The Clip Killer

By Richard Myhre

Cover design by Reine Huber

Also by Richard Myhre

Carkeek Park

For Joyce, who gives me inspiration, encouragement, devotion, kindness and, above all, joy. Her love is my greatest blessing.

CHAPTER 1

It was another dreary winter morning in Seattle. From the front window of my downtown condo I was looking out at low clouds, a steady rain and a wispy shroud of dismal gray.

And as I headed off to work, my mood was as grim as the weather.

For starters, I woke with sniffles and a sore throat, the symptoms of an oncoming cold. Then I sliced my finger while cutting into a grapefruit for my daily serving of citrus, a regimen that’s supposed to keep me from getting sick — and to heck with that theory. And if all that wasn’t enough, my car’s transmission started making grinding noises as I drove to my job at the Seattle Press-Tribune newspaper, foretelling some inconvenient and no doubt costly repairs. At that point I actually said aloud, “Could this day get any worse?”

Well, yes, as I was about to find out.

I was stopped at a traffic light three blocks from the office, watching the windshield wipers go swish-swish-swish, when my cell phone rang. I took it from my jacket pocket, glanced at the Caller ID window and saw that it was Sergeant Al DiPietro, a Seattle police homicide detective that I’ve known for several years and someone who’s always been one of my better sources. Except that it’s usually me calling him and not the other way around, which got me to thinking it might be important.

“This is John,” I said into the phone.

Sure enough, it was DiPietro. I knew that much from his greeting, if you’d call it that.

“Hey, Crowley,” he barked. “I need to see you.”

“Good morning to you, too, Al,” I replied.

Ignoring my sarcasm, he said, “Are you at the office?”

“Not yet. But I’ll be there shortly.”

“Then I’m coming by. We’ve got to talk. In private.”

DiPietro is often terse, but this was unusually abrupt even for him. Yeah, something was up.

“No problem, Al,” I told him. “Check in at the front desk and they’ll call me.”

“I’ll be there in 20 minutes,” he said.

He actually made it in 16 minutes, or about five minutes after I arrived at my desk. Lois Frothingham, the Press-Tribune’s receptionist, called to let me know I had a visitor, and as I went out to the lobby DiPietro was signing his name on the guest register. Lois then gave him a visitor badge, which he was supposed to wear on the premises, although as soon as we went through the security door to the newsroom he handed it to me. He didn’t want to be bothered.

“A room,” he said, his face solemn.

I led him between the rows of desks where many of my colleagues were already at work. Most didn’t pay us much attention, but I could see my boss Harvey Connell, the Press-Tribune’s longtime city editor, watching us from his desk across the room. Harvey knows DiPietro by sight, and I could tell he was wondering why a Seattle PD detective had showed up in our newsroom. Maybe it had something to do with a story I was working on, which would make Harvey happy. And perhaps a really big story, which would make him very happy.

DiPietro and I went through a door on the far side of the newsroom and then down a short hallway to the conference room. Once inside, I closed the door and motioned him to a chair on one side of the table. I took the chair across from him.

“Does the name Julie Bedard mean anything to you?” he asked as we settled in.

I thought for a moment and then said, “No.”

He was watching me, and I had the feeling he was trying to decide if I was telling the truth.

“Who is Julie Bedard?” I asked.

“Not is, was. As in, who was Julie Bedard?”

“I take it she’s deceased.”

“She is. And by our estimate, as of sometime between 1:30 and 2 o’clock this morning.”

“OK, then I assume Ms. Bedard was the victim of an apparent homicide and you’re investigating.”

He nodded and said, “She was a white female, age 28, and the single mother of a 4-year-old daughter named Sophia. Or Sophie, as everyone calls her. They lived in an apartment complex out in north Seattle. We think Ms. Bedard was married and later divorced, but we’re still checking that out. Because it’s possible she was never married and simply had the child out of wedlock.”

Sort of an old-fashioned phrase, I thought, referring to a child born out of wedlock. But then, DiPietro’s sort of an old-fashioned guy.

I waited for him to continue, but he’d paused to loosen his black and gold striped tie. He then reached into his gray tweed sports coat and took a small loose-leaf notebook from the breast pocket. He flipped back the cover and glanced at some notes he’d written on the first page.

“By day Ms. Bedard was a student at North Seattle Community College,” he said. “She was in her second year there and apparently a very good student. Given the classes she was taking, it looks like she was planning to go on to a four-year school and get some kind of business degree. Accounting, most likely.”

He cleared his throat and shifted his position in the chair. He was looking at me now, not the notebook.

“School is what she did by day,” he said. “By night she was an exotic dancer known as Summer Darling.”

“Exotic? As in …”

“As in topless,” he said. “At a strip club called The Harem. Ever hear of it?”

“Yeah. It’s out in the north end.”

“Right. There’s a few strip clubs out there, but The Harem is probably the biggest. I’m told an average night is about 75 to 100 customers and on a good night they get upwards of 150.”

“OK, so you’re saying that Julie Bedard, aka Summer Darling, went to school by day and danced by night?”

“Yeah. Dancing was how she supported herself and her daughter. And from what we can tell, she had no other job to speak of. No prostitution, in other words, which is sometimes what happens with the women who work in those clubs.”

I’d spent seven years as a police reporter before becoming the Press-Tribune’s primary investigative reporter, so I already knew about strip clubs and the women who work there. I considered pointing this out to DiPietro, but decided not to interrupt.

“We found out that her mother looked after the little girl when Ms. Bedard was in school, and a young woman who lived in the same apartment building came over to babysit at night,” he said. “The babysitter would put the little girl to bed and then stay until Ms. Bedard got home from her job, which was usually around 1:30 in the morning.”

“So what happened to her?” I asked.

“Last night,” he said, looking again at his notebook, “she worked her regular shift at the club until 1 o’clock. She walked out at about 1:20 and apparently she was the last dancer to leave, which is significant because no one saw her get into her car and drive off. I’m told there were a few employees still inside, but they didn’t come out until close to 1:45 and by then she was gone.”

“So she left work as usual, but never made it home?”

“Correct. About 3:30 this morning the mother called the precinct office after getting a call from the babysitter because Ms. Bedard hadn’t showed up. She also hadn’t called and wasn’t answering her cell phone. So they sent a squad car out to drive the route from the club to her apartment, and they found the car and the body around 4:20. It was on a deserted stretch of roadway a few miles from the club and about a mile from her apartment. It was off the road and behind some trees, and because it’s a dark color and there aren’t any streetlights nearby no one had seen it. Our guys only spotted it because they were driving slowly and looking carefully.

“They called me out 20 minutes later and I got there about 5:30. Ms. Bedard was still in the front seat of the car. She looked like she was sleeping. In fact, when our officers showed up they actually tapped on the window to wake her up. It wasn’t until they opened the door, which was unlocked, that they realized she was dead. She was sitting in the front seat, fully clothed. No blood and no evidence of sexual assault. She’d been strangled.”

“How’d the killer get in the car?” I asked.

“We’re not sure,” he said. “It’s possible he was someone from the club and she offered to give him a ride. It’s also possible she stopped because she saw someone in apparent need by the side of the road who then, after she pulled over, attacked her. For all we know, she forgot to lock her car at the club and the killer was able to get in, hide in the back seat, and then surprise her once she drove off and reached a remote spot. At this point it’s all just speculation.

“Our guys are still going through the car and searching the surrounding area, and they’re also talking to people at the club to see if there’s anyone who knows something. But so far we don’t really have much to go on.”

DiPietro had a look on his face that I’d seen many times before, usually at crime scenes. After all his years as a homicide detective — and he’s closing in on two decades — I think it still shocks him that there are people in the world who deliberately kill other people.

“Any suspects?” I asked.

“A few, but nothing solid.”

He flipped to another page of his notebook and said, “There’s the guy who fathered her daughter. Again, we’re still trying to find out if they were ever married. At this point all we know about him is what the babysitter told us and she didn’t know much, including if Ms. Bedard and this guy had ever tied the knot. Obviously Ms. Bedard’s mother would know, but she broke down when the officer went to tell her what’d happened and she’s still too distraught for an interview.

“We’ve got one of our officers staying with the mom and the little girl in case the killer’s planning to knock off the entire family for some reason. But it’s also so our guy can let us know when the mom regains enough composure that we can talk to her. My guess is we’ll be able to do that later today.”

“Do you think the father’s a strong suspect?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“We’ll keep investigating because we don’t have any reason to eliminate him yet,” he said. “But my gut feeling is that he’s probably clean. According to the babysitter, he was very involved in his daughter’s life. Likewise, he and Ms. Bedard seemed to get along OK, even after he married another woman a little over a year ago. We’ll keep checking, like I said, but for now there’s really nothing to make us think he had anything to do with this.”

Scanning his notes again, he went on, “There’s also a guy Ms. Bedard had been dating off and on for about a year, though over the last month or two that relationship was apparently more off than on. And it seems like it was this guy’s idea to cool things, not hers, which would appear to discount the possibility of him being an angry ex-boyfriend. We’re still in the process of trying to track him down — all we have right now is a first name, which the babysitter gave us — but so far there’s really nothing to make us think he’s a great suspect either.”

I was listening to him and thinking that I probably should’ve brought a notepad to the conference room so I could jot all this down. But in the next moment something else occurred to me. I’ve reported on a lot of homicide cases over the years and DiPietro was the lead detective for many of them. But in all that time I couldn’t recall him ever stopping by my office to tip me off to a killing.

So I said, “Al, I appreciate you coming by like this. But you could’ve told me all this over the phone, right?”

He’d been leaning back in his chair, but now he sat forward, placed his elbows on the table, clasped his hands and looked at me evenly.

“We found something, Crowley,” he said. “Something in the car that’d been left beside the body. And by all appearances it was left there by the killer.”

“You mean like a clue?”

He shook his head. “More than that. Clues are pieces of evidence that are left behind inadvertently. This was something that was left there deliberately. It’s something we were obviously supposed to find.”

It was my turn to sit forward.

“What was it?” I asked.

“A newspaper clipping. From the Press-Tribune, as a matter of fact. It’d been cut out very neatly with a pair of scissors, like you’d do if you were going to put it in a scrapbook. And Ms. Bedard’s name was in the story.”

He was staring at me now, his face even more solemn than before.

“You say it was found beside the body?” I asked.

“Yeah. On the front seat, a few inches from her right leg.”

Then he said, “Take a guess who wrote the article, Crowley.”

I got an uneasy feeling.

“Me?” I said, my voice rising in pitch. I probably sounded like a nervous schoolboy.

He nodded, his eyes never leaving mine.

For a few seconds I was too shocked to respond. I was still looking at him and he was looking at me, and it seemed like we were both waiting for the other to say something.

Finally I said, “Are you sure, Al? I don’t remember writing a story with Julie Bedard’s name in it. And I sure don’t remember ever interviewing anyone by that name.” And then because he was still staring at me — a little too suspiciously, I thought — I added, “Honest.”

“Trust me, Crowley, it’s your story,” he said. “Here, take a look.”

He reached for a folder he’d brought with him.

“This is a copy,” he said, withdrawing a piece of paper. “Our guys already took the original to the lab.”

He slid the paper across the table to me.

Glancing at the mimeographed article, I remembered it at once. It was a story I’d written about three years earlier. In fact, it was one of the last stories I wrote as a police reporter before becoming the paper’s new investigative reporter. And I had no doubt about the timing because the date was visible in the upper right corner, on the folio just above the headline. It was published six days before my job change.

The story was about a late-night, high-speed chase on the I-5 freeway through downtown Seattle. I’d been in the office when the call came in on the police scanner just after 10 o’clock, or about an hour before deadline. An officer had tried to pull a car over for a minor traffic infraction on an arterial in the city’s south end, but the driver, whose name was Charles Durham, had a suspended license and some outstanding warrants, and for those reasons he wasn’t inclined to stop. He sped off, turned onto the northbound freeway and tried to lose the pursuing officer by weaving through other cars across all four lanes of traffic at speeds upward of 90 mph. Alas, Durham was not only stupid, he was a bad driver. The chase lasted barely 2 miles before he lost control of the car, clipped one of the freeway’s concrete embankments, caromed back into the lanes of traffic, and at that point collided with a vehicle driven by a Seattle woman named Rhonda Kendall. A passenger in Ms. Kendall’s car was Julie Bedard.

The two women were treated by EMTs at the scene and then taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital, where they were evaluated and later released.

Since Ms. Bedard was a passenger in the car and not the driver, her name was buried deep in the story, which is probably why I hadn’t remembered it. In fact, she was only mentioned in a single paragraph:

A passenger in Ms. Kendall’s car was identified as Ms. Julie A. Bedard of Seattle, age unknown. She suffered only minor bruises in the collision, according to a hospital spokeswoman.

I read the story through once more, searching for something that would explain why this article had been left beside Ms. Bedard’s body. But from what I could tell there was nothing.

Finally I looked up and asked, “Why would someone leave one of my stories next to the body of a dead woman?”

DiPietro’s eyes were fixed on mine. His expression wasn’t exactly accusing, but it wasn’t all that encouraging either. It was very steady, very stern and more than a little unnerving.

“That’s why I’m here, Crowley,” he said quietly. “You tell me.”

CHAPTER 2

So it was my by-line on the newspaper clipping found beside Julie Bedard’s body. One apparently left there by the killer, and apparently as some kind of message.

Now I had to wonder, was it a message intended for me?

That question nagged at me the rest of the day. And even with Al DiPietro’s help — he stayed for another half-hour so we could talk it through from several angles — I never came up with a good answer. It was troubling to think that one of my stories had been used as a prop in a cruel murder, and by the next morning I was determined to find out what I could, even as DiPietro and his fellow detectives were going forward with their own investigation.

I drove to the Press-Tribune as usual, but an hour later I was back in the car and on my way to The Harem, the north Seattle strip club where Julie Bedard had worked. At that point my mission was more personal than professional because I wasn’t the reporter of record on the story. My boss Harvey Connell had assigned it to our police reporter Warren Stephens, and his article about Ms. Bedard’s murder had been in that morning’s paper, stripped down the far right column of Page 1 and then jumping to an inside page. I’d read it through at my desk and saw that it was complete in every detail but one — there was no mention of the newspaper clipping found at the crime scene. Stephens hadn’t included that fact because he still didn’t know. The police were keeping it confidential for the time being and DiPietro had sworn me to secrecy.

It took me about 20 minutes to reach The Harem, which was just outside the city limits in an area of unincorporated King County where the zoning restrictions are more tolerant for businesses like strip clubs. I pulled into a mostly empty parking lot — according to the club’s website, it didn’t open for business until noon — and walked to the front door, over which there was a large sign proclaiming “The Harem” in huge letters, and in smaller letters below, “Seattle’s premier adult establishment.” The text was bordered by the facing silhouettes of two shapely dancers in profile.

I thought the door might be locked, but it swung open and I went inside. I paused for a few seconds to let my eyes adjust to the darkened interior, and then continued down a hallway to the main showroom, where there was a large stage against the far wall and some smaller stages in various places around the room, with all of them surrounded by tables and chairs for the patrons. The bar was to the left.

I still hadn’t seen anyone, but I could hear voices coming from a lighted room behind the bar that appeared to be the kitchen. I also detected the faint aroma of stale alcohol and human perspiration, which is a common odor in most strip clubs. I’ve been in a few over the years — always for journalistic purposes, mind you — and the smell is familiar and unmistakable.

I took another few steps, and at that point I heard a voice from off to my right.

“Can I help you?”

I turned and saw a man sitting by himself in one of the booths along the front wall. There was a small lamp on the table where he appeared to be working.

“I’m John Crowley from the Press-Tribune newspaper,” I said, heading in his direction. “I’m looking for the manager.”

I waited for his reaction. And if I’d been a betting man, I would’ve put money on him telling me to get lost. Most newspaper stories about strip clubs are less than flattering, which is why the folks who run these clubs generally don’t want reporters coming around. Moreover, the obvious reason for my visit would’ve been to ask about Julie Bedard, and that could only mean more bad publicity.

But to my surprise, the guy actually smiled and beckoned me over. As I approached, he stood and extended his hand across the table.

“Benny Walser,” he said as we shook. “I own the club.”

He was a short man with a round face and a similarly round body. He appeared to be in his mid- to late 40s with closely cut dark hair, a thick neck and prominent ears. He also had a powerful handshake, which made me think there was probably a lot of muscle somewhere in all that girth. Put another way, he struck me as a guy who could handle himself in a fight. And given his line of work, I had a hunch there’d been a few of those over the years.

But at the moment he wasn’t at all menacing. He had reading glasses down on his nose and was peering at me affably over the rims.

“How can I help you, Mr. … Crowley, was it?” he said. He sat and motioned me to sit, too. “If this is about Julie Bedard, I talked to a reporter on the phone yesterday. Was that you?”

Before I could answer, he said, “No, it wasn’t you. It was Steve somebody.”

“Warren Stephens.”

“Yeah, that’s it,” he said. “He called yesterday and we talked for about 10 minutes. I told him how shocked we were by what’d happened to Julie, and how we’ll be helping the police in every way we can until they can find the guy who did this.”

“Warren Stephens is our police reporter, Mr. Walser,” I explained. “I’m the paper’s investigative reporter, which means our work sometimes overlaps. And I’m here today because I might end up doing a follow-up story about Ms. Bedard.”

That wasn’t a complete lie, but it wasn’t the complete truth either. For now this was Stephens’s story, and there was no reason to think I’d be doing any follow-ups. On a probability scale of 1 to 10, it was maybe a 3, which meant it was possible but hardly likely. But that’s what I said because it allowed me to avoid telling him the real reason for my visit, which was to find out why a clipping with my by-line had been found at the murder scene. And since the cops were keeping that confidential, I couldn’t very well come right out and ask Walser about it. There was a chance he knew — I assumed he’d already been questioned by the police and maybe they’d tipped him off — but more likely he was still in the dark, which meant I’d have to tip-toe through my questions.

In the time it took me to think all that through, I realized Walser was staring at me. It took a few more seconds, but suddenly his expression changed to one of recognition.

“Hey, I know who you are,” he said. “You’re the guy who wrote the story about Heavenly Bodies.”

He was referring to a former strip club that’d been just down the road from The Harem. The two clubs had once been big rivals in the city’s on-stage flesh business, but that’d changed a few years before when the owner of Heavenly Bodies, a notoriously shady character named Jack “Jackie” Leandro, was indicted on charges of prostitution, racketeering and drug trafficking. By no coincidence, the indictment came two days after I wrote a front-page story in the Press-Tribune about some of the club’s illicit activities. My exposé, which paralleled an ongoing police investigation, relied almost entirely on anonymous sources, and that’s because a lot of people were unwilling to go on the record for fear of Mr. Leonardo’s longstanding reputation for wrath and vengeance. In fact, a few folks at the Seattle Police Department suggested I watch my back for a time, which made me plenty nervous, no question. And, no question, I felt a whole lot better when a bunch of Leandro’s goons were subsequently arrested, tried, convicted and sent off to do hard time. They were soon joined by Leandro himself, who was found guilty on all counts and given a lengthy prison sentence.

Heavenly Bodies closed shortly after Leonardo was delivered to the state penitentiary in Walla Walla, and the club’s demise became a financial boon for The Harem. It was, I figured, the main reason Walser was sitting there beaming at me like we were best pals. After all, I’d played a big role in helping to put his primary competitor out of business — and behind bars, no less.

“That was good work,” Walser said approvingly. “And for what it’s worth, a lot of us knew about Jackie and his methods of, shall we say, doing business. But legally speaking, it was your story that got the ball rolling. And if you want my opinion, I say good riddance. Clubs like ours have enough PR problems without having to deal with the fallout from the kind of the stuff he was doing.”

Before I could thank him for the compliment, he added, “I know a lot of people don’t like what we do here, Mr. Crowley. But the fact is, we run The Harem as a proper business. We obey the law, we pay our taxes, we take care of our girls and we provide our guests with a good value for their money.

“And speaking of guests,” he said, “I’m forgetting my manners. Would you like something to drink? We have” — he pointed to his own cup on the table — “coffee, as you can see. But also bottled water, orange juice, soda, beer, wine or even a cocktail.”

“Black coffee, please.”

“You got it.” He looked past me and hollered, “Hey, Becky!”

Over my shoulder, I saw a young woman appear at the swinging doors to the kitchen.

“We need more coffee here,” Walser told her. “And bring a cup for Mr. Crowley.”

Moments later the young woman approached our table. She was quite buxom with bleached-blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, and she was clad in tight jeans and an even tighter t-shirt. She flashed a big smile as she placed a cup in front of me and filled it from the coffee pot in her other hand.

“Mr. Crowley, this is Becky, one of our dancers in training,” Walser said. “She’ll be making her debut here next week and we’re all looking forward to that very much. And Becky, this is Mr. Crowley.”

I tried to stand for the introduction, but it was difficult because there was so little space around the edge of the table. But by then her hand was outstretched and we shook. She gave me another big smile and seemed to hold my hand a few seconds longer than necessary.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Mr. Crowley,” she purred.

She filled Walser’s cup and then gave me a last lingering smile — did I imagine it or did she just wink at me? — before turning and walking away.

I looked at Walser, who grinned.

“I think she likes you,” he said. And then — this time, I was sure — he winked.

I figured it was time to get our conversation back on track.

“Mr. Walser,” I said, “I’d like to ask you some questions about Julie Bedard. Would that be OK?”

He took a sip of coffee and said, “Of course. I’m happy to answer whatever questions you have.”

“Thank you. First of all, I’d like to find out what kind of a person she was.”

“Oh, Julie was a real sweetie,” he said, leaning back and extending his arms atop the booth’s backrest. “I don’t think there was anyone here who didn’t like her. I mean, even the other girls liked her, which is kind of unusual at a club like ours.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant, and he seemed to gather as much from my expression.

“Perhaps I should explain,” he said. “The fact is, the girls who work here sometimes don’t get along. They’re real competitive, which I guess makes sense because they’re all trying to be the ones making the most money. But it also means we’re constantly dealing with little feuds and disagreements. Naturally we don’t put up with any nonsense when they’re performing. Unprofessional behavior in front of the guests is grounds for immediate dismissal and the girls all know it. But backstage it’s different. They obviously can’t fight or say bad things to each other when they’re here at the club, but we also can’t force them to like each other. And believe me, a lot of them don’t.

“But the thing is, Julie was different. From what I could tell everyone liked her. At the very least, everyone respected her. She was always doing nice things for the other girls, like bringing little gifts on their birthdays and helping them out if they had problems. It’s just the type of person she was. She was real kind and real thoughtful, and to my knowledge she never had any issues with any of the other girls.”

“What about the customers?” I asked.

“Oh, they thought she was great, too. She could put on a terrific show and make it look like she was loving it.”

“Is that unusual?” I asked.

He smiled again. “You don’t spend much time in clubs like ours, do you Mr. Crowley?” he said.

I gave a little shrug.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to tease you,” he said with a chuckle. “It’s just that anybody who’s in here very much knows it can be difficult for the girls to look like they’re having a good time. Let’s face it, dancing is a job. Our girls are on those stages hour after hour, day after day, and over time a lot of them become almost mechanical in their dancing. It’s sort of like they’re just going through the motions, which is why we always have to remind them to smile and to make eye contact because otherwise the guests get bored and leave, and then they’re not here spending money.

“But we never had to remind Julie about that stuff because she was a natural performer. If you watched her, you’d swear there was nothing she loved more than being on stage and dancing for a group of men. She had a real knack for connecting with everyone who was watching her. And the way she moved her body, well, let’s just say that I liked watching her, too. She was very beautiful, very sensual, and she was probably our most popular dancer. She certainly drew the biggest crowds. The place was packed last weekend for our big anniversary celebration, and I know a lot of those guests showed up to see her.”

It would turn out to be the last weekend of her life, I thought. But what I said aloud was, “I imagine she’ll be tough to replace.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he replied.

Once more I was confused. And once more he noticed.

“The girls who dance here come and go all the time, Mr. Crowley,” he explained. “Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever had a guest complain because one of his favorite girls left the club. The fact is, we’ve had three or four girls leave in the last month for various reasons, and it’s usually because they get another job somewhere. But we’re also starting two new girls tonight and then Becky is starting sometime next week. So our turnover is high, and that’s why I’d be willing to bet that in a few weeks most of our guests will have forgotten all about Julie Bedard. Or Summer Darling, as they knew her.”

I thought for a few seconds before asking, “If she was such a sweetie, why would someone want to kill her?”

Walser shook his head. “No idea,” he said. “The cops asked me that same question yesterday and that’s exactly what I told them. Frankly, it doesn’t make any sense. Some of these girls have boyfriends who are into bad stuff, so it wouldn’t surprise me if one of them ended up dead someday. But Julie wasn’t anything like that. I know she dated some, but mostly she came to work, did her job, and then went home to be with her daughter. And as I think we all knew, that little girl was more important than anything else in her life.”

“OK, then let me ask you this,” I said. “Is it possible that one of the customers got upset with her for some reason? And maybe got upset enough to hurt her? Or as it turned out, upset enough to kill her?”

He thought a moment before saying, “Well, it’s possible, except I don’t remember hearing of any problems. And if she’d had a problem with a guest I’m sure I would’ve known. But they all loved her, like I said. And I just think it’s unlikely that anyone would’ve ever been that angry with her.”

“OK, then what’re the chances that someone fell in love with her? And maybe fell in love with her a little too much, if you know what I mean.”

There was another pause before he nodded slowly.

“I have to admit, that’s possible,” he said. “Because in a manner of speaking, we want our guests to fall in love with the girls. After all, that’s what keeps them coming back. We obviously don’t want things getting out of hand, but our girls also know that a guest who occasionally gets a little overzealous is just part of the deal. If you’re going to dance in a club like ours, you’re going to have to put up with some of that.”

“OK, so is it possible that one of your customers really fell for Ms. Bedard and then ended up killing her because she didn’t return his feelings?”

When he didn’t answer right away, I added, “Did she ever have a customer who seemed obsessed? A customer that maybe you were concerned about? Or more to the point, a customer that maybe she was concerned about?”

Walser was giving me a long look, and I had the feeling he was trying to decide how much to say.

“To be honest, there’s been a few of those,” he said at last. “And it’s why we occasionally have to tell a guest that he’s no longer welcome here. But having said that, I still have a hard time thinking that one of them would’ve done something like this.”

“Are your dancers allowed to see the customers away from the club?” I asked.

Walser actually laughed at that question.

“This isn’t a boarding school, Mr. Crowley,” he said. “When our girls are here and working, we expect them to conduct themselves in a professional way. Too much fraternizing with one guest is unbecoming and it also puts off the other guests, so we discourage that. But when they leave here, their time is their own. It’s not my job to check up on them after they leave the club.”

Sitting forward, he rested his elbows on the table and for the first time gave me what seemed like a slightly impatient look.

“Mr. Crowley, I appreciate what you’re trying to do,” he said. “You’re trying to find some connection between Julie’s job here and this terrible thing that happened to her. After all, you’re a journalist and you’re supposed to ask these kinds of questions. So I understand that, I really do. But I’m also being very honest when I tell you there’s nothing I know that’d make me think it was one of our guests who killed her.”

I was all set to ask my next question, but I held off because there was a movement at my shoulder. Turning, I saw that Becky had returned with her coffee pot. She looked first at Walser, but he raised a hand and shook his head. Then she looked at my cup. Seeing it was almost empty, she began to pour by putting one palm on the table and leaning toward me. From that angle and distance, it was easy to see she wasn’t wearing a bra. And by leaning over as far as she was, gravity was causing her very ample breasts to strain at her already tight t-shirt.

When the cup was full she straightened, gave me another big smile and walked away, hips swinging.

“Oh, yeah,” Walser said, grinning again. “She likes you. She likes you a lot.”

Judging by the look on his face, I could tell the two of us were back to being buddies again. And in the next moment he reached into his shirt pocket for a business card.

“Mr. Crowley,” he said, “I can tell you haven’t spent a lot of time in clubs like ours, so here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to invite you to come back during business hours and I’m also going to promise you a good time because you’ll be my personal guest.”

With a pen, he scribbled something on the back of the card before sliding it across the table to me. I took the card and saw that he’d written my name and “VIP” on the back, and then signed his name.

“Show this at the door and you’ll be admitted for free,” he said. “You’ll then be escorted to a special table where you’ll receive complimentary drinks and dances. In fact, if you come next week we can arrange to have Becky dance for you. She’s obviously taken a real liking to you, so I’m sure she’d enjoy it. And I promise you’ll enjoy it, too.”

With a laugh, he reached over and gave me a friendly whack on the shoulder.

“Who knows,” he said, “maybe we’ll make you a regular.”

I knew that wasn’t going to happen because I had no plans to return. Still, his offer was generous — or perhaps a form of bribery, I thought — so I took the card, slipped it in my pocket and told him thanks.

Then I stood, shook his hand, thanked him again and headed for the door.

As I neared the hallway, I saw something I hadn’t noticed on the way in. It was a wall display with professional black-and-white portraits of all the club’s dancers. Stopping, I did a quick search for Julie Bedard’s picture, albeit with the name Summer Darling. It wasn’t there, but I saw an empty space near the center of the display where it’d probably been a few days before.

And at that moment Walser called to me.

“When you come back, Mr. Crowley, we can have any one of those girls dance for you,” he said. “And if you can’t make up your mind, no problem. We’ll have two girls dance for you. Or three girls. Whatever you want, I’ll make sure you get it, OK?”

Even from that distance, I could’ve sworn he winked at me again.

CHAPTER 3

A few days passed and not much happened. I got busy with some other stories and began to think less about the murder of Julie Bedard.

But I didn’t forget. How could I, given that it was my by-line on the newspaper clipping found beside her body? I was connected to this terrible crime, however indirectly, and I still had no idea why. I kept hoping there’d be a breakthrough in the police investigation, though that didn’t seem likely anytime soon. My colleague Warren Stephens was still following the story, but there hadn’t been much to report because as yet the cops had no leads and no suspects. An extensive search of the crime scene had failed to produce any clues. Likewise, Ms. Bedard’s distraught mother had been unable to tell detectives anything beyond what they already knew. And there’d been nothing significant to come out of a follow-up interview with Benny Walser or some subsequent interviews with the dancers and other staff at The Harem. In short, Julie Bedard’s tragic death was still very much a mystery.

So that’s where things stood, and meanwhile the rest of my week went by pretty much as usual. By the time I headed home on Friday afternoon I was looking forward to the weekend and the chance to spend some quality time with Stacy Langwell, my amazing fiancée. Stacy’s a co-worker at the Press-Tribune — she writes about the theater, concerts and other performing arts for our entertainment section, and occasional human-interest stories for the main section — and we’d been seeing each other for about a year before announcing our engagement. By now the wedding plans were in full swing, though they didn’t seem to involve me very much. I guess that’s because Stacy and I had different ideas about the perfect ceremony. In my mind, simple was better. Like a quiet wedding in a quaint chapel. Or perhaps using some scenic outdoor setting to exchange our vows. Or the one I liked best, getting married on a cruise ship which could lead right into a terrific honeymoon. But Stacy said no, and when I protested further she shushed me and said she’d been planning her wedding since she was 10 years old and knew exactly what she wanted. Furthermore, she announced, if I expected to receive her hand at the altar, it would be the altar of her choosing.

So at that point I surrendered all further wedding decisions to her — get used to it, my dad confided with a knowing grin — and Stacy and I got back to being all lovey-dovey.

Our plan was to spend that Saturday together. We spent most Saturdays together, of course, but the difference this day was the presence of Stacy’s 6-year-old niece Lindee, the daughter of Stacy’s older sister Tamara, a single woman who’d been divorced about four years. Tamara had a sailing date with a new beau that afternoon, so she asked if Lindee could hang out with Stacy and me. Stacy said sure, which meant that instead of the two of us going to a coffee shop or a bookstore, or maybe driving to explore some out-of-the-way place, we were off to Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo with Lindee, a cute kid with brown hair in pigtails, a smile with a few missing teeth, and a really sweet giggle. Much to Stacy’s amusement, Lindee took to calling me Uncle John, and then promptly tucked her hand in mine as we walked from the parking lot to the zoo entrance. Stacy’s already planning for a large family — come to think of it, I wasn’t consulted about that either — and it was clear she enjoyed seeing me get some dad-to-be training.

So there we were, strolling through the zoo on a clear and unusually balmy February afternoon with Lindee leading the way. Before long I’d switched to holding Stacy’s hand because by then Lindee was clutching some pink cotton candy on a stick, and she’d also gone skipping on ahead to see the animals. She headed for the lion pen, where she peered through the fence at a large male lion dozing in the sun.

“Wake up, Mr. Lion, wake up,” Lindee called out.

Mr. Lion showed no reaction whatsoever. In fact, he showed no movement whatsoever, save for a slowly twitching tail.

Lindee watched for another few seconds, at which point the boredom kicked in and she went running off to look in the nearby tiger pen.

And at that moment my cell phone rang.

The Caller ID showed that it was Al DiPietro. And just like the last time, he didn’t bother with a greeting.

“Where are you, Crowley?” he said abruptly.

I told him and then waited to see if he’d make some joke about me spending the day at the zoo.

Instead he said, “I need you to come by my office. There’s been another one.”

Even though I knew what he meant, I asked anyway. “Another murder?”

“Yeah. Another clipping, too.”

My heartbeat did a little skip.

“Whose name’s on the story?”

“It’s yours, Crowley.”

I closed my eyes, feeling suddenly overwhelmed. When I opened them a few seconds later, Stacy was staring at me. She knew about Julie Bedard’s death and the article with my by-line — I’d told her everything, knowing she could keep a secret — and she’d apparently figured out the nature of the phone call from my expression.

She gave me a questioning look and I nodded.

There was more I wanted to ask DiPietro, but it seemed too important for the telephone. He’d asked me to come to his office and I knew I needed to oblige, even if it meant messing up my outing with Stacy and Lindee.

“I’m on my way, Al,” I said.

I closed the phone, turned to Stacy and said, “I have to go.”

We briefly discussed our change of plans. It was a nice day and she was willing to stay at the zoo with Lindee, who by then was yelling through another fence, “Wake up, Mr. Tiger, wake up.”

“Let’s meet up later,” Stacy said, and she reminded me that I’d promised to take Lindee out for a pizza dinner.

So it was settled and I walked over to say good-bye to Lindee. She gave me a quick hug and then raced off to look at the bears.

As I headed for the parking lot, I could hear her shrill voice in the distance, “Wake up, Mr. Bear, wake up.”

It took me about 15 minutes to drive to the downtown Seattle Justice Center, home of the SPD’s homicide division. The division comprises one section of the SJC’s fourth floor, and as the senior sergeant DiPietro had a corner cubicle with peek-a-boo views of Puget Sound between the skyscrapers and other buildings to the west. He was sitting at his desk, wearing jeans, a white polo shirt and a navy blue windbreaker, and I assumed he’d been enjoying a leisurely Saturday of his own when he got the call.

I also knew that he was working solo for the next few days because his partner, Tommy Whittaker, had taken a week’s vacation to travel to the East Coast for a nephew’s wedding.

“Who’s the victim?” I asked.

“Catherine Hyde,” he said, pointing me to a chair.

This time I remembered the story immediately.

“She’s a nurse,” I said. “I never asked her age, but I’d say she was probably 30 when I talked to her a little over three years ago, and that means she would’ve been about 33 by now. Short brown hair. Average height and weight. And her friends called her Cathy.”

“Yes to all of those,” he said. “And now since you seem to know so much, is there any chance you also can also tell me why someone would want to kill her and then leave another story — and another story written by you, no less — beside her body?”

“The answer’s the same as the last time, Al,” I replied, shaking my head. “I have absolutely no idea. And frankly, this whole thing is starting to freak me out. I’m part of this for some reason and I still don’t know why.”

He regarded me for another few seconds and then sighed.

“I know, Crowley, I know,” he said. “And I believe you. There’s a real sicko out there who’s killed two young women, and for some reason he likes leaving newspaper stories behind that include the victims’s names. And coincidence or not, those stories also happen to be written by you.”

“Can I see this one?”

He shook his head. “It’s not here. In fact, I haven’t seen it yet. The lab’s still checking it over in case the killer was thoughtful enough to leave behind some evidence, though given what we found the last time, or rather what we didn’t find, I’m not holding out much hope. But since I still don’t know what’s in the story, why don’t you tell me what you wrote and whatever else you might remember about Ms. Hyde.”

“Sure,” I said. “Except there’s some backstory, which is maybe where I should begin. It’ll take a few minutes. Is that OK?”

“Crowley, if you can tell me anything that’ll help us find this guy, you can take all day.”

“OK, then let me start with a question. Do you know the name Harland Emerson?”

“He’s an attorney in Seattle, right?”

“Yeah, except that’s Harland Emerson Sr. The person in my story was his son, Harland Emerson Jr. Ever hear of him?”

“I think so. He got arrested a while back, didn’t he? I remember that much, but not what he did.”

So I filled him in, beginning with the fact that Harland Emerson Jr. was indeed the son of a very wealthy and influential Seattle lawyer. In fact, the elder Emerson was a senior partner with Emerson, Fanning, Joby and Sewell, one of the city’s largest and most powerful law firms. His son, who’d been in his late 20s at the time of my story, was an extremely intelligent young man with a seemingly bright future in the law, too. A chip off the old block, in other words, except the boy also had a cocky, rebellious and occasionally malicious side. As a prep student in Seattle, the demerits in his disciplinary file piled up as quickly as the A’s on his transcript. He was later admitted to Harvard University, his father’s alma mater, but dropped out midway through his freshman year to avoid being expelled. He was an unabashed snob — in my mind, that should’ve helped him fit right in at Harvard — but the bigger problem was his indifference to most authority and rules, and even the tenets of basic decency. As a result he was constantly in trouble, first with university officials and later with the Cambridge Police Department.

As I later learned, the elder Emerson pulled every imaginable string with the Harvard higher-ups — including, I discovered, some timely and substantial donations — to keep his son in school. But eventually the folks at Harvard, grateful though they were for daddy’s dollars, simply ran out of patience. The capper was a drunken brawl at a nightclub near the campus, all of it instigated by Emerson. In a drunken state he groped a young woman in a low-cut sweater, and when the woman’s boyfriend interceded Emerson decked him with one punch, setting off a melee between his own friends and some buddies of the other guy. A handful of combatants ended up in the hospital and several were arrested, including Emerson.

Somehow his father’s legal savvy convinced Cambridge officials to dismiss the charges, but the school was less forgiving. The young man had to go, they insisted, so rather than suffer the ignominy of expulsion he dropped out and returned to Seattle, where he lazed around for a year before enrolling at the University of Washington.

His first year at the UW passed without incident. He was pulling all A’s and apparently on track to be a latter-day Prodigal Son. But at a fraternity party the next year, and once more fueled by too much booze, he assaulted a co-ed and was arrested. Again his father stepped in, and the result was a hefty financial payment that persuaded the female victim to drop the charges. Six months later the old man had his wallet out again, this time to pay off a male student whom his son had thrown against a wall and punched repeatedly after some insignificant spat at an off-campus party. Once more the charges were dropped.

At that point things seemed to settle down for a time, which was perhaps due to counseling, some severe admonitions from his dad, a prescription for Zoloft, and maybe all of the above. Whatever the remedy, Emerson enjoyed smooth sailing through the rest of his undergraduate years. He graduated summa cum laude with degrees in both business and political science, and was immediately admitted to the UW law school, where he continued to excel academically. The word around town was that he already had an office waiting for him at his dad’s firm, and the only thing left to do was wrap up law school and pass the state’s bar exam.

And then he self-destructed.

Midway through his third and final year of law school, Emerson was accused of sexual assault by a young Seattle woman he’d met at a party. After she repeatedly rebuffed his advances — and several witnesses confirmed that much to police — he surprised her in a back hallway as she was leaving the bathroom. Clamping a hand over her mouth, he dragged her to a vacant bedroom, smacked her in the face a few times to show he meant business, and then assaulted her with his hand still pressed against her mouth.

At this point, I now told DiPietro, Cathy Hyde entered the picture. She and the victim were close friends, and had actually attended the party together. It was Ms. Hyde, in fact, who came to the victim’s aid after Emerson fled. And at his subsequent trial, she emerged as the prosecution’s star witnesses. She was entirely credible, both with her testimony about events before and after the attack, and as a nurse speaking to the victim’s physical trauma.

My article was a sequel to the trial, which I’d attended. A few days before the verdict was announced — and Emerson was convicted by a 12-member jury — I’d suggested an exposé about his troubled life to my boss Harvey Connell, who’d enthusiastically agreed. My story ran three days after the verdict came down and included some of Ms. Hyde’s trial testimony as well as comments she made to me during a later interview, although the two of us never spoke in person. Our one conversation was by telephone when I called the hospital where she worked since that was the only number I had for her. Because of deadline constraints, there simply hadn’t been time for the two of us to get together.

It was apparently this article, I now told DiPietro, that’d been found beside Ms. Hyde’s body.

The ultimate irony, I added, is that Emerson ended up with the last laugh. He was briefly jailed after his conviction, but his father’s clout with a sympathetic judge got the young man released to house arrest prior to an appeal. Sparing no expense, his dad then brought in some high-priced attorneys from the East Coast, and that legal dream team picked apart the state’s case with thorough and unrelenting precision. Realizing they were in danger of losing Emerson’s conviction altogether, prosecutors agreed to let him plead guilty to a lesser misdemeanor charge, for which he only served an additional 26 days in the county jail. The sentence also included community service, court costs and a lengthy probation, but he avoided prison and was soon back in law school. In fact, he graduated with honors the following spring.

“And that’s what I know about Harland Emerson Jr.,” I told DiPietro.

He was leaning back in his chair, hands folded on his stomach, his face impassive. “Did you ever talk to him?” he asked.

“No, I never had the chance. The family wouldn’t let me near him.”

“What about the parents?”

“I tried to talk to his dad. He was there at the trial every day with his wife. Sitting in the first row directly behind the defense table so he could confer with the attorneys whenever he had a point to make, which was often as I recall. But one day I saw him alone in the hallway during a break, so I went up and introduced myself, and I asked if I might get an interview with his son after the trial. Fat chance, he said, or words to that effect. And when I asked if I could instead talk to him and his wife, he just turned and walked away. But I heard him say, ‘I don’t like reporters.’”

“Well, let’s not blame him for that,” DiPietro said deadpan. His idea of a joke.

In lieu of a retort, I said, “OK, now your turn. Tell me what happened to Cathy Hyde.”

He reached for a notepad on his desk and referred to some scribbled notes.

“Her body was found this morning at her home outside of Renton,” he said, referring to a city south of Seattle. “There were abrasions and other marks on her head and neck, which is evidence of a struggle. But that’s not what killed her. She died because she’d been strangled.”

He flipped to another page and went on, “Renton PD got the first call, but we heard about it early on. And because of the similarities to Julie Bedard’s murder, we got in touch and they brought us in.”

“Where’d they find the body?”

“In the house. No sign of forced entry, which was probably because the back door was unlocked.”

“Did any of the neighbors see or hear anything?”

“Unfortunately, no. The home’s in a rural area. A few people live in the vicinity, but no one’s very close. In fact, you can’t even see her house from any of the neighboring properties because of the trees. She also had a large lot and some animals. A dog, a horse and two cats. Except whoever killed her killed the dog, too.”

“Probably to keep it from barking,” I remarked.

“My guess, too.”

Then he said, “We know she went into Renton last night, which is about a 6-mile drive. She was visiting her grandmother who lives in a nursing home, and that’s something she did once a week. Usually on Thursday, except this week she was doing something else that night, so she went on Friday instead. She was there from 6:30 until about 8 o’clock, and then drove home. The folks at the nursing home were the last ones to see her alive.”

“Who found the body?”

“A friend. They were supposed to meet for coffee this morning, and when she didn’t show up the friend tried to call. First Ms. Hyde’s cell phone and then the phone at the house. But there was no answer at either number, so the friend got worried and drove to the house. Ms. Hyde’s car was in the garage, but no one answered the door. The friend apparently knew where there was a key hidden outside and let herself in, and she found Ms. Hyde sprawled on the kitchen floor. She called 911 right away, but it was too late. As Renton PD later confirmed, Ms. Hyde had been dead for several hours.”

“Any evidence of sexual assault?”

“No.”

“Where was the clipping?”

“Right next to her body.”

“And it was the clipping I mentioned?”

“I think so.”

Something occurred to me. “Where’d they find the dog?” I asked.

“Outside. Behind the garage. There’s some trees there, and the dog was back in those trees.”

“Do you know if it was an inside dog or an outside dog?”

“Both, from what we can tell. It was a golden retriever and it slept on a bed by the back door, but then stayed out during the day. I assume she brought the animal in each night when she came home from work.”

“OK, so if she returned from visiting her aunt, and if the dog wasn’t there to greet her, she might’ve gone looking. And maybe that’s when the bad guy slipped inside and then surprised her when she finally came in herself.”

DiPietro considered that before giving a little nod of agreement.

