she’d have no more time for herself. She sat in the red-plastic-covered recliner and turned on the TV.

A moan came from the back bedroom, but she turned the sound up.

Seattle Now was on, and she enjoyed the soap opera updates provided by a perky woman with a chatty style that made her enjoy the plot points on the shows she didn’t even watch.

A louder moan from the room…

“Shut up!” Melody called out. “You want me to shut you up? Don’t make me!”

The host started previewing the next day’s show, and an electric charge went through Melody’s body.

Oh God, it’s happening! People are talking on TV about us.

Melody heard a ping and looked at her laptop. As quickly as she could, she clicked on the space to enter her bid on the online auction site. She was going after a pair of Depression-glass salt and pepper shakers that she considered especially lovely. She no longer knew why she collected such things, but it was an old habit. She had filled the log home’s kitchen with old eggbeaters, ceramic juicers, rolling pins, and salt and pepper shakers, and other kitchenware. Sam had his collection, and she had hers.

She looked at the photo on the screen.

I’m going to get you, she thought. I don’t know what I’ll do with you or where I’ll put you, but I’m going to get you.

Her smile faded at the sound of more moaning.

“Goddamn you! I’m trying to get things done, and you won’t shut up!”

Chapter Forty-three

February 7, 10:15 p.m.

Key Peninsula

Even in the fog of her fear, Carol Godding’s first thought was about Dolly. Had she let the dog out? Why had she barked so loudly? Had it been all night? Dogs weren’t against the rules at McCormick Woods, although the Welcome to the HOA newsletter highlighted how Basenjis were “ideal, quiet companions” and “the dogs of choice” for a quiet neighborhood. Carol hadn’t heard of Basenjis before coming to McCormick Woods, and she asked her husband about them.

“Barkless dogs,” Dan had said, rolling his eyes upward as he signed the homeowners association contract, which held the Goddings to the strictest standards of yard maintenance, house color, and noise level-even stipulating that the driveway “must be free of all vehicles excepted for visitors.”

As her consciousness stirred, Carol thought that she’d overslept and that if she didn’t haul herself out of bed right away, then she’d screw up her entire day.

Got to wake up. Got to get out of bed. Now!

She couldn’t move. It was as if she were being held immobile in a straitjacket. She opened her eyes, but she could see nothing.

Where am I?

She tried to wriggle; she tried to speak. Nothing worked.

Have I had a stroke? Am I paralyzed?

She twisted once more, moving her frame an inch or two. She wasn’t paralyzed; She was bound. Her mouth was sealed shut.

She spun through the events of the day moment by moment. The skirt. The beads from Peru. The recollection that Connie had been a double-crossing, man-stealing whore. A conversation about cutting through the slate waters of Sinclair Inlet in her canoe.

Nothing after that.

She turned her head slightly, her face pressed against cold plastic. As awareness came, so did a deep shudder. It rolled through her constricted body like a wave trying to break over an earthen dam. A slight crack. She shivered. Tears came to her eyes.

The little boy. The man who’d come for the canoe. And nothing after that.

Her eyes, blurry with tears, adjusted to the darkness. She was not outside. She hadn’t fallen in her garage in some freak accident. She hadn’t been rushed to the hospital. She’d been taken. She could feel the chill of a draft pour over her body, and for the first time she noticed that she was no longer wearing her blue jeans and sweater. Her panties and bra were missing too. The bands around her wrists and ankles and the tape over her mouth were all she had on. She knew what that meant, and if she could have screamed just then, she would have let out the kind of bloodcurdling shriek that would wake the dead in a cemetery a county away. But she couldn’t. All she could do was squirm, wait, and pray.

Carol saw a fleck of light, but she didn’t know if it was coming from the floor or the ceiling…from heaven or hell.

The slit of light widened, then narrowed. She could feel hot, damp hands on her. She was on her back, and the hands swung her legs up into the air. She could say nothing, although in her mind she was screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Keep your legs loose, okay?” he said.

For the first time she could feel the air against her naked vagina. She tensed.

“That’s it. Fight me. I like it when one of my girls fights me.”

One of your girls?

She noticed then that her eyes were partially taped shut too.

“You belong to me,” he said. “I’ll do whatever I want to you and then toss you away like a used Kleenex.”

Unable to scream or cry out, Carol tightened her body once more. She felt him push himself inside her, and her revulsion was so great, she nearly vomited.

“Tighten, bitch.”

He was growling at her, commanding her to be his bitch. He was saying something about her being put on this earth to serve him. With each word, each grinding thrust of his pelvis against hers, she cried. Through the slightest opening under her taped eyes, she could see the light widen again.

Then she heard another voice. “How’s our bitch doing today?”

It was the voice of a woman.

She felt someone touch her on the inner thigh.

