He peered bleakly at Mel over the rims of his glasses-the one in his hand and the pair perched on his nose. “The report you sent me yesterday morning, prior to finding Mr. Kates’s body, indicated you had found six dead victims. Let’s assume for argument’s sake that the two guys who ended up in the irrigation canal in Phoenix really were involved in a drunk-driving incident and their deaths aren’t related. But the rest do seem suspicious, not so much when taken individually-as I’m sure was intended-but certainly when taken together. So what have you learned so far?”
“Les Fordham is the victim from down near Roseburg,” Mel answered. “Arson investigators found nothing amiss with any of the gas appliances or gas lines in the trailer. The burners were simply left on without being ignited. Eventually enough gas built up inside the mobile home for the pilot light on the hot water heater to set it off. Roseburg effectively closed the case by assuming it was suicide, but Fordham’s parole officer swears his client was doing well. He had a good job and a new girlfriend. There was nothing going on that would account for his committing suicide.”
“Any note?” Ross asked.
“No note,” Mel told him.
“What about the guy on Chuckanut Drive?” Ross asked.
“That would be Ed Chrisman,” Mel answered, without having to resort to looking at the notebook she had retrieved from her briefcase. “That, too, was officially designated an accident. The problem with that is that when the vehicle was recovered, it was still in gear. How many times in your life did you get out of a car to take a leak and leave the damned thing in drive?”
Mel’s question was directed at Ross, but I was the one who answered.
“Never,” I said.
Ross nodded, reached for the bottle, and poured himself a second glass. I didn’t say anything, but my concern must have been obvious. “Don’t worry,” he said, glancing at me. “I have a car and driver waiting downstairs.” Then he turned back to Mel. “What about the others?”
Mel scanned her notes. “Frederick Jamison died of an accidental overdose in Pocatello, Idaho. Ray Ramirez succumbed to the same thing in Helena, Montana.”
“Were each of those cases thoroughly investigated?” Ross asked.
“I can’t say one way or the other,” Mel answered. “I certainly don’t have access to all the files at this point, but my guess is probably not. They were labeled suspicious deaths. The reports I’ve seen so far are pretty sketchy. Maybe whoever did this counted on that-on the idea that local authorities wouldn’t expend a lot of time, energy, or expense in resolving these cases. After all, who gives a damn about one dead crook more or less?”
Clearly Ross Connors did. These guys were all dying on his watch.
“Someone else is bound to pick up on this and start making connections. It’s going to explode once it hits the media,” he said glumly. “At that point there’ll be hell to pay regardless of who’s actually doing the killing here. And guess who’s going to have to shoulder the blame?”
For the better part of twenty years Ross Connors had navigated Washington State’s stormy political seas with apparent impunity. I suspect that, for the first time, he was encountering a crisis that could leave him vulnerable. That explained his wanting to keep our investigation under wraps, at least in these preliminary stages.
“So what we need to know is who is behind this,” Ross said. “Who he is and how he’s locating and targeting his victims.”
“Finding them is easy,” Mel said. “So far all the dead guys on my list are sexual offenders with their addresses posted on the Internet.”
“But that doesn’t explain LaShawn Tompkins,” Connors said. “He wouldn’t be on any registered sexual offender list because he’s not a sexual predator per se since he was actually exonerated on the rape charge.”
“If he’s not listed,” I said, “maybe his death has nothing to do with the others.”
Ross heaved a sigh. “But Tompkins was imprisoned here,” he said. “He may not have been guilty, but the fact that he’s out of prison now makes him an ex-con. What neither of you know is that three more dead ex-con cases turned up today-one in New Mexico, one in Nevada, and one more here in Washington, down in Vancouver. None of them would have ended up on Mel’s list because they’re not sexual predators. Two are grand theft auto and the other one is a bank robbery. Two died of unexplained drug overdoses and one of carbon monoxide poisoning in a closed garage.”
I remembered Mel saying her cases were all over the map. These were even more so, not only geographically but also in terms of murder weapon. The more I heard, the more unlikely it seemed that we were dealing with a single killer.
“We’ve got someone twisted here,” Ross continued morosely, “some egomaniac who’s appointed himself judge, jury, and executioner. From what you’ve told me, whoever killed Allen Kates is familiar with crime scene investigation and forensics.”
“That’s true in the other cases as well, at least as far as I’ve perused the files,” Mel said. “In each case the assailant left behind almost no trace evidence.”
“So he’s wily,” I said. “And careful. And he is also someone who has access to prison-release records,” I added.
“That’s why I’m saying it’s a rogue cop,” Ross concluded. “That’s what I’ve been thinking ever since Todd brought it to my attention. Either a bad cop or a corrections worker gone postal.”
I know all the guys who work for SHIT-at least I thought I did. But the name Todd didn’t ring a bell.
“Todd who?” I asked.
Ross squirmed in his seat once more. “Todd Hatcher,” he answered. “A guy who works in my office.”
“An attorney then?” I asked.
“No,” Ross said. “Actually, he’s an economist.”
I almost choked on a sip of icy tonic. When I was in college I washed out of only two classes-economics and philosophy. I ended up taking incompletes in both of them. Since then I’ve looked on practitioners of either profession with a somewhat jaundiced eyeball.
“An economist?” I croaked. “Are you kidding?”
“Not at all,” Ross returned. “Ever heard of forensic economics?”
Mel and I shook our heads in unison.
“It’s relatively new,” Ross said. “Before last summer, neither had I, but then Todd turned up and told me all about it. He had just picked up a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Washington. He claimed that by doing a statistical analysis of our current and recent prison population he could create a computer model that would predict our recidivism rates, tell us how many prison beds we would need in the future-where, when, and what kind. For instance, he thinks he can sort out the exact number of geriatric facilities we’ll eventually need as our prison population ages.
“Believe me, those kinds of studies can cost big bucks. But here was this one very motivated guy who wanted to do it for practically nothing. He had made a similar proposal for his dissertation, but his faculty adviser had turned him down. I think he came to me because he was still pissed at his adviser. The fact that the university had axed the project made him that much more determined to do it, so much so that he offered to work for a pittance as long as I gave him unlimited access to our data. Truth be known, he probably has a book deal waiting in the wings somewhere. Why wouldn’t he? He’s an economist, for God’s sake. But in terms of cost to the state of Washington, it was an irresistible offer.”
“So you took him on,” Mel said. “An economist, not a cop.”
“That’s right,” Ross agreed. “So I hired Hatcher. I gave him an office and a computer and turned him loose with oodles of information. Shortly after he started doing his study, however, Todd hit on an anomaly-a sudden spike in mortality rates among recently released inmates, one that didn’t fit inside the expected actuarial norms for that particular population. That’s his area of expertise, you see-demographics.”
“How recent a spike?” I asked.
“In the last year and a half or so. Before that, the death rates were pretty steady and followed predictable patterns. Many of those deaths were clearly age-, behavior-, or illness-related. But the dead guys in this new group are all fairly young-twenties, thirties, and forties-relatively healthy, and they all seem to have died under mysterious circumstances that aren’t necessarily homicides. Several of the deaths have been labeled simply suspicious. So I asked Todd to start looking into it. He’s been at it for only two weeks now and he’s already come up with the ones I