“But here’s the big question,” I said. “What’re the chances that somehow, in some way, the lives of Julie Bedard and Cathy Hyde intersect? Maybe at school. Or with relatives, friends, hobbies or something like that? Because it’s possible they had something in common.”

“We’ve obviously thought about that and we’re checking it out,” DiPietro said. “Because as tragic as this is, it gives us a second angle to work which could definitely be to our advantage. Sure, it’s possible these two cases are unrelated and that our bad guy is simply someone who gets his kicks out of finding the names of young women in the newspaper, and then tracking them down and killing them. But I don’t think that’s it. Because given the dates on these clippings — they’re both a few years old — this guy had them stashed away. And that makes me think he’s been planning this for a while, which I doubt he’d do if these were women he didn’t know.”

It was my turn to nod in agreement.

Then I asked, “Is there any chance Ms. Hyde moonlighted as a stripper?”

“No way, and I know that because we already checked. She was a model citizen by all accounts. She sang in the church choir, for crying out loud.”

“Is there any reason to think … ?”

His ringing phone stopped me. I fell silent as he reached for the receiver.

“DiPietro,” he said, and then he spent the next half-minute listening.

Finally he said, “How are they taking it? … OK, when can we see them? … Really? Are you sure they’re up for it? … All right, then I’ll leave here in a few minutes. And” — he glanced at me — “I’ll probably have someone with me.”

He listened again and then said, “OK, give it to me.”

Using a pen from his desk, he scribbled something on the notepad. From where I sat it appeared to be an address.

“OK, got it,” he said. “And thanks. If we get anything, I’ll let you know.”

He hung up the phone and looked at me. “Let’s go for a ride,” he said.

“Who was that?”

“One of the detectives with the Renton Police Department. They’re letting us lead the investigation because of the link to Julie Bedard’s murder, and we’ve been cleared to talk to Cathy Hyde’s parents. This afternoon, as a matter of fact. And unless you’ve got something better to do, I’d like you there.”

I’ve known DiPietro a long time, and this was the first time he’d ever invited me along for a formal police interview. To talk to the parents of a murder victim, no less.

“I’m happy to go, Al,” I told him. “But why?”

“Because you’re somehow involved in this. And even though we don’t know why, maybe you’ll see or hear something today that clicks.”

He rose, checked his pockets for his car keys and then said, “We’re trying to find a killer, Crowley. And until we do, I’m keeping you close to the investigation.”

CHAPTER 4

Al DiPietro and I were mostly silent on the drive out to Renton. We were in his unmarked police car, and for the first several minutes the only sound was the occasional chatter on the police radio, which he kept at low volume.

I’m sure we were both gearing up for the interview to come. Because no matter how many times you’ve done it, it’s never easy talking to family members who’ve just lost a loved one. It’s bad enough when the death is the result of some tragic accident, like a car accident or a drowning. But when it’s a homicide the next of kin are not only grieving, they’re often confused and angry, too. They want to know who would do such a thing and why, and there’s never a good way to give them the answers they want.

We drove on I-5 to the I-405 interchange just south of Seattle, and then east to Renton where we left the freeway. DiPietro was using his GPS to navigate as we headed further east along a winding rural highway, and after a few miles he turned off to the north. We continued another half-mile before he pulled into a long driveway leading to a large two-story home on a spacious lot. Adjacent to the garage was a fenced field with three horses standing idly.

DiPietro had broken his silence over the last few miles to fill me in. He said that Cathy Hyde was the youngest of three adult children raised by parents Bruce and Tina Hyde. The oldest child, Dennis, was a career Air Force officer stationed in Europe who was apparently en route home. As was the middle child, Molly, who was married to a college football coach and living in Florida.

Bruce Hyde was a semi-retired dentist, meaning he only worked two or three days a week. He spent the rest of his time playing golf at a private club near Renton and volunteering at a church in the nearby community of Maple Valley. His wife was a second grade teacher at an elementary school just down the road, and had once been a world-class swimmer who’d narrowly missed making the U.S. Olympic team years before as a student at Stanford University.

“They’re about as All-American as any family could be,” DiPietro told me as we came to a stop in front of the house. “There’s nothing that would even remotely connect them to a crime like this.”

He turned off the engine and we sat in silence for a moment, gathering ourselves. Finally he took a deep breath, exhaled slowly and said, “OK, let’s do it.”

We stepped out and walked to the front door. DiPietro knocked and a few seconds later the door was opened by Tina Hyde, a tall, trim, middle-aged woman with short blond hair and stylish glasses. DiPietro introduced himself while showing his badge and then introduced me. The two of us expressed our condolences which she acknowledged with a slight, solemn nod. Through the glasses, I could see that her eyes were red from recent crying.

“Please, come in,” she said softly, and she led us down a short hallway to a sunken living room.

“We’ll sit in here,” she said. “My husband will be with us in a few minutes. He’s on the phone with the funeral home and … ”

She broke off and looked away, overcome with emotion. When she looked back her eyes were damp with new tears.

“Can I bring you something to drink?” she asked in a halting voice. “Ice water? Coffee? A soft drink?”

I was all set to say no, but DiPietro replied, “Yes, thank you. A cup of coffee. Black, please.”

As she turned and left the room, I gave him a quizzical look. Like I didn’t understand why he was putting her out in the midst of her grief.

He must’ve known what I was thinking because he said, “I want to make this as normal as possible. Even the time it takes her to get my coffee will help.”

He went to sit in a nearby armchair and began reviewing the notes he’d scribbled on the few first pages of his small pocket notebook. I sat in a matching armchair on the opposite side of a small table with a decorative lamp.

Mrs. Hyde returned shortly with DiPietro’s coffee, which she placed on the table next to him. She then sat on a facing sofa, and for the next few minutes the three of us made awkward small talk.

Footsteps from the nearby hallway announced the approach of Bruce Hyde. He was a large, well-built man, and I had no doubt that he’d once been an athlete like his wife.

Also like his wife, he had red eyes and an expression of anguish.

DiPietro and I stood to shake his hand and repeat our condolences. He thanked us and went to sit by his wife. The moment he was seated they each took the other’s hand.

On the drive out DiPietro and I had agreed that he’d handle the interview, which he now began by saying, “Dr. and Mrs. Hyde, let me again express my very sincere sympathy to both of you. I have two daughters of my own” — they were stepdaughters, I knew, but he was as devoted to them as any dad could be — “and I can appreciate how unbelievably hard this must be. Part of me just wants to sit here and grieve with you. But I also know that we need to find the person responsible for this terrible crime, and that means I have to ask you some questions.

“It’s possible that some of my questions will be difficult, so I’m going to ask your forgiveness in advance. But please know that every question I ask is for the sole purpose of helping us find whoever did this to your daughter.”

Still clutching his wife’s hand, Bruce Hyde said, “Sergeant, this is extremely difficult as you say. But Tina and I both understand how important it is that we answer your questions. We have no idea how something like this could’ve happened to Cathy, and at this point we just want to know why. So if answering your questions helps us get that answer, it’ll be worth it.”

Tina Hyde said nothing. She was staring at the coffee table in front of her.

DiPietro nodded, cleared his throat and said, “All right, I’ll begin. As I think both of you know by now, what happened to your daughter is very similar to another case involving a Seattle woman that occurred earlier this week. In both instances, a newspaper article with the victim’s name was left at the scene. For that reason, we obviously believe the same individual was responsible for both crimes, and it gives us the opportunity to look for areas of overlap between the two cases. If there are things we find in common, it might help us to identity a suspect.

“I should also mention that Mr. Crowley” — he nodded in my direction — “wrote the newspaper stories that were found at both crime scenes. He has no idea why his stories have been connected to these two incidents and he very much wants to get some answers, just like the rest of us. So he’s here today because perhaps something you say will remind him of a clue that could be helpful in our investigation. Or maybe what he says will make you think of something that could also be important.”

Dr. Hyde nodded his understanding. Mrs. Hyde was still staring at the coffee table.

DiPietro spent the next several minutes asking the kinds of questions you’d expect in an interview like this. He asked if the Hydes knew of anyone who’d been threatening their daughter. He asked if she had any acquaintances that collected newspaper clippings. He also asked about Harland Emerson Jr., and if she’d had any contact with him in the years since the trial.

Bruce Hyde’s answer to all of these questions, unfortunately, was no.

DiPietro then requested the names of Cathy Hyde’s boyfriends since high school. For the first time since the interview began, Tina Hyde spoke up. There’d been three, she said, looking up from the coffee table. The most recent was a young man named Chad Erlandson, who worked as an assistant chef at a south Seattle restaurant. Before that was Andrew Beckett — he went by Drew, Mrs. Hyde said — and he was a computer technician for a large Seattle insurance firm. And the boyfriend that Cathy had dated while attending Seattle Pacific University and then for a year or two afterward was Bruce Carey, a theology student at SPU who’d gone on to seminary and later became a youth pastor at a small church near Renton.

“We liked Bruce the best, and not just because he had the same name as my husband,” Tina Hyde said. “He was also very kind and generous, and we liked the idea that he was going into ministry. But for whatever reason, the spark between them seemed to fade over time. So they broke it off and he ended up marrying another woman about two years ago. We just found out last month that he and his wife have a new baby. A little boy.”

On some blank pages in his notebook, DiPietro was jotting down information about the ex-boyfriends. He then asked for the names of Cathy Hyde’s closest friends, and not because any of them were considered suspects, he explained. But it was possible she’d mentioned something to one of them about a menacing person in her life. And it was likewise possible she might’ve said something to a friend that she wouldn’t have wanted to tell her parents for fear of worrying them.

Tina Hyde provided several names, which DiPietro added to his notebook. They were mostly women, but there were a few men, too.

Then she said, “If you’d like, Sergeant, I have Cathy’s address book and cell phone, and you’re welcome to take them. We’d like them returned at some point, but for now you might find them useful. If nothing else, they’ll give you the phone numbers of some of the people I just named.”

DiPietro told her he’d appreciate that, so she stood and walked to the kitchen. She returned moments later and handed the address book and cell phone to DiPietro, who thanked her and slipped them into his jacket pocket.

Then he asked, “Do you know if Cathy was acquainted with a woman named Julie Bedard?”

The Hydes looked at each other and then back at DiPietro. “That name’s not familiar,” Bruce Hyde said. “Is she the other woman that was killed?”

“She is,” DiPietro replied. “And as I said earlier, we’re hoping there’s some connection between your daughter and Ms. Bedard, although we’ve yet to come up with anything. But it’d be a big break if we do. Because maybe they were acquaintances at some point. Or maybe they had a common friend.”

“I’m not sure we can help you,” Tina Hyde said after another glance at her husband. “But we’ll mention that name to Cathy’s friends when we talk to them over the next few days. It’s possible one of them knows something that we don’t.”

“Do you know if Bedard was her birth name or her married name?” Bruce Hyde asked.

“Her married name,” DiPietro said, and that got my attention. It was the first confirmation I’d heard that Julie Bedard had once been married.

“Her birth name was Julie Nylund,” he added hopefully.

The Hydes again looked at each other, but once more shook their heads.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce Hyde said. “I don’t think we know that name either.”

DiPietro nodded, though his disappointment was obvious. He’d clearly been hoping for a link with the Julie Bedard question.

We went on to talk about Cathy Hyde’s work at the hospital in Renton and her involvement at the church in Maple Valley, which was the same church where her father volunteered. DiPietro also asked about her decision to live alone a few miles away and about her favorite leisure activity, horseback riding. He was probing here and there, tossing out random questions, hoping to get lucky. But it was evident to all of us that he wasn’t making much progress. There just didn’t seem to be anything in Cathy Hyde’s life to explain or even to hint how a tragedy like this could’ve happened.

He finally gave me a questioning look, as if to ask if I’d heard anything promising. I could only shake my head and shrug.

The entire interview lasted about 45 minutes, and I could tell it was emotionally draining for the Hydes. DiPietro must’ve noticed, too, because he abruptly said, “Dr. and Mrs. Hyde, I think you’ve answered all my questions. It’s possible I’ll have other questions as we go forward with our investigation, and if that happens I’ll certainly call you. But for now let me thank you and tell you that you’ve been very helpful.”

They replied graciously, though they also seemed relieved it was over.

DiPietro and I stood, and as we turned toward the front door I noticed a collection of family photographs on the back wall, probably three dozen in all. Seeing my gaze, Mrs. Hyde walked over to the wall and the rest of us followed.

It was like a family photo album, except the pictures were all in frames and hanging on the wall. There was one of Bruce and Tina Hyde on their wedding day and a few others with just the two of them, but most were photos of the three children at various ages.

“This was Cathy’s high school graduation picture,” Tina Hyde said, pointing to a photo of a pretty teen-ager with long brown hair and a big smile.

“And this,” she went on, pointing at another picture of her daughter with much shorter hair, “was taken the year she graduated from Seattle Pacific University with her nursing degree.”

An adjacent photo showed Cathy in riding clothes, sitting on a large brown horse.

“That’s her horse J.J., which is short for Jumping Jack. She called him that because he jumps so well,” Tina Hyde said. “She bought him a few years after she graduated from high school with money she’d earned from different jobs, and she rode him whenever she could. She was never happier than when she was riding.”

“He’s still at her house,” Bruce Hyde said, “although we’ll be moving him over here in the next day or two to be with our other horses.”

Of the remaining pictures, there were several of Cathy with her brother and sister, including a few with the spouses and children of Dennis and Molly. There was also a dozen or more of the entire family. Some were formal portraits and others were taken at various locales, including one with three generations of Hydes on the beach in Hawaii, with Waikiki’s Diamond Head in the background.

One picture near the center of the display caught my attention. It showed Bruce and Tina Hyde seated in a restaurant with a large cake on the table in front of them and with their three adult children standing behind.

“When was this taken?” I asked.

Bruce Hyde had come up beside me.

“Last year,” he said, and he reached to touch the edge of the frame with his fingertip. “Tina and I were celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary and the kids took us to a very nice restaurant in Seattle. Afterward they surprised us with this beautiful ‘Happy Anniversary’ cake.

“As it turned out,” he added with emotion in his voice, “that’s the last picture of the five of us. Dennis and Molly were coming back for Christmas this year, so we were all going to be together again. But … ”

He turned away, unable to continue.

I glanced at DiPietro and he tipped his head to the door. I nodded, knowing it was time for us to leave.

At the door, DiPietro repeated our condolences. He then took a business card from his wallet and handed it to Bruce Hyde.

“I’m sure we’ll be speaking again,” DiPietro said. “If we come up with any promising leads or if I have any other questions, I’ll call you. And if you think of anything else that might help our investigation, please call me at this number.”

The Hydes nodded silently, and I had the feeling they were too wrung out even to bid us good-bye. But in the next moment Tina Hyde stepped forward and put a hand on DiPietro’s forearm.

“Sergeant, I know I can’t ask you for a guarantee,” she said. “But what are the chances you’ll find the person who did this?”

I didn’t have to see DiPietro’s face to know what he was thinking. Her question was one all homicide detectives hate to hear. Because as much as they want to give a grieving family hope, they also don’t want those hopes to get too high. More to the point, they don’t want to make promises they can’t keep.

DiPietro hesitated and then said, “We’ll do our very best, Mrs. Hyde. You have my word, this case will be our highest priority.”

He spoke with sincerity, but it was also a vague and incomplete answer. And by her expression, Tina Hyde seemed to know as much. Her hand fell away, and in the next moment her face contorted with sorrow, her shoulders sagged and it looked like she might collapse. Her husband reacted at once, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and gripping her tightly to hold her up.

I could hear her sobbing as the door closed behind us.

Back in the car, DiPietro swung the vehicle around and headed down the driveway. He was staring straight ahead, his face solemn and his hands clenched on the steering wheel. He’d clearly been affected by our visit with the Hydes and by their immense heartache.

But as we came to a stop at the end of the driveway, he glanced at me.

“Here’s the thing that scares me the most,” he said. “This guy’s not finished. I don’t think there’s any question that he’s planning to kill again.”

“What makes you so sure?” I asked.

DiPietro took a few seconds to check for approaching traffic before pulling out onto the highway. As he accelerated, he gave me another glance.

“It’s because this almost seems like a game to him,” he said. “It’s the way he leaves newspaper clippings behind. He wants us to know it’s him. It’s like he’s daring us to come find him. It’s like he’s saying, ‘Yeah, it’s me, and you know it’s me. And now let’s see if you’re smart enough to come find me.’

“The other thing is, he hasn’t left us any evidence to work with. Both crime scenes have been searched very carefully and they’re both squeaky clean. So this guy’s good and he seems to know he’s good. And now he wants to make sure that we know it, too.”

“It’s like he’s taunting us,” I said.

“That’s it,” DiPietro said with a nod. “He thinks he’s better than we are and it’s made him confident, even arrogant. He’s convinced that he can keep doing this and that he can keep getting away with it and there’s nothing we can do about it. Which is why I think he’s already planning his next attack. He’s confident that he can pull it off, just like he pulled off the first two, and so in his mind there’s no reason to stop. And that’s what really scares me.”

We rode in silence for another minute. I could tell he had more to say, so I waited.

“You need to understand something, Crowley,” he said at last. “I’m not worried about this guy getting away. We’ll find him eventually, I’m sure of that. Guys like this, they can run free for a while if they’re smart. But at some point they get careless, they make a mistake, and that’s when we catch them.

“But the problem is, I don’t know when that’ll be. And it scares me to think there might be other families that end up suffering the way these people are. Because until we figure out who he is and can make an arrest, you can be sure he’s going to keep right on killing.”

CHAPTER 5

When I arrived at the office on Monday morning, Harvey Connell was waiting. From his desk across the newsroom he caught my eye and beckoned with a wagging finger. Then he headed to the conference room, intending for me to follow.

Getting summoned to the conference room by Harvey is a little like being a kid called to the principal’s office. The worst part is, you’re never quite sure what’s in store. Sometimes it’s good news, like a promotion or a salary increase, or even praise for a job well done. Other times it’s just routine stuff, like a story he wants to talk about or maybe ideas he has for future stories. But the conference room is also where Harvey does his dirty work. So if a reporter screws up an assignment or commits some other journalistic sin, he or she can expect a one-on-one with Harvey in the conference room. There, behind a closed door, and in a voice that’s anywhere from firm to flat-out shouting, he gets his message across.

But as I followed him to the conference room that morning, I didn’t think I was in trouble, his grim expression notwithstanding. Harvey likes my work and I’m pretty sure he likes me, too. I figured he had something else in mind.

Sure enough, he closed the door, pointed me to a chair and announced, “I want you on this story.”

I’d called him on Saturday afternoon, shortly after returning to Seattle with Al DiPietro. Over the phone I told him about Cathy Hyde’s murder, and for the first time I let him know about the clippings with my by-line found beside the two victims. Harvey wasn’t happy that I hadn’t mentioned this before, even when I explained my promise to DiPietro.

“You don’t keep secrets from your city editor,” he said crossly.

Not wanting to argue, I changed the subject by asking if he wanted me to write about Cathy Hyde’s death. No, he said, he’d give it to Warren Stephens, our police reporter. Stephens got called into the office later that afternoon, and his story — once again, there was no mention of a clipping — ran in our Sunday paper.

But now, having had the rest of the weekend to think it over, Harvey was making a switch.

“I want you to take it from here,” he said. “You have the inside sources on this one, so I’m giving it to you.”

“What about Stephens?” I asked.

Harvey’s eyes narrowed. “It’s not his story anymore,” he said.

To be honest, I wasn’t surprised. Even on his best days, Stephens is only a mediocre reporter. His stories are often awkward, unimaginative and short on substance. In addition, he’s not very good at cultivating sources, he lacks initiative, and he has a habit of leaving out important details, which is the kind of stuff that drives Harvey up the wall. Everyone in the newsroom knew he was losing patience with Stephens, as evidenced by his decision to hire a new backup police reporter three months earlier. Her name is Janice Kaloper, and she’s young, ambitious and one heck of a journalist. In other words, she’s everything Stephens is not. The consensus around the Press-Tribune was that she’d soon be replacing him as the lead reporter on the cops beat, and the only question was when.

Stephens, meanwhile, seemed to understand that he was on thin ice, so I knew he’d make a stink about losing the story to me. It would also give him another reason to resent me, which is something I’ve been putting up with almost from the day he was hired. It really bugs him that he’s not as good as me, and for some reason he acts like it’s my fault. Which is ridiculous, of course, because the numbers speak for themselves. In my seven-year stint as the paper’s police reporter I won 12 regional and national journalism awards. Stephens replaced me three years ago and has yet to win one.

And as Harvey told me now, “You’re the best we’ve got. And this story is big enough that we need our best reporter on it.”

“Stephens will throw a fit,” I pointed out.

“Don’t worry about him,” Harvey said, his eyes narrowing again. “That’s my job.”

I could tell his mind was made up, so there was no point in arguing even if I’d wanted to, though of course I didn’t. Every good reporter loves a big story, and me more than anyone. I couldn’t wait to get started.

We spent the next several minutes discussing what Harvey was now calling “the Clip Killer story.” Right away I knew it’d be a serious talk because the first thing he did was roll up his shirt sleeves. It’s something I’ve seen him do many times over the years and it basically means, “Let’s get down to business.” Slowly and deliberately, he undid the sleeve buttons on his white shirt — Harvey always wears white shirts to the office; what varies from day to day are his ties, which he usually wears loosened at the neck — and then carefully rolled back the cuffs twice, exposing his wrists. He did one side and then the other, and when he’d finished he sat back in his chair, propped one ankle across the other knee, placed his elbows on the armrests, and then pressed his hands together in front of his chin, fingertips to fingertips.

“This is your new beat,” he told me. “And until you hear otherwise, it’s your only beat. If you’re working on any other stories, I want you to wrap them up today. And then if something new comes up, check with me because most likely I’ll assign it to someone else.”

I nodded. So far we were on the same page.

“I want regular updates on the police investigation, and I want the first one to run tomorrow,” he went on. “So talk to your cop friend later today, find out what they’ve come up with and then write it. And you should plan on doing the same thing every day until they make an arrest.

“But here’s the other thing. I also want you doing your own investigation. Because even though we’ll be getting daily police reports, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be breaking our own stories, too. The bottom line is, I want us out front on this one, and I mean way out front. I don’t want us getting beat on anything. I want the TV stations, the radio stations and the suburban dailies all quoting our stuff. I even want the cops checking our paper each morning for leads and tips, and to make sure they haven’t missed something.”

I nodded again. Frankly, I already knew all this. But I also knew I needed to let Harvey have his say. He’s my boss, and for now it was my job to listen.

“Next,” he said, “we need to be thinking about other stories we can run to supplement the daily stuff. For starters, I think it makes sense to have a profile of the killer based on whatever we can find out. I’m talking about what the police know, what they don’t know, and maybe some of their theories about why he’s doing what he’s doing. There’s going to be a lot we won’t know, of course, but whatever we can piece together is still worth reporting. So let’s see if we can give the public some idea of who this guy is and what makes him tick.

“Also, we’ll need a story on the victims, and I want that for a Page 1 centerpiece as soon as you can put it together. So start interviewing family members, friends, co-workers, neighbors and anyone else you can think of. Right now these women are just names in the newspaper to most people, so let’s change that. Let’s tell our readers who these women really were. I want anecdotes, memories and lots of emotion. And photos, too, so check with the families to see if they have any pictures we can use.”

Another nod from me, which is pretty much what I’d been doing since he started talking. But it just goes to show just how much Harvey and I think alike. The two of us could hardly be more different personally, but when it comes to news judgment we’re usually of one mind. And I’m sure he thinks so, too, which was probably the biggest reason I was now on the story and Stephens was not.

I waited for Harvey to continue, but instead he paused and then reached back with both hands to scratch his bald spot. A single scratch could have been an absent gesture, but a double scratch meant he was taking a few seconds to gather his thoughts. It meant he had more to say, and from his solemn expression I figured it was going to be important.

And I was right.

“Let’s talk about the clippings,” he said. “Specifically, let’s talk about the fact they were both your stories. That concerns me.”

That makes two of us, I thought.

“I assume the killer’s doing this because he’s trying to send some sort of message,” he went on. “But the question seems to be, is the message somewhere in the clippings themselves? Or is the message in the by-lines? In other words, is it a message he’s sending you?”

I shrugged. But Harvey was still looking at me like he expected an answer, so I said, “I wish I knew. Because those are the same questions I keep asking myself.”

He thought for a moment and then said, “OK, let’s say for the sake of discussion that it is, in fact, a message intended for you. Let’s say the bad guy is killing these women and for some reason he’s trying to get your attention. Is there someone out there who’s maybe … ” — he hesitated again, still thinking — “who’s maybe got a grudge against you?”

That struck me as an odd question. In my career, first as a police reporter and then as an investigative reporter, I’ve written plenty of stories about people who do bad things. Not surprisingly, a lot of them weren’t happy about ending up in the newspaper. So the tally of people with a so-called grudge against me is more than I could count, and Harvey of all people should’ve known it.

I replied by saying, “Well, if you’re asking if there’s someone out there who doesn’t like me because of something I wrote, yeah, I’m guessing there’s a few of them.”

That was probably a little too sarcastic for Harvey since he is, after all, my boss. But he didn’t seem to notice. He just sat there looking at me, his face thoughtful.

“OK, then let me ask you this,” he said. “Has anyone ever called and threatened you because of one of your stories?”

“Threatened me? With a lawsuit, plenty of times. But physically? No, not that I can think of.”

“So you don’t know of anyone who’s out to get you?”

I shook my head.

He considered this for the time it took him to scratch his bald spot again. Then he asked, “When can we report about the clippings?”

“I’ll need the OK from Al DiPietro,” I said. “He told that to me off the record, so we can’t use it until he says so. But I can ask him when I check in later today.”

Harvey made a face and it wasn’t hard to know what he was thinking. Before becoming the Press-Tribune’s city editor, he spent almost two decades as a reporter on various news beats, including six years as a police reporter, making him one of my predecessors on the cops beat. In Harvey’s day, the media didn’t have the kinds of alliances with sources that are so common today. Back then reporters spent their days out hustling for stories and when they found something they wrote it.

But the news business has changed over the years, which is something Harvey has come to accept, albeit slowly and grudgingly.

“OK,” he said at last, “see what he says and then let me know.”

I told him I would, and at that point I figured our meeting was over. I started to stand, but he stopped me with an upraised hand and I settled back in my chair.

“We’ve got a chance to aim really high on this story, and I want us to do that,” he said. “I’m giving it to you because I know you’ll do a great job, and with any luck you’ll come away with some nice awards, both for yourself and for the paper. And I’m not just talking about state and regional awards either. I’m talking Pulitzers.

“But here’s the other thing. A story like this is a chance for the paper to get some great exposure around town. I know that’s not the best way to look at it because this is a terrible tragedy for the victims, their families and the whole community. But it’s also true. And I know it’s true because whenever we’ve written about serial killers before there’s always been a big boost to the circulation numbers. The fact is, a story like this one can send street sales through the roof.”

Street sales are the copies purchased from stacks in stores and coffee shops, and from paper boxes on sidewalks outside restaurants, hotels, bus stations and other public places. In other words, all the papers that are sold besides the ones that go to subscribers via home delivery.

“The best example of that is probably Ted Bundy,” Harvey went on, referring to one of the Seattle area’s most notorious serial killers. “That was a few years before I started here, but I’m told they sold a ton of papers. The circulation guys were always coming down to the newsroom and telling Del Cooley they needed more Bundy stories.”

Del Cooley was a longtime Press-Tribune city editor and the man who guided the paper’s coverage of the Bundy case. Cooley later hired Harvey as a reporter and eventually promoted him to assistant city editor. When Cooley finally retired a few years later, Harvey was named as his successor, which happened about four years before I got hired at the paper.

“Whenever they stuck a Bundy story above the fold back then, it’d show in the windows of the paper boxes and they’d all be empty the next morning,” Harvey said. “For whatever reason, the public seems to eat this stuff up. So I say let’s give them what they want.”

And give the Press-Tribune a much-needed financial boost, I thought. Our job is to be objective journalists, but a newspaper is also a business and that means our daily mission has a twofold purpose. We want to report the news in a complete and unbiased manner, but we also want to sell newspapers. And hopefully a great many newspapers, although that’s getting more difficult in an era of 24-hour cable TV news, not to mention websites, blogs and the like. Hence, Harvey’s little pep talk.

Then he said, “OK, that’s all I’ve got,” and we both stood. As we left the conference room, he reminded me to keep him posted.

My route back through the newsroom took me past Warren Stephens’s desk and I could tell he was watching me. I went out of my way not to look at him because I was afraid my face might break into a giveaway grin. Understand, it’s really not my nature to gloat, although when it comes to Stephens maybe it’s not all that unlike me either.

Harvey, meanwhile, was just a few steps behind me, and by the time I got to my desk he’d already stopped to talk to Stephens. Harvey then turned and headed back to the conference room, this time with Stephens in tow. The hammer was about to fall and I wondered how my soon-to-be-demoted colleague would take the news. Not well, I assumed, although he wouldn’t dare make a scene in front of Harvey. No, he’d save his petulance for me, which meant I could expect a cold shoulder from Stephens until, well, probably until the day one of us left the newspaper. And since my career path was still on the way up and his was seemingly headed in the other direction, I was betting he’d be the first to go, not me.

I watched the two of them disappear out the far door and then reached for the phone to call Al DiPietro. I wanted him to know that I was now the Press-Tribune’s lead reporter on the story, which I assumed would make him happy. And not because we’re such great buddies, although we get along OK. No, it’s because he has no use for Stephens at all. Stephens rubs him the wrong way. Stephens rubs everyone the wrong way.

DiPietro’s didn’t answer his cell phone, so I left a message. Then I took out a notepad and began organizing a list of stories. First would be the profile of the two victims, as Harvey had suggested. I knew I’d need to spend time with Julie Bedard’s mother as well as arranging another get-together with Dr. and Mrs. Hyde. I was also planning a follow-up visit to The Harem to talk with some of the dancers, as well as conducting interviews with some of the people who’d known Cathy Hyde. The idea would be to show that both women had meaningful lives and ambitions, as well as family and friends who loved them very much.

The second story would be about the killer, and it would require a different approach since there obviously wouldn’t be family and friends to interview. But I figured to get much of the information I’d need from experts on deviant behavior, including a University of Washington psychology professor named Dr. Thomas Dunlap who’d spent years researching the criminal mind with a particular emphasis on serial killers. I’d interviewed him previously for his expertise on the kinds of people who kill other people, and I knew he’d have some thoughtful insights.

I was just reaching for my phone directory to look up Dr. Dunlap’s number when Janice Kaloper approached my desk. Because I was now solely on the Clip Killer beat, Harvey had assigned her two stories that otherwise would’ve been mine. She had some questions about the sources for one of the stories, so I took a few minutes to fill her in as she dutifully jotted notes on a pad. Janice is young and girlish — she’s 25, but could easily pass for a teen-ager — but she’s also a determined reporter and there’s no mistaking her talent and potential. The funny thing is, I know she really admires me, both professionally and personally. It goes back about six years to the day I spoke to her college journalism class. She came up afterward to chat and I guess we hit it off because we started keeping in touch by email. After she graduated I told her about an opening at one of the suburban dailies and she ended up getting the job. She was still there when Harvey went looking for a backup police reporter, and based largely on my recommendation she was interviewed and later hired.

She’s succeeded on her own merits, of course, but I know she’s also very grateful for my help. And a little too grateful, according to Stacy, who insists that Janice has a crush on me. I guess she does, even though I think it’s mostly cute and entirely harmless. But as I continued talking to Janice, I could see Stacy watching us from her desk across the newsroom. As our eyes met, she very subtly raised her left hand and wiggled her ring finger. The one with the sparkling diamond ring that she received on the night of our engagement. It was all I could do not to smile, even as I was flipping through my phone directory for a number to give to Janice.

I was just reading off the number when my phone rang. And since that was the last thing she needed, she said thanks and headed back to her desk as I reached for the receiver.

It was Al DiPietro.

“Hey, Crowley,” he said. “I’m glad you’re on the story. It means I won’t have to talk to your friend Stephens anymore.”

Hardly my friend, I thought. But before I could respond, he said, “And I’ve got some news for you. Except you can’t write this yet, OK?”

I hate it when he says that.

“What’s the news, Al?”

“First promise you’re not writing it.”

“OK, I promise. What’s the news?”

“Well, it looks like we found a link between Julie Bedard and Cathy Hyde.”

“Really?!!” I said, reaching for my pen and notepad. “What’s the link?”

“It’s not a what, it’s a who. And it’s enough that we’re going to bring him in for questioning. In fact, he should be showing up here any minute.”

“Who is it, Al?”

“Benny Walser.”

CHAPTER 6

Benny Walser was not a happy man. I knew that much from the sound of his voice on my telephone the next morning.

“The police are trying to set me up,” he shouted. “This whole thing is a bunch of … of … ”

He seemed ready to say a bad word, but caught himself. What came out was, “It’s a bunch of baloney. The police are freaking out because they still don’t know who killed Julie, and now they’re looking for someone to pin it on. And they think that because she worked for me maybe I did it.

“But I didn’t do it, OK? I thought Julie was great, like I told you before. There’s no way I would’ve done something like this.”

Walser had spent the previous afternoon at police headquarters, undergoing extensive questioning from a team of homicide detectives led by Al DiPietro. Whatever the link was between Walser and the two dead women — and I still didn’t know because DiPietro wasn’t saying, not even to me — it evidently hadn’t been enough for an arrest. Walser was eventually allowed to leave, and he ended up going straight to The Harem because by then it was late in the afternoon and the club’s doors were already open.

But he was still angry enough to call me the next morning. I walked into the office a few minutes after 9 o’clock, and a newsroom colleague named Jake Truett — he has the desk closest to mine — told me my phone had already rung three times.

Barely were the words out of his mouth when my phone rang again. It was Walser.

His opening tirade went on for several minutes and he capped it off by saying, “The public needs to know how the police are harassing ordinary citizens like me.”

I had to smile at that one. Benny Walser owned what was undoubtedly the largest strip club in the Seattle area. Hardly my definition of an ordinary citizen.

I heard him slurp something — coffee, I assumed, which seemed to be his drink of choice — and then he said, “You’re a good guy, Mr. Crowley, and I knew that when you came by the club the other day. That’s why I wanted to talk to you again. All I’m asking for is a fair shake. If you write about this, at least make sure you put in there that I deny everything. No matter what the police are saying, I didn’t do it.”

He slurped again and said, “I can’t tell you how bad this makes us look. How bad it makes me look. And it just isn’t fair. I mean, it’s bad enough that Julie was one of our best dancers and then she got killed. But now if it gets out that the cops think I did it, it could ruin us.”

He’d been talking almost non-stop since I answered the phone, but he finally paused long enough for me to jump in.

“Mr. Walser, I understand that you’re unhappy,” I said in my most soothing voice. “I’d be unhappy, too, if I spent a whole afternoon answering questions about a homicide case. But the fact is, it was only questioning. It’s just something that happens in the course of a police investigation.

“And maybe you should look at it this way. If they really thought you were guilty, they would’ve arrested you. So the fact they let you go would seem to be a good sign.”

I thought that might mollify him, but I was wrong.

“They’ve got nothing on me,” he shot back. “In fact, the cops asked me yesterday if I wanted to call my attorney. I told them, ‘No way, I’ve got nothing to hide.’ I said they could ask me whatever they wanted about Julie. I said they could even ask me about that other woman — Cathy something, I think her name was — except I couldn’t tell them much about her because I didn’t even know her. I never met her, so why would I want to kill her, huh?”

I was doodling on my notepad as I waited for my next chance to speak. A race car, for some reason.

“The cops are a bunch of idiots, every one of them,” he muttered. “Somewhere the guy who really killed Julie must be laughing his head off.”

I waited for him to wind down, and when he finally fell silent I said, “Mr. Walser, I want you to know something. I want you to know that I believe you. I don’t think you killed Julie Bedard. Or Cathy Hyde, for that matter. I remember what you told me about Ms. Bedard the other day. About how much you cared for her. And I want you to know that you convinced me.”

OK, so that was a wee fib. I wasn’t at all convinced that he was innocent. But for the time being I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because I wanted to keep him talking. I was still hoping he might know something about who really killed Julie Bedard — assuming it wasn’t him, of course — and I figured I had a better chance of finding out if I stayed on his good side.

Apparently I won him over because he said, “Thank you, Mr. Crowley. I’m glad you believe me.”

“I do,” I said. “But here’s something else I also believe, Mr. Walser. I believe Julie Bedard’s murder was the work of someone who knew her and not some stranger. And since you were her boss and spent a lot of time with her, I have a hunch you probably know her killer, too.”

That last remark was met with a long silence, and I realized it came out sounding like I thought he could be an accomplice.

So I quickly added, “What I mean is, you might know her killer without actually knowing that he’s the one who did it. Because I think it’s very possible it was one of your customers or even an employee. So I’d like to ask you the same question I asked the other day. Is there someone who either works at your club or comes in regularly who was maybe angry with Julie Bedard for some reason? Or was even obsessed with her?”

His sudden outburst startled me.

“Are you kidding me!” he yelled. “I don’t believe this!”

In the next moment there was a loud clattering in my ear, which I gathered was him dropping the phone on his desk. Then his voice again, still shouting, though by now it was obviously coming from elsewhere in the room.

“This is unbelievable!” he hollered.

My first thought was that he must be mad at me. But with my ear pressed to the receiver, I could hear him talking to someone in the background, though their voices weren’t loud enough for me to make out what they were saying.

A half-minute later he grabbed the phone again and shouted, “Are you still there, Mr. Crowley?”

His words sounded like a megaphone in my ear. I quickly moved the phone away.

“I’m here, Mr. Walser,” I said. “What happened?”

“The police have showed up again. Can you believe it? I’m looking out my office window and I’m watching them walk across the parking lot to the front door. There’s four of them and they’re coming in. Two suits and two uniforms. And one of the suits is that dark-haired Italian guy who gave me the third degree down at the station yesterday.”

Al DiPietro, I thought.

I heard the other voice again. It was a woman’s voice and I wondered if it was Busty Becky. Whoever it was, she said something I couldn’t quite pick up, though I clearly heard Walser’s reply.

“They’re the cops, so we have to let them in.” A pause and then, “I’ll wait for them in here. I’ve got a reporter on the phone and whatever happens I want him to hear it.”

To me he said, “Mr. Crowley, I’m glad you’re still on the line. I have no idea what’s going on, but I want you to hear this. You’re my witness. As far as I’m concerned, you can put all this in the paper. Go ahead and write about how the cops keep harassing me. And if you want a quote, I’ll give you one. Are you ready to write this down?”

“Go ahead,” I said, flipping to a fresh page on my notepad.

“OK, here’s my quote. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m absolutely innocent in the deaths of these two women. I didn’t even know that other woman. But Julie was a sweet girl and one of my best employees, and I never would’ve done anything to hurt her. So whatever it is the police think they’ve got on me, they’re wrong.”

Then he said, “Did you get all that?”

I told him yes, even as I was jotting down his last few words.

Once more I heard the woman’s voice in the background.

Into the phone, Walser said, “OK, Mr. Crowley, they’re here. They’re being shown to my office and they’ll be in here any second. I’m leaving the phone on the desk because I want you to hear everything. And you have my permission to use any of this in your story.”

Then silence. As I waited, I realized this was going to be a first in my journalism career. I was apparently going to witness my first arrest, albeit via the telephone.

A few seconds later I heard a male voice. It was indistinct, but I knew it was DiPietro. And with the phone pressed to my ear again, I was able to hear much of what he said.

“Mr. Walser … under arrest for the murder … Julie Bedard. … also a suspect in the murder of Cathy Hyde … going to read you your rights.”

I heard DiPietro begin, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say … ” And he went on, reading the Miranda Rights from the typewritten copy I knew he kept in his wallet.

DiPietro closed by saying, “Do you understand your rights as I’ve explained them to you?”

Walser didn’t answer him. Instead he said loudly, “Did you hear all that, Mr. Crowley? Because I want you to write this up. I want you to write a nice big story so all your readers will know how the police are wasting their time harassing me instead of trying to find the real killer. Go ahead and write it so they’ll look like the clowns they really are.”

Then to DiPietro he said, “Yeah, I understand. And just so you know, the press is on my side. John Crowley from the Press-Tribune is on the phone. He’s been listening to this whole thing and he’s going to print an article for tomorrow’s paper that’ll make all of you look as stupid as you really are.”

That wasn’t quite true, of course. First of all, I certainly wasn’t on Walser’s side, as he claimed. Also, I was staying on the line at his request and for my own curiosity, but I’d made no promise to write anything.

In the next moment I heard DiPietro tell Walser to turn around and place his hands behind his back. A few seconds later I heard the sound of handcuffs clicking into place, followed by Walser shouting, “I’m counting on you helping me out, Mr. Crowley. I’ll have my attorney contact you later on because we’ll have more to say … ”

His voice trailed off as they led him away.

Then I waited. I was pretty sure DiPietro would eventually pick up the phone and I was right.

A minute later I heard him ask, “Crowley, are you there?”

“Yeah, Al, I’m here. What’s going on?”

“Benny Walser has just been arrested as a suspect in the murder of Julie Bedard,” he said. “But I guess you heard all that. So tell me, how come the two of you were talking?”

I explained about my visit to The Harem the week before and about Walser’s phone call to me that morning.

Then I asked, “What’s going on, Al? You had Walser in for questioning yesterday, but you let him go. Now you’re arresting him. Do you know something this morning that you didn’t know yesterday?”

He didn’t answer right away. I heard him talking to one of the other officers — their words were muffled, so DiPietro probably had his hand over the mouthpiece of the receiver — before he finally came back on the line.

He asked me to repeat the question and I did.

“Let me put it this way,” he said. “Yeah, there’s some things we found out. And even though we’re still not sure that Walser’s the guy, he might be, which made it a good idea to get him into custody. But we probably won’t file charges for a few days, if we do at all, so keep that in mind before you go putting all this in the paper.”

His remark made me shake my head. As every first-year journalism student knows, the press rarely names suspects at the time of arrest. People in custody are sometimes released due to a lack of evidence or because their innocence is later proven, so the media usually wait for charges to be filed before disclosing a detainee’s identity. I obviously knew that, and just as obviously DiPietro knew I knew it. He was simply going out of his way to be annoying.

I was tempted to make a snippy reply, but instead I asked, “What’d you find out?”

I waited. And then I waited some more. He was evidently on the fence about answering.

To coax him along I said, “Remember, Al, I won’t be naming Walser until you file charges, so there’s no harm in telling me … ”

“Crowley, there’s always the possibility of harm when I talk to a reporter,” he retorted.

I shook my head again. After all we’d been through — and the two of us went back more than 10 years — he still had a knack for getting on my nerves.

Now it was my turn to make him wait. And then wait some more. He was being a jerk and I wanted him to know it.

And he apparently figured it out because he said, “OK, Crowley, I guess I can tell you this much. We were close to arresting Walser yesterday.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Correct.”

“And then you did this morning.”

“Yes.”

“Because … ?”

He hesitated before saying, “This is off the record?”

“I promise, Al,” I replied, shaking my head a third time.

“OK, here’s the thing. As you know, we’ve been looking for a link between Julie Bedard and Cathy Hyde. And we found out something yesterday, which is why we brought Walser in for questioning. We thought we’d get him in the interrogation room, put a little pressure on and see if he’d let something slip. And even if he didn’t, we thought he still might give us something that’d help the investigation.”

It was time to pin him down. “What’s the connection, Al?”

“Once again, it’s not what. It’s who.”

“OK, who?”

“Harland Emerson.”

I grabbed my notepad and wrote the name.

Then I asked, “Senior or Junior?”

“Senior. Although with that family, if you know one you know the other.”

“Right. So tell me the connection.”

“Well, it’s a bit of a story. What happened was, three of Walser’s former strippers filed suit a few years ago charging, among other things, repeated instances of sexual harassment at The Harem. Now if you want my opinion, it’s a little absurd for strippers to be accusing anyone of sexual harassment. But the women felt they had a case, so they hired some hot-shot lawyer and went after Walser.”

I vaguely remembered reading about the suit. As I recalled, Warren Stephens had written the story for the Press-Tribune.

“The case was headed to trial,” DiPietro said. “And Walser was apparently worried about losing a lot of money, so he hired a high-priced attorney of his own. Which turned out to be Harland Emerson.”

“Interesting,” I said, scribbling more notes.

“Yeah. And it was interesting to a lot of other people, too. I’m told his legal buddies in town couldn’t believe that an attorney of Emerson’s caliber would take the case. It was, after all, a fairly low-level sexual harassment suit and that’s small potatoes for someone like Emerson. But he not only took it, he ended up doing the lion’s share of the work himself instead of passing it off to junior staff.”

“So what happened?”

“He won at trial, to no one’s surprise. And the verdict saved Walser a small fortune. But even today, a lot of people still can’t figure why Emerson took the case.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know anything for sure. But it makes me wonder if Emerson thought he might need to call in a favor someday. And that favor might involve exacting some revenge against Cathy Hyde, the woman who caused so much grief for a beloved son and namesake, Harland Emerson Jr.”