“Nice skin. Soft, creamy. The way you like it, babe. The way I like it too. I want to play too. Let me play with our new toy.”

The words coming from the woman confused Carol.

New toy.

Chapter Forty-four

March 1, 3 p.m.

Seattle

The lights went up, and the affable host of Seattle Now, Jerry Porter, forty and holding, peered into the camera. He had a kind of manufactured intensity: dark eyes and tawny powdered skin that in the age of high def looked more coated than the naturally smooth, youthful glow he and his makeup artist had tried so hard to project. His jacket was Nordstrom navy and his tie a red and yellow argyle. It was a preppy look that had been his trademark since he first landed in Seattle on his way to a top-ten market.

A trip that never found its final destination.

“We have a shocking story today.” He paused, pretending to correct himself on the script that he’d written-“a horrifying story today. If you’ve been watching this station or reading the paper, then you know across Puget Sound from here in sleepy Kitsap County at least three women have been brutally murdered by a man who has come to be nicknamed the ‘Cutter.’”

In rapid succession a series of photographs filled the TV screen. First the now-familiar image of Celesta Delgado at her high school graduation; next, a photograph of Skye Hornbeck taken a few months before she went missing-judging by her quilted attire, during a ski trip; finally, a photograph of an almost unrecognizable Marissa Cassava looking oddly demure, long before heavy eyeliner and piercings masked a sweet charm that probably no one apart from her mother had known.

The host continued as the camera panned away to reveal two men and two women sitting in a row of swivel-based dinette chairs that had been welded by the stage crew to keep from turning.

“At least three women have been brutally murdered in Kitsap County, and family members want to know why the killer is still at large. I’m Jerry Porter, and this is Seattle Now.”

Cullen Hornbeck, Tulio Pena, Donna Solomon, and Serenity Hutchins blinked away the lights.

In her office, Kendall reached for her phone and dialed Josh’s number. She hadn’t seen him all day.

“Are you watching this?” she asked.

“Yeah, if you mean Seattle Now, never miss it.” His tone was deadpan. He didn’t tell Kendall that he was in the show’s green room waiting for Serenity.

“Did you know Serenity was going to be on it?” she asked.

“She might have mentioned it.”

Annoyed to be the last to know, Kendall snapped her phone shut and turned her attention back to the TV screen.

“I don’t like to speak ill of the investigators,” Cullen Hornbeck said, the focus solely on him. Although the camera purportedly added ten pounds, Kendall thought that Skye’s father actually looked as if he’d shrunk since the last time she saw him. “I know they are doing the best they can,” he went on, a bit of the Canadian accent filtering through, “but it isn’t good enough.”

Next, the camera turned to Donna Solomon, who was nodding in obvious agreement. Almost aggressively so.

“Look,” she said, “my daughter was no saint, but what that maniac did to her shouldn’t go unpunished.”

Jerry Porter got out of his chair and walked behind the four guests, resting his hand on Tulio Pena’s slightly trembling shoulder.

“Your fiancée was the first victim,” the host said, “and the Sheriff’s Office just dismissed her case out of hand, correct?”

Tulio could not speak right then. The lights caught his glistening tears. In the awkward silence, the producers-in a surprisingly kind move-aired a second photo of Celesta. Under her name: VICTIM ONE. For the next couple of minutes, the host talked to each of the family members on the stage, reciting the details of the victims’ lives and what was known of their gruesome deaths.

“The Sheriff’s Office should be ashamed of how they done Celesta,” he said. “If they had caught her killer, then Skye and Marissa would still be alive.”

Kendall could feel her blood pressure rise, but she took a deep breath and tried to reason her way out of her anger. She’d done the best she could. There was no reason in the beginning of the case to think a serial killer was on the loose. There is no pattern to discern when there is only a single body. It is hard to make a case for a serial murderer when there are two dead, unless the cause of death and the victims’ profiles are a clear match.

“When we return, we’ll talk to the journalist who has been on top of the case from the very beginning. She’ll reveal information that she’s held tight to the vest. Stay close. You won’t want to miss it.”

Kendall dialed Josh’s number, but this time it went to voice mail.

Damn him! she thought.

She fumed through four commercials, wishing that she wasn’t watching the show live and could fast-forward to the information that Serenity Hutchins was about to reveal.

When the show resumed, Serenity had been reseated next to the host. She wore a celery green suit jacket with khakis and open-toed shoes. She looked older on TV than she did stomping around the courthouse. Jerry Porter started to cover some of the story’s background and how Serenity had been reporting the case for the small-town paper, but in the middle of his introduction he abruptly stopped.

“Just a moment,” he said, tilting his head slightly as he listened to his earpiece. “We have a caller.”

Serenity didn’t say anything, though she appeared a little unnerved.

