At Rope's End (A Dr. James Verraday Mystery #1)(58)
CHAPTER 27
Issaquah was less than an hour from downtown Seattle but was rugged enough to have trails that were challenging even for seasoned hikers. Maclean and Verraday spotted the Ford Econoline near a guardrail with a King County Sheriff’s department patrol car parked nearby it. A solitary deputy was at the scene. He waved to them as he spotted their vehicle approaching.
Maclean spoke quietly to Verraday as they pulled up. “The good news is that this is under the jurisdiction of the King County Sheriff’s department. They’re not particularly tight with the Seattle PD, so having you along won’t raise any red flags. Even so, it will be best if you leave the questions to me.”
The Deputy led them down a steep trail toward where the body lay. It had taken a beating during the fall and was crumpled like a rag doll at the bottom of the rocky canyon, one hundred feet below the trail. But there was no doubt about the identity. The battered face was that of Cody North.
“I didn’t touch the body except to remove the wallet for identification purposes,” said the deputy. “It was in the pocket of his down-filled vest. The registration for the van was in there too. So was a set of keys. He’s got a cell phone on him too. I heard it ringing just after eight o’clock, but I didn’t want to touch it in case whoever was trying to reach him could be part of an investigation.”
“Good call, Deputy. Did you examine the van?”
“Just a cursory inspection. It was locked, but one of the keys that the deceased had on him fit the vehicle. I had a look inside. Not much to see though. Just the usual stuff: junk-food wrappers, empty coffee cups.”
“Mind if we take a look?”
“Be my guest.”
After climbing up out of the steep ravine, Verraday and Maclean walked over to the Econoline. They donned latex gloves and leaned in through the open side doors to inspect it. As the deputy had described, there was nothing much visible except food wrappers and empty coffee cups. Then Verraday looked up toward the ceiling at the same moment as Maclean.
“You see what I see?” he asked.
“Oh yeah,” she replied.
Tucked into the driver’s sun visor was a dream catcher. The same small dream catcher that Rachel Friesen had worn as a navel ring in her Assassin Girls page. Maclean turned to the King County officer.
“Deputy, this site is now part of a homicide investigation.”
*
“I’ll need to have a Seattle PD forensics team go through Cody Walker’s apartment,” said Maclean as she and Verraday headed back to Seattle in her Interceptor. “I’d love to have you there to have a look, see what it tells you about Cody, but it would raise a lot of questions. Sorry.”
“No worries,” said Verraday. “I have several days’ worth of e-mails from students to read when I get home. That ought to keep me busy and in a bad mood.”
“Well, hopefully I’ll have something to cheer you up with after we’ve finished the search. I’ll be in touch again as soon as we’re done there.”
CHAPTER 28
While one forensics team examined the van, Maclean led another to the address that Jason Griffin had given her for Cody North’s new apartment. It was in a dumpy low-rise building in Yessler, not far from the original Skid Row that had lent its name to Skid Rows all over the world. They were let in by the superintendent, a thin man with grayish skin and a ragged smoker’s cough.
The white paper masks and coveralls that Maclean and the other members of her team wore prevented them from accidentally contaminating the site. But those measures wouldn’t stop the site from contaminating them.
Maclean recoiled slightly as she took her first breath of the apartment. The air was pungent and close. It smelled of stale tobacco, stale beer, and stale takeout food. Maclean caught a faint whiff of mold too. Dirty laundry spilled out of a vinyl hamper onto the floor, adding to the gamy cocktail they were forced to inhale.
Darnell Rivers, a young civilian forensic tech with a high fade and an expression of perpetual surprise, was next in after Maclean. He whistled in amazement at the claustrophobically small bachelor apartment.
“Holy crap, I didn’t know they made ’em this tiny. Place is like the Munchkin Manor.”
“He spent the last four years at San Quentin,” said Maclean. “The occupancy rate there is one hundred and thirty-seven percent. I guess this looks like the Trump Tower by comparison.”
The parquet floor was bare. The varnish was worn down to the wood by the entranceway and the bathroom, where the ill-fitting door brushed against it enough to have scraped a track. Three empty beer cans and the remains of a recently consumed pepperoni pizza in a greasy box sat on the coffee table. Beside the unmade bed, there were copies of Maxim and Hustler, as well as a magazine that Maclean had never seen before, something called Duty Bound. On the cover was a girl in a suggestive version of a policewoman’s uniform, breasts exposed, short skirt torn and riding up her thighs. She was gagged and handcuffed, an alarmed expression on her face as she gazed wide-eyed at something out of frame.
“Okay, listen up,” said Maclean. “The individual who lived here is dead. His body turned up in Issaquah this morning. We believe it was suicide. He is a suspected serial killer who liked to torture his victims first, and he liked taking souvenirs. If this is our man, he saved the justice system a lot of time and money by offing himself. But that doesn’t mean our work is done, because the victims’ families and significant others need closure. We have no idea how many people our perp may have killed. So it’s very important that we find every possible clue that could identify a victim. Is that clear?”