I jotted a few more notes on my pad before saying, “OK, let me see if I’ve got this straight. You’re saying that Walser might’ve killed Julie Bedard for his own reasons, and then came back a few days later and killed Cathy Hyde at Emerson’s request?”

“It’s a theory, yeah.”

Sort of a weak theory, I thought. For starters, Emerson was a prominent citizen. No question, there were a lot of people in town that didn’t like him, but that sure didn’t make him a crook, let alone a killer. Also, he seemed much too savvy to get involved in some tawdry murder-for-hire scheme.

But I kept all that to myself because right then I had a more pressing question in mind.

“You said you knew all this when Walser came in for questioning yesterday, but you still let him go,” I said to DiPietro.

“Yeah.”

“Which means you’ve since found out something else, right?”

When he hesitated, I knew I was right.

“What’d you find, Al?”

He waited a good five seconds before he said. “This is very confidential, Crowley. If you spill any of this … ”

“I won’t, Al. I promised, remember? This is all off the record until you say otherwise.”

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, and I could tell he was stalling as he tried to think of a good reason not to tell me. I waited, fingers crossed.

Finally he said, “OK, Crowley. I’m trusting you on this one, so here it is. We’ve been tracking down former employees and asking them what they know about Walser and Julie Bedard. We’re hearing a lot of things, though most of it is ordinary stuff. But one of them did tell us that Walser’s something of a nut about newspapers. He reads the paper every day, he’s obsessed with seeing his name in print and he sometimes cuts those stories out.”

I stopped writing and just sat there, absorbing what he’d said. If this was true it could become a big piece to the puzzle, and probably the biggest piece of all.

All I could think to say was, “Wow.”

“Yeah. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?” DiPietro said.

“It sure does. But let me ask you this. You said that Walser clips stories about himself. But does he also clip stories about women?”

“We don’t know, but we obviously want to find out. We’re in the process of getting search warrants for his office and his house, and we should have those later today. Once we get in there, we’ll obviously be on the lookout for anything like that.”

I was back to scribbling notes on my pad. Then I said, “Tell me this, Al. Do you know … ?”

“I have to go, Crowley,” he interrupted.

“OK, just one more question. Do you have any idea why Walser would’ve wanted to kill Julie Bedard?”

“At the moment, no. But we’re still interviewing former employees and we’re hoping that one of them knows something. And there’s always the chance Walser will spill something once we get him booked and back in the interrogation room.”

“Do you … ”

“That’s it, Crowley. The guys are already in the car and they’re waiting for me. But I’ll tell you what, you can call later today if you want. Leave a message and, who knows, I might even call you back.”

I heard him laugh at his own joke.

A moment later the line went dead.

CHAPTER 7

“Mees-ter Craw-ley, you must please concentrate. If you do not concentrate, you will dance badly. You will dance with distraction. You will dance — how shall I say? — like a man who does not use his brain.”

It was the next day and the speaker was Anna Maripova, the proprietor and chief instructor at the Step Lightly Dance Studio in downtown Seattle. Ms. Maripova is a middle-aged Russian émigré with dark hair and, in my opinion, a correspondingly dark disposition. She was one of two women in the studio with me that morning, with the other being Stacy, my beautiful and always pleasant fiancée.

Stacy and I were at Ms. Maripova’s studio for our weekly dance lesson, which was an idea Stacy came up with a few months earlier. She’d decided that a series of one-hour classes would allow us to dance brilliantly for the guests at our upcoming wedding. It was important, she added, that our traditional first dance as husband and wife not be inelegant, and I’m sure at that point she was thinking about me.

At the outset, I’ll admit, I was less than enthusiastic. As I told Stacy, I know as much about dancing as I do about nuclear physics. I also pointed out that my chances of becoming a great physicist were, in fact, much better than my chances of becoming a great dancer. But Stacy insisted, and when I tried to protest further she shushed me and said that dance lessons would be fun, romantic and have the added benefit of bringing us closer together. Then she gave me her best smile. All her smiles are great, but she’s got one that’s particularly fetching and utterly persuasive. She knows it, too, and it’s her ace in the hole during difficult negotiations. Because at that point, as we’ve both come to understand, I’m helpless to resist.

So I agreed to the dance lessons, and mostly because I love Stacy and enjoy making her happy. My feelings for Ms. Maripova, however, are decidedly less affectionate. She’s tall, slender and graceful, and those are all good qualities for a woman. But she can also be impatient with students who lack the natural artistry and expressive deportment of, say, Baryshnikov. Like me, for example. The first time she saw me dance she actually put a hand to her mouth and gasped, “Oh, dear.” Then she spent the rest of our initial lesson tsk-tsking at my foibles, of which there were many. By the end of that hour I was convinced my dancing was an abomination, though thankfully her critiques grew less scathing over the next few weeks. Which is probably because my dancing was becoming, well, less abominable.

Stacy, meanwhile, needed only a lesson or two to become Ms. Maripova’s star pupil. Having studied ballet as a younger girl, and then jazz and hip-hop as a teen-ager, she already knew her way around a dance floor. In addition, she has a knack for picking up new steps quickly, and her lithe body and nimble feet allow her to perform them effortlessly and well. In Ms. Maripova’s eyes, everything Stacy does is wonderful, enchanting and inspired. Even her occasional mistakes make our otherwise dour instructor chuckle, not scowl.

“Mees Lang-well,” she announced during class that day, “your progress is excellent. It is clear to me you have the soul of a dancer. If only” — and at that point she frowned in my direction — “you had a partner who could be your equal. Yes, that is what you need. But, alas, we must accept what we have. So we will continue to practice, Mees-ter Craw-ley, until you dance — how shall I say? — not so poorly.”

The week before I’d told Stacy that we ought to find a new teacher. Someone more agreeable, more tolerant and more inclined to offer me an occasional word of encouragement. But Stacy said no, we should stay with Ms. Maripova because she’s one of the best dance instructors in the city. She also said I shouldn’t take the criticisms personally, but should use them as motivation to improve. Furthermore, she said I should respect Ms. Maripova because she formerly danced with the Bolshoi Ballet.

I’m not so sure. I think she’s former KGB.

At any rate, our lesson that day was the waltz, and at one point Comrade Maripova was prattling on about correct hand placement and hip movement, about making our feet glide and not stride, about the importance of feeling the music and not just hearing the music, and I was nodding along every few seconds like I was paying close attention. But, in fact, my mind was elsewhere. Al DiPietro had phoned earlier to tell me the Clip Killer investigation might be wrapping up soon because it sure looked like Benny Walser was the guy. A few hours after he was booked into the King County jail, the police secured a warrant and went to search his home. Sure enough, they discovered boxes under his bed crammed with newspaper clippings. Some were stories about him, but others were stories about people of his acquaintance, including several women.

Investigators had also heard from a few sources, mostly current and former employees, that Ms. Bedard and Walser were often at odds. Walser apparently liked getting cozy with his dancers, and the women who cooperated were generally given preferential treatment and other favors (this was, I later learned, a big part of the earlier sexual harassment lawsuit against him). According to the sources, many of the dancers were OK with the arrangement. After all, they spent their working hours taking off their clothes for strangers, so it apparently wasn’t such a big leap from there to making nice with the boss. And for his part, Walser seemed to see himself as a Hugh Heffner figure surrounded by dozens of beautiful, adoring and much younger women. And, like Hef, he could be extremely generous with his favorite girls.

The whole thing, then, was a win-win for almost everyone at The Harem, and the only problem was that a few women, most notably Julie Bedard, said no dice. Her recalcitrance, the sources told police, was the cause of a lingering feud with Walser. Because as much as he was drawn to her, she wanted no part of him. At best she tolerated him, but at other times there were heated disagreements. He’d give her a hard time about something, she’d threaten to quit, and then he’d back off and become Mr. Nice Guy for a few weeks until there was inevitably another spat.

Put it all together, DiPietro said, and it sure looked like Walser was guilty of murder. Certainly it made a compelling case for prosecutors, who were expected to announce formal charges that afternoon.

So there I was at dance class, pretending to listen to Ms. Maripova while actually thinking about the rest of my day. My plan was to take Stacy to lunch after our lesson and then get back to the office to start putting together my story. I’d begin with background information on Walser, including his long history at The Harem, before heading over to the courthouse to hear the charges as they were filed. I’d stick around to get comments from the district attorney and Walser’s lawyer before returning to the Press-Tribune and …

“Mees-ter Craw-ley, are you listening? … Mees-ter Craw-ley, do you hear me?”

With a start, I realized that Ms. Maripova and Stacy were looking at me. Stacy had a bemused expression, but Ms. Maripova’s face showed its usual disapproval.

“Mees-ter Craw-ley,” she said with reproach, “you must listen. You have much to learn if you want to waltz properly and you will only learn by listening.”

She had a tone of weary exasperation, as if it was taxing in the extreme to have such an inept student, let alone one so prone to daydreaming.

“The waltz is a dance of glamour, a dance of allure, Mees-ter Craw-ley,” she went on, her eyes locked on mine. “It is up to you, the gentleman, to lead your lady around the ballroom in a way that presents her beauty and her charm to their greatest effect. You understand this, yes?”

Then without waiting for a reply, she said, “Come, I will show you.”

To my astonishment, she assumed a waltz position. Her right hand was outstretched to take my left hand, and her other arm was bent at the elbow with her hand upraised so she could place it at my shoulder when I stepped to meet her. She then beckoned me with a nod.

Except I didn’t move. Ms. Maripova had never before offered to dance with me, and for reasons I thought were obvious. For one, she considered me an oaf. For another, I was the student and she was the teacher, and it was her job to stand back and critique. Or in my case, to criticize.

So I just stood there staring, and at that point she did something truly extraordinary. She smiled at me.

“Come, come, Mees-ter Craw-ley, I do not bite,” she said. “And you will learn by dancing with me, I promise. So let us begin.”

Still in her waltz pose, she wiggled her fingers invitingly.

In desperation I turned to Stacy, hoping she’d intercede, but she just stood there grinning like she couldn’t wait to watch.

Meanwhile, Ms. Maripova was still wiggling her fingers.

Seeing no way out, I took a few tiny steps forward. I got close enough to take her hand in mine and place my other hand on her hip, but still keeping as much distance between us as possible.

She laughed lightly. “Mees-ter Craw-ley, do I frighten you? Please, I cannot be so terrible as that.”

Wanna bet, I thought.

“Come, come,” she said gently. “If we are to dance properly, you must hold me closer. You must hold me tenderly. If it will help, you may think of me as your lover.”

That did not help. I actually grimaced, though I did my best to pretend it was a smile. Ms. Maripova promptly smiled back, and in the next moment she slid her left hand from my shoulder to my back and abruptly pulled me closer. We actually bumped chests.

“There now, Mees-ter Craw-ley,” she said softly, her face just inches from mine, “you see this is not so bad.”

I was trying to come up with a clever reply, but my brain wasn’t cooperating. Likewise, my arms and legs were suddenly immobile. I was standing there like a dazed, dopey fool, and the only thing I remember clearly was seeing Stacy off to the side with a hand pressed to her mouth, her body shaking with silent laughter.

“Relax, Mees-ter Craw-ley,” Ms. Maripova said. “You are much too tense. If you are to dance the waltz, you must relax. You must let yourself become one with your partner. Like a lover, yes.”

She was smiling again and it was a rather nice smile, which was very disconcerting. I also noticed that she had pretty eyes, and that her hand felt surprisingly soft and delicate in mine.

“Come,” she said, “let us begin.”

The two of us started to move, even as she kept up her coaching.

“Hold my hand less tightly, Mees-ter Craw-ley. … Gently, please, this is not a wrestling match. … Let your body be light, like a butterfly. … There now, you see how much fun this can be, yes?”

Not exactly fun, I thought, but I smiled anyway to get her off my back. And a minute later she surprised me by saying, “You see, Mees-ter Craw-ley, you are relaxing and you are concentrating. And now you are dancing much better.”

Sure enough, we made one twirling lap around the studio and then another, all without mishap. We were in a nice rhythm and I felt my face break into another smile, this one genuine. Ms. Maripova was still guiding me with little nudges and tugs, but I seemed to be getting the hang of it.

We twirled our way a third time to the far end of the ballroom, and as we spun through another turn I glanced back over my shoulder to see Stacy’s reaction, and …

… and at that moment my right foot came down hard on Ms. Maripova’s left foot, smashing her big toe.

Her expression immediately went from surprise to acute pain. As she released my hand and stepped away, her face contorted even more. She looked ready to cry. Or collapse. Or both.

“I’m so sorry, Ms. Maripova … ”  I began.

She put up a hand.

“No, no. It is … it is OK, Mees-ter Craw-ley,” she said, wincing as she tried to put weight on her injured foot. “I know you do your best. It is just that you are … ” I think she intended to say awkward or uncoordinated or perhaps the worst dancer in all of human history, but she caught herself and said only, “I just need … a moment. Yes, just a moment.”

She hobbled across the studio and disappeared down a hallway to her office, no doubt to phone a podiatrist.

I turned to Stacy, who had a look of disbelief. She obviously couldn’t figure out how anyone, let alone her husband-to-be, could be such an ungainly lout. But whether it was the sight of Ms. Maripova limping away or my expression of humiliation or her own impish sense of humor — and probably a little of each — it was simply too much. She got a tiny smile on her face that soon became a giggle and then peeling laughter, and that got me started, too. The two of us went on laughing for a good minute, right up to the time Ms. Maripova re-emerged from the hallway, at which point we straightened up real quick.

She walked back to us — her limp was much better, I noticed — and said with a forced smile, “Perhaps we will stop our lesson now.”

Stacy and I quickly agreed, and I apologized again. To her credit, Ms. Maripova graciously patted my arm and said, “Mees-ter Craw-ley, do not worry. You will do better next week.”

Stacy kept her composure until we were outside, and then she laughed all the way to the deli on the next block.

“You are getting better, you know,” she said after we’d placed our orders and slid into a booth. Taking my hand across the table, she added, “You’ll be very good by the time we dance at our wedding.”

“What if I cripple you for the honeymoon?” I asked.

That set her off again and I couldn’t help but join in. Other diners were soon turning and looking, and the elderly owner, a nice man named Charlie, caught our eye from behind the counter and playfully shook a finger.

As we ate, we talked about the day ahead. I explained about my Benny Walser story and that I’d probably be working late. That was OK, she said, because she had an early evening interview with a classical pianist who was in town for a series of weekend performances at Seattle’s beautiful Benaroya Hall, a downtown concert venue that is surely one of the nation’s finest. She mentioned that she had tickets for the Sunday night performance and asked if I’d go with her. I said sure and suggested we go to dinner first. She agreed and promised to wear her new black dress, but only if I wore my navy blue sport coat with the silver tie. Deal, I said.

We chatted on about other things through the rest of lunch, and afterward we walked back to the Step Lightly parking lot to get our cars. I held the door for Stacy, gave her hand a little squeeze of farewell and watched as she drove off.

I was just reaching for my car keys when my cell phone rang.

The Caller ID window said it was Al DiPietro, and I assumed he was calling with an update on Walser’s court appearance. DiPietro had promised earlier to let me know the exact time.

“Hey, Al,” I said in greeting. “When do they file charges?”

“No charges, Crowley,” he said. “Walser’s been released.”

I stopped with my car door open, one foot already inside. “You’re kidding?!” I said.

“I wish I was.”

There was something in his tone. “What is it, Al?”

“There’s been another one. Last night. A young woman in downtown Seattle. Another clipping, too. And since Walser was in jail at the time, we know it wasn’t him.”

The Clip Killer had struck again. It took a few seconds for that to sink in.

“Who’s the victim?” I asked.

“Well, that’s where there’s at least some good news. Because this one’s still alive. It was a terrible attack and her injuries are bad, but she’s hanging in there. She’s in a coma, and unfortunately the doctors can’t say when she’ll come around or even if she will. But for now, at least, she’s very lucky.”

That was indeed good news, both for her and for the police investigation. Because if she lived long enough to regain consciousness, she could tell the cops what she remembered about her attacker.

“Was she unconscious when they found her?” I asked.

“Yeah, so we obviously haven’t talked to her yet. And it’s too early to know when she’ll come around. She was more dead than alive when the EMTs showed up, and she’s still a long ways from being out of the woods. For now there’s not much we can do except cross our fingers and wait.”

It was time to ask the question that was really on my mind. “What about the clipping, Al?”

“It’s not your story, Crowley. It’s another Press-Tribune article, but this one was written by Angela Young.”

Angela Young had been one of Stacy’s colleagues in the features department, but had left the paper a few years before to become a teacher. She went back to school to get an education degree, and the last I heard she was teaching English at a high school in Kirkland, a city across Lake Washington from Seattle.

I’ll admit, I was relieved to find out that it wasn’t my story this time. My by-line on the first two clippings had apparently, and thankfully, been only a coincidence.

Then I remembered something. “You never told me her name, Al.”

“Jenna Tomlinson, age 34 and a stage actress here in Seattle. And she’s a real pretty girl. It’s easy to see that much even with all the trauma around her head and neck.”

We were both silent for a few seconds. He probably thought I was going to ask another question, and when I didn’t he said, “You still there, Crowley?”

I made no reply.

“Hey, Crowley,” he said, sounding impatient. “Did you fall asleep or something?”

“No, Al. I’m here.” I took a deep breath. “It’s just … ” My voice trailed off.

“It’s just what? C’mon, Crowley. I’m busy and I haven’t got all day. What’s going on?”

I took another breath and managed to say, “I know her, Al. Jenna Tomlinson’s a friend of mine.”

CHAPTER 8

Jenna Tomlinson was actually much more than a friend. In fact, she’d once been the love of my life.

We’d met years before as students at the University of Washington. The occasion was a party hosted by a mutual friend, and with my first glimpse I thought Jenna was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. She had long blond hair, golden skin, delicious blue eyes and a smile that belonged on magazine covers. She had it all, in other words, and the only problem was that she also had a boyfriend. She’d showed up at the party with a tall, strapping guy — strapping enough to be the starting tight end on the UW football team — so I didn’t see any reason to get my hopes up. Still, our eyes met from across the room and lingered long enough to exchange smiles of greeting, and later on we chatted when the guy disappeared to another room to watch the fourth quarter of a football game. It wasn’t a long conversation, but apparently it was long enough for me to make an impression, and I know that because she phoned me two days later. She’d got my number from our mutual friend and was calling to ask if I’d have coffee with her.

“I’d love to,” I said. “But don’t you have a boyfriend?”

“Not anymore,” she replied.

It was like that scene in the movie “Jerry Maguire” where the Renee Zellweger character tells the Tom Cruise character, “You had me at hello.” Well, Jenna had me at, “Not anymore.” I had a hunch she was someone I could really fall for, and I knew it for sure the next day when we met at a small coffee shop near the UW campus. She was witty, vivacious, thoughtful and charming, and all that seemed to matter more to me than her exceptional beauty, though that part was pretty great, too. We went out again a few nights later, and by the end of the month I was taking her home to meet my parents.

It had all the makings of a storybook romance, and the only problem was that Jenna was an aspiring actress with dreams of the big time. She was headed to New York right after graduation, and it meant we had to break off our relationship. Difficult as it was — and from what I could tell, it was more difficult for me than for her — we talked it through and eventually parted with no hard feelings whatsoever. We even agreed to keep in touch once she got settled on the East Coast.

I wanted her to succeed, of course, but I also couldn’t help thinking that we might end up back together if the New York thing didn’t work out. But she got her first Broadway role the week after she arrived and by the end of the second month she had a new boyfriend, a fellow actor named Jeremy. At that point our phone calls and emails went from once a day to more like once a week, and eventually they stopped altogether.

In the meantime, I’d started my new job at the Press-Tribune, and it was fortunate that my work kept me busy enough to ease the sorrow from our breakup. In time I started dating again, and over the next few years I got to know a number of different women, including two fairly serious relationships. But until I met Stacy, I’d never known another woman quite like Jenna.

As it turned out, we didn’t see each other for several years. She was in New York most of that time, though she also traveled to Hollywood for a few minor roles in movies and television, and even some commercials. But the stage was her first love, and when her Broadway career began to lag she headed back to Seattle to act in community theater and to teach drama on the side. A few weeks after her return, her mother hosted a welcome-back party for family and friends. I was on the guest list, and I’m sure that’s because Mrs. Tomlinson was hoping Jenna and I would rekindle our romance. Alas, it was not to be. She still looked great and we had some laughs, but things just weren’t the same between us. Within a year she was engaged to a successful businessman — unfortunately, that relationship broke off six weeks before the wedding — and I was seeing Stacy.

All those memories came flooding back to me the next afternoon as I drove to Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center, where Jenna was hospitalized. I checked in at the reception desk and was told she had a police guard outside her room with only family and hospital staff allowed to enter. Since she was someone who could potentially identify or at least describe a serial killer — once she regained consciousness, that is — it made sense to protect her in case the bad guy returned to finish the job.

I explained to the receptionist that I was a family friend and asked that a message be delivered to Jenna’s mother, who I knew would be at her daughter’s bedside. The receptionist took my name, made a phone call, and after a brief conversation told me I could take the elevator to the fifth floor and report to the nearby nursing station. Jenna’s mother would meet me there.

As I approached the nursing station, I saw Mrs. Tomlinson walking down the hallway.

“John, it’s so good of you to come,” she said, drawing me into an embrace.

“I came as soon as I found out,” I told her. “I wanted to be here for you. And for Jenna, of course.”

She stepped back and looked at me with tearful eyes of gratitude.

“That’s so kind of you,” she said. “You were always good to Jenna. And to me, too.”

Shirley Tomlinson was a single mother who’d been divorced, remarried and later widowed. She’d always been devoted to Jenna, her only child, but the two of them had grown particularly close after the death of Shirley’s second husband when Jenna was 15. In the years Jenna and I were dating, we all spent a lot of time together. Like the night Mrs. Tomlinson took us to a lavish dinner at the Space Needle to celebrate Jenna’s 21st birthday; it was certainly more than Mrs. Tomlinson could comfortably afford on her modest salary — she was a secretary at a suburban Seattle middle school — but she insisted on paying the entire bill. Or the time a few months later when Jenna wanted to surprise her mother with flowers on her birthday; the two of us walked into the school office and handed her the bouquet, and with a bunch of kids looking on she burst into tears. And the night that same year when Mrs. Tomlinson and I sat together in the audience and watched a UW drama department production of “The Sound of Music” with Jenna in the starring role of Maria; Mrs. Tomlinson wept again.

But what I remembered most was the letter she sent me about six weeks after Jenna went off to New York. It was handwritten on three pages of pale pink stationery and was addressed to “Dearest John.” She thanked me for being so good to her daughter and she wished me the very best in my future, even if that future didn’t include Jenna. Even more touching, she wanted me to know that she thought of me as the son she never had. This time it was my turn to cry.

Standing with her now in the hallway, I asked, “What have the doctors told you?”

“That it’s just too soon to tell,” she said softly. “The man who attacked her apparently came up from behind just as she was opening the car door and hit her on the back of the head with something hard. A tire iron, the police said, or something like that. She has some brain swelling, which is apparently common with injuries like this, and the doctors say the next two or three days will be critical. They believe she’ll recover, but they’re not making any promises. And even if she does recover, there’s no telling when she’ll wake up. They say it could be weeks and or even months.”

“What about other injuries?”

“Only around her head. And on her neck because he also choked her. Evidently she was unconscious as she fell into the car, but then he put his hands around her throat and … ”

Her voice caught with emotion and she looked away as her eyes filled with new tears.

I held her hand until she was able to say, “The doctors say the bruising at her neck will heal and her hair will cover any scarring on the back of her head. But until she wakes up, they can’t rule out the possibility of brain damage.”

She was crying openly now, and I gave her the handkerchief that I’d tucked in my pocket right before leaving, knowing it might come in handy. Mrs. Tomlinson thanked me and dabbed at her eyes.

I suggested we move to a nearby alcove, where there was a sofa and some padded chairs.

We sat on the sofa and she began to relate the first frantic hours after Jenna was admitted. She told me the doctors had prepared her for the worst, but then the pastor from her north Seattle church showed up and the two of them spent the rest of the night praying at Jenna’s bedside.

“I believe our prayers are being answered,” she said, again touching the handkerchief to her eyes and then her nose. “The doctors say it’s a miracle she’s doing as well as she is. Even though she’s unconscious, her vital signs are good and they’re continuing to improve. One doctor even told me to keep praying because I seemed to be doing as much good as they were.”

It was a heartening thought and we both smiled.

Then she said, “Jenna would be so pleased to know you’re here, John. She always spoke highly of you. Even when she was in New York, I know she missed you very much. Whenever we talked on the telephone, she’d always ask if I’d heard from you. And she was always glad to know you were doing well.”

“I thought about her for a long time,” I said. “The truth is, she took a big piece of my heart with her when she left.”

That made her smile again.

“I know Jenna felt the same way about you,” she said. “But she also felt that she had to pursue her dream. She would’ve always regretted never taking the chance, even though I know it was really hard for her to leave you.”

Then she reached over and patted my knee.

“But I hear you have news, John,“ she said, her smile growing. “I hear you’re engaged.”

I was surprised she knew, but then I figured it out. When Jenna and I were dating, Mrs. Tomlinson and my mother became good friends. They kept in touch even after Jenna went to New York and we both started seeing other people. Knowing that much, I felt sure my mom was the source.

“Tell me about her,” Mrs. Tomlinson said, meaning Stacy.

I spent the next few minutes filling her in, and I tried not to gush too much because I knew she’d always hoped that Jenna and I would get back together.

But when I was finished, she said sincerely, “I wish the two of you every happiness.”

I thanked her and then asked, “What about Jenna? Has she been seeing anyone?”

“Not since her engagement, no. At least not seriously. She’s dated some, but there hasn’t been anything that I’d call a promising relationship. I know it bothers her, but I think it bothers me more. I’d really like to have some grandchildren while I’m still young enough to enjoy them.”

She said it jokingly and laughed. I joined in, and I’m sure it was good for both of us.

“But I will say this,” she added as her smile faded. “I was very proud of her for breaking off her engagement. Her ex-fiancé owns a large and lucrative business, so he could’ve given her a beautiful house and financial security. But he never would’ve made her happy. He had quite the roving eye, if you know what I mean. And Jenna just wasn’t going to put up with any of that, no matter how much money he had.”

She was looking away again. Knowing she had more to say, I waited.

“I’ve never understood it,” she said at last, “but Jenna seems to have a real knack for attracting the wrong kind of men.”

Then she added quickly, “Of course I don’t mean you, John. You were always so good to Jenna. I just wish … well, I just wish that all the men she meets would be as nice to her as you were. But unfortunately a lot of them aren’t, and her ex-fiancé was a good example of that. He always talked about how pretty she was and he was certainly willing to spend money on her, but I don’t think he had much of a commitment beyond that. And that’s just not a good foundation for marriage. Jenna needs someone who will love her and cherish her, and someone who’s going to provide a good home for their family. Because even though she went away for a few years to pursue her acting career, I know deep down that’s what she really wants.”

We were both silent for a time, and then I asked about the circumstances of the assault.

“She went to dinner last night with friends, and later on they went to a club so they could listen to some music,” Mrs. Tomlinson said. “There were four of them, including two other women who are also actresses here in Seattle. Jenna had given one of the women a ride to the restaurant, but then that woman’s husband showed up later to give her a ride home, which meant at the end of the night Jenna was walking back to her car by herself. The others all went one way and Jenna went the opposite direction, and when she went around a corner she disappeared from sight. And that’s when she was attacked.

“One of the other women came by the hospital earlier and told me they’d offered to give Jenna a ride to her car. But she told them not to worry, that she’d be fine. Though of course she wasn’t.”

She shook her head sadly.

“Who found her?” I asked.

“A passing motorist who showed up at just the right time. The police believe he scared the attacker off because they say he saw someone running away, though unfortunately he never got a good look at him. But he saw Jenna’s car door open and the interior light on, so he got out to check and found her lying on the front seat. He could see that she was unconscious and bleeding, so he called 911 on his cell phone and then stayed with her until the aid car arrived.”

Mrs. Tomlinson was looking past me with a distant expression, but then her face tightened with grief.

“I just don’t understand who would do such a thing,” she said, and she began to sob.

Neither did I, though I sure wanted to find out. I waited until she got her composure back and then decided it was time to go into my reporter’s mode.

I began by saying that Jenna had likely been assaulted by the same man who’d killed two Seattle-area women in less than two weeks. Mrs. Tomlinson nodded and said the police had already been by the hospital and had mentioned a similarity to the two earlier incidents, including a newspaper clipping left at the scene.

OK, so she knows that much, I thought. Then I explained how the police were looking for common acquaintances among the three women. Again she nodded. Apparently they’d already asked her about that, too.

With that much established, I asked, “What was the clipping?”

“It was a story your paper did about a year after she went to New York. She was getting lots of parts and her career was really on the upswing, and the Press-Tribune did an article about how well things were going for her.”

I remembered the story because I helped set it up. Angela Young, the reporter, found out that Jenna and I had once dated, so she asked me for Jenna’s number. It resulted in a cross-country phone interview and then, a few days later, a nice story with an accompanying photo of Jenna in one of her early Broadway roles.

But right then I wasn’t focused on the story itself. It was the date of the story that was significant. The clippings about Julie Bedard and Cathy Hyde had both been a few years old, and the one about Jenna was several years old. Whoever the Clip Killer was, he’d been holding onto these stories for a long time — and the story about Jenna for a very long time — and it got me to wondering why.

Then I thought about someone described by Al DiPietro the day before as a nut about newspapers.

“Do you know if Jenna ever knew a man named Benny Walser?” I asked.

Mrs. Tomlinson thought for a moment and then said, “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“He’s someone the police were investigating from the two earlier incidents. But it turns out he was in custody when Jenna was attacked, which means he couldn’t have been responsible for what happened to her. Still, I thought it was worth checking.”

Then I asked, “Can you think of anyone else who’d been threatening Jenna?”

“You know, the police asked me that same question last night,” she said. “I’m not sure I gave them a very good answer because I wasn’t thinking too clearly at the time. But I’ve thought about it since and I’ve come up with a few men who are, in my opinion, at least capable of doing something like this.”

She began telling me about some of Jenna’s male acquaintances, and since I hadn’t brought a notepad I knew I’d have to trust my memory. One was the former UW football player who’d been at the party with Jenna on the night I met her. Apparently they’d kept in touch over the years, and although he’d never threatened her he had a volatile nature. His penchant for rough stuff had made him a terrific football player, but it also led to some fights and one arrest, though the charges were eventually dropped because he was an important part of a UW team that was headed to the Rose Bowl (my friend Danny Cobb, a Press-Tribune sports writer, later joked that there must’ve been some Husky fans in the DA’s office).

There was also a body builder that Jenna had dated before the football player. That guy had no arrests that Mrs. Tomlinson knew about, but he was also training to be a mixed martial arts fighter and he’d been very unhappy — to the point of leaving angry phone messages — when Jenna ended the relationship.

Lastly, there was an attorney she’d briefly dated the year before. He was apparently on the legal fast track despite some troubling arrests for violent crimes in his younger years, Mrs. Tomlinson said.

Hearing this, my ears perked up.

“How much do you know about him?” I asked, meaning the attorney.

“Not a lot,” she replied. “I only met him a few times and I didn’t like him very much, to be honest with you. He was nice looking and presented himself well, but he always seemed phony to me. I just had a feeling there was another side to him. A darker side, I guess you’d say, and one he tried to keep hidden, which is why I was glad when Jenna decided to end the relationship.”

By this time alarm bells were going off in my head.

“By any chance,” I asked, “is his name Harland Emerson Jr.?”

“Yes,” she said, looking at me with surprise. “How’d you know?”

CHAPTER 9

I was at my desk the next morning, working my way through a batch of mostly meaningless emails, when my phone rang. I reached for it quickly, thinking it might be Shirley Tomlinson calling with an update on her daughter. But it was Lois Frothingham, our receptionist, telling me I had a guest in the lobby. She described him as a distinguished older gentleman in an expensive suit. She also said he seemed edgy or impatient.

I walked out to discover that my visitor was none other than Harland Emerson Sr.

“Mr. Emerson, nice to see you,” I said, trying to hide my surprise.

I was about to offer my hand, but he cut me off by saying, “Is there somewhere we can talk? Privately?”

Yeah, he was edgy. And impatient.

“Of course,” I said. “We can use our conference room.”

I turned to lead him back through the security door, but he hesitated.

“Do we have to go … through there?” he asked, looking past me at the open doorway into the crowded newsroom.

“Well, yes,” I said. “This is the way to the conference room.”

He still didn’t move and I could tell he was having second thoughts. In fact, I wouldn’t have been shocked if he’d suddenly blurted, “Never mind,” and bolted for the outside door. But he finally gave a reluctant nod and followed me into the newsroom.

As I led him around the office perimeter, I happened to look back and see that he’d lowered his head and put a hand to his face. At first I thought he was scratching his forehead, but then I realized he was actually shielding his face from the prying eyes of my co-workers. The funny thing was, I doubt there’s anything else he could’ve done to draw more attention to himself. Sure enough, heads were popping up all around the newsroom. They started out by staring at Emerson, but then they looked at me with expressions that said, what gives?

I could only shrug as if to say, don’t ask me. Emerson, meanwhile, was still doing his I’m-not-really-here routine and didn’t seem to notice.

To be honest, none of this surprised me. Emerson’s dislike — or more accurately, his outright loathing — of the news media was well known around town. During high-profile trials he’d usually lower himself to give a short press briefing at the end of each day, but otherwise he seemed to regard the folks with notepads, recorders, microphones and cameras as unseemly wretches to be avoided whenever possible and detested always. Hence, his obvious chagrin at having to walk in our midst.

So I decided to have a little fun.

“Have you ever been to our office before, Mr. Emerson?” I asked innocently, though saying it loud enough for my fellow reporters to hear.

His reply — “Heavens, no!” — was so emphatic that I couldn’t keep from smiling. Some of my colleagues were smiling, too, and I gave them a wink before leading Emerson out the far door of the newsroom and down the short hallway to the conference room.

Once inside, I closed the door and directed him to a chair on one side of the table. I sat across from him.

“How can I help you, Mr. Emerson?” I asked.

He didn’t answer right away. Instead he spent a few seconds fiddling with the cuffs of his designer dress shirt and adjusting the fit of his silk necktie. His entire wardrobe had easily cost a week’s salary — well, a week of my salary anyway — and that wasn’t even taking into account his glittering gold wristwatch, a large gold wedding ring on his left hand, an even larger school or fraternal ring on his right hand, and an embroidered white handkerchief that protruded from the breast pocket of his tailored coat.

Everything about him exuded style and wealth, which I knew was all part of his courtroom shtick. In appearance and demeanor, not to mention legal savvy, he conveyed an air of superiority that he seemed to savor and likewise seemed to believe with all his heart. Indeed, he deemed himself a man without equal in the halls of justice, and that included the sophomoric prosecutors who were overzealous in their pursuit of convictions, the well-meaning but often misguided judges who dared to overrule his objections, and even the members of his juries, although he always treated the latter with a kindly benevolence because as simple citizens they couldn’t be blamed for their legal ignorance, which is why it was up to him to point out carefully and patiently the precise facts of a case that would, in the end, confirm his client’s innocence.

I’d seen Emerson in action a few times over the years, but had never spoken to him directly or even been close to him physically — except for the time he rebuffed me in the courthouse hallway during his son’s trial, that is. But as I waited for him now to stop squirming and start talking, I had a chance to look him over. He appeared to be in his early 60s, and his once jet black hair — I’d seen pictures of him in the early days, when he bore a striking resemblance to the old movie actor Robert Taylor — had gone completely gray, though he was evidently using an assortment of salon potions to give it a vibrant silver sheen. He had bluish eyes, gleaming white teeth, and the skin around his mouth and eyes was unusually taut, suggesting a facelift. Likewise, his fingernails were remarkably clear and shiny, which made me wonder if he’d stopped for a manicure on his way to our office.

Finally he coughed to clear his throat — a cough he covered with his immaculate right hand — before fixing me with the same steely gaze he used to great effect in the courtroom.

“Mr. Crowley,” he said, “I’m here today because I understand you might be writing a story about my son.”

Not a question, but a statement of fact. Then he fell silent, though his eyes never left mine.

My first thought was, wow, he has good sources. And my second thought was, OK, I was right. Because from the moment I first saw him in the lobby, I had a hunch his visit had something to do with his son. After all, I couldn’t think of any other reason he’d be showing up to talk to me. I was so sure, in fact, that I already had a response in mind. But since he was sitting there absently spinning his wedding ring on his finger, I decided to let him fidget some more. It’s the same tactic I’d seen him use in court with uneasy prosecution witnesses. Good for the goose, good for the gander, I thought.

I glanced away as if contemplating a reply — actually, I was slowly counting to 10 in my head — before looking back, meeting his eyes and saying, “Mr. Emerson, your son’s name has indeed come up as part of an ongoing homicide investigation. I’m not going to ask you how you know that because I’m sure you won’t tell me. Also, it really doesn’t matter. You know it and I know it, so let’s start there.

“Here’s what I can tell you. At this point I don’t know that I’ll be writing a story about your son. And the truth is, I have no immediate plans to do so.”

I thought I saw him relax slightly, which meant it was time to play my trump card.

“But that’s not to say I won’t,” I said. “Because I’ll certainly write a story if the prosecutor ends up filing charges against him. Likewise, I’ll write something if your son is arrested, although in that case he’d only be identified as a suspect and not by name, which is the paper’s policy until charges are filed. But if we do write about his arrest, I’m sure we’d also report that your son — or in this case, the unnamed suspect — was convicted of sexual assault in a trial where one of the recently deceased women was a prosecution witness.

“The bottom line, Mr. Emerson, is that my reporting will depend in large part on the progress of the police investigation. Which, I might add, is still in its early stages. Because according to my sources, other individuals are still under investigation as well.”

That’s a lot more than I usually tell people about the stories I’m writing, or even about the stories I might be writing. As a rule, journalists don’t like to discuss their reporting in advance, and that’s mostly because we don’t want people thinking they can dissuade us from doing legitimate stories, although in the course of my career, believe me, many have tried. But for now I was hoping to string Emerson along because I wanted to find out more about his son. And the best way to do that, I figured, was to keep him talking.

But his next comment caught me off guard.

“Mr. Crowley, let me ask you something,” he said. “Do you have children?”

I saw his gaze drop to my left hand and I realized that he was searching for a wedding ring.

Seeing no need to explain my marital status, I simply said, “No, Mr. Emerson, I do not.”

“Then I doubt you can understand the feelings a father has for one of his children,” he said. “And I’d like to explain that to you.”

OK, I thought, so he’s not only pompous, vain and overbearing. He’s condescending, too.

“As a husband and father,” he began, “I know of no stronger emotion than the love I have for my family. My wife and I have been blessed in our marriage with three wonderful children. We have two daughters and then a son, Harland Jr., who is our third child. And I will tell you with complete sincerity, Mr. Crowley, that my world revolves around my three children. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do either to make their lives better or to protect them from harm.”

It was a terrific little speech, but I wasn’t buying it. First of all, it’s hard for bigwigs to keep secrets in a city like Seattle, and I’d been hearing tales about Emerson’s marital infidelities for years. Also, I knew he’d been less than a committed father to his now-adult children. From what I’d heard, Emerson considered family life a fairly low priority and he rarely allowed it to interfere with his busy work schedule or his frequent travels, with the latter being sometimes for work but more often for pleasure.

Moreover, the three Emerson offspring were all messed up to varying degrees, which no doubt had something to do with their often-absent father, particularly during their formative years. The older daughter had finally straightened up after years of drug and alcohol abuse, and was now a mother with two children who worked part-time as a receptionist in her dad’s office. The younger daughter had been in and out of drug rehab as a teen-ager, and only got clean after joining a cultish religious sect. At last report she was living in a commune somewhere in central California and had basically disowned the rest of her family. And then there was the patriarch’s namesake, Harland Emerson Jr., who’d spent much of his early adult life either studying the law or breaking the law, with the latter due largely to his own booze demons.

Looking at him now, I realized Emerson was unaware how much I knew about his family. And since I wasn’t yet ready to tip my hand, I simply waited for him to continue.

“My kids mean more to me than anything in the world,” he said, his voice quavering. “It’s almost more than I can bear to think they’re hurting. Or even worse, to think that someone wants to hurt them. Believe me, Mr. Crowley, I’d do everything in my power to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

By now his eyes were welling and I felt my heart soften, but only for a second. I’ve watched enough attorneys over the years to know the good ones have the persuasive skills of trained actors. And Emerson was not only one of the good ones, he was maybe the best. I’d seen him bring spectators, jurors and even a judge to tears with his impassioned pleas, and I had no doubt that he was now trying to do the same to me.

So just for kicks I nodded compassionately to let him think I was taking the bait. And I must be pretty convincing, too, because he gave me a slight, grateful nod in return.

Then he said, “Mr. Crowley, there’s one more thing I need to tell you.”

He paused and looked down, apparently overcome with new emotion. I wondered if he might be getting ready to blow his nose in that expensive handkerchief, but instead he touched a finger to his left eye and then to his right eye, dabbing away tears that were perhaps real, perhaps not.

“This is hard for me to talk about,” he said, at last looking up. “But the fact is my wife has not been well. She suffered a stroke about six weeks ago and we’re doing everything we can to help her get better. She’s making progress, and thankfully so, but it’s happening slowly. She’s still not strong, and I’m afraid that bad news of any kind will be difficult for her. It’s another reason I hope this story doesn’t end up in the newspaper. I fear the stress of seeing our son’s name linked to an investigation like this would aggravate her condition. I hope you understand my concern.”

The funny thing was, I didn’t believe everything Emerson was telling me, but I believed the story about his wife. I’d heard about her minor stroke a few weeks earlier, so I knew that much was true. But I also knew there was a lot he was leaving out. He’d been out of town when she was stricken, and the word around the courthouse was that he’d been in Aruba with a gorgeous and much younger girlfriend for a weekend getaway following a five-day conference of trial attorneys in Miami. Apparently they were staying at a remote resort with private beaches, and Emerson hadn’t bothered taking along his cell phone that morning as the two of them went off for a day in the sun. So the resort had to send out an employee with a message for him to phone home, and the staffer reportedly came upon Emerson and his lady friend frolicking in the surf, both of them sans swimsuits.

So once again I knew more about Emerson than I was letting on. And once again I decided to let him think I was none the wiser.

Meanwhile, he had the same look he sometimes gets in court after closing arguments. It’s an expression of confidence, satisfaction and finality, like he’s said everything there is to say, and now there’s nothing more to do but sit back and wait for a favorable verdict from the jury. Which in this case was a jury of one, me.

Instead I asked, “Mr. Emerson, where’s your son this morning?”

“Excuse me?” he said with surprise, and for the first time since we sat down his expression seemed genuine. Honestly, I think he’d been expecting me to start gushing about what a great husband and father he was, and maybe even to shed a few sympathetic tears of my own.

I simply repeated, “Where’s your son this morning? And how come he’s not here with you now? You’ve come to see me and to speak on his behalf, which is commendable. But I’m also wondering why he’s not here, too.”

I was watching him closely, and it took only a few seconds to get the reaction I was looking for. His eyes narrowed, his brow furrowed, and it was like he’d suddenly figured out that I wasn’t going to be a pushover after all. Hence his plan to win me over with affecting words and a grieving expression was out the window, and now he was scrambling to think of something more plausible to say.

And with all the time in the world, I just waited.

Finally he said, “Well, I believe he had other business today. The last few weeks he’s been very busy with work.”

It was a ridiculous response and I wasn’t about to pretend otherwise. Our eyes remained locked for several seconds and then I cocked my head questioningly. I didn’t believe him, and it was important that he knew I didn’t believe him.

Sensing his error, he said quickly, “You’re absolutely right, Mr. Crowley. It would’ve been much better if he was here, too, and I see that now. If you’d like, I can call and have him join us. He could probably be here in about 20 minutes. Would that help?”

I paused as if considering his offer, but then shook my head.

“I can always call him later if necessary,” I told him. “But since you’re here now, I’d like to ask you some questions.”

He sat back in his chair and eyed me warily. “What kind of questions?”

“Well, for starters, where was your son the night before last?”

I didn’t go into detail. I didn’t have to. I was obviously asking where Harland Emerson Jr. had been on the night Jenna Tomlinson was attacked.

He was frowning now, and for a few seconds I couldn’t be sure if he was jogging his memory or merely stalling again, this time to concoct a convincing lie.

Finally he said, “I can’t tell you.”

It was my turn to frown. “You can’t tell me?” I asked. “Or you won’t tell me?”

“I can’t tell you because I don’t know,” he said curtly, and his eyes flashed with real anger.

“My son is an adult, Mr. Crowley,” he went on. “He has a life of his own. Yes, I’m his father, but that doesn’t mean I know where he is at all hours. We see each other at the office most days, and he usually joins my wife and me for dinner once or twice a week. But the rest of the time he lives his own life. As, I might add, he should. I love my son very much, Mr. Crowley, but I understand and respect that he has a need for privacy in his personal life.”

Of course you do, I thought. Like father, like son.