“Go ahead,” Jerry said.

“Hello, Serenity,” the familiar voice began, its odd cadence and timbre filling the studio and sending a chill down her spine.

“Yes,” she said, looking at the host.

“You know who this is,” the voice said. “This is your friend calling to say how lovely you look on TV today.”

Serenity locked eyes with the host. “Jerry, this isn’t what we discussed.”

“Hey, don’t look at me,” Jerry shot back, clearly enjoying live TV. “He called in. He’s the guy, isn’t he?”

Serenity reached for the tiny microphone that a production assistant/intern had clipped to her lapel. Livid at being blindsided, she said to Jerry, “If this is the guy, he’s doing this for attention.” She stood to leave, but the host motioned her to sit down.

The family members who thought they were there to tell their stories sat in stunned silence.

“Let’s hear him out,” Jerry said, his face lit up with the excitement of the call and the idea that it was frazzling the young reporter.

This makes for Emmy TV, he thought.

“Serenity, I’m surprised you didn’t correct the producers and that insufferable host,” the caller said. “You know that there have been more than three victims.”

Serenity slid back into her seat, frozen, her mic dangling.

“What do you mean?” Jerry Porter asked, looking out into the studio audience as the phantom voice came from a wall-mounted speaker. The dozen or so tourists were perched on the edges of their seats. The Cutter had been news outside of his own area, as serial killers almost always are.

“Serenity will have to tell you. I tell her all my secrets,” he said.

“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” she said, glaring at Jerry.

“Oh, but you do,” the caller said.

“I thought there were three victims,” Jerry said, his eyebrows lifting as he looked questioningly back at the young reporter.

“There are,” she answered, bewildered. “At least, as of this morning, there were.”

“Caller, are you there?” Jerry asked, looking straight in the camera.

A short pause followed, and once more the voice crackled into the air-conditioned chill of the studio. “I’m here. I’m surprised that the reporter didn’t fill you in. I’m guessing she likes to keep details to herself.”

Josh Anderson stood in front of the monitor in the Seattle TV station’s green room, flirting with a pretty brunette production assistant named Ellen, who was doing her best to concentrate on what she was doing: wiping the counter where someone’s guest had splashed coffee. She wasn’t interested in the Kitsap County detective, but what was unfolding on TV got her attention.

“Wow!” she said, turning her attention to the monitor. “I didn’t know they were going to drop this kind of bomb on the show.”

The Kitsap County detective, his phone buzzing with another call from Kendall Stark, looked at the young woman gaping at the TV screen and shook his head.

“I didn’t, either,” he said.

The TV was a distraction on her day off. Jamie Lyndon had cocooned herself in a fluffy eiderdown most of the morning and, although she would never admit it, well into the afternoon. She surfed the channels, letting the various programs take her mind off the CENCOM office, where she fielded desperate call after desperate call.

She clicked on Seattle Now just as a caller was speaking to the young woman reporter.

The voice was mechanical, strange, and unforgettable.

Without a beat, she threw off the covers and dialed the direct line for the investigative unit of the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office. She got Kendall Stark’s voice mail.

“Detective Stark, Jamie Lyndon, CENCOM operator. I’m at home watching TV, and I hear this voice. The same voice of the creep who called in to say he was the Kitsap Cutter. I’m sure of it. Call me back.”

Serenity scurried down the TV station’s corridor, her heels smacking against the high gloss of a polished tile floor like machine-gun fire. Josh Anderson was right behind her. He implored her to slow down, but she kept going.

“What was that all about?” he called out.

“I don’t know,” she said, not turning around.

He grabbed her by the shoulder, but she twisted away and kept moving.

“Don’t do this, Josh. I don’t want to go into this.”

“Who was that on the phone?”

“It was him,” she said.

“What do you mean him?”

“I don’t know who he is. He’s the guy that’s been calling me.” Serenity stopped and spun around. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her torso, as if holding her frame could slow the pounding of her heart. Her eyes were filled with terror, not tears. Serenity fought the urge to fall apart. Too much was at stake.

Josh was so enraged he didn’t care that his voice carried into the sales and production offices that lined the corridor. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I wasn’t sure if he was the real deal or just a creep,” she countered. “But he is. I know he is.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He told me who was next.”

Josh’s anger turned to confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“Carol Godding.”

Josh shrugged it off. “She doesn’t fit the profile,” he said, slightly annoyed that they were having this conversation. “She’s too old-the others were in their twenties. Kendall and I went over that ground, believe me.”

Serenity’s eyes pleaded. “It doesn’t matter. He told me that he was going to ‘change it up’ and go for someone older. He told me that he likes to break the rules, Josh.”

“‘The rules’?”

“Yes, as if there are goddamn rules for serial killing.”