I don’t want to look. I don’t want to see the face.
No, that’s not right. Because Victoria looks. I can’t prevent her.
I turn, see the dark shape of the killer, his tousled hair, his dark eyes illuminated by the dull glow of a street lamp. Even as the familiar fear washes over me, I do not close my eyes. I can deal with this. I can. Because now I know the face is not my own.
He says, “It was just a game. Nothing more.”
The words are soft, civilized even, but rage blazes from his eyes.
I recognize the man whose hands are around my neck, who shuts off my breath, who pushes me down and forces me into the water until I am permeated by darkness.
It is Eric North. And he growls, “I won’t let you wreck my life. You made me do this. With your lies.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I SPEND THE night tossing and turning, trying to get my head around Eric North as Victoria’s murderer. Why, why, why? His final words are inexplicable. What game? What lies? And how can I possibly find out if my vision is a depiction of true events? There’s just no evidence. No forensics that I know of, nothing that points to him.
I wonder if Olafson & Co. ever acted on my tip about possible witnesses at the Best Western Hotel. That might be my best bet. In between my worried conjectures, I dream about knocking on endless doors looking for long-absent guests. As quality sleep goes, I’ve had more restful stakeouts.
The morning finds me groggy and grumpy. I remain on my cot, snug beneath my sleeping bag while a noisy bird twitters outside and some critter scampers over the roof.
But. Thinking isn’t helping. What’s needed is evidence. Finally, I figure that the only thing I can do is to see if I can induce a vision about Daniel’s murder. Like I did with Victoria’s.
I don’t like this idea, and it takes me some time to figure out why. My vision about Victoria came unannounced and unprepared for. Even when I evoked it again for clarity, I felt like I was following up on a clue given to me by the universe. But looking at Daniel’s last moments feels vaguely pornographic. A breach of ethics that I can’t even really define. Plus, it’s not easy to choose to watch terrible violence while being unable to do anything about it. There’s a certain level of — distaste. I can’t intellectually justify my repugnance, but, in the end, I don’t have to. As a former homicide detective, I’ve seen and done a lot of distasteful things. Sacrificing personal disquietude in the name of justice.
Yay, you. A big gold medal for Audrey.
Shut up, Zoe.
My phone rings, and I see Phoebe’s name on the caller I.D. I let it go to voicemail. Because I’m sure she wouldn’t approve of what I’m about to do.
Olafson and Candide have learned their lesson. There’s a combination lock like the kind Realtors use bolted over the hardware of the Church of the Spirit. I feel like a kid standing outside a candy store with my nose pressed to the glass, dreaming of the sweets therein. Since I can’t get inside, I do the next best thing. I call the cops. Specifically, Detective Jane Candide. For some reason I think I’ll have a better chance with her than with her boss. I can always work my way up the hierarchy if that assumption turns out to be wrong.
She picks up on the third ring. “Candide.”
“Hello, Detective. Audrey Lake here.”
Long pause. I count to ten before she says, “You’ve got a lot of nerve, I’ll say that for you.”
“Listen, Jane — I know we got off on the wrong foot, but I’ve been in your shoes a thousand times. I’d like to help you. And for you to help me.”
My count reaches twenty when she says, “I’m listening.”
“Okay, well — I heard that Daniel Chandler was killed with blunt force trauma. The thing is, I’d like to get access to the crime scene, see if I can remember anything that could be used as a weapon that’s now missing.”
I can hear her breathing on the line.
“Unless you’ve got the weapon already, in which case…” I let that trail off.
Another long pause. “We don’t have the weapon.”
“Any idea what it might be?”
She sighs, long and gustily. “Something narrow, cylindrical. But there’s also some wounds with anomalous shapes.”
“All right, let me see if I can help you.”
“Steve pulled you out of the scene once already. Unauthorized entrance. Why do you want to get back there? What’s the real reason?”
“I was trying to do the same thing, see if something was different from how I remembered it before.”
“You said you didn’t see anything wrong.”
“Olafson yanked me out before I could get a proper look. And I didn’t have something to look for specifically. Now I know something about the weapon.”
Yet another long pause. I wait her out, walking in circles. I hear background office noises. A man laughs, a phone rings, someone answers it.
Finally, she says, “You’ll contaminate the scene.”
“I won’t. I’ve already been there — once more won’t make any difference. Your techs have been there, haven’t they? What have you got to lose?”
“My job, for one.”
“But if I can give you something to help, it might go a long way to solving the crime. You could look for the weapon.”
Silence. I count to thirty-seven.
The detective sighs. “All right. I’ll meet you there. And don’t make me regret this. Or you will too, I swear it.”
Candide arrives shortly, parking her SUV carefully in one of the many spaces on the sea of empty asphalt. Silently, she leads me around the back of the building, to what was once the loading dock. We’re on the scraggy edge of Youngs Bay. Cormorants float in the spaces between the broken pilings. The