We spent the next several seconds just looking at each other like two kids in a staredown. I’m not sure who blinked first, but it was Emerson who broke the silence.

“Mr. Crowley, let me be frank,” he said. “I obviously know of my son’s history with Cathy Hyde, the young woman who was killed last week. But as regrettable as his involvement in that earlier incident was, I also know how easy it is for people in the media like yourself, not to mention the police, to rush to judgment and assume that somehow a long-ago mistake on my son’s part should now make him a primary suspect in Ms. Hyde’s tragic death. Or for that matter, in the assault that occurred two nights ago.

“But since that seems to be where you’re going with these questions, let me tell you unequivocally that my son had nothing to do with either of those terrible attacks. And if you persist in investigating him, you’ll simply be wasting your time.”

“How can you be so sure, Mr. Emerson?” I asked.

“Because I know my son,” he shot back.

By now his attitude had changed completely. He was no longer fidgety, sentimental or on the verge of tears. He was flat-out mad, and I knew that because his face was suddenly flushed. I could just make out the pink beneath the residual tan from his Aruba vacation.

“I must say, Mr. Crowley, that I don’t appreciate either your questions or your attitude,” he said pointedly. “You’re suggesting that my son was somehow involved in these incidents, and it’s an insinuation I greatly resent. Yes, he had some problems a few years ago, as was reported excessively and sensationally by the Press-Tribune — and, more to the point, by you personally — and those stories were a source of great anguish and embarrassment for my family. But he’s put all that behind him now. He’s been sober for several years, he’s got his personal life in order, and at this point he cares too much about his career to ever get involved in that kind of trouble again.”

Emerson’s sarcastic chiding of the Press-Tribune — and, more to the point, of me personally — was almost enough to make me laugh out loud. His son’s legal problems got exactly the news coverage they deserved, and it was absurd for him to suggest otherwise.

I was about to tell him so, too, but I never got the chance. Because the moment I opened my mouth he cut me off.

“Aside from the earlier incident involving Ms. Hyde,” he said, “can I ask why you think my son should be a suspect in these cases?”

“You can ask, but I won’t answer,” I replied. “Not yet anyway.”

I thought that might get his goat and I was right. Because in the space of two seconds his expression went from a frown to an outright scowl. Emerson’s a man of enormous power and prestige, not to mention ego, and he’s accustomed to deference from subordinates, which in his world includes pretty much everyone. He certainly wasn’t used to being told no by inferiors like me.

In fact, he opened his mouth to put me in my place, but this time it was my turn to cut him off.

“Your son is being investigated by the police, Mr. Emerson, and you’re welcome to question them about their findings,” I said. “Of course, whether they talk to you or not is up to them. But as for my own investigation, those findings are confidential. And at this point I’m not yet ready to share them with you or with anyone else.”

He didn’t like that remark either, and I could tell because the color in his face promptly went from pink to rosy red. Indeed, he had the look of someone about to explode which, I’ll admit, I was sort of hoping to see. Emerson might be a model of poise and decorum in the courtroom, but I had a hunch his private demeanor was different. In fact, I was wondering just how many more of his buttons I’d have to push to make him go off.

But as I was sitting there trying to think of something else to say that might make him snap, a funny thing happened. As I watched his face relaxed, his flush receded, and the angry glare in his eyes faded to a cool, calculating look. He was back to being the savvy lawyer, and I had no doubt that his nimble brain was once more at work.

“I believe you told me earlier that the police have other suspects,” he said. “Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“So the fact that you haven’t already written a story about my son, and likewise the fact the police haven’t already arrested him, it would seem that no one’s come up with any strong evidence against him. Or, for that matter, against any of the other suspects either, which is why the investigation is still continuing. Is that also correct?”

I said nothing, which he seemed to take as a confirmation.

“Then I’m also going to assume there’s nothing whatsoever that links my son to these recent crimes other than the earlier incident involving Ms. Hyde. Which is really no link at all. In fact, it’s entirely speculative. And a good attorney” — he smiled, no doubt thinking of himself — “would have little trouble tearing that case to shreds.”

Well, your son also dated Jenna Tomlinson, I thought. But since I wasn’t sure he knew about that, and since I’d just finished vowing to keep my findings confidential, I remained silent.

Meanwhile, he was still smiling at me. It was only a slight smile, but there was no mistaking its meaning. In a showdown of wits, Emerson knew that I was no match for him and he wanted to make sure I knew it, too, my earlier gibes and petulance notwithstanding.

He went on regarding me for another few seconds before sitting forward in his chair, clasping his hands on the table and saying in an even voice, “Mr. Crowley, I want to be very clear about something. I understand the importance of a free press. I also understand that you and others in the media have a job to do. So believe me, none of that is in dispute. But there’s something else I want to be very clear about and at this point you need to listen carefully. Because I’m telling you here and now that if you malign my son in one of your news stories — and I’m talking about libel, as defined by law — I’m coming after you. Even if your reporting only strays into a gray area, be forewarned, I’m still coming after you.

“Take my word, Mr. Crowley, you don’t want that to happen. Because if it does, your professional reputation and the reputation of this newspaper will be in my hands. And I can promise you that won’t be a good place to be. Not for the Press-Tribune and certainly not for you.”

By now he was wagging a finger at me. Clean and manicured, to be sure, but menacing nonetheless.

“You should also understand that court cases are never personal for me,” he said. “During a trial, and even during the many proceedings leading up to a trial, I always do my best to provide the highest level of representation for my clients, which is why I never allow personal feelings to interfere with my work. My legal reputation is one of absolute integrity and decency, and that type of pettiness is, quite frankly, beneath me.

“But this will be different, Mr. Crowley. I’m putting you on notice that my family is out of bounds, and you need to remember that before you engage in any reckless or egregious reporting involving my son. If that should happen, I can assure you that I will respond swiftly, vigorously and without leniency or restraint. Because at that point, Mr. Crowley, it will be personal.”

By this time he’d stopped wagging his finger, but he kept it out there like a weapon aimed at my heart.

“Very personal,” he said.

CHAPTER 10

Two minutes later I walked Emerson to the door. And, no, he didn’t shake my hand on the way out either.

Back at my desk I sat for a time, thinking about our conversation. And it didn’t take me long to realize that his threats, pointed though they were, were mostly bluster. Every first-year journalism student knows what libel is, and at that point in my career I could pretty much recite the statutory definition verbatim. If I ended up writing about his son — which was by no means certain, as I’d tried to make clear — I’d make sure that my reporting was accurate, fair and, above all, legally defensible.

Moreover, even if he kept his vow to come after me I wouldn’t be going it alone. The Press-Tribune is represented by the prestigious Seattle law firm of McIntosh and Associates, and to the best of my knowledge we’d never been on the losing end of a libel lawsuit. A few folks have tried over the years, but our legal team has always been able to get the cases dismissed or, in one instance, taken to trial where the result was a favorable verdict for the paper (the plaintiffs later appealed, but the appellate court didn’t grant a hearing and thus it died).

Bottom line, Emerson’s menacing words weren’t going to stop me from doing my job. I wasn’t going to forget our little chat, but I wasn’t going to fret about it either.

And with that in mind, I reached for my notepad.

My plan was to spend the day working the phone, which is a tedious but essential part of my job. Being an investigative reporter might seem exciting, even glamorous, but that perception is only about 10 percent true. Yes, there are adrenalin-filled moments, but there’s far more drudgery. Like phone work, which is probably the most mundane thing I do. But it’s also one of the most important things I do. The foundation of good reporting is good information, and the phone is simply the most efficient and practical way of getting it.

I took a few moments to list the calls I wanted to make on my notepad, and then got ready to check them off one by one.

The first call was to Al DiPietro. He surprised me by answering right away, but said he was just wrapping something up and asked if he could call me back, which he did about five minutes later. I asked for an update on the police investigation and he obliged, both on and off the record. On the record he said his detectives were making progress, but their findings were confidential for now. Off the record he admitted they hadn’t come up with much, though not for lack of trying. They’d been over all three crime scenes and had interviewed dozens of people who knew the victims. Alas, they’d still come up with no solid leads and no good suspects.

He also said the homicide division was reeling from the mistaken and highly embarrassing arrest of Benny Walser, with word coming down from the top — including a stern missive from SPD Chief Roger (Rex) Belinsky — to avoid any similar missteps.

“We’ve been told to find the killer and to quit screwing up,” DiPietro grumbled. “Great advice, huh?”

Wanting to be helpful, I related my conversation with Shirley Tomlinson the day before, and specifically her mention of the three men who’d once been in relationships with her daughter. In her opinion, I told him, all three men were capable of committing a violent act against Jenna.

“Guess who one of them is,” I said.

“I don’t like guessing games, Crowley,” he replied sharply. “Just tell me.”

“Harland Emerson Jr.”

“Hmmm. I guess we’re going to have to talk to him,” DiPietro said, and he fell silent. I figured he was making a note to himself.

Then he asked, “What about the other two?”

“I don’t have their names,” I said. “One is a former football player and the other is a mixed martial arts fighter. Mrs. Tomlinson can tell you who they are.”

“OK, I’ll check with her.”

I waited for him to tell me thanks, but I guess he had too much on his mind for any expressions of gratitude. So I asked about the rest of his day and he told me the cops would be doing additional interviews with family and friends of the three victims. Someone out there knew something, he said, and now it was just a matter of finding the right person. And the sooner the better, he added wryly.

I wished him luck and asked if I could check back later in the afternoon. He said sure and we hung up.

My next call was to Shirley Tomlinson, who’d given me her cell number at the hospital the day before. She also answered right away and we chatted for about five minutes. She said that Jenna’s condition was unchanged. It was a relief that her daughter was no worse, she told me, but also discouraging that she was no better.

“But I’m not giving up,” Mrs. Tomlinson said, sounding weary and emotional. “Because one of these days she’s going to open her eyes and talk to me, I just know she is.”

“Keep believing that,” I said. “Because I believe it, too.”

I also mentioned that I was planning to stop by the hospital again the next day. I figured she could use another dose of moral support, and the immediacy of her reply — “Yes, please come” — told me I was right.

We said good-bye and I checked another name off my list.

With those two calls out of the way, I was ready to start on my story about the Clip Killer’s victims. When Harvey and I discussed it earlier in the week, there’d only been two victims. Now there were three, but the story idea was still the same. I’d be interviewing family and friends of Julie Bedard, Cathy Hyde and Jenna Tomlinson, and then putting together a single article profiling all three. Since initial crime stories often have scant information about the victims — they typically include only the names, ages and hometowns — I thought it was important to portray these women in a more personal and comprehensive way. And to do so, I’d lean heavily on the words of those who knew them best.

I began by calling the nursing supervisor at the Renton hospital where Cathy Hyde had worked. We talked for about 10 minutes and for the first minute she was fine. She spent the remaining nine minutes sniffling and crying as she recalled a woman who was, she said, “a wonderful nurse and the sweetest, most caring person in the world. She shouldn’t have had an enemy in the world, and it just makes no sense that someone would do this to her.”

I jotted her comments on my notepad, knowing they’d add poignancy to my story.

Over the next few hours I made other calls, including two to people who were close to Jenna. Shirley Tomlinson had given me the names of the studio owner where Jenna had recently begun working as an acting instructor, and a fellow actress who also happened to be one of the women Jenna was with on the night of the attack. The latter, whose name was Nora Felber, was likewise tearful as she said, “Jenna is the most amazing person I know. I just can’t imagine something like this happening to her. Thank heavens she’s still alive.”

Then she said, “Are you the reporter who used to go out with Jenna? The one she always talks about? She’s always said that letting you get away was one of the biggest mistakes of her life.”

That last remark wouldn’t make it into my story, but it was meaningful nonetheless.

At noon I took a lunch break and walked to the deli down the street for a soup-and-sandwich combo that I ate in a nearby park. I returned to my desk a little after 1 o’clock, and my phone rang five minutes later. It was Shirley Tomlinson, and it made my heart skip to hear her voice again so soon. I was afraid she was calling with bad news about her daughter, but it was just the opposite. Jenna was still unconscious, Mrs. Tomlinson said, but there was continuing improvement in her vital signs. Even better, there’d been movement in her extremities, most notably in the fingers of her right hand.

“The doctors say she might wake up any time,” Mrs. Tomlinson said excitedly.

So that was good news indeed, and there was even more an hour later when I made my follow-up call to Al DiPietro. His investigators were continuing to contact people who’d known the victims, and one of Cathy Hyde’s friends had mentioned something interesting. About two weeks before Ms. Hyde was killed, DiPietro said, someone broke into her car and stole several items, including her laptop computer. In addition, the same friend told detectives that Ms. Hyde had been getting crank phone calls from an unidentified male for about a month prior to her death.

These incidents might be random and insignificant, DiPietro went on, but they could also be important. Needless to say, his detectives would be working that angle carefully.

I was scribbling notes as he talked, knowing that I now had a story for the next day. Granted, it wasn’t much, but I knew I could squeeze it for 20 column inches of copy. Mentally, I even wrote the headline: “Murder Victim Harassed Before Her Death.” Yeah, it was speculative, but it was also intriguing and I knew Harvey would love it. Sure enough, I sent him the story just after 4 o’clock, and 10 minutes later he gave me a big grin and a thumbs-up from his desk across the newsroom.

So at that point my story was in and my day was pretty much done. But a glance at the clock told me I had time for one more call, so I flipped through several pages of my notepad and soon found what I was looking for. It was the phone number for Rhonda Kendall, the woman who’d been driving the car in which Julie Bedard was a passenger on the night of the freeway accident. My report of that incident had been the article that was later found beside Ms. Bedard’s body.

Rhonda Kendall was the last of the names on my checklist, and she was there for two reasons. First of all, she’d known Julie Bedard. I still wasn’t sure how well they knew each other, but I could add whatever she told me to my story about the three victims. And if the two of them had remained close in recent years, she might know if there’d been any menacing people in Ms. Bedard’s life, which would help with my own investigation. In a fortunate twist, Ms. Kendall was the niece of one of Harvey Connell’s bowling buddies, which was something he’d mentioned to me shortly after the clipping first came to light. I’d immediately asked Harvey if he could get me her phone number, and he delivered it to my desk five minutes later.

I now dialed the number and waited as the phone rang several times. I was just getting ready to leave a message when she picked up and said hello.

The voice on the other end was high-pitched, almost girlish. It was one of those female voices where you don’t know if she’s 15 or 40. But since she’d been Julie Bedard’s friend, I was betting she was in her early 30s, the same as Ms. Bedard.

“Good afternoon,” I said. “Is this Rhonda Kendall?”

“Yes. Who’s calling, please?”

“Ms. Kendall, my name is John Crowley and I’m a reporter at the Seattle Press-Tribune newspaper. I’m calling because I’m investigating what happened to Julie Bedard.”

I waited a few seconds to hear what she’d say. But all I heard was silence.

So I said, “I understand you were acquainted with Ms. Bedard. Is that correct?”

Another pause, this one longer than the last.

“Ms. Kendall?”

It took another few moments before she said, “Yes.”

Her voice was hesitant, like she wasn’t sure she should admit to having known Julie Bedard. And even less like she was sure she should talk to me.

Proceed with caution, I told myself.

“Ms. Kendall, as you may know, Julie Bedard was one of two women killed here in the Seattle area in recent weeks,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and unthreatening. “A third woman was also attacked, but fortunately she’s still alive. And from what I’ve been told, the police believe the same man was responsible for all three incidents.”

I hesitated just long enough to see if she’d speak, but she didn’t so I went on, “I’ve been reporting on all this for the Press-Tribune, but I’m also working on a separate story about the lives of the three women. I was hoping to ask you some questions about Ms. Bedard. And just so you know, I’m asking similar questions of the family members and friends of all these women. The idea is to put together a story that’ll help our readers get a sense of who they really were.”

That was the extent of my little speech, and now I waited to see if it worked.

And I waited some more.

“Ms. Kendall?” I repeated.

“Yes,” she said, sounding even more apprehensive than before.

“Would it be all right if I asked you some questions?”

“Are you … putting my name in the paper?”

“I’d like to, yes. Again, this story is about the kind of people these three women were. And as I said, I’ll be talking to other people as well, which means I’ll include what you say as part of a larger story.”

“But do you … have to use my name?”

It was my turn to hesitate. She was apparently asking to be an anonymous source, which is something the Press-Tribune rarely allows. Harvey believes that news is always more credible when sources are named, so he only consents to anonymity for very compelling reasons, such as a source fearing retaliation and perhaps personal harm if his or her identity is known, as with my earlier exposé about the Heavenly Bodies strip club. In addition, the source’s statements must be vital to a story that is profoundly important. And if the argument for using an anonymous source meets those two criteria, you still have to make the case to Harvey and he has to agree.

I was trying to think of a quick way to explain all this when she interrupted to ask, “How’d you get my name, Mr. … ?”

“Crowley. I have your name because … ”

I suddenly remembered that she didn’t know about the clippings. No one did, outside of the police and a few confidantes like me, which meant I couldn’t very well say that I was calling because she and Ms. Bedard had been mentioned in an earlier news story.

Thinking quickly, I said, “Your name came out of the police investigation, Ms. Kendall. They’re tracking down people who knew the victims on the chance that some of them might know something important.”

That wasn’t 100 percent true, of course, but it would have to do for now. It also left unanswered the question of how I got her phone number. Maybe she wouldn’t mind her uncle giving it out, but then again maybe she would. And since I couldn’t be sure either way, I decided it was best to skip the subject altogether.

“Have the police contacted you yet?” I asked.

“No. I … I thought they might at some point, but you’re the first person to call.”

She fell silent again, giving me a few seconds to plot a new strategy. Since she still hadn’t agreed to talk to me, I decided some basic questions might help ease us into an interview.

“Ms. Kendall, can I ask how long you knew Julie Bedard?”

As expected, she hesitated. I thought she might even be on the verge of begging off and hanging up.

But to my surprise, she finally said, “Um, I’m not sure. Since we were kids, I guess.”

Interesting, I thought.

“Was she a neighbor?”

“Yes.”

“Were the two of you in school together?”

“No.”

“Did you go to different schools?”

“Yes.”

She wasn’t making this easy.

Then I asked, “Do you mind telling me how close the two of you were?” I phrased that question in such a way that she’d have to say more than yes or no or some other one-word answer.

And she did.

“Pretty close,” she said.

I took a moment to write those two words on my notepad.

“Did you keep in touch with her over the years?”

“Um, some. But there were a few years when … when we didn’t.”

“OK, what about recently?” I asked. “Let’s say in the last year. Did you speak often?”

“Sometimes.”

I took a long breath and then exhaled slowly and audibly, just to let her know I was losing patience. I’ve interviewed a lot of reticent people over the years, but she was breaking new ground. I had to remind myself to keep my cool.

Then I asked, “Do you mind telling me the last time you either saw or talked to Ms. Bedard?”

“Um, a few days before she died.”

Hearing that, I immediately perked up. The two of them had evidently been closer in recent years than I realized. I was now betting that Ms. Kendall could be a very helpful if I could just get her to be more, well, helpful.

“Ms. Kendall,” I said, “I wonder if you might tell me a little bit more about Ms. Bedard. Maybe some of those things about her that you think other people really ought to know.”

I sat back in my chair, expecting to wait. My eyes were on the wall clock across the newsroom, and I watched as the second hand slowly circled from the 1 down to the 6. But I was determined to keep quiet until she answered my question.

What she finally said shocked me.

“I can’t do this,” she blurted, and for the first time her voice was loud and firm.

“Ms. Kendall, I know this must be difficult for you,” I replied soothingly. “Julie Bedard was your friend and what happened to her was terrible. So I understand, I really do. And I don’t want to prolong this interview any longer than necessary. I only have a few more questions and then … ”

“No,” she said, once more adamant.

Well, that’s it, I thought. End of interview.

I was all set to cross her name off my notepad, but I stopped when she said, “I’ll talk to you, Mr. Crowley, but not like this. Not over the phone.”

And before I could say anything, she asked, “Can we meet?”

“Of course,” I replied. “Tell me when and where it’s convenient for you, and I’ll be there.”

“I can meet you tomorrow morning,” she said.

“That’ll be fine,” I said. “Where would you like to meet?”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll come by the Press-Tribune office. I have to be at work at 9 o’clock, so I can be there at 8. Would that be OK?”

“That would be fine,” I told her. ”They open the front door a few minutes before 8 o’clock, and you can come in and ask for me at the reception desk. I’ll be in the newsroom and our receptionist will let me know when you show up.”

Thinking we were done, I was about to say good-bye. But before I could she said, “I want you to know, Mr. Crowley, I think there’s more to this than maybe you realize. And … well, it’s possible you can help.”

There was something in her voice.

CHAPTER 11

As I left the office that afternoon, I couldn’t get Rhonda Kendall’s voice out of my head. In our brief conversation she’d gone from being nervous and tentative to … what? What exactly had I heard right at the end? Was it grief? Or anger? Or something else?

I really wanted to find out, but it was going to have to wait until the next morning.

And in the meantime, I was headed back to The Harem to talk with Benny Walser and some of his dancers about Julie Bedard. Since I didn’t have anything planned that night — Stacy was taking her mother to Seattle’s Paramount Theatre for an evening performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera” — I was free to spend a few hours hanging out in a strip club.

Just kidding. My visit would be strictly business.

I stopped for a hamburger and milkshake on the way, and then drove on to The Harem. I pulled into the parking lot a little after 6 o’clock and was surprised to find that it was almost full. Apparently the after-work crowd was already inside, drinking and ogling.

I found an empty parking place in a rear corner of the lot and walked to the main entrance. As I neared the door, I reached for my wallet and the business card Benny Walser had given me on my previous visit. I saw no point in paying a cover charge if I could go in as Walser’s guest.

A burly bouncer with bushy black hair — it was almost an Afro, except he was a white guy — was stationed just inside the door. Before I could show the card, and without even asking my permission, he started frisking me on the chance I was trying to smuggle in a weapon, a bottle of booze, recording equipment, or who knows what else. He never changed expression, never made eye contact and never said a word during the entire 10-second pat down. He was about my height, but probably outweighed me by a good 100 pounds. And from what I could tell it was all muscle. He had a massive chest with a thick neck and bulging arms — a lot of the exposed flesh was adorned with dark tattoos — and I had no doubt that he could’ve tossed me through a wall if I’d been foolish enough to give him any lip.

Satisfied that I was clean, he flicked his wrist with an outstretched thumb and said, “Over there,” motioning me to a nearby counter where an extremely buxom young woman — one of the off-duty dancers, I assumed — was waiting to take my money.

Instead I handed her the card. She squinted to read Walser’s scribbled handwriting, and then looked at me with a big customer-friendly smile and said, “Welcome to The Harem, Mr. Crawley.”

She’d apparently misread Walser’s scrawl, confusing the O in Crowley for an A. I decided it wasn’t worth correcting her.

“I’ll send for a hostess to show you to your table,” she added, still beaming like a prom queen. “We’ll get you seated at our VIP stage, bring you a complimentary drink, and then we’ll let Mr. Walser know you’re here. I’m sure he’ll want to stop by and say hello.”

I was about to thank her, but by then she’d already turned to greet a group of young men who’d followed me in the door. There were four of them, all in their early 20s, and all of them grinning and jostling each other with pent-up excitement. As I stepped to the side to wait for the hostess, I saw the eyes of each guy drop to admire the young woman’s very ample bust in a snug, low-neck top. It was possible they were just reading her nametag — it said Sarina — but I doubted it.

On cue, she inhaled deeply, inflating her chest even more, and their eyes all got big.

“Welcome to The Harem, gentlemen,” she cooed. “Are y’all ready to have a good time tonight?”

They responded in a noisy chorus — “Hell yes,” “Damn right” and “You betcha” — as they handed over their money. She then directed them into the club, and in their giddy hormonal state they nearly knocked me aside as they hurried off to find a table for four.

Not wanting to get trampled by the next batch of eager patrons, I moved even closer to the wall. I stood there listening to the loud music from within — it was the old Bachman Turner Overdrive classic, “Taking Care of Business” — for about two minutes before a young woman approached.

“Mr. Crawley?”

She was a petite brunette with a nametag that said Daisy, and she was clad in a pastel blue silk kimono that barely covered her derrière. She wore high heels of matching blue, and she had a flower in her hair that might well have been a daisy.

This time I said, “Actually, it’s Crowley.”

She apologized, smiled fetchingly, and said, “Let me show you to your table, Mr. Crowley.”

I followed her down the short hallway and into the crowded club, where the music hit me in powerful, pounding waves. The main seating area was mostly dark, though there were bright spotlights above the stages that illuminated the dancers. The booth where I’d sat with Walser the week before was to the right, but Daisy led me around to the left. We picked our way through the throng of customers — it reminded me of a raucous football crowd — to a stage on the far side of the room that was cordoned off with velvet ropes, indicating an area of preferred seating.

There was a guest at one of three tables inside the ropes, a man about my age with longish hair and a few days worth of whiskers. He barely gave me a glance before returning his attention to the nearby stage, where a statuesque and extremely curvaceous redhead was swaying her shoulders, arms and hips to the music. Clad only in a skimpy bikini bottom, the rest of her was swaying, too.

“Sit right here, Mr. Crowley,” Daisy said, pointing to a small round table against the wall. Almost shouting to be heard over the music, she added, “I’ll let Mr. Walser know you’re here.”

I mouthed “Thanks,” and settled into a chair as she walked away. Looking up, I saw the redhead was giving me a big welcoming smile. I smiled back, but at the same time I was unsure how to handle this. After all, I was there to interview Walser and some of his dancers, not sit through an evening of topless entertainment. I didn’t want to gawk, in other words, but it also seemed rude to ignore the redhead altogether since she was doing her best to put on a good show. So I ended up making occasional eye contact just to let her know I was paying attention — sort of — and the rest of the time I looked around the club.

A few minutes passed, and by then I was trying to think how I’d explain all this to Stacy if she somehow got word that I’d been spotted in a strip club. Or worse, my mom, who’d no doubt take up the matter with her church prayer group. I considered confessing right away to both women and explaining that I really, truly was on the job when I visited The Harem, but before I could make up my mind a waitress showed up at my table and asked, “What can I bring you, sir?”

She was a slender blonde — slender through the hips and waist, anyway — and she also wore a kimono, except hers was pale pink. In fact, all the waitresses and dancers wore pastel kimonos, which the dancers then shed as they took the stage.

“A ginger ale, please,” I told her.

“Well now,” she said with a smile, “we don’t get many requests for ginger ale.”

She said it in a friendly way, and then seemed to look me over as if noting that my clothes were business casual and not the jeans, t-shirts and baseball hats worn by many of the other guests. Then with her eyes fixed on mine — and I got the feeling she appreciated that I was looking at her eyes and not elsewhere — she said, “My name’s Mandy and I’ll be right back.”

She returned two minutes later with my ginger ale. She placed it on the table and then gave me a little pat on the shoulder before walking off.

I spent the next few minutes sipping my soda and waiting for Walser. I watched the redhead just enough to be polite, but I guess I wasn’t being attentive enough because she was soon dancing almost exclusively for the long-haired guy who, unlike me, was focused on her every move. And that was OK because it allowed me to look around the club. There were plenty of boisterous spectators, but others were simply sitting and staring in stoic silence, like the guy at the next table. The waitresses, meanwhile, were doing their best to flirt with the guests, and I assumed that’s because a festive audience is probably a generous audience when it comes to tips. I saw several waitresses engaging patrons with playful banter. Or, failing that, at least bending far forward when they took drink orders. The kimonos were held together with slender sashes, but the lapels were loose enough that a customer placing an order usually got an up-close eyeful. And from what I could tell, that seemed to be the idea.

The funny thing was, the crowd also included several females. Off to my right was a table with four women. They had short haircuts and mannish attire, and from their laughter and occasional whistles I could see they were having as much fun as the many tables of men.

I was just taking a sip of ginger ale when I felt a hand on my shoulder. Turning, I looked up into the grinning face of Benny Walser.

“Good to see you, Mr. Crowley,” he shouted over the blaring music, which by this time was the old Steppenwolf hit, “Born to be Wild.”

As I stood to shake Walser’s hand, he leaned over and said in my ear, “I knew we’d get you to come back.”

I wasn’t sure how he knew that, but I smiled anyway.

He motioned me to sit and then pulled out the chair next to me. I looked at him, thinking we’d start a conversation — it was possible, despite the loud music — but his attention was already on the redhead. And her attention, no question, was on Walser. She was completely facing us, and it was almost like the long-haired guy at the other table no longer existed.

One of the perks of being the boss, I thought.

As I watched Walser watching her, I was struck by his obvious enjoyment. If you saw him sitting there, and if you didn’t know he owned the club, you’d think he was just another enthusiastic customer. A good minute passed and I was starting to think he’d forgotten all about me, but at that point he leaned over again and said, “Her name’s Raquel.”

His eyes never left her as he added, “That’s not her real name. It’s Molly. Molly Swanson, as a matter of fact. Which is a nice name, but certainly not a name that’s going to stand out in a club like ours. So we gave her the stage name Raquel because she reminds us of the other Raquel. And you have to admit there’s a certain resemblance.”

I didn’t quite see it, but agreed anyway to be polite.

Neither of us spoke for the next minute. Walser still seemed absorbed by Raquel’s obvious, well, charms. Meanwhile, I was checking my watch, having realized that my visit was going to take longer than expected.

And he must have noticed that I was fidgeting because he said, “Hey, remember Becky? The girl you met the other day? She’s gonna be dancing later tonight. It’s only her second shift, but she’s great. A real crowd-pleaser. And a natural, too. It’s like she was born to do this.”

I had to smile at that one. I couldn’t imagine that anyone was ever born to be a stripper.

“I’ll make sure she comes over and dances for you,” he said, beaming at the idea of giving me such a thoughtful gift. “I know she liked you before. And once you watch her dance, believe me, I know you’ll like her, too.”

I decided it was time to let him know the real reason for my visit.

“Mr. Walser,” I said, and it was my turn to lean over so he could hear me over the music — it was now AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long” — “I wonder if I might talk to you for a few minutes. And maybe in your office where we can hear each other better.”

For the first time since he sat down, his smile receded. He regarded me for a few seconds and then said, “Sure.”

He stood, gave a last glance over his shoulder at Raquel, and then led me from the cordoned seating area to the back of the club, where he turned down a hallway to his office. It apparently led to the dancers’s dressing room, too, because just then a side door opened and two women emerged. One had shoulder-length blond hair styled in something like a Farrah Fawcett look and the other had cropped black hair. Both wore kimonos of pastel beige.

“Good evening, Amber. Good evening, Honey,” Walser said as he passed.

“Good evening Mr. Walser,” they said in unison.

The hallway was so narrow that I had to flatten myself against the wall to avoid brushing against them. But there was still contact, and that’s because both women playfully touched my chest as they passed.

At the end of the hall, Walser took a key from his pocket and unlocked his office door. He led me inside, pointed to a chair on one side of the desk, and then walked around to his own large padded chair on the other side.

As he sat, he gave me a guarded smile.

“How can I help you, Mr. Crowley?” he said.

I began with the speech I’d rehearsed in my car on the drive over.

“Mr. Walser, let me start by telling you how sorry I was to hear about your recent arrest,” I said. “Just as I was glad to hear about your subsequent release. The reason for your release was unfortunate, of course, given that another young woman was attacked and left for dead while you were in custody. But at least the police now know that you weren’t responsible for what happened to Julie Bedard, which is something I believed all along. And I told you that much a few days ago.”

Honestly, that was somewhere between an exaggeration and a flat-out lie. I’d never been at all convinced that Walser was innocent, and even at that moment I wasn’t sure. Yeah, he’d been locked up when Jenna Tomlinson was assaulted, so obviously he hadn’t been the guy with his hands at her throat. But it was still possible he’d killed Julie Bedard and Cathy Hyde, and maybe the person who’d attacked Jenna was just a sicko copycat. OK, so that was probably a stretch, given the newspaper clippings found at the three crime scenes. The clippings sure made it look like the same person was responsible for all three. But in my years as a reporter I’d seen a lot of crazy crimes and I knew that anything was possible, particularly with a shady guy like Walser.

Meanwhile, he was still just sitting there looking at me, which made me wonder what he was thinking. But at last he nodded and smiled.

“I appreciate that, Mr. Crowley,” he said. “I had a good feeling about you when you came by the other day. I knew you’d be fair with me and you were, so I’m grateful.”

Then he fell silent, waiting to hear what I’d say next.

“Mr. Walser,” I said, “someone’s killing women here in the Seattle area. The first victim was Julie Bedard and I’m convinced there’s a reason she was first. I still don’t know what that reason is, but something tells me that she’s the key to finding out who’s doing this. I also believe we’ll eventually come up with that answer if we keep looking in the right places and asking the right questions.”

I paused to see his reaction, but there was none. He was still giving me an impassive look.

So I went on, “Another thing we don’t know is if she was killed randomly or if the person who did it was someone she knew. But the police will tell you that very few homicides are actually random. Most are committed by people who know their victims, so for the time being I’m assuming that Ms. Bedard was acquainted with her killer. In time we’ll find out if that’s correct or not, but for now it gives us a place to start.

“And if we go on that assumption, it means we need to look at the men who knew her. It helps that Ms. Bedard, from what I’ve been told, led a fairly simple life. She was a mother and a student, and she also worked here as a dancer, but she apparently didn’t have a large circle of friends. So unless someone at her community college or her daughter’s preschool is a serial killer, I think our bad guy is probably someone who spends time here at this club.”

Or maybe works at this club, I thought, though I was keeping that possibility to myself for now.

Walser’s chair had one of those swivels that allowed him to lean back and rock slightly as he listened. But I still couldn’t read his expression.

Finally he said, “You know, when I spent that night in jail I had a lot of time to think about Julie. And the more I thought about her, the more I started thinking the same thing you’re saying now. It’s something I probably should’ve told the police because they kept asking me what I knew, but I was so angry about being arrested that I didn’t feel like giving them the time of day. But you’re different, Mr. Crowley. Unlike the cops, you’ve been fair with me. So I’m going to help you.”

Sitting forward in his chair, he added, “The other thing is, I really do want to find the person who did this to Julie. She was a wonderful girl and she didn’t deserve for this to happen. So I’m going to help you as much as I can and then it’ll be up to you to decide where you take it from there. If you want to go to the cops with any of this, that’ll be your decision.”

Then he asked, “Do you have a notebook?”

“I do,” I said, reaching for the pad and pen I had in the breast pocket of my jacket.

“OK, then let me begin by explaining something. This is a private club, which means we have the right to refuse admission to anyone. Occasionally we get customers we don’t want coming back, and that’s usually because they’ve been causing trouble of some kind. So we tell them as nicely as possible — and I always have a couple of my big security guys standing by in case anyone wants to argue — that we thank them for their past business, but they’re not welcome here anymore.

“Fortunately it doesn’t happen a lot. Maybe half a dozen times a year. But in the last few months it’s happened four times. I handled three of them myself, and my assistant took care of the fourth one when I was off for the day.”

By now I had a hunch where this was going.

“Did any of these men show an unusual interest in Julie Bedard?” I asked.

“Three of them did,” he replied. “Like I told you before, Julie was one of our most popular dancers. Anyone who’s been a regular here in the last year probably spent a lot of time watching her because she was that good. And there’s no question, three of the guys we asked not to return were among her biggest fans.”

“OK, so let’s start there. Do you have names?”

“Unfortunately, no. We get to know many of our longtime customers by name, of course, but I don’t happen to know who these guys were. So that’s the bad news. But the good news is, we have pictures.”

“Pictures?”

“Yeah. We have video cameras here in the club that operate whenever we’re open. We use a few of them to film the stages, but most are pointed at the seating area. It’s a protection for us because it gives us visual evidence in case something happens that’s got the potential for a lawsuit.”

“So how long would it take you to pull up pictures of these three men?” I asked.

“About 10 seconds,” he said with a smile.

Seeing my surprise, he laughed.

“Whenever we kick someone out, I always get a picture of that individual from our videos and then make copies,” he explained. “It’s important for our employees at the door to be able to recognize these people on the chance they try to sneak back in.”

“So if I was to ask you for copies of those pictures, you’d give them to me?”

He smiled again. He seemed to enjoy being magnanimous.

“For you, yeah. For that dark-haired cop” — he meant Al DiPietro — “not a chance. He’ll need a subpoena before I give him anything because he’s a jerk. But I like you, Mr. Crowley, so they’re yours.”

He opened his top right drawer and took out a folder. After placing it on the desk, he reached inside and flipped through the papers before taking out three black-and-white photographs, which he handed to me. They were grainy because they were taken from videos, but it was still possible to make out the person in each picture.

The first was a man with a short, ragged beard and a baseball hat pulled down low over his eyes. It was difficult to tell his age because so little of his face was visible to the camera. The second was a bald, rather chubby man who was probably in his mid-30s. The third was a young black man with the physique of a weight lifter. I guessed he was in his mid- to late 20s.

I placed the pictures side by side on the desk.

“How much do you know about these guys?” I asked.

“Not much,” he said. “Mostly just the stuff we observed. But there were some similarities. First of all, they always came in alone and they always sat alone. And all three seemed to spend most of their time watching Julie. It was almost like they knew her schedule. Like they always knew when she’d be dancing. And then when she left at the end of her shift, they usually left, too.”

“So what’d they do to get kicked out?”

“Different things. This guy” — Walser pointed at the black man — “kept getting in arguments with other customers. Once it was just someone sitting too close to him. Another time a guy walked by and accidently bumped him. Little things like that, but he’d still go berserk. The time someone bumped him, he jumped up and gave the poor guy a shove, knocking him into another guest. We don’t tolerate that kind of stuff, so that’s when we asked him to leave and not come back. And let me tell you, he wasn’t happy. I had my security guys with me and he looked ready to fight all three of us. But my guys are pretty big and I guess he figured that wouldn’t be very smart, so he just left. But he was mumbling threats on the way out.”

In my notebook I wrote, “Black man, angry, possibly violent, possibly vengeful.”

Then I tapped my finger on the photo of the bald man. “What about him?” I asked.

Walser gave a wry laugh.

“We used to call him Mr. Lonely,” he said. “Honestly, he’s probably a decent guy. And in a lot of ways he wasn’t much different from a lot of our guests, except maybe a little older. But the thing is, he was just a little, well, strange. He was actually a guest here for a long time and over the years he’d sometimes show unusual interest in different girls. And always one girl at a time.”

“Was he interested in Julie Bedard?”

“Yeah. In fact, I know he asked her out a few times. Now I’ll be honest, that kind of thing happens here fairly often and we understand. Our dancers are attractive and it’s natural for men to be drawn to them. So if our girls get asked out every now and then, it’s no big deal. Of course, if they don’t want to go out with someone they can just say it’s against club policy and that’s usually the end of it.

“But apparently this guy wouldn’t accept that no meant no. After he asked Julie out the first time and she told him no, he still kept asking. So we talked to him and told him he had to knock it off, but he just didn’t seem to get the message. Eventually we decided that enough was enough and we told him, here’s the door and don’t come back.”

I wrote down, “Bald guy, interested in Julie.”

Then I tapped the third photograph, which was the guy in the baseball hat, and asked, “OK, what about this guy?”

“That guy was plain weird,” Walser said. “And unfortunately we get guests like him from time to time. But I’ll be honest with you, it’s been a while since we’ve had anyone as weird as him.”

“Weird? In what way?”

“Oh, he’d sit near the stage and talk to himself. Which is strange, but probably not a reason by itself to throw him out. But he also kept trying to touch the girls as they walked past, and that’s something we definitely don’t allow. Our girls are here to be admired, but they’re not to be touched. And we have signs around the club that make that very clear.

“The other thing was, he used to upset Julie. Whenever he was around she’d have trouble putting on a good show for the other customers. She thought he was a real creep and she hated seeing him at one of her tables. So we tried talking to him to see if we could get him to shape up, but he was pretty much beyond help. And it was a problem I finally got tired of dealing with. I knew we’d be better off just not having him around, so he was also asked to stay away.”

I jotted down, “Baseball hat, very weird.”

Then I set my notepad aside and studied the three pictures, trying to decide which one might be a serial killer. My initial guess was the guy in the baseball hat. I could see why Julie Bedard thought he was creepy. He looked filthy and disheveled, and I was betting he was a pervert, too. On the other hand, my years as a police reporter had taught me that appearances are often misleading. Sometimes the most heinous criminals are otherwise ordinary people with jobs, friends and hobbies. They just happen to have a sinister side, too.

Bottom line, I knew that any of the three men could be the Clip Killer. Or none of them.

“Do you remember when you banned each of these guys from the club?” I asked Walser.

He thought for a moment and then said, “This guy was about three months ago.” He was pointing at the man in the baseball hat. “This guy was probably two months ago,” and he pointed at the bald man. “And this guy was just two weeks ago,” he said, pointing at the black man.

I looked up from the pictures and our eyes met. He nodded because he knew what I was thinking.

“Less than a week before Julie was killed,” he said.

Sitting back in my chair, I immediately switched my serial killer vote from the guy in the baseball hat to the black man. Sure, maybe the timing was a coincidence. But we knew this guy had a thing for Julie Bedard, and then he gets told he’s no longer welcome at the club, and a few days later she ends up dead. If it was a coincidence, it was a dandy.

Of course, we still couldn’t be sure why he would’ve wanted her dead. But off the top of my head I had a few theories. Maybe he’d tried to see her away from the club and she’d rejected him, at which point he’d killed her in a fit of pique. Or maybe he decided to take revenge for his banishment by killing one of the club’s premier dancers. Or maybe he just didn’t want anyone else watching what he was no longer allowed to enjoy.

“Do you know anything at all about this guy?” I asked Walser. “If not his name, then maybe where he works? Or even the type of work he does? Anything?”

He shook his head.

“I’ve told you everything I know,” he said. “I’m not holding anything back. About this guy or any of them.”

“OK, but maybe your dancers know something,” I said. “And with your permission I’d like to talk to some of them because there’s a chance … ”

Walser stopped me with an upraised hand. And if the gesture hadn’t got my attention, his sudden change of expression would’ve done the trick. Just like that, his face darkened, his eyes narrowed and his jaw grew tight.

“I don’t want you talking to our dancers, Mr. Crowley,” he said firmly.

For a few seconds I was too startled to reply. Then I tried again.

“Mr. Walser, it’s possible one of the women knows something … ”

Once more his hand went up.

“Let me repeat, Mr. Crowley, I don’t want you talking to our dancers,” he said. “What happened to Julie has been very difficult for everyone here. Many of our girls are just now putting this tragic incident behind them, and an interview could traumatize them all over again. I don’t want that to happen. And it’s not going to happen. If you have any other questions about Julie or this club, you need to direct them to me. I’ll be your source. I’ll be your only source. Is that clear?”

He paused and then evidently picked up that I was still tempted to argue because he said, “My mind is made up, Mr. Crowley, and it’s not going to change. If you want to call or come by again because you have other questions for me, you’re certainly welcome to do so. But I will say once more, I don’t want you talking to our dancers. You’re still my guest here at the club, and as my guest I will grant you every courtesy. But I’m drawing the line at interviews with our girls. That will not be permitted.

“And having said that,” he added, “I need to wrap this up because it’s time for me to get back to work.”

I opened my mouth, but I never got the chance to say a word because he cut me off again with his upraised hand.

“Excuse me, Mr. Crowley,” he said. “I just remembered there’s something I need to do.”

He abruptly stood and left the room.

I spent the next five minutes sitting alone in his office, listening to the music coming through the wall — it was some hip-hop song I didn’t recognize — and trying to figure out what’d just happened. Walser didn’t want me talking to his dancers, that much was clear. But why? Was it because they might know something he didn’t want showing up in the newspaper? Something about his own possible involvement in Julie Bedard’s death? It was the only explanation I could come up with, and I’d pretty much convinced myself that it was true by the time the door suddenly swung open again.

It was Walser, looking as solemn as before. I waited for him to sit down again, but he stayed standing in the doorway.

“Mr. Crowley,” he said, “I believe we’re done. I’ve told you everything I know. You’re welcome to take the pictures I’ve given you and to use them in your investigation. And I do wish you the very best of luck. But right now I need to get back to my club. It’s a very busy night for us, as you can see, and I’m needed elsewhere.”

When I didn’t stand up right away, he gestured with his hand to the hallway and said, “If you please, Mr. Crowley.”

I had no choice but to oblige. I stood and walked to the door, with Walser stepping back to allow me to pass. Then he pulled the door closed behind us, and after locking it with his key he followed me down the hallway.

A dancer in a pale lilac kimono was coming our way. She smiled at me and then said, “Good evening, Mr. Walser.”

This time Walser made no reply.

We walked out into the club’s main area and then along the rear wall, with Walser staying at my heels the entire way. I wasn’t sure if he would’ve permitted me to stick around, but it was a moot point because by that time I had no desire to do so. Likewise, I suspected that he was probably glad to see me go.

As I started down the short hallway to the outside door, I could see Sarina at her counter on my left. We made eye contact, but this time there was no smile.

I continued to the door, where the bouncer with the bushy hair was waiting for me. His face was as expressionless as before, but this time his massive frame had much of the doorway blocked.

