Stacey let out a nervous laugh and sat down. 'Not like I haven't done that before'
Olga gave the officer a slight wink. 'Oh really?'
'Kidding! God, you know my life. You know my husband.'
'Yes, I've met Frank' She smiled. 'Just how did we get on this topic, anyway?'
'I don't know. You were about tie me up ''
'That I was. Put out your arms' Keeping the end of the length in her left hand, Olga started wrapping the beige wire around Stacey's outstretched wrists. Once. Twice. Three times. She stopped and craned her neck to better view the photograph of Shelley Smith's disfigured and decomposed wrists. 'Looks like he wrapped around five or six times,' she said, almost to herself. 'I expect pretty tight, too, but I won't do that to you'
'Good,' Stacey said, suppressing a smile. 'Something to look forward to later.'
Olga played along. 'Aren't you just full of surprises?'
The women laughed, cutting the tension of what they were really doing. Olga was mimicking the actions of an unknown killer while poor Stacey who'd just wandered onto her shift had made the mistake of coming by to say hello.
Olga stepped back and admired her technique before unspooling the cording. Stacey stood up and rubbed her wrists. As gentle as Olga had been, the wire still hurt a little. Her wrists were red.
Olga fished a ruler from the top drawer of her desk.
'Almost twenty-four inches,' she said.
'Good? Bad?'
By then, Olga had started for the door, scooping up her black saddlebag purse, detective's shield, and a tan Gore-Tex coat that was all about function rather than fashion. It was raining outside.
'Bad, I'd say. Bad for someone who works at Builders' Center.'
'Huh?'
'You'll see. Thanks, Stacey.' With that, her coat swung over one arm, Olga Morris was gone.
Chapter Nineteen
1:05 n.M., twenty-one years ago, Meridian, Washington
The sky was a colander. Olga Morris scanned the parking lot of the Builders' Center off Railroad Avenue as she sought a vacant spot close to the door. Her coat, while waterproof, lacked a hood. Her short hair guaranteed a chilly splash on her scalp. She maneuvered her dark blue Chevy into a reserved parking spot. She did so somewhat reluctantly, but the thought of getting drenched won out over the prospect of being caught taking advantage of the silver and gold shield she carried in her purse.
Inside, she rushed past the contractor's help booth, and a swarm of shoppers filling their carts with caulking, lumber, and the miscellaneous provisions of home repair. The detective was grateful that she was an apartment dweller and hadn't been forced into the nest-building trap so many homeowners had embraced unwittingly.
Forget a caulking gun; I d rather carry a Glock.
She made her way to Arnold Davis's office, a small room behind a ten-foot-wide two-way mirror that allowed the fifty ish manager with gorilla-haired knuckles and a tuft of trolldoll hair protruding from his open collar to keep an eye on the selling floor.
'I'm back, Arnie. Miss me?'
She took off her coat and shook it slightly. Rain puddled the linoleum tile floor. 'And I'm soaked!'
Davis looked up from his Tupperware bowl of macaroni salad. Mayonnaise collected at one corner of his tight mouth, and Olga's gaze zeroed in on it in such an obvious manner that he scrambled for a napkin. The room smelled of garlic.
'I assume you're back to talk about Lorrie and Shelley,' he said. 'We're having a memorial after hours, now that ... now that we know.'
'May I?' Not waiting for an invitation to sit, she pulled up a visitor's chair. 'I hadn't heard about the memorial. That's nice. When is it?'
'Saturday at nine.'
'Okay, I'll be here'
'If you didn't come about the memorial, then what's up?'
'We're looking into the manner of death,' she said, her tone shifting from warmth and concern, to cool and dead serious. 'This is very important. I want to talk to you about some of the products you sell.'
'What do you mean?' Davis leaned closer and looked toward the open door. Several customers standing in line were looking inside. 'Let's shut the door,' he said.
Olga nodded and reached over to the knob, teetering on the cheap plastic molded chair, and pulled it in tight. The air was sucked out of the room. Behind the two-way glass the people who'd been staring turned away. There was nothing for them to see, just a silver void and their own gawking images.
She noticed a couple of flyers, slightly balled up in the trash. She knew what they were. Anyone in town would have. Since the girls went missing more than four thousand hand bills had been stuck on telephone poles, Laundromat bulletin boards, and anyplace where college students congregated. Across the top of each page was the word MISSING. Underneath those big block letters were Lorrie and Shelley's photos. Both had been employed part-time at Builders' Center.
'None of this has been in the media,' Olga said, 'and I expect it to stay that way.'
'I understand,' he said. His eyes looked watery and she wasn't sure if the store manager was tearful or overdosed on garlic, which, judging by the overpowering smell in the room, was Mrs. Davis's chief ingredient in that macaroni salad she'd packed for her husband's lunch.
'Two things turned up by forensics indicate the killer might have had access to a special kind of wire and a clear plastic tarp of a fairly large size. Of course I thought of your store'
'I see' The color drained from his face. 'You don't seriously think the killer shopped here?'
Olga shook her head, but it was halfhearted. 'No, I'm not saying that'
'Good' Relief washed over his Davis's face, but it was only momentary.
Olga Morris dropped the bomb.
'I think he might have worked here,' she said.
'Look, Detective,' Davis said, rising and suddenly turning his salutation into something formal. 'You and your people have talked to everyone here. There isn't an employee here who didn't love those girls.'
'I'm sure, but this is a crime of sexual brutality, Arnie and sometimes there is a fine line between love and brutality. In some people, it's a hair trigger between the two'
Davis's face was now red. 'You know what I mean. We're like a family here. No one here would ever hurt Lorrie and Shelley.'
'Let's hope so. Now I'm going to show you something that might be upsetting. I've cropped out the girls, but I want you to look at two pieces of evidence.'
'Oh God,' Arnie Davis said, slumping back down, the crimson draining from his face. 'What is it?'
'Two pictures. That's all.' From her purse, Olga removed two color photographs. She had used strips of copier paper to mask off any bits of human flesh. With her eyes riveted to Davis's she put them on the desk, scooting the Tupperware bowl to one side with her other hand. Davis dropped his gaze to the desktop, a perplexed look on his face.
'What is it?' he asked. 'May I?' He indicated the desire to turn the first photograph at another angle. The exposed photographic image was narrow on that one, with the other being broader. Still unsure, he looked up at Olga.
'It's Shelly's wrist,' she said.
Davis gasped. It was an involuntary response, one he wished he'd felt coming. The color of Shelly's skin looked so gray for human flesh it almost seemed as if it had been taken with black-and-white film, yet there was a hint of color in the form of thin bands that marked her wrist. He peered closer and felt the macaroni rise slightly in his stomach.
He tapped the photo. 'What are those?'
'Ligature marks. Look closely. Do you have anything for sale that might leave that kind of indentation?'