I nodded cordially and started to pass, but at the last second he stepped into my path, putting us suddenly face to face.

“You’re the reporter, right?” he asked.

His voice was very low, which somehow made it more menacing. I was too startled to reply, so I merely nodded.

“There’s something you need to know,” he said, and he leaned in so that our noses were now just inches apart. “My boss didn’t have nothin’ to do with those girls gettin’ killed. No one here did.”

He stared at me for another few seconds, and then he stuck a finger in my chest and tapped me three times. Firmly and menacingly.

“You remember that before you go writin’ any stories about the boss,” he said. “Or anyone else who works here. Don’t go causin’ us no trouble.”

I was so dumbfounded that I didn’t know what to say. It was a relief when I heard another voice from behind.

“Leo, Mr. Crowley was our guest tonight. Please apologize.”

It was Walser, watching us from the other end of the hallway.

Leo immediately looked repentant. He glanced at Walser and said, “Sure thing, boss.” Then he looked back at me and mumbled, “Sorry.”

Except he didn’t sound very sorry. Likewise, Walser didn’t sound all that displeased that one of his burly thugs was threatening a guest. The whole incident had obviously been orchestrated by Walser, and for the clear purpose of sending a message to yours truly.

My suspicion was confirmed when Leo took his sweet time getting out of the way and Walser never said a word.

Finally he moved far enough to the side that I had a small space to pass. It was so small that our bodies brushed as I went by, and for me it was like colliding with a brick wall.

I was just pushing the door open and stepping outside when I heard Walser’s voice calling after me.

“Come back any time, Mr. Crowley,” he said. “You’ll be my guest.”

CHAPTER 12

My office phone rang at straight-up 8 o’clock the next morning. It was Lois Frothingham at the front desk, telling me I had a guest in the lobby.

Rhonda Kendall was right on time.

I walked out to greet a petite young woman with long blond hair. As our eyes met, I smiled. Her expression never changed.

“Mr. Crowley?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“Yes,” I said, extending my hand. “But please call me John.”

We shook. Her grip was timid, like the rest of her demeanor.

I’d been planning that we’d use the conference room, but her reticence made me think a coffee shop might be a more relaxed and comfortable setting. And since there’s a Starbucks on the next corner — there’s a Starbucks on most corners in downtown Seattle — I suggested we go there. The coffee’s on me, I told her with a smile.

She agreed, but still no smile.

It was a nice day, so I didn’t bother going back for my coat. We went out the main door and down the block, and as we walked I learned that she was a paralegal at a law office a few blocks from the Press-Tribune. She said the firm specialized in real estate and insurance law, and had a staff of two general partners and five junior partners. She was one of three paralegals.

I asked about her background. She told me she grew up in the Richmond Beach area of north Seattle and had attended a nearby community college for two years before enrolling at the University of Washington, where she earned an undergraduate business degree with a minor in Russian literature — an interesting combination, I thought. One of her business law classes got her to thinking about law school, but unfortunately her grades were good but not great, and that kept her from being admitted to the UW’s prestigious program. At the time she was also living at home with her widowed mother, who was legally blind and undergoing treatment for breast cancer, so Ms. Kendall decided against an out-of-state law school. She ended up taking night classes to become a paralegal, and it turned out that her instructor was the sister-in-law of one of the law firm’s general partners, which led to her hiring. She prepared legal documents, did case research, handled much of the firm’s correspondence, and occasionally accompanied the attorneys to court for trials.

I told her it sounded interesting and for the first time she smiled. But just barely.

“I’d rather be a lawyer,” she said as we stood on a corner waiting for a crosswalk light to change. “And I’m still planning to go to law school someday. But for now this is good experience.”

The coffee shop was unusually quiet for a Friday morning and we had our choice of tables. Thinking she’d prefer privacy, I suggested a secluded rear corner. We found a small table, and once she was seated I walked to the counter to order a vanilla latte for her and the usual extra-hot latte for me.

Returning with our drinks, I took the chair opposite her. As we chatted further, two things struck me. For one, she was much younger than I’d expected. Julie Bedard had been in her early 30s, but Ms. Kendall appeared to be at least five or six years younger and maybe more. The other thing I noticed was her striking resemblance to Maureen McCormick, the actress who played Marcia on the old TV series “The Brady Bunch.” It’s a program I used to watch in reruns as a boy, and I watched mostly because of Maureen McCormick, aka Marcia Brady, who was my first secret crush. If you’re a guy who ever watched “The Brady Bunch” as a kid, you know what I’m talking about.

Looking at her now across the table, Rhonda Kendall had the same round face, big eyes and sweet expression as Marcia Brady. And wouldn’t you know, I got sort of a fluttery feeling in the pit of my stomach that I did my best to ignore.

To get the ball rolling, I asked how she knew Julie Bedard.

“She was my babysitter,” she said.

For some reason that struck me as funny and I almost laughed. But she said it with a straight face, so I gave only a sober nod.

“Julie was in high school when I was in grade school” — that explains the age difference, I thought — “and her family lived just down the street,” she said. “She’d babysit once or twice a month when my parents went out and we got to be good friends. I was an only child, so she became almost like a big sister to me. She was someone I could confide in. Someone I really looked up to and admired.

“We stayed close for several years, but it changed about the time I went off to college, which was also about the time she got pregnant. And then a few months later she got married. Our lives were going in different directions and I guess we just drifted apart. But even so, we still tried to keep in touch. I’d hear from her every month or two, though sometimes it was me calling her. We’d mostly just talk on the phone, but other times we’d get together for lunch or coffee.”

She thought for a moment and then added, “I wouldn’t say she was my closest friend, but she was certainly one of my oldest friends.”

I wanted to ask about the car accident. But since I assumed she still didn’t know about the clipping left beside Ms. Bedard’s body, and since that information was still confidential at Al DiPietro’s request, I knew I’d have to come at it from a different angle.

But before I could speak up, she asked, “What have you heard about the police investigation? Are they getting close to an arrest?”

I hesitated. The truth was, DiPietro and his fellow cops hadn’t made much progress. They were tracking every lead, but they’d also been running into one dead end after another. And from my experience as a police reporter, I knew it could be weeks or even months before they had enough evidence for an arrest.

So that was the honest answer. But given her grieved expression, I just didn’t have the heart to tell her.

What I ended up saying was, “I’m told the investigation is going forward. And hopefully that means they’ll be making an arrest before too long.”

Yeah, it was vague, but it was the best I could do.

And since it seemed like a good idea to change the subject, I asked, “Were you still close enough to Julie to know what was happening in her life?”

She sipped some latte before saying, “I think so. I mean, I’m sure there were things she didn’t tell me. But … well, what is it you want to know?”

“I’m working on a story about Julie and the other victims, as I mentioned yesterday on the phone. At the same time, I’m also doing my own investigation into the circumstances of her death. And for that kind of reporting, it’d help if I could find out a little bit more about her. In particular, I’d like to know about the men in her life, which is maybe a good place to start. What can you tell me about her relationships?”

“Well, she’d been married, like I said. But that only lasted a little more than a year. More recently, she dated a guy off and on for several months. His name’s Michael, he lives in Seattle and he sells real estate. But I don’t think they’d seen each other much in the past few months. And that’s because he has a new girlfriend, which is something Julie told me a couple of weeks ago.”

“You don’t know his last name?” I asked, even as I was jotting his first name into the notebook I’d brought with me.

She shook her head.

“What else can you tell me about him?” I asked.

“Not a lot.”

“Did you ever meet him?”

She nodded.

“Did you ever spend much time with him?”

“A little bit.”

“Do you think he’s at all suspicious?”

She cocked her head. “Are you asking if I think he killed her?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

She shook her head again. And emphatically this time.

“Not a chance. Michael’s a nice guy,” she said. “He was always good to Julie and good to Sophie, too. I know Julie was hoping they’d get married someday, and I remember how hurt she was when he told her they should both start seeing other people. She really cared about him and I know he cared about her, too, even though he was the one who broke it off. But there’s no way he would’ve killed her, I’m sure about that.”

I was recalling the day Al DiPietro came by my office to inform me of Julie Bedard’s murder. Everything Ms. Kendall was telling me now confirmed what DiPietro had said that morning.

“What about her ex-husband?” I asked.

“His name’s Jack Bedard” — I jotted this name on my notepad, too — “and he owns an auto parts business in south Seattle,” she said. “I met him a few times, though the last time was several years ago. But to answer what’s probably your next question, no, I don’t think he killed her either. Julie always liked him, even though they both knew they shouldn’t be married. But they were still friendly, and they were both committed to doing what was best for Sophie.

“Besides,” she added, “he’s remarried now and his wife’s pregnant. There’s no way he would’ve done something like this.”

OK, strike one and strike two, I thought. And in the meantime I was strumming the fingertips of my left hand on the table. It’s a nervous habit that sometimes helps me think.

“What about other men?” I asked. “Do you know if she was seeing anyone else?”

Another head shake.

“Julie didn’t date much,” she said. “In fact, I don’t think she had a single date after her relationship with Michael broke off. She was content to spend all her free time with Sophie. Well, that’s not exactly right. She wanted to date, but she just had trouble meeting the right kind of guys. She always said the guys who’d make good husbands and fathers weren’t interested in getting serious with a woman who worked as a stripper.”

I was about to ask another question, but she wasn’t finished.

“There’s something else you should know about Julie,” she said. “She really wanted to quit dancing. The problem was, she couldn’t because she not only needed the money to pay for school, but also to support Sophie and herself. So she had to keep working at the club, even though it’d got to the point where she pretty much hated it.

“When your paper had the story about Julie getting killed, it mentioned that she worked at a strip club. Which was true, of course, but it also seemed a little unfair to me because Julie was so much more than just a dancer. She was a really good friend, but even more she was a great mother. She was completely devoted to Sophie, and she was determined that her daughter would have a good life and a bright future. Dancing was just her way of providing those things until she could finish with school and get started on a career.”

“How much did she tell you about her work?” I asked.

“Not a lot. To be honest, she never really wanted to talk about it. Like I said, she wasn’t proud of what she did. And if she could’ve found another job that would’ve paid as much money as she made dancing, I’m sure she would’ve quit in a heartbeat.”

“Did you ever go watch her dance?” I asked.

That question seemed to surprise her. A few seconds passed before she nodded.

“I went once,” she said. “I wasn’t sure she’d want me there, so I didn’t tell her beforehand. And then when I got there I stayed in the back, hoping she wouldn’t see me. But she did. About two minutes into her first dance her eyes sort of slid past me, but then came back. She froze for a few seconds, just staring at me, and then she started to dance again. But it was different. Before she’d been dancing with her eyes half-closed, moving very sensually. But once she saw me her eyes stayed wide open and she moved differently, almost distractedly. I knew she couldn’t wait to get off the stage.

“The funny thing is, I’m not sure anyone else noticed. The guys in the crowd were all too crazy with beer and arousal to pay much attention. But it was very obvious to me.”

“Was she angry at you for being there?”

“Not really. She called the next day and asked me why, and I told her that she was my friend and I wanted to know what it was like for her. There was a long silence before she said, ‘Well, now you know.’ And that was the end of it. We never talked about it again.”

I suddenly felt a pang of new sympathy for Julie Bedard. Her death had always been sad, of course, but I was also beginning to realize how difficult her life had been. It must’ve been terrible to spend her working hours dancing topless for a crowd of cheering, leering customers, and to pretend that she was having a good time, but all the while detesting them. And maybe even more, detesting herself.

“When was the last time you talked to her?” I asked.

“The day before she died. And that’s actually the reason I wanted to meet with you today. Because she told me something that’s probably important.”

My attention meter immediately shot up to full alert. I nodded for her to continue.

“It was a Saturday and we’d met downtown to do some shopping,” she said. “But it was raining and we didn’t want to be walking outside from store to store, so we ended up just having lunch. Julie wanted to hear how my job was going and she had some new pictures of Sophie to show me. She also told me about her school and about how she couldn’t wait to get started in her new career.

“It was a fun day and I was sorry to see it end, but she had to leave early in the afternoon to get ready for work. So we left the restaurant and walked to where she’d parked her car. Mine was just a little further down the block, so we stopped on the sidewalk and talked for another few minutes because the rain was finally letting up. And that’s when she told me.”

I sat forward, all ears.

“She told me there was a guy who’d been following her. She didn’t know who it was or what he looked like because she never saw him. But there was this same car she kept seeing outside her apartment and then at the club almost every night when she danced. Unfortunately, she couldn’t see inside because the car had dark windows. But whoever it was, he was keeping an eye on her.”

“Did she tell you the kind of car it was?”

“She didn’t know. The model, I mean. She just said it was a black SUV.”

“And the person in the car never got out or rolled down his window or did anything else to show himself?”

She shook her head.

“Do you know if she ever told anyone about this? Either the police or someone at the club?”

“I asked her that and she said no. Which is obviously unfortunate, given what happened.”

Would’ve, could’ve, should’ve, I thought.

Then I recalled the three men who’d been banished from The Harem. I was betting that one of them had a black SUV.

“Did she think it was someone who knew her from the club?” I asked. “Maybe an obsessed customer?”

“I asked her that, too, and she said that’s probably who it was. There were always men who came to watch her dance and some of them showed up night after night. Most of them were harmless, she said. She called them her fan club and she was actually very friendly with some of them. But there were a few that made her nervous.”

“Nervous? In what way?”

“She just said there were a couple of guys who gave her a bad feeling. She told me there was this one guy in particular who was real creepy.”

Probably a guy with a ragged beard and a baseball hat, I thought.

By now I knew this was information the police had to have. But I was also puzzled why she hadn’t thought to call them herself.

And she must’ve been reading my mind because she said, “I know I should’ve told all this to the police. But they haven’t called me and I guess I’ve just been too upset to call them.”

I was about to say that I’d be happy to forward her phone number to Al DiPietro, but I stopped because I’d noticed a sudden change in her expression. Even more sadness than before, it seemed to me. Sure enough, her eyes began to well, her lower lip quivered, and there was no question that she was about to cry.

She looked away, blinked a few times and then the tears started, forming little trickles down her cheeks.

Since I’ve never been very good with crying women, I wasn’t quite sure what to say. The only thing I could think to do was pass her a paper napkin, which she took without a word. She touched it to her eyes and nose, and then clenched it in her fist before looking back at me.

And at that moment I realized I’d been wrong. It wasn’t sadness I’d seen. It was fear. She was terrified.

“Mr. Crowley,” she said, still with a trembling lip, “there’s a reason I wanted to meet you at your office this morning. I wanted to be sure you really were who you said you were, and not just someone who’s pretending to be a reporter. Because the thing is, I’ve been seeing a dark SUV in my neighborhood, too.”

With new tears in her eyes she added, “There’s someone that’s been following me, too. And I think it’s the same man.”

CHAPTER 13

The restaurant is called “Rosie’s Place,” and it’s a cozy neighborhood diner in the Greenwood area of north Seattle.

The proprietress is Rosalita Mendez, known to one and all as Rosie. A short woman with dark Hispanic features, she’s boisterously loud, unflaggingly cheerful and round enough to confirm that she knows a thing or two about good food. In particular, Rosie and her kitchen staff have a reputation for terrific breakfasts, beginning with an assortment of tasty egg dishes. There are the usual fried, scrambled and poached varieties, but the omelets and crepes — the former stuffed with various cheeses and vegetables, the latter with fruit and smothered in whipped cream and powdered sugar — are Rosie’s specialties.

Given all this, you’d think “Rosie’s Place” would be the toast of Seattle’s breakfast crowd — and no pun intended. But Rosie’s never bothered with advertising, so the faces in her dining room are pretty much the same from one day to the next. And if anyone asks, Rosie will say she’s got all the business she can handle, and besides she’s only open for breakfast and lunch because the doors close at 2 o’clock so Rosie, a single mom, can be home when her two kids get out of school.

Her backstory goes like this. She’s the widow of Arturo Mendez, who’d been a Seattle homicide detective and Al DiPietro’s longtime partner before his death in a boating accident some eight years earlier. Though Rosie had never wanted to be anything more than a wife and mother, she also wasn’t the kind of person to wallow in grief. So when the life insurance money showed up a few months after the funeral, she used it to start a new career as a restaurateur.

From the beginning DiPietro’s been one of Rosie’s regulars and it’s always understood, though always unspoken, that he does so out of loyalty to his late partner. He’s usually there two or three times a week, depending on his schedule, and he has a standing reservation for Friday breakfast, which is how I knew where to find him after my get-together with Rhonda Kendall. As soon as we said good-bye I hopped in my car and drove out to “Rosie’s Place,” and there was DiPietro in his usual booth by the window, getting ready to attack a platter of eggs, bacon, hash browns and toast with a side order of pancakes and a mug of black coffee.

Seeing me walk in, he shook his head and said, “If I’d known you were going to show up, Crowley, I would’ve gone to Denny’s.”

Then he sighed and pointed with his fork at the booth’s other seat. I slid in, caught Rosie’s eye across the dining room and mouthed the word, “Coffee.”

She gave me a wave and went to fetch a mug and her coffee pot.

DiPietro, meanwhile, was dusting his eggs and hash browns with salt and pepper. He then buried the hash browns under a layer of ketchup.

I waited until he had the cap back on the bottle before saying, “You missed a spot.” He glanced at me questioningly and I pointed at the hash browns. “I can still see some white. Right there.”

He gave me another look of annoyance. But to show he’s a good sport, he covered the last visible trace of potatoes with another blob of ketchup.

“Satisfied?” he asked, setting the ketchup bottle aside. Not waiting for an answer, he added, “I can’t eat like this when Mel’s around. Not unless I want a lecture about cholesterol and high blood pressure.”

Mel is Melinda, Al’s wife. It’s the second marriage for both and by all reports it’s a good one, her dietary critiques notwithstanding. The funny thing is, they met under the most unusual circumstances. Her first husband was gunned down in a mob contract killing, and the police later determined he’d been the unfortunate victim of mistaken identity. His name was Donald Gorton and the intended target was Donald Gordon, a low-level racketeer who ran afoul of a Seattle-area mob boss due to some significant and longstanding debts. The mob boss finally sent two hit men out to settle matters with Donald Gordon, but instead they ended up plugging Donald Gorton, Melinda’s husband and a high school history teacher whose only mistake was to live eight houses away — down the block and around the corner — from Mr. Gordon. The bad guys confronted Donald Gorton one night as he was out walking his dog and escorted him to a secluded alley. Assuming he was being robbed, he was just reaching for his wallet when one of the thugs gave him two bullets in the back of the head.

DiPietro led the investigation, and it was a short one because the two gunmen themselves turned up as corpses a few days later, the apparent penalty for their carelessness. But in his initial search for suspects and clues, DiPietro spent a few days interviewing Melinda and it turned out to be a meaningful introduction. Because the next summer they met again at the wedding of a mutual friend, and by then Melinda was done grieving and DiPietro, a divorcé of 15 years, had decided he was done with the single life. He got her phone number at the wedding, asked her out a few nights later, and they were married the following year.

“How are the girls?” I asked him now.

Melinda DiPietro, nee Gorton, had two daughters, Jilly and Jordy. Officially they were Jill and Jordan, but their late father took to calling them Jilly and Jordy when they were little and the names stuck.

“They’re fine,” DiPietro said between bites of bacon. “But Jilly’s got a new boyfriend and I’m not happy about it.”

“She’s 18, Al,” I reminded him.

“Seventeen,” he corrected. “And the guy’s a jerk. I’m thinking of having him arrested.”

“On what charge?” I asked with a smile.

“Being a jerk,” he shot back. “And believe me, there’s plenty of evidence.”

I like hearing DiPietro talk about his family, and mostly because he’s so darn proud of them. He’s very much in love with Mel, of course, but he’s also crazy about his stepdaughters, whom he legally adopted a year or two after the wedding. I was about to ask about 15-year-old Jordy, who was already showing interest in a law enforcement career, but just then Rosie walked over. She set a mug in front of me, filled it from her coffee pot, and then put a hand on DiPietro’s shoulder.

“How’re the eggs, Al?” she asked. “Did we get them right?”

“No,” he said. “But you’re getting closer.”

She laughed good-naturedly and gave his shoulder a little pat before walking off. DiPietro watched her depart, and then for the first time since I sat down he grinned.

“The eggs are perfect,” he told me. “But what’s the fun in telling her that?”

Rosie and Arturo — most people knew him as Art, but to DiPietro he’d always been Artie — had been high school sweethearts in San Antonio. They got married a year after graduation, and then moved to Washington after he joined the Navy and was posted to the Naval Air Station at Oak Harbor, about two hours north of Seattle. He served four years, which was enough time for the two of them to fall in love with the Pacific Northwest. After his discharge he enrolled at the police academy, joined the Seattle PD shortly after graduation, spent a few years in patrol and then requested a transfer to homicide, where he was eventually paired with DiPietro.

They worked together almost six years and it was a strong, successful partnership, both personally and professionally. “The Wop and the Wetback,” DiPietro used to say, and he meant it with the utmost affection. A few folks were probably offended, but Artie always laughed and that was good enough for DiPietro. He was devastated when his friend died, and in the months and years that followed he made a special point to look after Rosie and the kids, Ronaldo and Teresa — or Ron and Terri as they came to be known. For DiPietro it had nothing to do with romance. In fact, he was engaged to Mel at the time. He simply wanted to help out, and he did so by mowing Rosie’s yard in the summer, delivering firewood in the winter, and taking care of whatever repairs were needed around the house.

When she first opened the restaurant and business was predictably slow, DiPietro put the word out that Rosie needed customers. Soon enough, business picked up.

So I was sitting there thinking about what a generous, caring guy DiPietro was, and in the next moment I realized he was eyeing me with impatience. Then he pointedly glanced at the Press-Tribune sports section on the table to his right, a clear message that I should get lost so he could start reading the spring training report about his favorite baseball team, the Seattle Mariners.

It was time to get down to business.

“Here’s why I wanted to see you,” I said. “I just got done talking to Rhonda Kendall.”

He was pushing eggs onto his fork with a piece of toast, but paused to look up.

“Rhonda Kendall?”

“The woman who was in the car with Julie Bedard on the night of the freeway accident. Her name’s in the newspaper story you found beside Ms. Bedard’s body.”

He nodded, then took a bite of eggs.

“We talked,” I repeated.

I waited for him to show some interest, but he was busy adding more pepper to his eggs.

“Any chance you want to know what she said?” I asked.

“Sure,” he replied, setting aside the pepper shaker. He then reached for the syrup, which he poured over his pancakes.

“OK, then I’ll tell you,” I said. “Although I’m a little surprised you haven’t called her yourself.”

He looked up. “So now you’re telling me how to do my job?” he asked.

“No, of course not. You’re very good at your job, Al. And I’m just trying to help, which is why I’m here. Rhonda Kendall told me something very interesting. And also very important, as I think you’ll agree when you hear it. Because if I’m right, it could be a big break in your investigation.”

He took a drink of coffee and then caught Rosie’s eye across the dining room — he raised his cup, indicating he needed a refill — before looking back at me. “OK, Crowley, what’d she say.”

“She said she saw Julie Bedard the day before she was killed, and that Ms. Bedard told her she was being followed.”

I was betting DiPietro didn’t have this information, and from his reaction I knew I was right. He’d just picked up his fork again, but he immediately set it back on the table.

“You’re saying that someone was stalking Julie Bedard?” he asked.

“That’s what Rhonda Kendall told me.”

“Did she know who it was? Julie Bedard, I mean.”

“No, at least according to Rhonda Kendall. Ms. Bedard told her she kept seeing a car outside her apartment and at the club, but she never saw who was inside and she also didn’t recognize the car. The only thing she said was that it was a dark SUV with tinted windows.”

“A dark SUV with tinted windows,” DiPietro said wryly. “That narrows it down.”

Meaning there are lots of dark SUVs with tinted windows in Seattle.

Then he asked, “What else did she tell you?”

“That she’s been seeing a dark SUV in her neighborhood, too. She’s afraid it’s the same guy and that now he’s following her. And if you ask me, I’d say our bad guy’s in that car.”

He went on looking at me for a few seconds and then nodded.

At that moment Rosie returned to the booth to fill our coffee cups. She then asked DiPietro if he was going to need a doggy bag. It was a quip, prompted by the large amount of food still on his plate. But instead of offering a playful remark of his own, DiPietro just shook his head. And I guess she picked up that we were in the middle of a serious conversation, likely related to police business, because she moved off to check on the people in the next booth.

“I could’ve told you that much on the phone,” I said, “but I’ve got something else, too. I went to The Harem last night and chatted with Benny Walser. He said he’s kicked four people out of the club in recent months for different reasons, and three of those guys were big fans of Julie Bedard. He didn’t know their names, but he was able to pull their pictures from the club’s video system. And I think you should have them.”

I had the three photos with me in the breast pocket of my jacket. I took them out — they were actually copies, as I’d kept the originals for myself — and unfolded them before sliding them across the table to DiPietro.

He spread them out and gave each one a look. “All these guys liked watching Julie Bedard?” he asked.

“That’s what Walser said. He told me they usually showed up when she was dancing and then they’d watch her most of the night. They were big fans, like I said.”

I went on to explain a little bit about each man, including the reasons for their banishment.

“I’ll take these back to the office and see if we can get a visual match from our computers,” he said. “It’d be nice if we could ID these guys to see if any of them have police records.”

As he stacked the photos together, he added, “I wonder why Walser didn’t tell us about these guys when we had him at the station.”

I knew the answer — that is, Walser detested DiPietro — but decided not to bring it up.

What I said was, “There’s one more thing I should probably mention,” and I went on to relate my recent visit from Harland Emerson Sr.

“I don’t like that man,” DiPietro said, shaking his head. “And I don’t like his son either. We’ve connected Junior to Cathy Hyde and to Jenna Tomlinson” — I’d already filled him in on what Mrs. Tomlinson told me at the hospital — “and if I can find some connection between him and Julie Bedard I’ll lock him up sooner than quicker.”

He reached into his jacket pocket for a small notebook and pen. “Which reminds me, we need to find out what kind of car Junior drives,” he said, jotting a note to himself. Then he asked, “Do you have Rhonda Kendall’s phone number?”

“At the office. I’ll call you as soon as I get back there. And I assume you’ll be checking to see if Emerson ever spent time at The Harem.”

It was a question phrased as a statement.

“Yeah. We know about the cameras there,” he said. “We’re preparing a subpoena so we can look at the tapes, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up spotting him in the crowd. We’re also trying to interview some of the dancers, but Walser’s not being very helpful. I guess he’s still sore about being arrested.”

More than you know, I thought.

DiPietro was scribbling some additional notes to himself. I waited until he was finished before saying, “Here’s a question, Al. What’re the chances that we’re looking at multiple killers? Is it possible that one guy killed Julie Bedard, and then someone else found out that a woman got killed with a newspaper clipping left beside her body and decided to try it, too, and so he did the same thing to Cathy Hyde? Or maybe one guy killed Julie Bedard and Cathy Hyde, and then someone else attacked Jenna Tomlinson? Is that possible?”

“Possible? Sure,” he replied. “But likely? I doubt it. After all, I don’t know how anyone would’ve heard about the clippings. We’re not talking about it, and the only other person who knew about it was you. And you didn’t tell anyone, right?”

“Only my boss,” I said. And my fiancée, I thought, though I kept that to myself.

Still, he looked miffed like I’d broken a confidence, so I explained, “My boss needs to know, Al. First of all, those are Press-Tribune clippings that keep showing up. Also, the two of us talk every day about what I’m working on, so it makes sense that he’d know everything. And he also knows the importance of protecting sources, just like I do. You can be sure he’s not talking about this either.”

DiPietro didn’t look at all convinced, but before he could say anything his cell phone went off. He’s too old-fashioned to have a perky ring tone, so it just buzzes.

He pulled the phone from his jacket pocket, glanced at the Caller ID and then held it to his ear.

“Yeah, Thumper,” he said into the phone.

He was talking to Tommy Whittaker, his partner, and as I watched his expression changed. His face grew solemn, his eyes narrowed, and he finally raised his hand to catch Rosie’s attention. When she looked his way from across the dining room, he beckoned her over.

He was just wrapping up the call — “OK, Thumper, I’ll see you at the office in 20 minutes” — when she walked up.

Closing the phone, he said, “Rosie, dearest, I need to run. But the breakfast was good enough that I just might come back.”

She laughed as she took her pad from her apron pocket. She found his ticket, but by then DiPietro was already standing. He pulled on his jacket, reached for his wallet, put a $20 on the table — it was probably double his actual bill, I knew — and then bent to give Rosie a peck on the cheek.

Looking up at him, she said softly, “You’re the best, Al. What would I do without you?”

“I doubt you’ll ever find out,” he told her with a smile.

Then he looked at me and said, “Walk me out, Crowley.”

I stood, placed a few dollars on the table for my coffee, said good-bye to Rosie and followed him out the door.

He didn’t say anything until we reached his car, which was just down the street. Then he said, “I’m going to fill you in, Crowley, but you can’t write this yet, OK?”

He waited for me to nod my agreement before saying, “Harland Emerson Jr. was arrested last night. It seems he got drunk in a downtown bar and started a fight, so patrol got called and they came to take him away. He spent the night in jail sleeping it off, and if that’s all it was he probably would’ve posted bail and been home by now.”

When he hesitated, I said, “But there’s more?”

“Yeah. Because before the fight Emerson was sitting at the bar doing a pretty good job of getting bombed. And all those drinks apparently loosened his tongue because at some point he started talking to himself. Loudly, according to the bartender.”

“What’d he say?”

“Something about Cathy Hyde. And not just once, but several times. So after a while the bartender gets to wondering, who in the world is Cathy Hyde? Bartenders hear a lot of stuff, of course, and it usually means nothing. And this probably would’ve meant nothing, too, except for the fight. Because when patrol showed up and started taking statements, that’s when the bartender mentioned that Emerson had spent the night sitting alone and talking to himself about someone named Cathy Hyde.

“Apparently the bartender didn’t know the name, but the officers did and so they used the computer back at the station to see if there was a link between Emerson and the late Ms. Hyde. They found an archive copy of a newspaper story — your story, I assume — about Ms. Hyde’s testimony at Emerson’s trial, and at that point they put it all together and then contacted homicide.

“The good news is, we’ve already got him locked up. Ordinarily he’d be on his way once he posted bail, but now we’re going to drag our feet a little bit. The plan is to keep him in custody long enough that we can question him.”

“Wow,” I said softly. “Maybe he’s the Clip Killer after all.”

“Maybe,” DiPietro said as unlocked his car door and slid in. Looking back up at me, he said, “And I intend to find out.”

CHAPTER 14

I watched Al DiPietro drive off before returning to my car. I was headed back to the office, where I’d spend the rest of the day working the story from other angles.

But since I’d promised to pass along Rhonda Kendall’s phone number, and since I also wanted an update on the police interrogation of Harlan Emerson Jr., I dialed DiPietro’s cell phone early in the afternoon and left a message. An hour later I called again and left another message. Then I waited some more, but still no word. And that was odd. Because even when DiPietro’s got nothing to say, he’s usually pretty good about calling back and telling me he’s got nothing to say.

I considered calling a third time, but held off because by then I’d received some good news.

Twenty minutes after leaving the second message for DiPietro, my phone rang. It was Shirley Tomlinson, Jenna’s mom, calling to tell me that her daughter had regained consciousness. The previous night, the doctors had determined that the swelling in Jenna’s brain was diminishing and that her blood pressure was rising, and those were both obviously good signs. She’d also shown more movement with her fingers as well as new movement with her head. And then about 9 o’clock that morning she started making little groans and other sounds, which went on for about an hour before her eyelids fluttered and finally opened. By then Mrs. Tomlinson had moved to the edge of the bed, where she sat holding her daughter’s hand and speaking encouragingly. Though Jenna never said anything or showed any discernible reaction, her eyes were clearly focused on her mother.

Mrs. Tomlinson understandably cried with joy as she told me all this over the phone. The doctors were still saying it was impossible to know if Jenna would recover fully, and even if it happened there was no way of predicting how long such a recovery might take. But for now, at least, it seemed that she was out of danger.

So it was a great phone call, no question, and I promised Mrs. Tomlinson that I’d visit the hospital again as soon as I could.

But in the meantime, and with Mrs. Tomlinson’s permission, I decided to make this my story for the next day. Jenna’s improved condition was obviously important to the police investigation, given that she might eventually be able to identify or at least describe her assailant. But I had another reason, too. After days of writing stories about the Clip Killer and his tragic string of victims, I was ready to follow up with some good news.

So I sent Harvey Connell an email explaining what I had coming — he’d been stealing glances at me from across the room, so I knew he was getting antsy to know — and then just before 5 o’clock I sent the entire story. He immediately read it through and sent a return email which read: “Good job!” It meant my day was over and I was free to head home.

I gathered my things and walked out the side door to the staff parking lot, where the employees all park in numbered spaces. Mine is No. 24 — they were assigned alphabetically, and Crowley was 24th out of the approximately 160 spots — and it’s near the far corner of the unfenced lot.

As I started to my car, I noticed a young woman standing on the sidewalk to my left. She seemed to be looking at me, and as I continued through the parking lot she moved in my direction.

“Excuse me,” she said, stepping out from between two parked cars, “but are you John Crowley?”

“I am,” I replied. I studied her face before saying, “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“Not really. But we met the other night.”

I looked more closely, but still drew a blank.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think … ”

“I look different from the last time you saw me,” she said with a smile.

For a few seconds I felt a flicker of recognition. Indeed, there was something familiar in both her voice and eyes, but even more in her smile.

And in the next moment I knew.

It was the waitress from The Harem. The young woman who’d been so amused by my request for a ginger ale.

The reason I didn’t recognize her right away was partly her clothing — no kimono today, just jeans and a blouse with a chic leather jacket — but also because her hair was different. At the club she had straight, shoulder-length blond hair with bangs at her forehead. Now her hair was short, wavy and dark.

Extending her hand, she said, “I’m Mandy. Mandy O’Dell, and that’s my real name. I’m one of the few women at The Harem who doesn’t use a stage name. It’s Amanda actually, but I prefer Mandy.”

I took her hand and said, “Well, I’m very pleased to meet you, Mandy.” With a grin I added, “Again.”

Seeing that I was still looking at her hair, she laughed.

“I use my real name when I’m working, but not my real hair,” she said. “I don’t want to be recognized away from the club, so I wear a wig.”

“Well, your secret’s safe with me,” I told her and she laughed again.

Then more seriously, I said, “If you don’t mind me asking, how’d you know to find me here? And, for that matter, how’d you know my name?”

I was wondering because I didn’t remember introducing myself to anyone at The Harem that night. Yes, my name was on the card I’d given at the door, but I’d never told anyone that I was a reporter. Walser knew, of course, and apparently so did Leo, his goon. But I doubted that either of them had spread the word.

“I found out from Margie,” she said.

“Margie?”

“Her club name is Daisy.”

I nodded. Daisy was the young woman who’d showed me to my table.

“OK, so how’d she … ?”

“How’d she know you worked at the Press-Tribune?”

I nodded again.

“She didn’t. But she logs the names of everyone who sits in our VIP section and she showed me the sheet. You were one of two people sitting there that night and I knew the name of the other guy, so it was easy enough to get your name. And then I thought it looked familiar, so I went home and Googled it. That’s when I found out you were a reporter and it explained why I thought your name looked familiar. Your name’s been on the articles about Julie.”

With a shrug, she added, “I figured that’s why you came to see Mr. Walser. Because of what happened to her.”

OK, so that answered my first two questions. And now for Question No. 3.

“How can I help you, Ms. O’Dell?” I asked.

She giggled. “Please, call me Mandy.”

I had a feeling she was flirting with me. And when she reached out and touched my arm, I knew it for sure.

Then she said, “I’m actually here because I think I can help you. You see, I was watching as Mr. Walser walked you to the door the other night and it was obvious that neither of you was very happy. At the time I didn’t know why, of course, but when I found out that you were a reporter it started to make sense. I assumed you’d been asking him things he didn’t want to talk about, just as I assumed he wasn’t telling you what you wanted to hear.

“And that’s when I decided to come talk to you. Because, well, there’s some things I know.”

I felt a tingle of anticipation. Sometimes the key to cracking a tough investigation is a lucky break, and I had a hunch I was about to get a big one. And since I had no other plans that night — Stacy was headed across Lake Washington to Bellevue, where she’d be attending the baby shower for an old college friend — I had plenty of time to hear what Mandy had to say.

“There’s a bar just down the street,” I said. “Can I buy you a drink?”

She giggled again and said, “I’d like that.”

We started down the street to “Clancy’s,” a sports bar named for owner Clarence “Clancy” Brown, a former Seattle Seahawks All-Pro running back who’s turned his celebrity into a successful post-football career. Most nights the bar is crowded, but it was still early and we were able to find a quiet table. A waitress in blue shorts and a blue Seahawks jersey came by to take our orders — beer for me, white wine for Mandy — and returned moments later with our drinks.

I waited for the waitress to walk off before saying, “What was it you wanted to tell me, Mandy?”

She was looking down and slowly swirling the wine in her glass. She seemed nervous, so I decided to give her all the time she needed. And if nothing else, at least enough time for the wine to kick in.

Several seconds passed before she looked up and said, “I’m really not sure where to begin. But maybe I should start by telling you that I really thought of Julie as a friend. We didn’t see each other much outside the club, but I still felt close to her. You see, I’ve only been working there for about six months and I’m not that close to a lot of the other girls. Frankly, some of them just aren’t very friendly. They worry about who’s the best dancer, who works the best sections, who makes the most money and who’s Mr. Walser’s favorite. That stuff really matters to some of them and they end up treating everyone else like a rival.

“But Julie was different. We all knew that she was one of the best dancers and that she was certainly the most popular with the customers. But she never acted like she was special. She was always friendly with the other girls and I could tell that everyone really liked her.”

She swirled her wine a few more times and then watched it slowly settle in the glass.

“I have to tell you,” she said, looking up, “what happened to her really shook me up. Julie was a good person. She was someone we all admired and respected, and it just didn’t make sense that she’d get killed like that.”

She fell silent and I figured it was my turn.

“Other people have told me the same thing, Mandy,” I said. “But unfortunately, the police still aren’t sure who killed her. They have some suspects and they’re still investigating, but they just haven’t been able to get very far to this point.

“But I can also tell you this. I don’t believe that what happened to Julie was random. I think the person who did this knew her, and I think there’s a good chance it was someone who knew her from The Harem.”

“Me, too,” she said.

I felt my heartbeat quicken.

She sipped some wine — it was actually more of a big gulp, and no doubt due to her nerves — before saying, “The reason I wanted to see you is because … because there’s probably something you should know. It’s about … ”

She broke off and looked down.

When she stayed silent for several seconds, I finally asked, “Is this about one of the customers?” I was thinking about the men in the three pictures.

“No,” she said softly. “Mr. Walser.”

I stared at her. Walser was someone I’d suspected right from the start, and the police were likewise suspicious enough to arrest him after Cathy Hyde’s murder, though he was released after the attack on Jenna Tomlinson. But I still had my doubts about the guy, and apparently so did Mandy.

Leaning closer, I said in a lowered voice, “Are you saying that it was maybe Benny Walser who killed Julie Bedard?”

“I … I don’t know,” she replied, and by now she looked even more nervous than before. “I’m not sure. … I just think … well, the two of them … ”

She gulped more wine — her hand was trembling, I noticed — and said, “The thing is, Mr. Walser and Julie didn’t get along. Not at all. They argued all the time, and it got so bad they couldn’t even have a normal conversation without getting in an argument. Which was really strange because Julie got along so well with everyone else.”

“How come she didn’t like him?” I asked, though I figured I already knew the answer. A whole lot of people didn’t like Benny Walser, and for a whole lot of reasons.

Sure enough, she said, “It’s because of the kind of man he is. He can be real nice at times, but other times he’s not very nice at all. He likes to boss people around, and when things don’t go his way he starts yelling. I’ve seen him make girls cry before. Lots of times, as a matter of fact. But then he usually comes around later and says he’s sorry, and that he’s just trying to make everything better for the club and for his girls. That’s what he calls us, his girls.”

She drank some more wine before saying, “Did you know that his nickname is The Sheik? He owns a club called The Harem and everyone calls him The Sheik, which should tell you something. The thing is, he loves being surrounded by beautiful women. He also loves doing special favors for us, like giving us gifts and sometimes expensive vacations, and in return he loves it when some of his girls” — she broke off, searching for the right words — “do favors for him, if you know what I mean.”

Yeah, I knew what she meant. I’d previously heard about that so-called arrangement from Al DiPietro, and it confirmed my already low opinion of Walser.

“There was one time I overheard him talking to one of the guests, and it was apparently a friend of his because he was in the VIP area and Mr. Walser came to sit with him. The music had stopped so you could hear voices and I heard Mr. Walser tell his friend about the fringe benefits of owning a club like The Harem. That’s what he called it, the fringe benefits. And then he looked at this guy with a big grin and they both started laughing.”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” I broke in, “I’d like to hear more about the relationship between Ms. Bedard and Mr. Walser. How bad was it between them?”

“Pretty bad at times. At best they sort of co-existed, which is probably because they needed each other. Julie needed the job because she was going to school and had a daughter to take care of. And Mr. Walser needed Julie because she was such a good dancer and so good for the club.”

She looked off for a moment and then asked, “Did you ever see her dance?”

I shook my head.

“She was amazing,” Mandy said, and for the first time since we sat down she smiled. “The thing was, she was a natural performer. When you watched her you felt sure that she loved what she was doing and that she loved having people watch her. You could see it in the way she moved to the music and in her connection with the audience. It was all of that. The rest of us, we’d sometimes stand off-stage and watch her because she was just so good. I think we all wanted to learn from her. And the men, well, they just loved her.

“But then when she wasn’t dancing, Julie became this other person. To the rest of us she was still very sweet, like I said. But she also spoke her mind when she felt like it. If she didn’t like the way Mr. Walser was treating his employees, which happened a lot, she wasn’t afraid to say so. And she never bothered pretending that she liked him. It was fairly obvious to all of us that she didn’t like him and she didn’t seem to care who knew it, including Mr. Walser himself.”

“So they argued?”

“All the time. And it never took much to set them off. If the two of them were in the same room together, you knew there’d eventually be sparks. Julie wasn’t going to let herself be bullied or intimidated by Mr. Walser, and she wanted him to know it, too. But at the same time, he didn’t appreciate one of his employees showing him anything less than total respect. He wasn’t about to put up with any, as he called it, insubordination.”

“OK, so what about recently? Were there any major blowups between them?”

“Uh-huh. There was a big one about a week before she was killed.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Well, I went by the club that morning to pick up some things I’d left in the dressing room. I figured I’d be the only one there — other than Mr. Walser, that is — and I was planning to just say hi, grab my things and be on my way. But when I walked in, I heard shouting coming from his office. It was Mr. Walser and he sounded plenty mad.

“When I first heard his voice, I thought he was on the phone. I was in the hallway leading to his office, so he didn’t know I was there. And I didn’t know what to do. But since he sounded so mad, I figured I’d better leave. So I turned around and was starting to go back out, but just then I heard a woman’s voice. It was Julie and she was all choked up. But she was also standing up to him.”

“What were they arguing about?” I asked.

“I couldn’t tell at first. But finally I picked up that Julie was threatening to quit. She said she didn’t like dancing anymore, but more than anything she was sick of being treated disrespectfully by Mr. Walser. She said that even with the good money she was making, it wasn’t worth it if it meant having a boss who acted the way he did. And then she said that he ought to be ashamed of himself, which is when he really flew off the handle.”

“What happened next?”

“He started yelling louder. He was calling Julie all sorts of bad names, but he was also saying that she was the one who ought to be ashamed for being so ungrateful. Ungrateful for what I never found out, because by that point I was trying to get out of there. I was tip-toeing for the door, but the last thing I heard was Julie telling Mr. Walser that if he didn’t start treating the dancers better she was going to the newspaper. Or the police.”

“The police? What did she mean about going to the police? Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think she was accusing him of doing something illegal?”

“Maybe, but … but I’m not sure.”

“OK, but what’d he say when she told him that?”

“I don’t know that either because I didn’t hear the end of it. I mean, he was still yelling, but by then I was outside and I couldn’t hear the rest of what he said.”

“Do you think he was threatening her?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Did Julie ever say anything about this later on?”

“No, and I didn’t feel like it was my place to bring it up. But we also didn’t work together for several nights, and then when I saw her the next time she was back to being her usual self. But as it turned out, that next time we worked together was actually the night before she was killed. And it turned out to be the last time I saw her alive.”

I was ready to ask something else, but just then the waitress came by the table with a questioning look. I pointed at the two glasses and nodded, so she took the glasses away and returned shortly with another white wine for Mandy and another beer for me.

The interlude gave me the chance to work through some new questions in my head. And the first one was, “Mandy, based on what you know about Mr. Walser, do you think it’s possible he killed Julie?”

She didn’t answer right away, so I drank some beer and waited.

Finally she said, “I don’t know. Maybe. But I really can’t say for sure.”

“I understand. And if you were sure, you probably would’ve gone to the police by now. So all I’m asking is if you think it’s possible he could’ve done something like this. Or to put it another way, would it surprise you if it turned out that he really did kill her?”

She was looking off in silence, so I waited her out again.

“You know,” she said at last, “I don’t care much for Mr. Walser, as you’ve probably guessed. But I don’t hate him either. He’s just my boss. I try to do a good job and for the most part he leaves me alone. He pays a lot more attention to some of the other girls than he does to me, and believe me I don’t mind a bit.

“But to answer your question, I can’t say for sure that he could’ve done something like this because I just don’t know. All I do know is that he and Julie didn’t get along. That’s what I wanted to tell you today. I wanted you to know how much they didn’t like each other and that they’d had a big argument just a few days before she was killed.”

With a shrug, she added, “Maybe it means something and maybe it doesn’t, but I thought you at least ought to know that much.”

I told her I appreciated her telling me, and in the next moment I remembered the three pictures I had in my briefcase, which was on the floor by my feet. I reached down, lifted it to the table and took out the three photos.

“Mandy, I wonder if you could look at these and tell me what you know about these men.” I said.

I placed the pictures side by side on the table for her to see.

“Do you recognize them?” I asked.

“Uh-huh. They all used to be regulars at the club,” she said. “But I believe they all were told not to come back.”

“Yes, that’s what Mr. Walser told me. And now let me ask you this. Is there anything you know about these men that’d make you think one of them might be suspicious?”

She considered my question, but then slowly shook her head.

“They were strange, all three of them,” she said. “They always came in by themselves, and then they’d spend most of the night sitting alone. Honestly, I don’t remember seeing them ever interacting with anybody. But aside from that, I really don’t know anything about them. I don’t even know their names.”

“Do you know if anybody else at the club knows their names?”

“Maybe. I could check if you’d like.”

“Yes, I’d appreciate that. If you could find out their names and anything else about them, it’d be very helpful.”

She’d told me she’d try, and at that point another question popped into my head. Frankly, it’s one I should’ve thought of before.

“Mandy, do you know what kind of car Benny Walser drives?”

“He has several cars,” she said. “Four or five, I’d say.”

“Do you know if he has a dark SUV?”

She thought for a moment before saying, “I don’t think so. I know he’s got a few black cars, including a black Corvette and a black Mercedes. But I don’t remember ever seeing him drive an SUV. Why?”

Without mentioning Rhonda Kendall by name, I explained that Julie Bedard had told a friend about being followed by someone in a dark SUV.

“My guess,” I said, “is that the killer drives a dark SUV. And given what you’ve told me, it made sense to ask if Benny Walser had a car like that. But since he doesn’t, I’m guessing it wasn’t him.”

She was silent for a few seconds. Then she said, “You know, there’s only one person at the club I know of who drives a dark SUV. He actually just bought it a few months ago and I’ve only seen it a few times because he usually comes to work on his motorcycle.”

“Who’s that?” I asked absently. I was thinking that a potentially promising clue that might identify Benny Walser as the Clip Killer was apparently not so promising after all.

“It’s the guy who works at the door. His name’s Leo Jacklin.”

Just like that, my distraction vanished. I sat there staring at her for several seconds, which was enough time for a deadly scheme to start taking shape in my head.

CHAPTER 15

I left the bar with Mandy O’Dell and walked her to her car, which was parked around the corner from the Press-Tribune. As we stopped on the sidewalk to say good-bye, she touched my arm once more.

“Maybe we could see each other again,” she said with a hopeful smile.

I was flattered, but had to tell her, “Sorry, I’m spoken for.”

“The good ones always are,” she said wistfully before opening the door and getting in. With a little wave, she was off.

I went to my car and drove home, still thinking about everything I’d just been told. And by the time I pulled into my condo’s parking garage I felt sure that I was on the verge of cracking the case. For starters, I had no doubt that Leo Jacklin, The Harem’s chief thug, was the Clip Killer. He was certainly big enough and strong enough to have strangled Julie Bedard and Cathy Hyde, and to have come within a whisker of doing the same to Jenna Tomlinson. And based on what I’d seen in The Harem hallway, he was mean enough, too. As for a motive, there’d been obvious rancor between Walser and Ms. Bedard — in large part, I believed, because she knew something illicit and maybe even illegal about him — and it was apparently enough for Walser to decide she should die. But since he was evidently unwilling to do the dirty deed himself, he assigned the job to Jacklin.

As for the Emersons, Senior and Junior, they evidently felt the need to settle an old score with Cathy Hyde. And since Walser owed the elder Emerson a favor for his work in the earlier sexual harassment lawsuit, it seemed like a good time to call in the debt. Walser said sure and then handed the assignment off to Jacklin.

Yes, there were still some unanswered questions. For example, I still had no idea why Jenna Tomlinson had become Victim No. 3. True, she’d once dated Harland Emerson Jr., but that hardly seemed like a reason to have her killed. Likewise, I couldn’t explain why Leo Jacklin, the hit man, was leaving newspaper clippings beside the bodies of the victims. But I still felt sure I was on the right track, and I couldn’t wait to share my theory with Al DiPietro.

Unfortunately, I ended up having to wait. I couldn’t reach him that night, though I left several phone messages. I tried again the next morning, but still no luck, so at that point I decided it was time to track him down.

I assumed he’d be at his office, even though it was a Saturday, so I left my condo and drove to the Seattle Justice Center. I parked on the street and headed for the main entrance, and on the way I peered through a fence into the staff parking lot, looking for DiPietro’s unmarked police car. Sure enough, it was in its usual spot, which meant he was in the building.

I walked inside and was greeted at the reception desk by a middle-aged woman with wavy brown hair and a playful smile.

“Well, if it isn’t ace reporter John Crowley,” she said. “To what do we owe the honor?”

Her name’s Denise, but she goes by DeeDee — it’s short for her initials, since her full name is Denise Daniels — and she’s been working the front desk since I started on the cops beat years ago. She’s a real sweetie, but a bit of a tease, though that’s OK because am I, too. The funny thing is, as much as the two of us tease each other we like teasing DiPietro even more. Usually behind his back, of course.

“I’m here to see Al,” I told her. “And since he’s probably on another coffee break, you might check the lunch room.”

She got a good laugh out of that.

“Let’s see if he’s actually working this morning,” she said, reaching for her phone.

She dialed a number, waited a few seconds and then said, “Al, your friend John Crowley is here in the lobby. He says he forgot the doughnuts” — she gave me a wink — “but should I send him up anyway?”

She listened a few seconds, laughed at his reply and said, “OK, he’s on his way.”

Hanging up the phone, she said, “He’s at his desk, John.”

I said thanks, she buzzed me through the security door, and I headed for the elevator.

DiPietro was on the phone when I walked up, but he motioned me to a chair beside his desk. Into the phone, he said, “When does the ME show up?” He was referring to the medical examiner, and the person on the other end must’ve mentioned a time because DiPietro checked his watch. “OK, 20 minutes. Keep the site secure and then let the ME do his thing.”

There’d apparently been an overnight homicide somewhere in the city. One that evidently had nothing to do with the Clip Killer, or DiPietro surely would’ve been on the scene himself.

Still speaking into the phone, he said, “Once he’s through you can head back here. I’ll go over your report this afternoon.” He listened another moment before saying, “OK, Scotty. See you then.”

Scotty was Scott Bowerman, one of the department’s first-year detectives. As a rookie, he had to put up with DiPietro looking over his shoulder during a probationary period, which could last anywhere from six months to a year.

DiPietro hung up the phone and said, “Another day, another body. This one’s in the Central Area and it’s some kid who must’ve crossed the wrong people. Whatever he did, and we still have no idea, it was enough to get him a bullet in the head.”

He sighed and added, “You know, I hear some people say it’s good to stay busy on the job. But in this job I’m not so sure.”

He leaned back in his chair and gave me a questioning look.

“You never returned my calls, so I’m guessing it didn’t go well with Harland Emerson Jr., ” I said.

“You don’t know the half of it,” he said dourly.

“What happened?”

“Off the record?”

“Sure.”

“We kicked him loose.”

“You’re kidding,” I said with surprise.

“I wish I was,” he said. “I was told we didn’t have enough to hold him. Even then, I suggested that we keep him locked up for a few days just to be sure. But someone up the chain of command disagreed.”

“You were told to let him go?” I asked, and my surprise was now astonishment.

“Yeah. Legally we could’ve held him for another 48 hours. But his dad’s clearly got some friends in high places, and that includes a few judges who seem to be in the old man’s pocket. So the chief got a call last night and he phoned me first thing this morning. Got me out of the shower, as a matter of fact. He said that unless we’ve got new evidence — and unfortunately we don’t — we had to let him go. Which we did about 90 minutes ago.”

“Wow,” I said, which was all I could think to say.

He shook his head with disgust. “You should’ve seen the way that little twerp smirked at me on the way out,” he said. “If it’d just been the two of us I probably would’ve smacked him a time or two, just to teach him some manners. And that goes for his dad, too, who just stood there the whole time with a smug smile on his face.

“The arrogance of that family is incredible,” he added. “But like father, like son, I guess.”

“What’d he tell you during questioning,” I asked.

“Not much. And that’s probably because his dad was sitting there the whole time. It didn’t matter what we asked, his dad kept saying, ‘Don’t answer that.’ The bottom line is, Junior wouldn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know, and beyond that we just didn’t have enough evidence to hold him. Because basically all we’ve got is a bartender saying that Emerson spent the night mumbling into his drink about Cathy Hyde. It’s suspicious, but hardly enough to file charges.”

“How’d he explain it?”

“Badly,” DiPietro said. “He said he’s been grieving for Ms. Hyde the last few days because her death was so tragic and because of his own earlier misdeeds, which he now deeply regrets. He said his sadness was so severe that it caused him to fall off the wagon, which hasn’t happened in over a year. He also said it’s the reason he spent the evening saying her name over and over. He actually told us that a few times, and somehow he managed to do it with a straight face.”

“I take it you’re not buying it.”

“Not a chance. He was only repeating what his dad told him to say. Because if you ask me, Junior’s not the least bit sorry for what he did back then. He’s just sorry he got caught. But unfortunately we still don’t have any evidence that puts him at the crime scene at Ms. Hyde’s house, so ultimately it comes down to that whole ‘Innocent until proven guilty’ thing. And that means we had to let him go.”

“Did you mention Jenna Tomlinson?”

“No, there wouldn’t have been any point. Just because he had a connection to those two women doesn’t mean he was responsible for what happened to them. So until we can come up with some better evidence, he walks.”

I could tell he was discouraged, so I decided it was time to cheer him up.

“I appreciate the update, Al, but there’s actually another reason I’m here,” I said. “I’ve got a tip that could be important.”

I began to explain about my conversation with Mandy O’Dell, but I’d barely got started before he stopped me with an upraised hand.

“Hey, Thumper,” he called out. “You’d better hear this.”

Tommy Whittaker’s head appeared above the cubicle wall.

“Hey, John,” he said amiably.

Whittaker, aka Thumper, came around the corner and we shook hands. His nickname, I found out recently, goes back to his days as a football player at Washington State University. He was a free safety and a ferocious tackler, and one day his coach remarked to a group of media that Whittaker “was a real thumper.” The comment ended up in the newspaper and somehow the name stuck.

He’s put on a few pounds since his football days, but he still looks good for a guy in his mid-30s. In fact, his dark features give him a vague resemblance to the actor George Clooney, at least in his younger years. We don’t know each other well, but we’re about the same age and we seem to hit it off. He was at Washington State when I was just starting at Washington, so naturally we trade verbal jibes. He likes to remind me that he had two interceptions against the Huskies in his senior season. I point out that Washington beat the Cougars all four years he was on the team, including two wins that clinched trips to the Rose Bowl. It’s all good-natured and we have some laughs, but the truth is he was a heck of a player. He was first-team all-conference as a junior and senior, and later had a free-agent tryout with the NFL’s Detroit Lions. He made the squad out of training camp and played in several games, but a shoulder injury ended his season and eventually forced him out of football. And since he was eventually planning on a law enforcement career anyway, the injury just made it happen sooner rather than later.

“Pull up a chair,” DiPietro told him. “Crowley’s got something for us.”

Whittaker brought a chair around from his cubicle and placed it so the three of us were sitting in a triangle. I resumed my story about meeting with Mandy O’Dell and concluded with Leo Jacklin and his dark SUV.

“Hold on,” DiPietro said, and he turned to his computer. He typed for a few seconds, clicked the mouse and said, “OK, here’s what we’ve got on him. Three arrests for felony assault and one for criminal possession, though the charges were either pleaded down or dropped on all but the last one, which was one of the assaults. That got him 90 days and a year of probation.”

DiPietro did some more typing and then another click. “Also,” he said, “several speeding tickets and some other moving violations in the last 15 years, along with a lawsuit filed by a former landlord. Apparently Jacklin skipped out on some rent.”

“Not exactly a model citizen,” Whittaker remarked.

“I want a picture of that SUV,” DiPietro said, turning to Whittaker. “And I want to have it when we can go see Rhonda Kendall. Maybe she’ll be able to tell us if it’s the same car that’s been following her.”

“I’m on it,” Whittaker said. “I’ll swing by the club this afternoon and get a picture of the car when Jacklin shows up. But I need to know what he looks like.”

“OK, wait a second,” DiPietro said. He did a few more clicks on his computer and the printer whirred to life. Seconds later an image of Jacklin — evidently a booking photo from one of his arrests — slid into the printer tray.

“That’s him,” I said, immediately recognizing the bushy hair and menacing eyes.

DiPietro handed the photo to Whittaker, who said, “Maybe we should bring him in for questioning.”

“Let’s see if Rhonda Kendall gives us an ID on the car first,” DiPietro said. “If she does, we go for an arrest. But if not, well, maybe we just bring him in for a little chat. But first I want to see if we get a match on the car.”

“Got it,” Whittaker said. “And in the meantime I’ll be going over those arrest reports. Maybe there’s something there that’ll help.”

He rose and walked back to his cubicle.

Turning to me, DiPietro said, “Good work, Crowley. You get a gold star today.”

For DiPietro, that was rare praise indeed. I took a few seconds to savor it, and then asked if there was anything else he could tell me about the investigation.

“Still off the record?” he said again, and I nodded.

“OK, the bad news is we still don’t have much. Whoever this guy is, he’s a real pro because all those crime scenes were clean. We’ve gone through Julie Bedard’s car, Cathy Hyde’s house and Jenna Tomlinson’s car, and we’ve come up empty each time. Which is unusual because most killers leave something behind that gives us the evidence we need to identify them and later on to convict them. But this guy’s good. No fingerprints, no footprints, no hair samples, no DNA on the victims, nothing. Frankly, your tip about the dark SUV is as good as anything we’ve got.

“The other thing is, we still haven’t found a solid link between these women. Walser knew Julie Bedard, Emerson Jr. knew Cathy Hyde and Jenna Tomlinson, and then Emerson Sr. was hired to represent Walser at one point. So we’ve got a few connections, but they’re tenuous. Frankly, it strikes me as being more coincidence than anything. Of course, we’re still checking with family members, friends, employers and anyone else we can think of, but so far there just hasn’t been very much to go on.”

He pointed to a copy of that morning’s Press-Tribune on his desk, which was opened to my story about Jenna and her improving condition.

“I’m hoping we get lucky when we finally get a chance talk to Ms. Tomlinson because right now she’s the only witness we’ve got,” he said. “We’ll be checking with the doctors later today to find out when we can see her. But given the severity of her injuries it might be a while.”

I told him about my phone call from Shirley Tomlinson and her report of Jenna’s improving condition. “With any luck,” I added, “you might be talking to her sooner than you think.”

“I hope so,” he said. “Because we could sure use some luck.”

Then I asked, “What about the clippings? Any leads there?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“So you haven’t made any sense of what the clippings mean? If, for example, there are clues hidden in the text?”

He shook his head and then said, “Maybe we should ask you. Two of those stories are yours and you knew the third woman personally, so maybe you’ve got some ideas.”

He looked at me pointedly, as if enjoying the chance to put the shoe on the other foot.

It was my turn to say, “I don’t know, Al. And believe me, I wish I did.”

“I wish you did, too,” he said, tapping his palm against the desktop in frustration.

A few seconds passed before he said, “You know, I can’t help thinking there’s a clue we missed somewhere. Something that would’ve given us the lead we need to catch this guy. But we missed it and now he’s still out there, and probably getting ready to kill again.”

He looked off for a few seconds and then slowly shook his head.

“My wife tells me I need to shut my brain off at night so I can sleep,” he said. “But I can’t. I can’t turn my brain off. And I can’t sleep.”

I suddenly realized how tired he looked. I’d heard that people with insomnia often have dark circles under their eyes, and I always thought that was mostly just an expression. But it’s true, as I could tell from looking at DiPietro.

“The other thing that gets me is when I think about the families of those women,” he said quietly. “I have daughters, too, and I can’t imagine what those parents are going through. It sickens me to think of somebody doing something like that to one of my girls.”

I watched his eyes move to a display of family photos on his cubicle wall, including several pictures of Jilly and Jordy. The collection spanned several years and it was the usual assortment of birthday parties, soccer games, vacations, proms and the like.

Seeing the photos reminded me to ask, “What about the pictures from The Harem, Al? Any luck there?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” he said.

He opened his top desk drawer, pulled out a file folder and removed the three photos. He put two on his desk, but handed the third one to me.

“We were able to ID this guy,” he said.

It was the black man.

Referring to a pad with notes that he’d also taken from the folder, he said, “His name’s Jerome Carter, although he goes by Jay. Or, I suppose, it’s just the initial J. He’s 32, lives in Seattle and has a long history of arrests. Mostly misdemeanor stuff, though he’s got a few felonies, too. All of it drugs and assault, which a lot of times go together. From what we can tell, he’s a bad guy with a quick temper who tends to beat people up when he gets mad at them.”

“Any assaults against women?” I asked.

“One, though he was never charged because the victim was his live-in girlfriend at the time and she decided not to press charges. Denied the whole thing, as a matter of fact. A neighbor heard a fight and called the police, and when patrol showed up they found her with some loose teeth and facial bruising. But by then the two of them were cuddling like love birds. She admitted to an argument, but said the injuries happened when she tripped on a loose carpet and fell into a chair. The officers weren’t buying it, of course, and particularly because Carter had fresh wounds on his knuckles. But there wasn’t a lot they could do if she was going to stick to her story.”

“Do you think he’s a suspect now?”

“Sure, though at this point we don’t have anything on him other than the fact that he got kicked out of The Harem.”

“Any idea where he is?”

“No, but we’re looking. The fight with his girlfriend happened two or three years ago and they’re not at the same address anymore. We don’t even know if they’re still together because we can’t find either one of them.”

“Just out of curiosity, how’d you get the ID?” I asked.

“We scanned all the pictures into our system and then used facial recognition software to see if we could get any matches. Carter had a previous arrest, so his booking photo was on file. It didn’t take long.”

“And the fact you couldn’t get a match on the other two guys means there’s no photo of them in your system?”

“Correct. At this point we still have no idea who they are, but we’re still trying. And if either one’s been arrested anywhere in the country, we should eventually get a match.”

An idea occurred to me.

“You know,” I said, “if these guys are still in the Seattle area, I’ll bet they just moved to another strip club after getting kicked out of The Harem.”

DiPietro smiled. “Good thinking, Crowley, except we’re way ahead of you. Thumper made the rounds last night, but so far no luck.”

I was about to ask another question, but just then his phone rang. He held up a finger to stop me as he reached for the receiver and gave his usual greeting: “DiPietro.”

He listened a moment and then said, “Sure thing, Margo. What do you have?”

He went on listening, and this time for a good half-minute. As the seconds passed I saw his expression change. Interest at first, and then excitement. He got so excited, in fact, that he ended up slapping the edge of his desk with the fingertips of his right hand. The noise was so sudden and so loud that I jumped. In the next moment, Whittaker’s head appeared again over the cubicle wall.

Whatever the news was, it was obviously good.

A minute later, DiPietro hung up and filled us in. Margo, the dispatcher, had called to say that officers were still at the scene of the previous night’s Central Area homicide. Shortly after DiPietro got off the phone with Scott Bowerman, one of the other officers noticed a dark vehicle circling the block, apparently trying to see what was going on. Onlookers at crime scenes are hardly unusual, of course, but there was something about the vehicle that made the officers suspicious. So when the driver made an illegal left turn across traffic, two of the officers jumped in their car and gave pursuit. They pulled the car over a few blocks away and questioned the driver and a passenger, both of them black men. The open window released a strong scent of marijuana smoke and the driver appeared to be under the influence, so the officer and his backup took the two men into custody and then searched the vehicle, coming up with an assortment of illegal narcotics and a handgun.

The driver had a license that showed he was Benjamin Alvin Baylor, and a quick call to the station determined that he was a convicted felon, which meant he had no business possessing a gun. He also had neither proof of insurance nor a valid registration, which meant the car might be stolen. The passenger, meanwhile, said he had no license and no other ID, and he initially declined to give his name to officers. But on the drive to the station, and by now in handcuffs, he evidently changed his mind.

DiPietro looked at me and grinned. “Care to guess his name?” he asked.

“Jerome Carter?”

“Bingo,” he said. “And here’s the kicker. Guess what kind of car it is.”

“A dark SUV?”

“Close enough,” DiPietro said. “It’s a black Hummer, which could easily pass for a dark SUV to a woman who doesn’t know cars.”

“How’d your guys know you were looking for someone named Jerome Carter?”

“I put out a bulletin last night, naming him as a person of interest,” he said. “We also designated him as whereabouts unknown, and if someone like that turns up we don’t let him go.”

“So they’re bringing them in?” Whittaker asked.

“They’re here,” DiPietro said. “They might even be in the interview rooms by now. Scotty’s on his way back and he’s going to take Baylor and ask about the shooting last night. We’ll also keep him in custody until we can run a ballistics test to see if his handgun is the one that was used.

“But in the meantime we get Carter, which means we can ask him what he knows about Julie Bedard.”

DiPietro stood, pulled on his sport coat and tightened his tie. He was obviously feeling better than he did a few minutes earlier, and he was apparently feeling magnanimous, too, because he said, “You’re welcome to watch, Crowley.”

“I’d love to,” I told him.

“All right then,” he said to both Whittaker and me. “Let’s go see what Mr. Carter has to say.”

CHAPTER 16

The police department’s interrogation rooms are three floors down and adjacent to the jail. They’re rooms of average size with an ordinary table, two facing chairs and a single window with one-way glass so interviews can be seen from the hallway. There’s also a ceiling camera to record the proceedings with a microphone connected to a hallway speaker so observers can listen in.

The usual procedure for an interview, I knew, was to have two cops in the room. DiPietro would take the lead on this one, and he’d typically be joined by Whittaker, his partner. But from the moment Jerome Carter arrived at the station he’d been complaining about harassment from racist white cops, so the decision was made to replace Whittaker with another officer. The substitute was a black detective named Gene Delemarter — everyone knew him as Gino — and he was a large, burly man with the temperament of a teddy bear. He’d been asked to do this many times before and understood his role well. With a black suspect, the presence of a black officer in the room helped reduce the tension and the result was usually a calmer and more productive interview.

I was vaguely acquainted with Delemarter, who was already at the window when we walked up. He seemed surprised to see me, but smiled and offered his hand. The four of us then spent a few minutes peering in at Carter, who was slouched in a chair with his arms folded across his chest. Because he was only there for questioning — in other words, he was not yet under arrest — he still wore his street clothes, which included baggy jeans, a sleeveless white t-shirt and ratty sport shoes with no socks. He had studs in both ears, tattoos on both arms, and a look of utter disinterest and defiance.

“Could be a tough nut to crack,” DiPietro remarked, still looking in the window.

“Could be,” Delemarter said. “If you ask me, that boy’s got something to hide.”

“OK, then let’s let him stew a little longer,” DiPietro said. Delemarter and Whittaker murmured their agreement.

To this point, Carter would’ve been unaware of the interview awaiting him. For all he knew, he was in custody because he’d been the passenger in an unregistered car found with drugs and a handgun. And that was good, DiPietro had explained on the walk down from the fourth floor. It was better to keep a suspect in the dark and surprise him with an unexpected line of questioning than to give him time to think up answers that might well be lies.

We’d been at the window about 10 minutes when Carter abruptly stood and walked around the room, checking out his surroundings. He glanced up at the camera and the ceiling microphone, no doubt knowing their purpose, and then approached the window. He stared for a few seconds before suddenly breaking into a smug, toothy grin. From his side of the window he was looking at a mirror, but I’m sure he knew he was being watched. And it was eerie to have him smiling at us from just a few inches away.

Finally he sauntered back to his chair and resumed his earlier slouch. He seemed very nonchalant, very much at ease. So much for the plan to unsettle him by making him wait, I thought.

And DiPietro was apparently thinking the same thing because he said, “OK, Gino, let’s do this.”

The two men stepped away from the window, walked down the hallway and disappeared around a corner. A half-minute later the door to the interview room swung open and they entered. Delemarter closed the door behind them.

“Mr. Carter, thank you for agreeing to talk to us,” DiPietro said as he approached the table. His voice sounded tinny through the ceiling microphone.

“Like I gotta choice, man?” Carter replied in a surprisingly high-pitched voice.

His eyes went first to DiPietro, but then moved quickly to Delemarter. He seemed surprised that one of his questioners was a black man.

By this time DiPietro had slid into the chair across the table. Delemarter came to stand at his shoulder.

“This shouldn’t take long, Mr. Carter,” DiPietro said with an easy smile.

It was a savvy remark. Carter obviously didn’t want to be there, so the suggestion that he could soon be on his way was an enticement to cooperate. And from what I could tell it worked. Carter still had a look of insolence, but he gazed silently at DiPietro as he awaited the first question.

Using a legal pad to jot down the answers, DiPietro began by asking Carter his name, age and address. They were standard questions, and they were all unnecessary because the police already had a record of Carter’s personal information. But I knew DiPietro was simply setting up the interview. The idea was to spend a few minutes loosening Carter up and, it was hoped, developing a rapport. More than anything, DiPietro would go out of his way to avoid being a hostile antagonist.

And for his part, Carter seemed willing to play along. Well, sort of. He gave only the briefest answers, but they were answers nonetheless.

DiPietro next asked about Carter’s employment, which was also a ruse because the police knew he wasn’t working, unless you counted petty theft and a little drug dealing on the side. DiPietro barely reacted when Carter mumbled something about living with an aunt and looking for a job.

The interview went on like this for a few minutes. Through it all, DiPietro and Delemarter maintained their good-natured demeanors. They kept thanking Carter for his answers, even when the responses were obvious fibs, and they shrugged off his occasional impertinences like it was no big thing to sass two Seattle PD detectives. Once, when Carter balked at a question about his family, DiPietro actually shrugged and said apologetically, “I’m sorry, Mr. Carter, but they make us ask this stuff.”

Eventually, though, Carter seemed to tire of the chit-chat. He started squirming in his chair with a look of impatience, and at that point DiPietro smoothly shifted gears. Using the same casual tone, he asked Carter about being in the car with Baylor that morning. Carter immediately stopped squirming and his eyes narrowed. Also, his answers became even more terse and non-committal, like he was going out of his way to avoid saying anything that might be the slightest bit incriminating. Of course, the rest of us knew he had nothing to worry about short of an open confession. But DiPietro was still coaxing him along, trying to soften him up for the upcoming questions about The Harem.

DiPietro asked about the marijuana and the handgun, and Carter muttered, “Don’t know nothin’ ’bout that, man. Ain’t my car.” He then sat back in his chair and smiled, evidently confident that he was still in the clear.

And DiPietro seemed very willing to play along. “Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Carter,” he said. “We’re almost done here. But as long as we’ve got you, there’s just one more thing we wanted to ask you about.”

He said that in an offhand way, almost like the thought had just occurred to him. Then he turned slightly in his chair and crossed one leg over the other as if making himself more comfortable. Suggesting, it seemed, that these next questions would be only of minimal importance.

“We understand that you enjoy spending time at The Harem,” he said easily.

“Ain’t no law ’gainst that,” Carter snapped.

“No, of course not,” DiPietro said, smiling. “It’s a nice club, isn’t it? And those women sure are pretty.”

I almost laughed at that one. DiPietro was implying that he liked to hang out at The Harem, too, which was absurd since he was not only a devoted family man, but a faithful Catholic who detested the very idea of strip clubs. Moreover, his “Oh, by the way … ” approach struck me as a flimsy ploy and, frankly, I would’ve expected Carter to see right through it. But if he did, he didn’t let on. He just sat there staring back at DiPietro.

“The thing is, Mr. Carter, we’re investigating a couple of the regular customers there,” DiPietro said, leaning in and lowering his voice as if sharing a confidence. “As you probably know, one of the dancers, a young woman named Summer Darling, was killed recently. It was a terrible tragedy and a great shock to all of us.”

In a somber voice, he asked, “You remember Summer Darling, don’t you?”

Carter didn’t move for several seconds. Then he muttered something under his breath that I couldn’t hear, but it must’ve included a naughty word or two because DiPietro said, “Now I want you to watch your language, OK? My partner here” — he tipped his head in Delemarter’s direction — “is a church-going man, and he doesn’t like bad language.”

I knew that much was true. Delemarter regularly attended a downtown Seattle church, where he was an elder and even sang in the choir with a rich baritone voice that was good enough for an occasional solo.

Carter glanced at Delemarter, who responded with a confirming nod.

“So let me ask you the same question again,” DiPietro said. “Do you remember Summer Darling?”

Carter waited a few seconds, and then his head bobbed about a centimeter.

DiPietro flashed a grateful smile and said, “Thank you, Mr. Carter. Now here’s how you can help us. We’re talking to people who’ve spent time at the club on the chance there’s somebody who knows something important. So I’d like to ask you a few questions and have you tell us what you know. And don’t worry if your answers seem insignificant. Sometimes even little clues can be very helpful.”

By this time I would’ve expected noisy alarm bells to be going off in Carter’s brain. He should’ve been wondering — asking aloud, for that matter — how in the world DiPietro knew he was a regular at The Harem. Also, he should’ve figured out that this was, in fact, the real reason he was being questioned. And then he should’ve announced that he wasn’t going to say another doggone word until he had a lawyer in the room. But somehow none of that seemed to register. Whether it was DiPietro’s disarming smile or Carter’s own desire to get through the remaining questions quickly so he could be on his way, he showed no reaction whatsoever. He just sat there looking at DiPietro, who by this time had reached for a folder that he’d brought into the interrogation room and had placed on the table beside him.

Opening the folder, DiPietro took out two of the photos from The Harem. They were the pictures of the bald man and the long-haired man.

“I’d like you to tell me if you recognize these men,” DiPietro said, placing the photos on the table and turning them for Carter to see.

Carter gave them a brief glance, but stayed silent. So DiPietro waited. Then he waited some more. He knew Carter was in a hurry to wrap this up, so it was simply a matter of waiting him out.

A good 20 seconds passed before DiPietro said gently, “If you wouldn’t mind helping us out, Mr. Carter, this shouldn’t take too much longer.”

Carter exhaled with annoyance and said, “Yeah, I seen ’em.”

“Thank you, Mr. Carter,” DiPietro said. “Now let me ask you this, did you ever speak to either of these men?”

Carter gave his head a slight shake, as if it was too much trouble to answer aloud.

Pointing to the picture of the bald guy, DiPietro asked, “Do you remember this man, Mr. Carter?” he asked.

“I tol’ you, I seen ’im.”

“Do you know his name?”

“No. Never talked to ’im.”

DiPietro tapped the picture of the long-haired guy and asked, “What about this man? Do you know his name?”

Carter just shook his head.

“Is there anything you can tell me about either of these men?” DiPietro persisted.

Carter gave his head another shake and then said, “Never talked to either of ’em. Fact is, they’s strange dudes. Not my kinda people.”

That last remark was evidently amusing because Carter’s face broke into a grin.

Playing along, DiPietro grinned back. Then he asked, “Strange? In what way?”

“Jus’ strange,” Carter said. “It’s like, ya wanna watch girls dance, ya do it the right way, ya know what I’m sayin’? Ya let the girls know ya like watchin’ ’em ’cause then they dance better an’ ya get a better show. But those dudes, they just sat there starin’ the whole time. Never saw ’em smile. They’s strange, like I said.

“Tell ya somethin’ else,” he added as if suddenly warming to the topic. “Tha’ dude wi’ the long hair, he smells real bad. Like he don’t never take a bath, ya know? Now I ask ya, what kinda dude goes to a club where there’s all these pretty women ’round an’ smells bad like that? Couldn’t hardly stand bein’ next to ’im m’self. An’ then he sits there talkin’ to hi’self the whole night. Dude’s crazy, ya ask me.”

“What about this man, Mr. Carter?” DiPietro asked, pointing at the picture of the bald guy. “Do you remember anything about him?”

“Nothin’, ’cept what I jus’ said. He never talked to nobody either. Jus’ sat there starin’ at the girls. An’ come to think of it, he didn’t smell so good himself. If ya ask me, the club shoulda put the two of ’em off at their own table where they wouldn’t be botherin’ the rest of us.”

Carter grinned at that, like he’d made a great joke. DiPietro smiled back and even gave a little chuckle before scribbling something on his notepad. He then reached again for the folder and took out another photo, which he placed it on the table for Carter to see. It was Harland Emerson Jr.

“We’re almost finished here, Mr. Carter, but I also need to ask you about this man,” he said. “Have you seen him before?”

By this time Carter was frowning with impatience. He obviously didn’t like the way DiPietro kept coming up with new questions, and for a few seconds he wouldn’t even look at the picture.

“Please, Mr. Carter,” DiPietro said. “This is the last picture, I promise.”

That remark did the trick because Carter grudgingly looked down.

“Yeah, I seen ’im,” he said. “Can I go now?”

Not so fast, I thought. And I knew DiPietro was thinking the same thing, too. Quite unwittingly, Carter had just prolonged the interview for another few minutes. Because until that moment, none of us knew for a fact that Emerson had ever been to The Harem. He’d been questioned about it previously, of course, but had steadfastly denied it. And to our knowledge, there’d never been any evidence of him being there.

Sure enough, DiPietro lost a little of his genial tone. “You’re saying that you’ve seen this man at The Harem?” he asked, sitting forward in his chair and staring at Carter.

“Yeah, few times, ’cept he stayed mostly in the back,” Carter said. “Dude never cared much ’bout gettin’ close. Which is kinda strange if ya ask me. Tha’s the whole reason for bein’ there, ya know what I’m sayin’?”

Then he added, “Look, man. I tol’ ya everythin’ I know. Can I go now?”

By this time he was sitting with his hands against the seat of his chair, as if ready to push himself to a standing position. His eyes were fixed on DiPietro, almost daring him to ask another question.

So DiPietro obliged. “Do you remember the last time you saw him there?” he asked.

“Don’t know,” Carter said, his voice rising. “An’ I wanna go. I done tol’ ya everythin’ I know.”

DiPietro’s expression never changed.

“I understand, Mr. Carter,” he said calmly. “And believe me, I’m as anxious to wrap this up as you are. Just bear with me for a few more seconds and we’ll have you on your way.”

He smiled at Carter, who scowled back at him. Carter then looked at Delemarter, who shot him another smile. For a few seconds no one moved. But somehow those two happy faces did the trick because Carter slowly sat back down.

“Mr. Carter, how well did you know Summer Darling?” DiPietro asked. He was still smiling, but his voice sounded different. Less affable, I guess you’d say. Like he was done with his Mr. Nice Guy act and was now getting down to business.

“Didn’t,” Carter said dourly. “She was jus’ one of the girls there.”

“But you liked watching her, didn’t you?” DiPietro persisted.

At that point the alarm bells in Carter’s brain, silent to that point, suddenly came to life. His eyes narrowed and he sat up again.

“Is tha’ was this ’bout?” he asked, almost shouting. “Y’all think it’s me tha’ killed ’er? Well, I didn’t, OK? I don’t know nothin’ ’bout what happened to ’er.”

“No one said you do, Mr. Carter,” DiPietro said soothingly. “It’s just … ”

Carter sprang from his chair and gestured angrily at DiPietro.

“This ain’t right,” he hollered. “Y’all think any time some white girl gets killed, there’s some black dude tha’ done it. Well, ya’s wrong, ya hear me? Jus’ ’cause I was in a car wi’ some dope an’ a gun — which I still don’t know nothin’ ’bout — tha’ don’t mean I’m no killer.”

Carter said all this without taking his eyes off DiPietro. Since he was bringing up the topic of race, I guess it didn’t make sense to look accusingly at Delemarter.

But it was Delemarter who spoke up.

“Mr. Carter, this has nothing to do with you being black,” he said, his voice quiet, but firm. “If the Seattle Police Department was falsely accusing black men, you can be sure I’d have something to say about it. But the fact is, you’re here because we think you can help us with our investigation. That’s the reason and it’s the only reason.”

It was a solid argument, and I would’ve expected Carter to back down. But logic was evidently not his strong suit because he went on ranting about bigoted cops and the indignities of the legal system for black suspects.

And at that moment my cell phone rang.

I couldn’t hear it over Carter’s shouting, but I felt the vibration in my jacket pocket. I reached for the phone, looked at the little Caller ID window and saw that it was Shirley Tomlinson.

“I need to take this,” I told Whittaker, who nodded.

With Carter still making a ruckus — he was still standing, still waving his arms — I walked down the hallway and around a corner before answering.

“John, there’s great news,” Mrs. Tomlinson said, and I knew as much right away because she was speaking and crying at the same time. And they were obviously tears of joy.

“Jenna’s talking,” she said. “She called me Mom and asked for water, and when I told her where she was she asked what happened. I told her that someone had tried to hurt her and she nodded, so she understands. Then she asked if she’s going to be OK, and when I told her yes she smiled. Just a little smile, but it was definitely a smile.”

By that time I was smiling, too. I was also looking at my watch and wondering if I could squeeze in a trip to the hospital later in the day. The problem was, I didn’t want to duck out on the rest of Carter’s interrogation because there was still a chance he’d spill something important that could turn into a big story in the next day’s Press-Tribune. The other thing was, I was planning to meet up with Stacy for lunch, followed by an afternoon of hanging out, just the two of us. I was starting to think it might be better if I went to the hospital in the evening or perhaps even the next morning.

But before I could explain all that, Mrs. Tomlinson said, “Jenna’s been asking about you, John. I told her you’d already come to the hospital once to check on her and she asked how you were. And then she asked if you were coming back. She wants to see you, John. She’s asked a few times. Can you come?”

That’s all it took. In those few seconds I knew where I needed to be.

“I’m on my way,” I said.

CHAPTER 17

A half-hour later I was on my way to Harborview Medical Center. Stacy had joined me, having agreed to forego a Saturday afternoon lunch at our favorite downtown Thai restaurant for a soup-and-sandwich combo from the hospital cafeteria.

It was a thoughtful gesture on her part, but I think she mostly wanted to check out one of my old girlfriends.

That was my theory anyway, and it was confirmed when Stacy spent the first few minutes of the trip asking about Jenna. More to the point, she asked about Jenna and me. She already knew a few things from earlier conversations — in the interest of full disclosure, we’ve agreed to be open about our past relationships — but now she had some specific questions. She wanted to know how long Jenna and I had known each other (two years), how long we’d dated seriously (about a month less than two years), if we’d ever talked about marriage (yes), and if I still had feelings for her, Jenna, when I first met her, Stacy (yes, though I fudged and said no, not really). I wasn’t sure if she was just curious or actually jealous — I was leaning toward the latter — but either way I was relieved when she finally changed the conversation to our upcoming wedding, beginning with a reminder that we had an appointment on Monday morning with a studio photographer. That picture would go in the paper the next week with our engagement announcement.

Our drive to the hospital was taking longer than expected because of heavy downtown traffic, and as we crept along from one intersection to the next I kept glancing over at Stacy, who was going on about the caterer, guest list, floral arrangements, the band for the reception, and other assorted wedding plans. I was nodding my head every few seconds like I was paying attention, but mostly I was just looking at her and thinking how lucky I was that she’d soon be my wife. It’s not that I lack confidence or anything like that, but I still find it amazing that someone as terrific as Stacy wants to spend her life with me. She’s smart, witty, vivacious and charming, not to mention drop-dead gorgeous, and if she sounds too good to be true, well, that’s pretty much what I tell myself every day.

What I often tell her is that she’s just like Mary Poppins — that is, practically perfect in every way. It’s a silly little comment, but one that always makes her smile. Which is, of course, the whole point. I hope to grow old enjoying that smile.

But with the hospital just coming into view, Stacy asked about Jenna again. I realized that all the wedding talk had only been a diversion and we were back to the topic that was really on her mind.

“So how come the two of you broke up?” she asked.

She already knew the answer, but I told her again. Jenna wanted an acting career and had moved to New York to pursue her dream.

“If she’d stayed in Seattle, do you think the two of you would still be together?” she asked.

Dangerous question, I thought. Because the truth was, I had no idea. Jenna was pretty terrific, too, and if she hadn’t gone off to New York, who knows? It was certainly possible that we’d still be together and maybe even be married. But of course there was no way of knowing that for sure, and in the meantime Stacy was still looking at me expecting an answer.

So I said, “I don’t think so. The truth is, I’m not sure Jenna and I were really right for each other. We were close, no doubt about that. But I also knew I wanted something more. Something better.”

Then, very smoothly, I added the coup de grace: “Someone like you.”

I wasn’t looking at her — I’d swung into the hospital parking lot and was searching for a space — but I knew she was smiling.

I pulled into a metered spot, shut off the engine and opened my door. But Stacy, ever the inquisitor, had one last question.

“So you’re not sorry that she went off to New York?” she asked.

This time I didn’t hesitate. “The answer to that question,” I said, “is the ring on your finger.”

Stacy glanced down at her diamond and then back at me, and by now her smile was even bigger.

“Let’s go in,” she said.

We met near the front of the car. After sliding some coins in the meter, I took Stacy’s hand so that our fingers meshed together and we walked to the main entrance.

Jenna’s room was on the fifth floor, which I knew from my earlier visit. There was still a uniformed police officer outside her room, so we stopped at the nursing station and I called Shirley Tomlinson’s cell phone. She answered, and when I told her we were in the hallway she immediately stepped out and beckoned us down.

Stacy had never met Mrs. Tomlinson, so I handled the introductions. They greeted each other cordially, and then Mrs. Tomlinson told the officer we were friends to see Jenna and led us into the room.

Jenna was sitting up in bed, her back against a stack of pillows. As I walked in, she looked at me and smiled. Not the dazzling smile I remembered from our years of dating. More of an awkward smile, like it took effort to accomplish. And considering that she’d just spent a few days in a coma, I expect it did.

“John … John … ” she said, except in her condition it came out more like, “Jah-un … Jah-un … ”

I walked to the edge of the bed and gave her hand a little squeeze. And wouldn’t you know, I started choking up. I’m not an emotional guy by nature, but it was just so good to see her alert and know that she was recovering. And, well, this old hard-nosed reporter was suddenly blinking back tears.

Jenna, meanwhile, still had my hand. And instead of letting go, she pulled me down for a hug, which we managed despite the constraints of the IV line and the wires to the monitors.

“Jah-un,” she repeated into my neck.

“It’s good to see you, Jenna,” I whispered in her ear. “I’m glad you’re doing OK.”

I stepped back and saw that her mouth was moving, except she wasn’t making any sounds. It was like there were words on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t remember how to say them. She finally bit her lip, and then shook her head with frustration and embarrassment.

Seeing her daughter’s distress, Mrs. Tomlinson put a comforting hand on her shoulder. Then she said, “Jenna, this is Stacy. She’s John’s fiancée.”

Jenna had previously known of my engagement, but the head injury had evidently thrown her memory out of whack. She looked at Stacy with obvious confusion and then her mouth moved again, but still no words.

“It’s nice to meet you, Jenna,” Stacy said with her usual aplomb. “John and I are both so happy that you’re getting better.”

Jenna’s eyes stayed on Stacy, and it was obvious the word “fiancée” hadn’t registered. She was still trying to figure out who this unknown woman was.

There were two chairs against the opposite wall that Mrs. Tomlinson and I moved next to the bed for Stacy and me. Mrs. Tomlinson then sat on the bed beside her daughter.

We made small talk for a few minutes, though it was mostly the three of us talking and Jenna listening. Occasionally Mrs. Tomlinson would bring her into the conversation with a question — at one point she asked, “Jenna, do you remember the time John came to the house for Christmas dinner?” — and Jenna would smile and nod, though I could tell she was struggling to pull memories from out of the fog in her brain. At times they came to her in seconds, but other times she went on staring blankly, unable to recall.

She said very little. Mostly “Yeh” and “Nuh” for yes and no. Another time she said, “Wah,” which her mother understood to mean “water,” and she handed Jenna a glass with a straw from the bedside table.

“The doctors are very pleased that Jenna is conscious again, but they say her recovery is going to take some time,” Mrs. Tomlinson explained as Jenna sipped from the glass. “Specifically, they’re talking about her memory. She’s able to recall certain people and events in her life — as you noticed, John, she remembered you right away — but there are other memories that are simply not there. At least not yet.

“She’s also having trouble with her speech. She doesn’t remember some words, and then she remembers other words but not how to say them. The doctors think we’ll see some improvement in the coming days, but there might also be some things she never remembers. Likewise, there might be certain skills she has to relearn. According to the doctors, we should know more in a week or two, but for now we just have to wait and see.

“Of course, the important thing is that she’s awake now and making progress,” she said as she turned and gave Jenna’s hand a squeeze. “And in time, we’re praying she makes a full recovery.

“Isn’t that right, dear?” she added, speaking directly to Jenna, who smiled, bobbed her head and said, “Yeh.”

“She had her first session with a speech therapist earlier today,” Mrs. Tomlinson said, “and they want her to start physical therapy sometime next week. So we’re very excited about that. And tonight she gets to eat real food for the first time, which should be a lot more fun than getting fed through this tube.”

Mrs. Tomlinson laughed as she pointed at the IV line connected to Jenna’s arm. Jenna’s eyes followed her mother’s finger to the IV, but I could see from her expression that she didn’t understand the joke.

Something else occurred to me as I looked at Jenna. She’d done some primping before we got there. Helped by her mother, I assumed, her blond hair had been brushed and pulled back in a ponytail, and I spotted traces of lip gloss and mascara. She also wore a white gown with lace at the neckline and sleeves, and a bed jacket of blue satin. Definitely not standard hospital-issue attire. But that was Jenna. She’d always been meticulous about her appearance, beginning as a younger girl and becoming more so when she took up modeling as a teen-ager. In fact, she initially wanted a career in modeling, but then in college she found out she loved singing and dancing, too. She started getting leads in school musicals and supporting parts in community productions, and eventually one of her college drama instructors put her in touch with a New York agent who, upon seeing clips of Jenna in roles like Roxie Hart from “Chicago” and Nellie Forbush from “Oklahoma,” told her to pack up and head east, that Broadway was waiting.

That was in March of our senior year at Washington, and by June she was gone.

The last time I saw Jenna before she went off to New York was a dinner date a few nights before she left. Across a candlelit table in a posh downtown restaurant, we reminisced about the past and dreamed about the future. It was a past we’d shared for a few years, but a future we would not, or so it seemed. Sure, there was a chance we’d miss each other terribly, and that Jenna would either return to Seattle right away or I’d move to New York and look for a job there. But I think we both knew that neither one was likely, and the result was an evening tinged with sadness. I know I felt it and I’m sure she did, too, though we did our best to make it a fun farewell dinner with cheery conversation and frequent laughter.

Anyone watching us that night would’ve seen how good we were together, and I’m sure they would’ve been shocked to realize we were actually breaking up. Frankly, I was shocked myself, and I spent the next few weeks trying to get over my frustration and disappointment with Jenna for ending a relationship that seemed so right. But as my mother pointed out, “You can’t force someone to love you, and you sure can’t force someone to stay when she wants to go. If the two of you are truly supposed to be together, she’ll figure it out and come home. And if not, you’ll know it wasn’t meant to be.”

Intellectually, I knew my mom was right. Emotionally, it took the better part of two years before I got over the hurt. And then it was several more years before Stacy came along and I began to believe that I could actually fall in love again.

So that’s what I was thinking as I sat there idly listening to Mrs. Tomlinson going on about Jenna’s work with young dancers at a Seattle studio. What brought me back was Jenna herself. I suddenly realized that she was looking at me, and when our eyes met she didn’t turn away. She held the gaze for several seconds, smiling faintly, and I could only wonder what she was thinking. Given the severity of her head injury, I had no idea how much she remembered about our relationship, although from the tenderness in her expression I was betting she remembered a lot. About what the two of us once had and then let slip away.

We were interrupted by a light knock at the door and a middle-aged doctor in a white smock entered the room. Mrs. Tomlinson introduced him as Dr. Scolari and said he’d been looking after Jenna since she was admitted. We visited briefly and then he asked for some time alone with Jenna and her mother. Stacy and I immediately stood and went out into the hallway.

“I see the way she looks at you,” Stacy said when we were alone. To her credit, she said it quietly and without rancor.

“You know our history,” I reminded her.

She nodded, looked away for a moment, and then changed the subject.

We were soon back to talking about the wedding. Stacy, who is a stickler for details, wanted to be sure we were on the same page about everything, so we touched on our vows, the hiring of a videographer, and finally a discussion about the choice for my final groomsman. I was trying to decide between two former college roommates, and Stacy was just giving her opinion when the elevator doors down the hall opened and Al DiPietro stepped out. He headed toward us with a paper coffee cup in one hand — he paused to drop it in a trash can at the nursing station — and a folder in the other hand. I suspected it was the same folder he’d taken to the interview with Jerome Carter.

As he walked up, I realized that he and Stacy had never met. So I began by introducing them.

“You’re marrying this guy?” DiPietro said with a deadpan expression. “My condolences.”

Not the greatest joke in the world, but Stacy had the good grace to laugh.

Then he asked, “How’s she doing?” He meant Jenna.

I explained that we were waiting for the doctor to finish an examination, but that she was conscious, albeit with obvious problems of memory and speech.

“I figured as much,” he said. “And I’m not expecting any breakthroughs today. But at least I can introduce myself so she’ll know me when she gets her memory back.”

He excused himself and stepped over to speak to the uniformed officer.

Two minutes later Dr. Scolari emerged. He smiled at Stacy and me, then came over to chat.

“She’s a lucky young lady,” he said, cocking his head toward Jenna’s room. “I don’t know how she made it, but she did.”

By this time DiPietro had moved to the doctor’s shoulder. He introduced himself by showing his badge and said that he was hoping to ask Jenna a few questions.

“I’m afraid she won’t be able to tell you very much,” Dr. Scolari said. “She took a terrible blow to the head. It’s one that could’ve easily killed her. To be honest, I’m surprised it didn’t kill her. I’ve seen people succumb with head injuries much less severe than this one. So the good news is she survived. But the bad news is she’s also lost a good bit of memory. I expect it’ll start returning in time, but at the moment there’s no predicting how much she’ll get back and when that’ll be.”

“I understand,” DiPietro said, “but with your permission I’d like to try. The fact is, we’re in the middle of a major homicide investigation, and right now she’s our one and only witness. So even if she can’t remember much, it’s possible she can still help us.”

Dr. Scolari shrugged and gave a little gesture with his hand as if to say, “Feel free.”

Then, with a parting smile for Stacy and me, he turned and headed down the hallway.

The rest of us went into the room, where Jenna was leaning forward in the bed so her mother could rearrange the pillows.

“There you go, dear,” Mrs. Tomlinson said after fluffing the last pillow. Jenna settled back, looked at me and smiled, and it was the same slight, awkward smile as before.

DiPietro had met Mrs. Tomlinson on a previous visit and now greeted her again. He explained that he wanted to ask Jenna a few questions. He also said that he understood she was having problems with her speech and memory, and with that in mind he would try to keep his questions simple and brief.

Mrs. Tomlinson thought for a moment and then looked at Jenna. “Would that be all right, dear?” she said. “Would it be all right if he asks you a few questions?”

Jenna looked puzzled and did not reply.

Turning to DiPietro, Mrs. Tomlinson said, “You’re welcome to try, detective.”

He thanked her and scooted one of the chairs closer to the bed. He sat, placed the folder on the floor beside him, and then leaned forward with his forearms against his thighs.

“Jenna,” he said in a gentle voice, “my name is Sgt. Al DiPietro and I’m a detective with the Seattle Police Department. We’re trying to find the man who attacked you, so I’d like to ask you a few questions about that night. Would that be all right?”

She looked at him, then at her mother and then back at him. She never said a word and her expression never changed. It was like she wasn’t understanding him at all.

He tried again by saying, “Jenna, I’d like to ask you what you remember about that night. Is there anything you remember?”

She just stared at him.

DiPietro inhaled deeply, opened his mouth as if to ask another question, and then stopped himself. This wasn’t working and his disappointment was obvious. I knew he hadn’t expected to get much out of this first interview, but he’d obviously been hoping to get something. And now it looked like he’d come away with nothing.

But it was Mrs. Tomlinson to the rescue.

“Jenna,” she said, “you went to dinner that night with Mary, Nora and Brianne, and then afterward the four of you went to a club to listen to some music. Do you remember that much?”

Jenna stared at her mother and I could tell she was doing her best to recall.

“You wore your black silk top. The one you like so much,” her mother went on. “And your gray pants. You also got your hair done that afternoon. You stopped at the salon on your way home from work and they did your highlights, and then you came home to change your clothes. Do you remember?”

I saw a hint of recollection on Jenna’s face.

“Do you remember going to the hair salon?” Mrs. Tomlinson asked.

Jenna nodded slowly and then moved her mouth as she tried to form a word.

Finally she said, “Kay … Kay … ” She took a deep breath and said, ”… la.”

“Yes, that’s it,” Mrs. Tomlinson said encouragingly. “Kayla did your hair.” Turning to the rest of us, she explained, “Kayla is the stylist that Jenna usually sees. And she did her hair that afternoon.”

DiPietro nodded, and I could sense his relief. It was only a small step, but a positive step nonetheless.

I knew he had other questions, but for now he seemed willing to let Mrs. Tomlinson continue.

“After getting your hair done, Jenna, you came home and changed your clothes, and then you left again,” Mrs. Tomlinson said. “You were going to give one of your friends a ride to the restaurant. Do you remember who that was?”

Jenna stared at her mother as if letting the question sink in. Then she cocked her head slightly, almost like she suddenly understood and now needed some additional seconds to search through the muddle in her brain to find the answer. Once again her mouth began to move, and after a bit of trial and error she said, “Mar … ee.”

Again her mother beamed, and then she leaned down and gave Jenna’s hand another squeeze.

“Yes, it was Mary,” Mrs. Tomlinson said. “You gave her a ride to the restaurant because her husband was working late at the office, and then he was going to pick her up later on. Do you remember his name?”

More seconds of thinking, followed by a few seconds of soundless mouth moving, and then, “Juh … ff.”

“Yes, her husband’s name is Jeff. That’s very good, Jenna,” her mother said. Then she said, “Nora and Brianne both worked downtown, so they met you at the restaurant. Do you remember the name of the restaurant?”

A good 30 seconds passed, during which there was more thinking and mouth moving. But this time Jenna never lost her quizzical expression, and at last she slowly shook her head.

“You don’t remember?” her mother asked softly.

Jenna shook her head again. She seemed very sad.

“You went to an Italian restaurant that night,” Mrs. Tomlinson said patiently. “Do you remember if it was Romano’s? Or Giuseppe’s? Or was it the Venetian Grill?”

Jenna’s head fell back against the pillow and she stared at the ceiling. She was clearly trying to recall, and from her expression I knew the answer was close. But it just wasn’t coming to her.

“Didn’t you tell me that you saw some other friends at the restaurant that night?” Mrs. Tomlinson persisted. “You called me on your cell phone after dinner and told me that you’d just seen Ben and Emily Holloway. Do you remember?”

That did the trick. Jenna’s head came off the pillow and she turned to her mother again.

“Ven … ee … shun … Guh … Guh” — she was having trouble making the G-r sound, and it finally came out — “… Gill.”

This time Mrs. Tomlinson reached down with both hands to clasp Jenna’s hand.

“That’s right, Jenna,” she said with emotion in her voice. “You had dinner at the Venetian Grill. With Mary, Nora and Brianne. And then you went to a club afterward to hear some music. Do you remember that?”

Her mother’s enthusiasm had made Jenna smile, but this next question took her back. The smile faded and the quizzical look returned.

“Do you remember the name of the club, Jenna?” Mrs. Tomlinson asked. “The other girls told me afterward that you were all drinking wine and listening to some jazz piano.”

Jenna’s face showed no evidence of recollection. After a few seconds her eyes began to well and I knew they were tears of frustration. Once again her head dropped back against the pillow and she stared at the ceiling.

Mrs. Tomlinson reached out and gently smoothed her daughter’s hair.

“Maybe that’s enough for today,” she said. She was looking at DiPietro, who hesitated — I could tell he was frustrated, too — and then nodded.

“If it’s all right,” he said, “I’d like to return tomorrow. This was a good start, but it’s possible she’ll remember even more by then.”

Mrs. Tomlinson looked at Jenna, who by now had rolled her head toward the window. After thinking for a few seconds, Mrs. Tomlinson turned to DiPietro and nodded. As difficult as it was, I knew she wanted to do everything possible to help find her daughter’s assailant.

DiPietro thanked her and seemed ready to say more, but in the next moment his cell phone rang.

He quickly took the phone from his jacket pocket, looked at the Caller ID number, and then told Mrs. Tomlinson, “I’ll take this in the hall, but then I’ll come back in so we can talk about tomorrow.”

He stepped out, though I could hear his voice through the open door.

“Yeah, Thumper,” he said, followed by several seconds of silence as he listened. Then, “OK, we need to make an arrest so we can get him in for questioning. I’ll meet you at The Harem. It’ll take me about 20 minutes to get there, or 30 minutes if the traffic’s bad. We’ll meet outside and go in together.”

Another pause before he said, “OK, I’ll see you there. Good work.”

He returned to the room, explained that he had to leave, and once again thanked Jenna and her mother. He said he would call the next day before stopping by.

It was Mrs. Tomlinson who said, “Don’t forget your folder, detective.”

She pointed at the floor, where DiPietro had set the folder that he’d brought into the room.

He bent to pick it up, straightened, paused a moment, and then said, “You know, before I go I’d like to ask a few more questions. Maybe Jenna can let me know if she recognizes any of these men.”

Not waiting for Mrs. Tomlinson’s approval, he sat again and took out the picture of the long-haired guy.

“Jenna, have you seen this man before?” he asked.

She turned her head from the window and looked at the picture, but showed no reaction.

DiPietro waited a few seconds before returning the photo to the folder and next showing the picture of the bald-headed man. “What about this man, Jenna?” he asked. “Have you ever seen him?”

She stared at the photo. She even squinted for a better look, but otherwise she did not react.

“OK, one more,” DiPietro said. “What about this man?”

He held up the picture of Jerome Carter.

Jenna’s eyes immediately widened and she recoiled in the bed. She was making little throaty sounds as she tried to scoot away, and she moved so close to the far edge of the bed that her IV line became taut and I thought she might pull over the pole. Her fear was so vivid, so intense, that I felt my own heart begin to race.

In a flash, Mrs. Tomlinson was at her daughter’s side, pulling her into a protective embrace. DiPietro, meanwhile, had sat up in his chair with his eyes still fixed on Jenna.

At last he held up the picture again and asked, “Is this the man who attacked you, Jenna?”

Once more she tried to draw away before burying her head on her mother’s shoulder. She was crying.

DiPietro immediately stood.

“Jenna, Mrs. Tomlinson, thank you for your time,” he said briskly. “We had this man at the station earlier today, and now I need to check to see if he’s still in custody. If he is, we’ll keep him there. And if he’s not, we’ll find him again.”

Still holding her daughter, Mrs. Tomlinson asked in a trembling voice, “Detective, what’re the chances that man will show up here?”

“I’ll speak to the officer in the hall before I leave and make sure he’s on the lookout,” DiPietro said. “And that officer or another officer will be on guard throughout the night, so Jenna will be well protected, I can promise you that. And you also have my cell number, so you can call me anytime.”

Mrs. Tomlinson gave a nod of understanding, though I could tell she was still distressed by what she’d just seen.

DiPietro said good-bye and turned to the door. As he passed, he gave me a look and a little motion with his head to indicate that I should follow him into the hall.

Once outside, he said, “Wait a second,” and he dialed a number on his cell phone. He was soon talking to the booking officer at the downtown precinct, and it took only a few seconds for DiPietro to find out that Carter was still at the station, undergoing questioning about the homicide the night before.

“Lock him up, Joe,” DiPietro said into the phone. “I’m headed out to north Seattle to meet Thumper for an arrest, and then we should be back at the station in about two hours. I want Carter in a holding cell when I arrive. Got it?”

He listened a moment, said “Thanks, Joe,” and closed his phone.

Looking at me, he said, “The plot thickens. Thumper just got done talking to Rhonda Kendall and she gave him a positive ID on Leo Jacklin’s SUV. So we know he’s been following her, and I assume he’s the same guy who was following Julie Bedard. But now we also have what appears to be a positive ID on Jerome Carter.”

“It can’t be both of them, can it?” I asked.

“Probably not,” he said. “But there’s a great chance it’s one of them. And until we get it sorted out, I want them both locked up.”

Checking his watch, he said, “I need to get going.”

“Sure thing, Al,” I said. “And if it’s OK, I’ll check in with you in a few hours to find out where it stands.”

He nodded his agreement before stepping over to have a few words with the uniformed officer and to show him the picture of Jerome Carter. DiPietro then headed down the hallway toward the elevators, his stride strong and steady.

He looked like a man ready to close the deal.

CHAPTER 18

Sunday passed with no additional news from Al DiPietro. I figured to hear something on Monday, but as it happened I got to the office late, having spent the better part of the morning with Stacy at the Baldwin Photography Studio in north Seattle.

Randall Baldwin was a longtime friend of the Langwell family, and she’d made it clear from the start that he’d be our wedding photographer, just as he’d been at the earlier weddings of Stacy’s older brother and sister, along with an aunt and a few cousins. The other part of the deal was that he’d also be taking our engagement picture, so at 9 o’clock that morning Stacy and I drove to his studio, both of us dressed in appropriate finery.

Mr. Baldwin greeted us at the door with a kiss on the cheek for Stacy and a handshake for me. He looked to be in late 60s with thinning, graying hair, and as he led us into the studio he moved with a distinct limp. Stacy had mentioned that he was a former Marine who’d served two tours in Vietnam, and his limp was the result of a serious leg wound suffered when a Viet Cong mortar shell landed just a few feet away during the 1968 Tet offensive. He also took shrapnel in the chest and neck, and was near death when he arrived via helicopter at a field hospital, where the extraordinary work of a U.S. Army surgeon saved not only his life, but his leg, too.

After the war and his subsequent discharge, he and his wife moved to the Puget Sound area and ended up at the same north Seattle church as Stacy’s parents, which was how the two families became acquainted. And now, all these years later, he was taking the engagement photograph of a woman he called “my dear friend Stacy, who never takes a bad picture.”

I noticed he never said that about me. In fact, our session ran long because he kept taking pictures, frowning at the digital images on his monitor, exhorting me to relax and smile, snapping more pictures, and then frowning again. He was obviously getting frustrated and so was I, but just when it seemed like things might go from bad to worse Stacy leaned over and whispered something deliciously naughty in my ear. My face immediately broke into a big smile, at which point Mr. Baldwin fired off several shots and was able to get the pictures he wanted.

Stacy left her email address so he could send along a photo that would go in the paper with our engagement announcement the next week, and with that we were off. I drove back to downtown Seattle, dropped Stacy at her apartment so she could change clothes before a lunch interview with some dancers from a visiting Russian ballet company, and headed for the office.

On my way through the newsroom, I stopped to chat with Harvey Connell about the investigation. We discussed a few of my recent stories and others that were in still the works, and he seemed particularly upbeat about the whole thing. He had a big smile and even gave me a pat on the back as I walked away. Confirming, I realized, one of the strange ironies of the news business. That is, bad news sells papers and makes the bosses happy.

At my desk, I took a few minutes to peruse my story in the Sunday paper. It wasn’t exactly a blockbuster, and that’s because Al DiPietro wanted much of what we knew about Jerome Carter and Leo Jacklin to remain off the record, at least for the time being. We agreed that I wouldn’t name the two men, which was in keeping with Press-Tribune policy because charges hadn’t been filed. But DiPietro didn’t even want me calling them suspects. He insisted that I refer to them as persons of interest, which didn’t make sense to me, and we’d spent a few minutes haggling about that. I finally gave in, but only after I got him to concede that I could report that one man was an employee at The Harem and the other a regular customer.

So that was the extent of my story, and in my mind it was disappointing because it was far from complete. As a reporter, I don’t like leaving so many things unsaid. But Harvey didn’t seem to care. He was satisfied because it was breaking news that nobody else had, “so it keeps us out front,” as he told me in our chat. And he liked it well enough that it ended up with a big headline atop Page 1.

But as I read it through a second time, I realized there was something else bothering me. In my mind, Carter and Jacklin weren’t the kind of guys who’d spend much time reading a newspaper, so the idea that one of them would’ve had the imagination and guile to leave clippings behind at various murder scenes struck me as, frankly, a stretch. The way I saw it, they were both run-of-the-mill thugs, whereas the Clip Killer seemed more of a clever madman. Someone with smarts and maybe a little wit, a la Hannibal Lecter from “The Silence of the Lambs.” Someone who’d get a kick out of taunting the police with his little clues, and an even bigger kick out of knowing the cops still had no idea who he was. Sure, there was a lot we didn’t know about the Clip Killer, but the clippings at least gave us the beginning of a profile. And for my money, neither Carter nor Jacklin fit that profile.

That said, I couldn’t argue with the evidence pointing to both men. And assuming that one or the other was indeed the Clip Killer, I liked the idea that he was at last behind bars, no longer clipping and killing.

So that’s what I was thinking as I set the story aside and reached for the rest of the paper. I skimmed the Local News section, penciled in the Word Jumble — one of my morning rituals — and was just starting to make my way through the sports section, which I always save for last, when my friend Danny Cobb came walking up.

Danny’s a sports writer and the Press-Tribune’s resident Lothario. His preferred topics of conversation are football and females, though not always in that order.

Sure enough, he greeted me by saying, “J.C., did I tell you about the new woman I’m dating?”

Danny seems to date a new woman almost every week, so I’ve heard that same opening line many times before. I shook my head and waited for him to fill me in. I also waited for his grin, which is what usually happens when he describes — and sometimes embellishes — the physical attributes of his female companions.

Except this time his face stayed solemn.

“She lives in Lynnwood,” he said, referring to a suburb about 10 miles north of Seattle, “and she works in the administrative office of the Lynnwood police department. I called a few minutes ago to set up a dinner date for tonight, and she said there’d been a homicide in the city. She said it happened last night, the victim was a young woman, and the cops found a newspaper clipping beside the body.”

For a few seconds I stared at Danny, too stunned to reply. Other than Stacy and Harvey, Danny was the only person I’d told about the clippings. It happened over drinks a few nights before and then I made him promise not to say anything, though I was still uneasy because Danny isn’t all that good about keeping secrets.

But right then none of that mattered. The Clip Killer had apparently struck again and the upshot went well beyond the finding of another victim, tragic though that was. Because if the killing had occurred in the last 24 hours, it meant that neither Carter nor Jacklin was responsible. They were both in custody, which meant the bad guy was someone else altogether. And it meant the police investigation — not to mention my own — had just been kicked back to Square One.

I was still staring at Danny as he handed me a piece of paper.

“Here’s the address,” he said. “And the victim’s name, Holly Tannehill.”

Just like that, I was on my feet. I grabbed a notepad, pen and my recorder, and started for the door to the employee parking lot. I slowed just long enough to call thanks to Danny over my shoulder before hustling out the door to my car.

Five minutes later I was on the I-5 freeway, headed north to Lynnwood. Using the address Danny had given me, I exited at the city’s main off-ramp, turned onto a busy arterial, continued for a few more miles, and finally approached the neighborhood of the recently deceased Ms. Tannehill.

As I swung into a cul-de-sac of modest homes, the gathering of police cars told me I was in the right place.

I parked down the street and walked to the house, where a young Lynnwood PD officer stopped me at the driveway with an upraised hand.

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” he said sternly. Pointing to the yellow tape around the home, he said, “This is a crime scene.”

I resisted the urge to tell him that I knew what the yellow tape meant, and that I’d been going to crime scenes since he was in short pants. Instead I gave him my name and showed my press card, thinking he might be impressed.

He was not. “No one goes inside, sir,” he said firmly. “And that includes reporters.”

He said the word reporter with great disdain.

Doing my best to stay cordial, I told him, “I don’t need to go inside. And I know the routine. I’ll just wait over here” — I pointed at the nearby sidewalk — “until the detectives come out. But do you mind telling me who’s the officer in charge?”

“Sergeant Becker,” he said. “And he’s very busy right now.”

He was still giving me a hard look like I was greatly testing his patience, and I had the feeling that he was about to threaten me with arrest if I didn’t get lost. But he was just a kid — in his mid-20s, I assumed — and he was probably worried about getting in trouble for not doing his job. Hence, the tough-guy act.

So I said, “I’m sure the sergeant’s very busy. And I don’t need to speak to him right now. I’ll just wait over here. But when he comes out I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know so I can speak with him.”

I could tell he was trying to think of some reason to argue, but it wasn’t coming to him, so he did the next best thing. He just stood there with his hands on his hips, glaring at me.

Turning my back on Officer Bad Manners, I walked over to the sidewalk and took out my cell phone to call Harvey Connell. I quickly filled him in on the latest homicide and let him know that I was obviously going to make this my story for the next day. He was stunned by the news, but then asked for the address so he could send a photographer out to get pictures of the home and the neighborhood. He also wanted a bare-bones story for the Press-Tribune’s web page ASAP, though I told him I’d have to call back because I still hadn’t talked to the officer in charge, the aforementioned Sergeant Becker.

That was fine, Harvey said, and in the meantime he’d huddle with executive editor Gavin Bishop to decide how we were going to play the story. After a reminder to phone in a brief update for the web page — call assistant city editor Janine Stansfield and dictate a few paragraphs, he told me — we signed off.

I slipped the phone back in my pocket and took out my notepad and pen to jot down a few notes about the neighborhood. As I glanced at the surrounding houses, I could see people peering out their windows. I assumed they knew what’d happened because the police had probably already been around asking questions, and I could only imagine how terrified they all were to know that one of their neighbors had been killed in her home the night before.

I was also thinking that I ought to go knock on a few doors myself to find out what I could about Ms. Tannehill, but just then another car appeared in the cul-de-sac. I took one look and put my notepad away. I knew who it was even before the car pulled to the curb and the driver stepped out.

It was Al DiPietro in his black unmarked police car. He was accompanied by Tommy Whittaker, who got out the passenger door.

As they started toward the house DiPietro saw me, and from the look on his face I could tell he was thinking, “How the heck did Crowley get here before we did?”

Recovering quickly, he gave a little nod and I nodded back. He and Whittaker then approached the young officer at the driveway. Barely breaking stride, they flashed their badges and continued up to the house, disappearing inside.

The truth was, I was glad to see them. There was no telling how helpful Sergeant Becker would be, or even if he’d cooperate at all, but I knew I could count on DiPietro. It was just a matter of waiting for him to come out again, which he did about 30 minutes later.

Unfortunately, by then I’d been joined by a bunch of other media types. There were two reporters from suburban newspapers, a radio guy, and three vans from Seattle TV stations, complete with those tall antennas they use to report breaking news from the field. Most likely, the TV and radio folks had already gone live with news of the murder, which meant the Press-Tribune wasn’t going to be out front on this one, much to Harvey’s chagrin. But I didn’t mind because I knew I’d have something my rivals didn’t and that was DiPietro. They’d be scrambling to get whatever tidbits they could from Sergeant Becker, but I’d be getting the full scoop from my good friend Al.

Except not here. He was eyeing the other reporters warily as he and Whittaker came down the driveway, and I knew he wouldn’t want any part of an impromptu press conference, particularly one involving the TV crews that were busily setting up their camera tripods right in his path.

Sure enough, he veered off across the lawn in my direction.

“You’re good, Crowley,” he said. “Either you drive a lot faster than I do or your sources are better than mine.”

It was a quip, albeit one spoken without much humor. Murder scenes always affect him deeply, and I could tell he was shaken by what he’d just seen inside.

“What can you tell me, Al?” I asked.

He was looking past me at the other reporters, who were starting to inch in our direction, having evidently determined that DiPietro was someone in the know and therefore a potential interview.

“Not here,” he said. “There’s a coffee shop back in town, and Thumper and I are headed there now. You can join us.”

“Thanks, Al. I’ll follow you.”

DiPietro and Whittaker brushed past the other reporters on the way to their car. I walked off, too, and by the time I got to my car I could see a uniformed Lynnwood PD officer — Sergeant Becker, I assumed — approaching the crowd of media. They surrounded him in a tight half-circle, and I could just make out his initial remarks as I opened the door and got in.

I waited as DiPietro turned his car in the cul-de-sac, and as he headed back to the main street I let him pass and then pulled in behind him. We drove in tandem into downtown Lynnwood, where there was a coffee shop at the end of a large strip mall.

Inside, DiPietro ordered a latte while Whittaker and I got black coffees. To show my appreciation, I paid for the drinks.

We took a table against the window, with DiPietro and Whittaker on one side and me on the other. I had my notepad out and was all set to start asking questions, but I held off because both men had somber, faraway looks. Given where they’d just been and what they’d seen, I understood. DiPietro was still processing, I knew, and I assumed it was the same for Whittaker. The fact is, cops are human, too. Yeah, they’re accustomed to being at crime scenes, but the horror of seeing an innocent life ended — and often in ways that are too gruesome to comprehend — is always disturbing, even to seasoned homicide detectives like those two guys.

So I sat patiently, and eventually DiPietro took a long breath, exhaled audibly, shifted his weight, sipped some latte and then looked at me. It was my cue to begin.

“Is it the same guy, Al?” I asked.

He nodded once.

I was curious to know whose clipping it was, though it would’ve been trivial and even inappropriate to ask that right off. But apparently DiPietro knows me as well as I know him because he said, “It’s not your story, Crowley. But it’s from the Press-Tribune. And the other thing is, this one’s recent. About three months ago.”

“Really? What story?”

“Ms. Tannehill rode horses. She won some type of state championship, so that’s what the story’s about. It’s not very long, but there’s a picture of her with the horse. And the picture must have been at the top of the page because the date’s in the upper corner, right above the headline.”

I vaguely recalled the article. It’d been in the Local News section in a weekly column devoted to awards, announcements and other community items. I hadn’t read the story, but I remembered it because of the picture, which showed a woman seated on her horse and smiling at the camera.

But right then the important thing wasn’t the clipping itself. The timing was the key.

“Al, if that story was in the paper a few months ago, it means that it was published not long before Julie Bedard was killed,” I pointed out. “But those other clippings were from years ago.”

He nodded again, but didn’t say anything. I waited a bit and then asked, “What do you think that means?”

Another pause, and then he said, ‘We don’t know. Given the dates on the first three clippings, we assumed this guy knew these women and that he’d been planning these attacks for some time. But because this one’s more recent, now we’re not sure. This clipping makes it look like the whole thing was maybe more random.”

“But there’s a flip side to that,” Whittaker interjected. “If these attacks are actually random, then how come the first three clippings were so old? He could’ve just gone after women who’ve been in the paper recently. Because I’m sure there’s been a lot of those stories in the last month alone.”

For a time we all sat in silence. I was trying to think this through from several angles, and I’m sure the two of them were, too.

Then I said, “Maybe it’s a combination of both.” They both looked at me as I went on, “Maybe the first three were women he knew. But then after those attacks maybe he didn’t know any other women, or at least any other women who’d had newspaper stories written about them, so he switched and started going after women at random.”

I’d been looking back and forth between the two of them, but now I kept my eyes on DiPietro. I could see he was weighing what I said.

But it was Whittaker who spoke up. “You know, that’s possible,” he said. “Maybe he’d just been planning to kill the first three women, but then once he got started he found out he liked it and decided not to stop.”

He thought for another moment before adding, “It sickens me to think that Ms. Tannehill was maybe killed just because her picture was in the paper recently. And that she might still be alive if that story hadn’t been written.”

Once again, we all fell silent.

Finally I looked at DiPietro and asked, “What can you tell me about the crime scene?”

He spent a few minutes filling me in. Ms. Tannehill hadn’t showed up for work that morning as an assistant at a Lynnwood veterinary clinic. She also wasn’t answering either her house phone or her cell phone, so eventually the vet got worried. He called one of Ms. Tannehill’s friends, a former clinic employee, who agreed to go check. The friend drove to the house and knocked on the front door, but got no response. So she peeked in a garage window, saw Ms. Tannehill’s car still inside, and then continued walking around the house, tapping on other windows and peering in. Discovering the back door unlocked, she went inside and found Ms. Tannehill lying dead in the kitchen. The friend ran screaming from the house to her car where, despite being almost hysterical with grief, she managed to call the police on her cell phone. Officers arrived minutes later, and their cursory examination determined that Ms. Tannehill had been killed by blows to the head and, ultimately, strangulation.

“She was lying on her back,” DiPietro said “The clipping was on her stomach.”

“Clothed?” I asked. There’d been nothing sexual about the earlier cases, but it was still worth checking.

“Fully clothed,” he replied. “This guy’s a killer, but apparently he’s not kinky.”

“And I’m guessing no other clues, right?”

“Correct, unfortunately. Because in that respect these crime scenes have all been identical. He leaves nothing behind but a clipping.”

“The Lynnwood guys are dusting for prints and checking for anything that might’ve been missed the first time through,” Whittaker said. “Maybe a hair sample or something like that. But given this guy’s history, we’re not holding out much hope.”

At that point something occurred to me.

“Cathy Hyde rode horses, too, didn’t she?” I said.

“We’ve thought about that,” DiPietro said. “And it’s definitely something we’ll check out, though I’m not sure it means anything. Because from what we know, neither Julie Bedard nor Jenna Tomlinson rode horses.”

I considered that and then said, “You know, it’s odd how similar this one is to Cathy Hyde’s murder. Both women rode horses and both were killed in their homes, with the killer apparently coming in the back door. And the other two are a lot alike, too. Both were attacked in their cars and both were also stage performers, albeit in somewhat different areas of entertainment.”

When neither man responded right away, I asked, “Do you think that means anything?”

Whittaker was staring out the window, his face thoughtful. But DiPietro was looking at me and after a few seconds he shrugged.

“Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t,” he said. “But it’s probably something to check out.”

“OK, then here’s another question,” I said. “Is there any chance Ms. Tannehill was killed a few days ago?”

I was thinking that maybe she’d been killed before Leo Jacklin and Jerome Carter were taken into custody, which could mean that one of them was the Clip Killer after all.

But DiPietro said, “No. The medical examiner is on his way to the house, and he’ll make the final call on both the time and cause of death. But I have no doubt that she was killed last night.”

“Because … ?”

“Because her body’s still not cold. It’s getting there, but not like it’d be if she’d been dead for a few days.”

That stopped me. It’d never occurred to me that DiPietro would reach down and feel a corpse to determine the approximate time of death.

“All right, so we’re sure that she was killed last night,” I said. “Which means the killer obviously wasn’t Leo Jacklin or Jerome Carter.”

DiPietro nodded, and it wasn’t a happy nod. Because he knew, as I did, that the investigation was essentially starting over.

In the next moment he looked down at the table, seemingly lost in thought. It’s not like I could see his expression or read his body language or anything like that. But I’ve been around DiPietro long enough that I can usually tell what he’s thinking. And right then I had no doubt that he was kicking himself for not having already arrested the Clip Killer.

Sure enough, he looked back at us and said, “You know, after this guy tried to kill Jenna Tomlinson I was hoping he’d give up. He’d left a witness alive and I thought he might be afraid of pressing his luck. But that obviously didn’t happen. He’s still out there and he’s still killing, and I can’t help thinking it’s because we missed something.”

Slowly shaking his head, he looked at Whittaker and said, “There must be something, Thumper. Something we didn’t see, someone we didn’t talk to, something. But whatever it was, we missed it. And because we did, Holly Tannehill is dead.”

I wasn’t shocked by that speech because I know that’s how DiPietro thinks. He not only wants to find the bad guys, he expects to find them. Still, I also thought he was being unusually hard on himself.

And apparently Whittaker thought so, too.

“Al, that’s not true and you know it,” he said firmly. “We’ve worked this case as hard as any I’ve ever been around. We’ve followed every lead, we’ve done dozens of interviews, we’ve checked and double-checked everything, and we’ve even put in extra hours of our own time trying to find this guy. Sure, it’s frustrating that we haven’t got him yet. It’s very frustrating and I feel that as strongly as you do. But it’s sure not because we messed up.”

DiPietro looked like he wanted to argue, but his partner wasn’t giving him the chance.

“There’s only one reason this guy’s still out there, Al, and it’s because he’s good,” Whittaker said. “He hasn’t made any mistakes. Not yet, anyway. He’s smart, I’ll give him that much. But you know what? He’s going to mess up eventually because they always do. And when he does, I promise you, we’re going to catch him.”

DiPietro still looked ready to disagree, but at that moment his cell phone rang. He took the phone from his pocket, looked at the Caller ID window, and then touched the button to connect.

“Yeah, Rita,” he said into the phone.

I knew he was talking to Rita Blankenship, one of two female detectives in the homicide division. And she evidently had a lot to say because DiPietro sat there for almost a minute, listening. Then, abruptly, he slapped his palm against the edge of the table in triumph.

The sound was so sharp and sudden, I flinched.

“That’s great, Rita,” said DiPietro, suddenly upbeat again. “Thumper and I are leaving now and we’ll head right over there. Can you meet us for the arrest?”

He listened for another few seconds before saying goodbye and returning the phone to his pocket. Then he stood, as did Whittaker. Though DiPietro hadn’t let on what he’d been told, Whittaker was evidently expecting to find out in the car.

But since I wasn’t going along, I asked, “What’s up, Al?”

“The break we’ve been waiting for,” DiPietro replied as he grabbed his coffee cup and headed for the door with Whittaker a step behind.

I grabbed my own cup and hurried after them as they went outside. They quickly crossed the parking lot to their car, and by the time I caught up the doors were open and they were getting in.

“What can you tell me, Al?” I asked pleadingly.

DiPietro’s hand was already on the door handle, ready to pull it shut, but at the last second he looked back at me.

“Rita’s been working the phones this morning, trying to track down Ms. Tannehill’s relatives and friends,” he said. “She got the idea of calling Ms. Tannehill’s old high school to talk to the principal, who’s apparently been there for several years. Rita wanted to know if Ms. Tannehill had a jealous boyfriend in her past. The principal couldn’t remember anyone like that, but he did remember one thing.”

DiPietro used his key to start the ignition, and I knew he was just a moment away from shutting the door.

But he looked back once more and said, “Guess who took Ms. Tannehill to her senior prom.”

He gave me a few seconds to answer, but of course I had no idea, so he told me.

“Harland Emerson, Jr.”

CHAPTER 19

I would’ve given a week’s pay to watch what happened next.

But as Al DiPietro later filled me in, he and Tommy Whittaker left the Lynnwood coffee shop and drove straight to downtown Seattle, where they rendezvoused outside one of the city’s office towers with fellow detectives Rita Blankenship and Eugene Delemarter. The four of them then took the elevator to the top-floor offices of Emerson, Fanning, Joby and Sewell, where their sudden and unexpected arrival caused quite a stir.

At first no one wanted to admit that Harland Emerson Jr. was even on the premises. But when DiPietro announced that he was sending for a search warrant — he also threatened to tip off the media, he told me with a smile — the younger Emerson finally emerged from a rear room. He was immediately read his rights, placed in cuffs and led away, much to the consternation of his father, who started spewing legal accusations and threats. DiPietro put up with that for about a minute before getting in the old man’s face and telling him to shut his yap or he’d be accompanying his son to the slammer, handcuffs and all.

That did the trick, though the elder Emerson couldn’t stay quiet for long. As the elevator doors were closing, he called out to his son with a reminder not to say anything to anyone.

Twenty minutes later the younger Emerson was booked into the King County jail, where he’d stay locked up until it was determined if formal charges were to be filed.

I would’ve loved seeing it, like I said, but as all this was happening I was still back in Lynnwood. After DiPietro and Whittaker drove off, I sat in my car in the coffee shop parking lot and called the office to dictate a short story for our web page, as requested by Harvey Connell. Then I returned to Holly Tannehill’s neighborhood, hoping to get a few minutes with Sergeant Becker because there were still things I wanted to learn about the crime scene and about Ms. Tannehill herself. I was also hoping to talk to a neighbor or two, assuming I could find someone willing to be interviewed.

Fortunately, Sergeant Becker was still at the house and he graciously took the time to answer my questions — and equally fortunate for me, all the other media had dispersed by that time. I learned that Ms. Tannehill was a single woman, 30 years old, that she’d been renting the house where she was killed, and that she’d recently had a female roommate, though at the time of her death Ms. Tannehill was living alone. Also, she was not in a serious romantic relationship and, in fact, dated infrequently. Her real love was horses and she spent most of her spare time at a stable in Snohomish, a rural community about 10 miles from Lynnwood.

Sergeant Becker also gave me a better understanding of the crime scene. The killer had gained entry through the back door, he said, evidently forcing it open with a crowbar or some other tool of leverage, and then surprising Ms. Tannehill when she arrived home later in the evening. None of the neighbors reported hearing any unusual sounds, but even if they had it would’ve been difficult to see anything because the back yard was surrounded by a dense barrier of trees and shrubs. Lastly, he told me, there was a vacant lot abutting the back of Ms. Tannehill’s property where Lynnwood detectives had discovered a shoe print in a small patch of mud. It seemed fresh, making it a potentially important clue, though it also could’ve been left by someone passing through the property earlier in the day.

In closing, Sergeant Becker said, “We have no motive and no suspects at this point. But our investigation will be very thorough and precise as we seek to identify the person responsible for this heinous crime.”

I knew that quote would find its way into my story.

I shook the sergeant’s hand, thanked him for his time and headed off to chat with the neighbors. I knocked on three doors and each time was greeted by a resident who was initially courteous, and I’m sure that’s because they assumed I was a police officer with an update. But when I explained that I was a reporter, they responded with remarks along the lines of “No comment” and “Beat it,” followed by the door closing in my face.

I finally got a break at the fourth house where an elderly gentleman told me that Ms. Tannehill was a very nice young lady and that it was terrible what’d happened to her, just terrible. But in the next moment I heard a woman — his wife, I assume — call out from somewhere in the house, asking if he was out of his mind to be talking to a reporter.

The man excused himself, begged me not to use his name — not a problem, since he’d never given it to me — and shut the door.

Figuring I wasn’t likely to get much more than that, I returned to my car and headed back to the office. The return trip to Seattle took about a half-hour, given the heavier midday traffic, and I spent the time sketching out a story in my head. I’d use the information and comments from Sergeant Becker, additional information provided by Al DiPietro, a bit of background from earlier Clip Killer cases, and the quote from the elderly man, which I’d attribute to an unnamed neighbor. Since most of our readers would already know about the killing long before the paper hit their doorsteps the next morning, I decided to focus my story on Ms. Tannehill’s death being linked to the earlier killings of Julie Bedard and Cathy Hyde, along with the near-fatal attack on Jenna Tomlinson. I’d point out that it was all the work of a serial killer, based on evidence — the clippings, of course — the police had yet to make public. Lastly, I’d mention the arrest of a third suspect and the possibility of forthcoming charges.

I hadn’t cleared any of this with DiPietro, but I wasn’t concerned about that. I figured he had enough on his mind that he wouldn’t be worried about what I was doing.

I arrived at my desk shortly after noon and immediately began writing. Over the next few hours the story came together well. Harvey wandered over at one point to get a sense of what I had and he seemed pleased when I filled him in. He suggested that I write a second story — in the newspaper business, we call it a sidebar — detailing the police investigation and how detectives were still struggling to get a sense of a motive for these terrible attacks. It made sense and I agreed.

I was just finishing the first story when my phone rang. The caller didn’t identify himself, but I had no trouble recognizing the voice of Harland Emerson Sr.

“Mr. Crowley,” he said brusquely, “are you going to be writing about my son?”

Recalling the arrogance of his earlier visit, I decided that I wasn’t going to make this easy.

“I’m sorry, who’s calling, please?” I asked, feigning confusion.

“This is Harland Emerson,” he said, and I smiled because by now he was shouting. Implying, it seemed, that I was not only dense, but also hard of hearing. He was talking so loudly that it would’ve been uncomfortable, even painful, to keep the phone pressed to my ear. I ended up holding it a few inches away and could still hear him just fine.

“What I want to know,” he went on, “is if you’re writing about the police coming to our office this morning and arresting my son.”

As I’d done during his previous visit to my office, I explained the Press-Tribune’s policy of not naming suspects until they’ve been formally charged. I spoke slowly, politely and in a measured tone, all the while enjoying the fact that he was doing a slow burn at the other end of the line.

“Has your son been charged, Mr. Emerson?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

“No, he hasn’t,” he snapped.

“Well, then you have nothing to worry about, at least for now,” I reassured him. “I’ll include the arrest of a suspect in my story, but there’ll be no mention of your son’s name or anything else that identifies him in any way.”

“Make sure there isn’t,” he snapped. “This whole thing is a complete outrage, and I won’t stand for seeing my son’s reputation sullied by overzealous police and irresponsible reporters.”

Your son sullies his own reputation, I thought, though of course I didn’t say that aloud.

Instead I said soothingly, “I understand your feelings, Mr. Emerson. And I’ll do my best to see that nothing like that happens.”

He was silent for a few seconds, evidently caught off guard by my kindness.

Then he said, “Mr. Crowley, I want you to promise me something. If you ever do write something about my son, whenever it is, whether it’s tomorrow or sometime in the coming weeks, I want you to promise that you’ll contact me first before that story goes to press. If the police file charges, I want you to call me because at that point I’ll have something to say, I can promise you that. My son is not guilty of these crimes, Mr. Crowley, and I’ll spare no effort or expense to see that his name is not besmirched in any way.”

Sullied and besmirched must be words they teach in law school, I thought.

Then in a burst of new anger, he blurted, “The Seattle police are incompetent. Absolutely incompetent. No wonder they still haven’t caught the real killer.”

At that point he must’ve remembered that he was talking to a reporter because he hollered, “Don’t you dare print that! That’s off the record!”

I was tempted to point out that we’d never agreed to go off the record, so everything he’d just told me was fair game. And ethically speaking I would’ve been on solid ground to use his comments verbatim. But as much as I wanted to tell him all that, and as much as I would’ve loved making him look bad in the next morning’s Press-Tribune, I couldn’t very well quote him badmouthing the police without giving context to his comments, which would’ve meant identifying his son. And since that’s something I’d already promised not to do, at least for the time being, I confirmed that we were indeed speaking off the record and let it slide.

Still, I was also reaching for my notepad and pen, thinking I might as well ask a few questions while I had him on the line. But as soon as I mentioned something about his son’s whereabouts the night before, he cut me off. Emerson’s a hard-nosed lawyer, which means he wants to be the guy asking questions and not the other way around. So after reminding me to call if I intended to write a story naming his son, he hung up without even bothering to say good-bye.

As I replaced the phone in the cradle, I decided it’d be OK if I never talked to Emerson again.

I got started on my sidebar, and right away I knew this was going to be a tricky one. For an overview of the police investigation I was going to need comments from police officials, and most likely from Al DiPietro as the lead investigator. But I also knew DiPietro well enough to be sure he wouldn’t want to be part of a news story explaining what the police knew and didn’t know about the Clip Killer. I was unlikely to get him on the record, in other words, though it wouldn’t hurt to try. So I called his cell phone, left a message, and then used my computer to access the paper’s on-line archives to gather various details related to the attacks on Julie Bedard, Cathy Hyde and Jenna Tomlinson.

Twenty minutes later my phone rang again. I assumed it was DiPietro calling back, but it turned out to be Lois Frothingham at our reception desk.

“John,” she said, “there’s someone out here who wants to see you.”

Since I wasn’t expecting any guests, I was trying to think who it might be as I walked to the lobby. To my surprise, it turned out to be Mandy O’Dell, the waitress from The Harem. She greeted me with an outstretched hand.

“Mr. Crowley, I’m sorry to bother you,” she said. “But I was able to come up with the names of the men in those pictures you showed me. You asked me about that, so I wanted to come by and give them to you right away.”

Well, that’s good, I thought. It’d give me something to check out while I waited to hear from Al DiPietro.

There’s a small alcove in the lobby where we could talk in relative privacy, so I suggested we sit there. She smiled and said of course, like she’d been hoping I’d ask.

There were two chairs in the far corner that allowed us to sit somewhat facing each other. She was still smiling at me, so I smiled back and said, “I appreciate this, Mandy. It’s really kind of you to make a special trip to come see me.”

“My pleasure,” she said with an even bigger smile.

She went on smiling at me, so at last I said gently, “The names?”

“Oh, yes,” she said with a little laugh. “I wrote them down.”

She fumbled in her purse for a few moments and emerged with a piece of paper.

“The black man is Jerome Carter,” she said, reading from the paper. “That was the easiest one to come up with. He was always striking up conversations with the girls, and he liked asking them their names and then telling them his name. He was easily the most outgoing of the three.”

I hadn’t brought a notebook from my desk, but there was a Press-Tribune subscription brochure on the end table with enough white space for me to jot a few notes in the margins. Using a pen from my pocket, I scribbled Carter’s name. I already knew it, of course, but I put it down anyway like it was new information.

Then I looked at her again.

“The bald man’s name is Lyle Browning,” she said.

OK, I didn’t know that one, I thought. I wrote it down and then asked, “What can you tell me about him?”

“I don’t know anything myself,” she replied. “But Tonya — she’s one of the other dancers — she used to know his mother. I remembered Tonya talking about that a few weeks ago, so I asked her yesterday. She said Mrs. Browning used to live in north Seattle and that Lyle lived with her, but that she died a few years ago. Tonya said Mrs. Browning was a real sweet woman, but her son was very strange. She said she was glad he wasn’t coming into the club anymore because he gave her the creeps. And I know some of the other girls felt the same way.”

Interesting, I thought.

Then I asked, “What about the other man? The guy with long hair? Were you able to find out his name?”

“Only his first name,” she said. “It’s Frank. He was talking on a cell phone once and Tonya heard him say, ‘Hi, it’s Frank.’”

I added Frank’s name to my list, though I knew I wouldn’t get very far without his last name.

Looking up at her, I asked, “Is there anything else you know about these men? Maybe more details about the problems they had at the club? Or anything that might help me track them down?”

She shook her head and her smile slowly faded. Like she felt bad about disappointing me.

“Unfortunately, no,” she said. “Once they got kicked out of the club, they all disappeared. No one’s seen them since, at least that I know of.”

I could sense that I was coming to a dead end.

But then she said, “I guess I spent more time waiting on Lyle Browning than either of the other two. For some reason, he seemed to end up in my section more than they did.”

“OK, was there anything else that stood out about him? Anything at all?”

“Not really, other than the fact that he was banned from the club because several of the girls were complaining about him.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, pretending to write this down on the brochure, though I was actually just doodling in the margin.

“But now that I think about it,” she said, “I remember the first girl to complain about him was Julie Bedard. And she spoke up a few times, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that was a big reason he ended up getting banned.”

I stopped doodling and looked up.

“When was that?” I asked.

“You mean when was he banned?”

“No, when did Julie Bedard complain about him?”

“Oh, let me think. I don’t know the exact date, but it was probably a month ago. I know that because I remember one of the other girls saying that Julie had a problem with this guy. Like he was becoming a real nuisance. He’d always been a nuisance, of course, and I think all the girls knew it. But in the last month or so he seemed to be angry for some reason. Most of the men at the club are there to have a good time, but it never seemed like he was having much fun. He just seemed, well, angry like I said. And I guess because he sat and watched Julie all the time, she picked up on that more than anyone.”

By now I was staring at her. She noticed and seemed to catch the seriousness in my expression.

She asked, “Do you think that’s important?”

CHAPTER 20

I spent the rest of the afternoon putting the finishing touches to my two Holly Tannehill stories. But the next morning I was back at my desk, ready to find out what I could about Lyle Browning.

Savvy reporter that I am, it took me less than 10 minutes to get his address.

Using my computer, I accessed the Press-Tribune’s on-line archives and in five minutes had an obituary on my screen for a woman named Bernice Browning, who’d died a little more than two years before. She was one of seven Puget Sound-area women with the last name of Browning who’d died in recent years and one of two who’d lived in Seattle. According to the obit her sole surviving relative was a son, Lyle Browning.

Bingo, I thought.

Next I called an acquaintance at the King County assessor’s office and asked for the last known address of a Bernice Browning of Seattle, two years deceased. No problem, he said. He promised to call right back and he did four minutes later, having pulled the address from the tax records. As he read it over the phone I copied it onto my notepad. I told him thanks, hung up, grabbed my coat and headed for the door.

It took me about 20 minutes to reach my destination, which was a residential neighborhood in the Greenwood area of north Seattle and only about a half-mile from “Rosie’s Place,” the restaurant where I’d met up with Al DiPietro just a few days before. The house was two blocks west of a main arterial, and on the east side of a narrow street of smaller, older homes. The street was so narrow, in fact, that with cars parked on both sides there was only a single lane for through traffic.

I drove slowly down the block — fortunately, there were no oncoming cars — to a parking place along the curb where I pulled in, shut off the engine, and stepped out in front of a small two-story house that was painted gray with white trim. There was a detached garage to the rear, also gray and white.

Right off, I could tell the house was deserted. For starters, the small mailbox next to the front door was jammed to overflowing with weeks of uncollected mail. But the most obvious evidence of vacancy was a staked sign by the front steps. It read: Bank Foreclosure.

Hoping that one of the neighbors would know what’d happened to Lyle Browning, I walked next door and pressed the door bell button. I waited about 30 seconds, pressed the button again, and at that point the door was opened by a young woman holding a baby at her hip. Another child, a toddler, was clutching her leg.

I introduced myself and handed her a business card that had my name and the Press-Tribune logo. I said that I was an investigative reporter — it’s written on the card, but I said it aloud because she hadn’t bothered to look — and explained that I was trying to track down her former neighbor, Lyle Browning.

“Don’t know him and don’t know where he is,” she said matter-of-factly, shifting the baby to a more comfortable position. “He disappeared a few months ago, which was shortly after we moved in. I saw him a few times, but never said a word to him, nor him to me.”

Then she added, “The bank’s foreclosing, so it looks like he’s gone for good.”

By now the baby was squirming and fussing, and the mom was growing impatient. With the infant, I assumed, but perhaps with me, too. So I thanked her and asked that she call the number on the card if she heard anything of Browning’s whereabouts. She said she would, but I didn’t hold out much hope. Because by then the baby had my card and was using it to cut a tooth, which meant it’d soon be nothing but a slobbery mess.

As I headed down the steps to the sidewalk, I decided to check with another neighbor. And since there was an elderly man working in his yard across the street, I crossed and went up his walk, though I first had to stop at the edge of the property to unlatch a wooden gate.

The gate squeaked as it swung open and then again as it closed, and the sound caused him to look up.

Seeing me approach, he smiled and said, “Good morning. What can I do for you?”

I introduced myself, and as soon as I said my name he extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Crowley,” he said. “I’m Vern Wallstrom.”

We shook and I handed over another business card. He looked at it carefully before slipping it into his shirt pocket.

Mr. Wallstrom was probably in his mid-70s with glasses and thinning white hair. He’d been attacking the crabgrass in his garden with a pitchfork, and from the perspiration on his brow and the flush in his cheeks I gathered the crabgrass was putting up a good fight. I also figured that he was glad to see me walk up because it gave him an excuse for a break.

I explained that I was looking for Lyle Browning.

“Ah, Lyle,” he said with a nod and a smile.

I wasn’t sure what that meant, but before I could ask he cocked his head and said, “Do you know Lyle?”

“No, we’ve never met,” I replied. “But I’m hoping he might be able to help me out with a story I’m working on.”

That wasn’t the complete truth, of course. But it’s a remark I’ve used many times over the years with people who want to know more than I’m inclined to say, at least at the outset.

By now Mr. Wallstrom had stabbed his pitchfork into the ground and was resting with his forearms on the handle.

“I’d love to help you, Mr. Crowley,” he said, “but the fact is I haven’t seen Lyle or heard anything about him for several weeks. He used to live over there with his mother” — he pointed at the gray and white house — “but she passed away a couple of years ago. Lyle went on living there by himself until about three months ago when he simply disappeared. And from what I can tell he’s never been back.”

“Do you know if there’s anybody who knows where he is?” I asked. “Maybe one of the other neighbors?”

Mr. Wallstrom shook his head and said, “I’m afraid not. The truth is, Lyle didn’t have many friends in the neighborhood. Honestly, I don’t think he had many friends anywhere. I’m not sure how much you know about him, Mr. Crowley, but the fact is he was, well, different. I can count on one hand the number of times he said hi to me in all the years we were neighbors. He was a loner, that’s for sure.”

“So you can’t think of anyone who might know where to find him?” I persisted.

“Off the top of my head, no.” He thought for another moment and then shook his head again. “I’m sorry, I really can’t think of anyone. But I’ll tell you what, let’s go in and check with my wife. She was close to Bernice Browning — that was Lyle’s mom — and it’s possible there are some other relatives somewhere that I don’t know about. So if you want to follow me inside, we can ask her.

“Besides,” he added with a grin, “you look like you could use a glass of cold lemonade. And I know for a fact I sure could.”

He wiped the back of his hand across his damp forehead and started for the front door.

“My wife’s name is Helen,” he said over his shoulder, “and ordinarily she’d be out here helping with the yard work. But she fell and broke her kneecap last month and she’s been laid up ever since.

“It happened right here,” he added, pointing to an uneven seam in the cement sidewalk. “She was carrying some planter boxes, stubbed her toe and went down hard. It was a nasty fall and a nasty injury.”

We went up the steps and through the front door into the living room, where Mrs. Wallstrom was reading a magazine in an armchair next to a window. Her right leg, which was in a long white cast, was propped on a small stool.

Mr. Wallstrom made the introductions and then explained that I was looking for Lyle Browning.

“Well, good luck with that,” said his wife, who’d yet to smile or even say hello.

“Do you know of anyone who might know where Lyle is?” he asked her. “Someone Mr. Crowley could contact?”

“No one,” she said. “There was a lot about that boy I never knew, and a lot of what I did know I never understood. He was a strange one, that’s for sure. And I know for a fact that he broke his mother’s heart.”

Her husband gave her a disapproving look.

“We shouldn’t talk disrespectfully, Helen,” he said gently. “I know Lyle had his quirks, but I’m sure that deep down he was a good boy. After all, he looked after his mother all those years when she was sick.”

Turning to me, he said, “Lyle’s mother got cancer several years ago. It was real hard for her the last few years, but Lyle was always there to take care of her. He drove her to the doctor and anywhere else she needed to go.”

“Yes, and he also wouldn’t let anyone else help out either, even though we asked several times,” Mrs. Wallstrom interjected. To me she said, “Bernice and I were good friends. Before she got sick we had tea together three days a week. We also used to go to the library together and we even belonged to the same knitting club. Lyle never seemed to mind any of that, but once she got sick it seemed like he didn’t want anyone else coming around.”

“I’m sure he had his reasons,” her husband said. “He was just … ”

“He was just a stubborn, ornery man,” she said emphatically. “You can say whatever you want about him, but it doesn’t change the fact that’s what he was. He should’ve welcomed whatever help we were willing to give. And he should’ve listened to his mother. I know she wanted to see her friends. It would’ve been good for her, and it would’ve been good for the rest of us, too, to feel like we were helping out. But Lyle never wanted anyone else around. He basically kept his mother in that house, almost like she was in prison, and it was like that right up to the day she died.”

“It’s true,” Mr. Wallstrom said softly. “I can’t argue with that.”

He then excused himself to get the lemonade he’d promised. His wife called after him, asking for a cup of tea, and I soon heard the sounds of water running in the kitchen, cupboards being opened, and a tea kettle being placed on the stove.

As we waited I tried to make small talk with Mrs. Wallstrom, but it was tough sledding. Her face was grim, her replies terse, and it was all I could do to keep the conversation going, though I did my best.

I asked how long until the cast came off.

“Three more months,” she said. “And it’s driving me crazy. All this sitting around is making me cross.”

No kidding, I thought.

Then she said, “I saw Bernice a few days before she died. I’m sure she knew her time was short and she wanted to say her good-byes, so she called and invited me over. Lyle was there to open the door, but then he disappeared. That boy had no idea how to sit with folks and talk politely. He’d just go upstairs to his room, like it was beneath him to sit with us. His mother used to make excuses for his behavior, but after a while she just gave up. It was just too embarrassing for her.”

“Did she ever mention anything about other relatives?” I asked. “Because I’m hoping there’s someone who might know how to get in touch with him.”

“Bernice was an only child, so there’s no one else on her side of the family,” she said. “And Donald, her late husband, was originally from the Midwest, so he didn’t have any family out here either. As far as I know, there’s no other relatives anywhere in the area.”

“Was there a funeral?” I asked, thinking that might jog her memory of other people who’d known the Brownings.

“No, and that’s another sore spot,” she replied. “A few days after she died Vern went over to ask Lyle about that, but he said no, his mother hadn’t wanted a service. Which is nonsense, if you ask me. I went to a lot of funerals with Bernice and they were always meaningful to her. I know she would’ve wanted her own funeral.”

The tea kettle in the kitchen began to whistle and then abruptly stopped as Mr. Wallstrom took it from the stove. A minute later he returned to the living room with a tray bearing a small porcelain teapot, a cup and two glasses of lemonade. He handed a glass of lemonade to me, placed the other glass on the end table by his chair, and then carried the tray to the table beside his wife. He poured hot water into the cup with a teabag, and left it within her reach before returning to his chair.

“Did Lyle ever work?” I asked.

“He did some odd jobs years ago,” Mrs. Wallstrom said. “But after his father died there was suddenly a bunch of life insurance money and I guess he didn’t have to work after that. I always thought he should’ve used some of that money to take his mother on a nice vacation, but he was just too selfish. And lazy. He just didn’t want to work.”

“Helen, it’s possible he was too busy taking care of his mother to be working a fulltime job,” her husband said.

“You can think whatever you want,” she retorted. “But I still say that he was selfish and lazy. And unfriendly, too. How such a sweet woman as Bernice could’ve had a son like that is beyond me.”

Looking at me again, she said, “He used to stay around the house all day, but then at night we’d see him drive off. It always seemed strange that he’d be going out and leaving his mother at home by herself, especially with her being as sick as she was. I can’t imagine where he had to go that was so important that he’d leave her alone like that.”

Probably a strip club, I thought.

Then I asked, “What happened after he disappeared?”

“One day he was there and the next day he wasn’t,” Mr. Wallstrom said. “And since then there hasn’t been any sign of him. We kept watch for a while, thinking he might show up again, but he never did. He just vanished, pure and simple.”

“You even left a note on the door, didn’t you?” his wife asked.

“I did,” he said with a nod. “I wedged it in the door jam, but it was still there two weeks later. So I finally went over and got it again because by then it was pretty clear he wasn’t coming back.”

“When did the bank foreclose?” I asked.

“A few weeks ago,” he said. “Someone from the bank came and knocked on our door, and he asked us if we knew anything. We said no, that Lyle just disappeared one day and that he hadn’t been back. That man actually asked us a lot of the same questions you’re asking now, and we pretty much told him the same things we’re telling you.”

“And the next week,” his wife said, “someone else came out and put up that foreclosure sign.”

“Is there any chance he’s traveling?” I asked. “Maybe taking that vacation he never got around to taking with his mother?”

“Not a chance,” Mr. Wallstrom said. “Lyle hated traveling. Bernice mentioned that to us at one point. She said he never wanted to go anywhere. He was mostly content just to stay home.”

“Except when he went out by himself at night,” his wife put in.

I took a few moments to sip some lemonade and think about what I’d just been told. And it gave me a sudden urge to see the house.

“You know,” I said, “I think I’ll walk over there and have a look around. Maybe I can see something in the window.”

“I’ll go with you,” Mr. Wallstrom said at once. “The fact is, you’ve roused my curiosity, too.”

We both stood, and I waited while Mr. Wallstrom took our glasses to the kitchen. He returned shortly and said to his wife, “We’ll be right back, Helen. We’re just going to go over and check things out.”

She had a look like she didn’t really approve, but she kept quiet as the two of us went out the front door.

We walked down the sidewalk, through the gate, across the street and up the steps to the Browning house, and Mr. Wallstrom kept talking the entire time. In those two minutes he touched on the weather (“They say we’ll be getting some rain by next week”), his bad hip (“The doctor says I ought to get it replaced”), a complaint with his Press-Tribune paperboy (“I keep telling him, the paper needs to be on the porch and not in the bushes”), and a young female neighbor who had a penchant for walking around the house in her underwear (“Helen doesn’t like me staying by the windows too long, at least the ones on that side of the house”).

He chuckled at that last remark, and by then we were approaching the front door.

Mr. Wallstrom tried the knob, but it was locked. We peered in the window, but there was nothing to see except some modest furnishings. We then went down the steps and around to the back door, but it was also locked, as was a nearby side door to the basement. Along the way we peeked in a few more windows, but there still wasn’t much to see.

“Maybe we ought to check the garage,” Mr. Browning said.

I almost begged off because by then I was thinking I ought to get back to the office. I had phone calls to make and a story to write, but the garage was only a few steps away and I decided another two minutes wouldn’t hurt.

“As best I recall, they never used this much, even when Don was alive,” Mr. Wallstrom said over his shoulder as he led the way. “They kept both their cars parked on the street, which was probably because the alley’s so small and it would’ve been hard getting in and out. I think they mostly just used the garage for storage.”

We went first to the large double doors, but they were locked with a rusty padlock.

“We won’t be getting in this way,” he remarked.

The windows on the garage door were old and clouded to the point of being almost opaque. It was impossible to see much inside.

“There’s a door on the side,” he said. “Though I’m guessing that’s probably locked, too.”

I followed him around the corner to an ordinary wooden door. To our surprise, it swung open when he turned the knob.

“Well, what do you know,” he exclaimed.

We stepped inside.

A couple of things struck me right away. One was the musty air, which seemed to confirm the garage had remained closed in the weeks since Lyle Browning disappeared, and maybe long before that, too. The other thing I noticed was how empty it was. There were some garden tools — a shovel, a hoe, a few rakes and the like — propped against one wall, but they were all encased in cobwebs, making it look like they hadn’t been touched in years. Against the opposite wall there was a work bench with some containers of paint — some gallon cans, plus a few smaller cans of spray paint — along with a few hand tools, some boxes of nails, and maybe a half-dozen of those tiny glass jars that people use for storing bolts, screws, washers and other hardware. Likewise, these were all covered with cobwebs and dust.

Mr. Wallstrom saw me looking at the work bench and said, “Don Browning was something of a handyman. He was good with tools, and he liked to keep the house and yard looking nice. But after he died I don’t think Lyle had much interest in that sort of thing. My guess is he never touched a tool in his life. And, in fact, I think they sold a lot of the tools that Don kept in here a few months after he died.”

Looking past the work bench, I saw another door at the back of the garage.

“I wonder what’s in there,” I said, pointing.

Mr. Wallstrom’s eyes followed the direction of my finger. “Well, let’s have a look,” he said.

He walked over and tried the knob, but it was locked. “No dice,” he said, stepping back.

Just for the heck of it, I gave the knob a try, too. No question, it was locked securely. And since the door didn’t have a window, there was no way of seeing into the room.

I started to step away, but in the next moment my curiosity suddenly got the better of me. Without even thinking about what I was doing, I abruptly shifted my weight to my left foot, raised my right leg and slammed the bottom of my shoe against the door as hard as I could.

There was a loud crack as the door jamb gave way and the door flew open.

The funny thing is, I’m not sure what made me do that. I mean, I’m not the kind of guy who generally goes around kicking in doors. I guess it was just a moment of frustration where I basically said, what the heck.

Or maybe it was simply a terrific hunch.

At any rate, the force of my foot slamming into the door caused me to lose my balance and I stumbled backwards. In those few seconds I saw Mr. Wallstrom giving me a look of disbelief.

But then he turned to the open doorway and his expression changed.

“My goodness,” he said. “Would you look at that.”

I followed him into the room and the two of us just stood there, staring with astonishment.

Floor to ceiling, the room was filled with a mountain of old newspapers.

CHAPTER 21

Standing in the doorway, staring at the massive pile of newspapers, I tried to think if there might be some other explanation.

Maybe Bernice Browning and her son Lyle hadn’t bothered with regular recycle pick-up. Maybe they’d just tossed their old papers in the garage, and then occasionally loaded the car for a trip to the dump. And maybe they never got around to it after Mrs. Browning got sick, so the mound of papers just kept growing.

Maybe, but I wasn’t buying it.

I was so sure, in fact, that I went outside and used my cell phone to call Al DiPietro. He didn’t answer, so I left a message. I told him to call, that it was urgent.

My phone rang five minutes later and it was DiPietro. He was in the car with Tommy Whittaker, and they were headed to Harborview Medical Center to check in with Jenna Tomlinson and her mother.

“What do you got?” he asked brusquely.

I filled him in, beginning with Mandy O’Dell dropping by my office the day before. I explained that she’d given me Lyle Browning’s name, and that she’d also told me how he’d been directing considerable interest — and apparently some anger, too — at Julie Bedard in the weeks before her death. Then I told DiPietro that I’d tracked down Browning’s address, gone to his house and at that moment was standing in a back room of his garage looking at a stack of a thousand or more old newspapers.

“Hold on a second,” DiPietro said, his voice changing. I heard him tell Whittaker, “Thumper, write this down.” Then he said, “OK, Crowley, give me the address.”

I told him, he repeated it to Whittaker, and then he said, “We’ll be there in 10 minutes,”

He broke off without saying good-bye.

Closing my phone, I turned to find Mr. Wallstrom standing right there. He’d followed me outside and had apparently overheard my conversation, which would explain his look of confusion. So I told him that a couple of Seattle detectives were on their way to the house as part of an ongoing homicide investigation, and at that point his mouth fell open, his eyes got wide, and his confusion gave way to an expression of fear and disbelief. Mostly fear, I assume, because in the next moment he mumbled something about needing to go check on his wife. I watched him hurry back across the street, go inside his house and close the door, no doubt locking it behind him.

Eight minutes and 40 seconds later — I was keeping time with my watch — DiPietro’s car came around the corner and pulled into an open space directly behind my car. He and Whittaker got out, I beckoned them to the back yard, and they followed me to the garage and into the back room.

DiPietro took one look at the mound of newspapers and said, “Call the bank, Thumper. The number’s on the sign out front. Tell them we want someone out here with a key to open the house. You can also say we’ll get a search warrant if we have to, but it’ll be easier and quicker if they just send someone with a key.”

Whittaker was reaching for his cell phone as he stepped outside.

DiPietro then turned to me and said, “You can help, too, Crowley. We’re going to need the dates those first three clippings were in the paper. Can you get that for me?”

“Sure thing,” I said, and I followed Whittaker outside. I stood there for a few seconds trying to decide my next step. I could return to the office and do the archive search myself, or I could make a phone call and have someone there do it for me. It didn’t take me long to choose Option No. 2. This was shaping up to be a huge story and it was unfolding right in front of me. I didn’t want to take the chance of leaving and missing something good.

On the grass between the house and garage — Whittaker was just a few feet away, his phone to his ear — I called Janine Stansfield, the Press-Tribune’s assistant city editor. She answered on the second ring, and when I told her what I needed she immediately agreed. I apologized for the inconvenience, but she told me not to worry about it. I was in the field and couldn’t very well do an archive search myself, she said. Plus she was in the middle of filling out time sheets for the newsroom’s part-time staff — a tedious job, to be sure — and she was grateful for the interruption.

We went through the stories one by one. For the article about Julie Bedard, we started by using her first and last names as keywords, but at my suggestion she also included “Charles Durham,” the driver of the car that caused the accident, and “Rhonda Kendall,” who was in the car with Ms. Bedard. Then I waited, listening to Janine type in the background. It took about a half-minute before she said, “OK, I’ve got it.”

She read me the first few lines to be sure and I said, “Yeah, that’s it. What’s the date?”

She told me and I wrote it on my notepad.

We did similar searches for the other two stories. A few keywords, a few moments of waiting and I had those dates, too.

“Thanks, Janine. You’ve been a big help,” I told her. “And I’ll make sure Harvey hears about it, too.”

She laughed, as I knew she would. The two of us have a running gag about the importance of buttering up the boss, and whenever Janine mentions that she likes one of my stories she always says, “And I’ll make sure Harvey hears about it, too.”

So we shared a chuckle and I thanked her again before hanging up.

I returned to the garage and gave DiPietro the three dates. He repeated them aloud to help him remember, and then said, “OK, let’s get started. Until someone from the bank shows up, let’s see if we can find one of those papers. Or the paper from a few months ago with the Holly Tannehill story. Because if we do and if we find a big space where there’s a story cut out, we’ll know Lyle Browning’s our guy.”

He took one side of the room, I took the other, and we began going through the papers. And at the outset, I’ll admit, it was pretty exciting. Somewhere in that massive pile, I felt sure, were papers with missing clippings. DiPietro seemed to think so, too, and in those first few minutes we attacked the stack with gusto. The problem was, the papers weren’t piled chronologically. The ones on top were generally the most recent and I assumed those at the bottom would be the older ones. But there were also old papers near the top and it made me think that someone had occasionally dug into the pile, pulled out ones from below, and then discarded them again on top. In fact, the first paper I picked up was 12 years old and another in those first few minutes was seven years old. Also, most were individual sections, not complete papers. In succession, I picked up a sports section, a business section, an entertainment section, and then another sports section. It took me a while just to find a paper from one of the years in question, but unfortunately it wasn’t one of the dates we wanted. Not only that, it was a section of classified ads, which was no help at all. I tossed it aside and reached for another paper.

More minutes passed, and I was beginning to realize just how large the pile was and how long it was going to take us to search through the whole thing. My enthusiasm was dropping rapidly.

Suddenly DiPietro said, “Hey, look at this.”

He held up a front page, and I knew that because I recognized the Press-Tribune’s distinctive masthead at the top. But that’s not what he wanted me to see. He was holding it open with both hands and I saw that someone — Browning, I assumed — had clipped an article from the middle of the page. In fact, DiPietro was peering at me through the opening just to make sure I noticed it.

“It would seem our boy’s a clipper,” he said.

“What’s the date?” I asked.

He checked the upper corner and shook his head. Not a match, unfortunately, though the missing clipping at least seemed to indicate that we were on the right track.

And I could tell DiPietro agreed because he took out his cell phone and accessed a number from his speed-dial list. He waited a few seconds and then said, “Rita, I need you to do something for me. I need you to find out what you can about a guy named Lyle Browning. White male, approximate age of 40, last known residence Seattle.” There was another pause before he said, “Browning. B-R-O-W-N-I-N-G. First name Lyle, middle initial unknown.”

He took a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and read off the street address. I assumed it was the paper on which Whittaker had scribbled the number when I made my earlier call to the two of them.

Then he said, “This is Priority 1, Rita. He’s a suspect in our investigation and he just moved to the top of the list. I want whatever you can find. Prior arrests, next of kin, anything. Check with the DMV” — the Department of Motor Vehicles — “and see if there’s a car registered in his name. If there is, get the make, model and license number. And after you’ve done all that, Google his name and see what comes up. Then call me back.”

He listened a moment before saying, “Good enough, Rita. Thanks.”

He ended the call, returned the phone to his pocket and reached for another paper. But as our eyes met, I asked, “Do you think he’s our guy, Al?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t say for sure he is, but I can’t say he isn’t either. But I will say this. I’ve got a feeling about him that I haven’t had about anybody else.”

Pretty much what I was thinking, too.

We returned to our search, and over the next several minutes my discard pile grew higher. But it still seemed like we were barely making a dent in the main stack. I was starting to think it’d take several days to work our way through the whole thing.

So I was relieved when Whittaker stuck his head in the door and said, “The guy from the bank’s here.”

“Good,” DiPietro said.

Hallelujah, I thought.

We walked out to meet a small, slight man in a dark suit who introduced himself as Clifford Brent. With a smile, he first shook DiPietro’s hand and then mine. I didn’t mention that I was a newspaper reporter, so I’m sure he thought I was another cop.

DiPietro explained that we were conducting a homicide investigation and that we believed Lyle Browning had information relevant to the case. I noticed he avoided using the word suspect.

“It seems Mr. Browning doesn’t live here anymore,” DiPietro said. “But it’s also possible he left something behind that could help our investigation. So with your permission, Mr. Brent, we’d like to get inside and have a look around.”

“No problem,” Brent said. “We’re always happy to cooperate with the police. And since the house is vacant, I don’t see that we need to worry about a warrant.”

“We appreciate that,” DiPietro said.

Brent turned and went up the three wooden steps to the back door. He took a key from his pocket, unlocked the door and led us inside.

We entered the kitchen and right away were met with the stench of rotting food.

“Sorry about the smell,” Brent said. “There were two full garbage pails when we got in here last week, and they were both pretty nasty. It’s better now, but it’s still going to take some time to get the place aired out. ”

He walked over to open a large window above the sink.

“From what we can tell,” he said, facing us again, “Mr. Browning left in a hurry. My guess is that he took some clothes and whatever else he could fit in his car, and then didn’t bother with the rest. Also, I checked with a few of the neighbors when I was out here a few weeks ago and no one remembers seeing him return to load his car again. The way it looks, he drove off one day and that was it.”

“Any idea how long he’s been gone?” DiPietro asked.

“Well, according to the neighbors it’s been a few months,” Brent replied. “The one thing we do know for sure is that he made his last mortgage payment four months ago. After that he started missing payments, so we sent him a series of reminder letters. But he never responded and he kept missing payments, so I finally drove out a few weeks ago to investigate. And at that point it was pretty obvious that he was gone.

“You have to understand,” he added, “this kind of thing happens sometimes in the banking business. It’s unfortunate, but for us it simply means that we start foreclosure proceedings. I had a guy come out last week to change the locks, and next week we’ll start removing the furniture and getting everything cleaned up. It’ll take a while, but eventually we’ll get the house looking good and then we’ll sell it to someone else.”

“I take it you have no idea where Mr. Browning is now,” DiPietro said.

“That’s correct. And from what we can tell, no one else does either.”

“Do you remember the last time you talked to him?”

“I do, and the reason I remember is because I only talked to him once. It was shortly after his mother died, which was two or three years ago, as I recall. But it was probably a few weeks after she died that he called the bank with some questions about the mortgage. The call was transferred to me and I was able to answer his questions in a couple of minutes. I can tell you that he was very soft spoken and very polite. Hardly what I’d call chatty, but certainly cordial.”

“Was there an attorney who handled his mother’s estate after she died?” Whittaker asked.

“Yes, a gentleman named Alvin Gardiner. His office is in the university district, and I know that because I contacted him after I came out here the first time. But he said he doesn’t know anything either. He’s as baffled as we are.”

“What about bank accounts?” DiPietro asked.

“Unfortunately, another dead end,” Brent said. “Until recently Browning had quite a bit of money in one of our branches. Over $50,000, as a matter of fact. But about five months ago he withdrew all that money and closed the account. I actually checked on this the other day, and it turns out he closed the account the week after he made his last mortgage payment. Which is, we believe, about the same time he disappeared.”

“Any idea where all that money came from?” Whittaker asked.

“I can’t say for sure, but I’m assuming it was from his mother’s estate,” Brent said. “Mr. Gardiner didn’t tell me a lot, but he did mention that Mr. Browning had been out of work for a long time. Several years at least, so I doubt it was money from gainful employment. But the other thing is, he opened the account right after his mother died and the initial deposit was about $80,000. That’s why I’m assuming it was money she’d left him.”

“You just said $80,000, but before you said $50,000,” DiPietro pointed out.

“That’s correct,” Brent said, nodding. “You see, for a few years after he made that initial deposit he was making periodic withdrawals of smaller amounts. Usually $500 to $1,000 at a time. And there were never any additional deposits, which is unusual for a typical bank account, though I guess it makes sense since we now know he wasn’t working. No paychecks to deposit, in other words. And those withdrawals, I assume, were for food and other living expenses.

“But then about five months ago, like I said, he withdrew the balance, which by that time was down to a little over $51,000. I wasn’t in the office that day, but I remember hearing later that he’d called ahead to arrange the withdrawal and that he’d asked for all the money to be in $100 and $500 bills. I’m told he walked in, put the money in a large briefcase, said thanks and walked back out. And at that point, it would seem, he vanished into thin air.”

DiPietro was still listening, but his eyes had begun moving around the room. I could tell he was itching to get started.

Sure enough, he said, “Mr. Brent, we’d like to have a look around. And it might be better if you waited outside. We’ll come find you if we need anything or if we have any questions, and we’ll certainly let you know when we’re finished.”

“No problem,” Brent said. “I’ve got some phone calls to make and I can do that from my car, which is right out front. So go ahead and look around, and then just give me a shout when you’re ready to lock up.”

He disappeared out the back door.

DiPietro and Whittaker watched him go and then, without a word, got busy right there in the kitchen. DiPietro went over by the sink, Whittaker headed for the area by the refrigerator, and they both started going through the cupboards and drawers. They ignored the pots, pans and other utensils, but they searched everything else. And since they weren’t paying any attention to me, I figured it was my job to stay out of the way. I went to the far side of the room where there was a table with four chairs. I almost sat down, but then decided I’d better not touch anything. I ended up just standing there.

“I’m afraid to look inside,” Whittaker said as he reached for the refrigerator handle, but he did anyway. It was empty — apparently the bank people had already cleaned it out — but there was still an odor.

“Pe-ew,” he said, quickly shutting the door.

DiPietro, meanwhile, was checking out a small telephone nook by the oven. It took him a couple of minutes to go through all the drawers — he was flipping through papers and a small phone directory — but at last he looked up and shook his head.

The kitchen search complete, DiPietro stood and led us through an arched portal into the dining room, where there was a long table and a china cabinet with crystal dishes that had no doubt once belonged to Bernice Browning. Since it seemed unlikely that her son had done much entertaining, those dishes and the room itself had probably gone unused for the last few years. The same was true for the adjoining living room, which was the next stop on our tour. DiPietro and Whittaker paused in both rooms to look around, and then moved on.

We crossed the living room to a side hallway that led back to the kitchen with doors along the way to the master bedroom and a bathroom. The bedroom was neat and had a feminine décor, which meant it’d likely been used by Bernice Browning. And since she’d died at home — Mrs. Wallstrom had mentioned that at one point in our conversation — I was assuming she’d died in that bed. Given the furnishings and the room’s recent history, I was also assuming that Lyle Browning hadn’t used that bedroom after his mother’s death.

DiPietro and Whittaker apparently came to the same conclusion because they stopped just inside the door for a few seconds and then withdrew.

The nearby bathroom was not nearly so neat. From what I could tell it was the only bathroom in the house, so Lyle Browning had certainly used it often. And, just as certainly, he hadn’t bothered cleaning regularly. The toilet, bathtub and sink were all filthy, and the entire room smelled of mildew, urine and who knows what else. The three of us didn’t say a word as we peered in the doorway, but I’m sure we were all thinking the same thing — gross.

Back in the hallway, there were two other doors along the inside wall, both leading to stairways. One went to the second floor, the other to the basement.

“Why don’t you check down there,” DiPietro told Whittaker, pointing at the basement door. “I’ll look upstairs.”

Whittaker nodded his agreement and went off through the door on the right. DiPietro took the other door, and since no one had bothered telling me what to do I followed him.

We went up to a onetime attic that’d been converted into a large bedroom. This had obviously been Lyle Browning’s room, and I say that because it was definitely a guy’s room, though most guys would’ve been appalled to live in such squalor. For starters, there was dirt and dust everywhere. Also, the few pieces of furniture were mismatched and shabby, there were scattered clothes here and there, and the once-white sheets on the unmade bed were badly stained, making me think they hadn’t been changed in years, if ever. Likewise, it took only a few seconds — and a few whiffs — to realize that personal hygiene wasn’t Browning’s strong suit. If the kitchen reeked of rotting food, his bedroom had the disagreeable scent of an unwashed male.

“Sheesh,” DiPietro muttered, scrunching his nose with disgust.

I thought about asking if I should open a window, but decided to remain quiet. I stayed by the doorway and watched as DiPietro moved to the center of the room. He stood for a time, taking it all in, and I could tell his brain was working methodically. Dirty baseball hat on the dresser, probably insignificant. Framed photograph next to the baseball hat, maybe important. Some papers on the bedside table, definitely worth looking at.

He was, I knew, a visual detective, which made him a lot like Hercule Poirot, the fictional sleuth created by one of my favorite authors, Agatha Christie. Poirot has a knack for showing up at a crime scene and spending a few minutes taking it all in, and then about 100 pages later — or 45 minutes if you’re watching one of the movies — he suddenly mentions that one of the books on the shelf was out of place or that he’d noticed a smudge of mud on the carpet by the fireplace, and it eventually becomes the clue that cracks the case.

I was hoping that DiPietro would turn out to be as clever as the great Poirot, who never failed to solve a case.

Browning’s attic bedroom was a square shape and about 30 feet across in both directions, although the slope of the roof front and back reduced the amount of practical living space. The bed was in the center of the room with the headboard against a side wall. There was a TV and stereo system to the right of the bed, and on the other side was an aquarium with a filtering system that was still bubbling away. Unfortunately for the fish, the food supply had long since run out. A few corpses floated lifelessly on the surface while others, already decomposing, had sunk to the bottom.

DiPietro glanced briefly at the aquarium before walking to the bedside table. He picked up the papers, which were letter-sized and white, perhaps seven or eight in all. Holding them on one side, he flipped through them like the pages of a book before returning them to the table.

I was curious what they were, and he must’ve read my mind because he said, “Computer printouts about cars. Like he wanted to buy one and was doing some on-line research.”

Then he asked, “I didn’t see a computer downstairs. Did you?”

I thought for a moment before saying, “No. Maybe he took it with him.”

He considered this, but said nothing.

The only other thing on the bedside table was a small wind-up alarm clock, which had obviously stopped because the dial showed that it was 6:13. The actual time was just a few minutes before 11:00.

DiPietro moved to the dresser and studied the man in the photograph, which I gathered was Browning’s late father. I thought about pointing this out, but stayed silent because DiPietro was by then opening drawers. He went through them from top to bottom, glancing into each one, and from where I stood I could see they were all empty. Likewise the nearby closet, which DiPietro looked in next.

“Doesn’t seem to be much here,” he remarked. Then he said, “You see anything?”

A nice gesture on his part, I thought. Treating me almost like an equal in our search, even though he was the trained detective and I was just a reporter tagging along. But since he’d asked, I took a last glance around the room on the chance I’d missed something and then said no.

As an afterthought, I added, “This room feels creepy.”

It sounded silly as soon as I said it, even though it was true. There was an eerie feeling, and I figured it had to do with my belief that Browning really was the Clip Killer and that he’d plotted his deadly attacks right here in this room. For all we knew, he’d even clipped stories from newspapers while sitting on the bed.

DiPietro must’ve been thinking the same thing because he said, “I know. I feel it, too.”

Then he said, “Let’s go see what Thumper’s got.”

I followed him to the stairway and down to the main floor. Whittaker wasn’t there, so we continued on down the carpeted stairs to the basement, which was a large room with a low ceiling. Like the attic-turned-bedroom, I figured this had once been a large space used mostly for storage, but later had been remodeled into a paneled rec room. There was a sofa, recliner, TV and even a wet bar, though the latter looked like it hadn’t been used in years.

Whittaker was sitting on the sofa, his back to us. He was leaning forward, looking closely at something on the coffee table in front of him. He was so intent that I’m not sure he heard us coming.

DiPietro picked up on that right away. “What’d you find, Thumper?” he asked.

Whittaker started with surprise — no question, he hadn’t known we were there — and then he turned to us with an odd expression.

“You’re going to want to see this,” he said.

CHAPTER 22

They were scrapbooks, arranged side by side on the low coffee table. They had colored covers, and from left to right they were blue, green, red, black and darker green.

Whittaker was looking at the middle scrapbook, the red one, and right away I could see that it was filled with newspaper clippings. DiPietro saw as much, too, and gave a low whistle as he came around and slid in on the sofa next to Whittaker.

Since they weren’t making room for me, I ended up pulling over a chair from across the room.

“They were in that back closet,” Whittaker said, pointing at a small room beneath the stairs. “And from what I can tell, they’re filled with stories about young women. Pretty young women, too. Some are in their early 30s, but most are in their 20s. There’s even a few teen-agers.”

DiPietro was staring at the open book. Using his fingertip, he scanned down the first clipping until he found the name and age of the woman in the story.

“Katie Robinson, 27,” he said.

“Right,” Whittaker said. “And this one” — he pointed at a clipping on the opposite page — “is about Melanie Bynum. She’s 24.”

DiPietro was still staring, his face intent.

“This is pretty bizarre if you ask me,” Whittaker said. “I mean, I’ve heard of strange hobbies before, but never one like this. It’s like he’s got a newspaper fetish. And more to the point, a fetish for stories about young women. It makes you wonder if he knew these women. Though if you think about it, I don’t see how he could. There’s hundreds of clippings here, and there’s no way he could’ve known all of them.”

DiPietro was probably listening, but he showed no reaction. Sitting forward, he turned the page to an article about a young tennis player. The story began on the left-hand page and jumped to a separate clipping on the opposite page, with photographs on both pages. The first picture was large and in color, and showed her preparing to serve. In the other smaller photo, which was black and white, she was playing a volley at the net. From my newspaper experience, I knew the color photograph had been on the front page of a section, and the black and white photo had been on an inside jump page.

Again with his fingertip, DiPietro read down a few paragraphs and said, “Chelsea Baker, 21.”

“Crazy, isn’t it? Here, let me show you something,” Whittaker said. He reached over and turned back three pages. “This is the oldest woman I’ve seen so far.” It was a story that included the mug shot of a dark-haired woman inset into the text. “She’s 34, though as you can see from her photo she could pass for 24.”

DiPietro was silent for a few seconds. Then he said, “Keep going, Thumper. I’m going to look through this one.”

He scooted over and opened the green scrapbook to the left. The first of two facing pages had an article with an accompanying photo of a young woman in business attire. The other page had a story about a young female ballet dancer.

DiPietro read down the story about the businesswoman. “Courtney Hall, 28,” he said.

Whittaker, meanwhile, was still going through the red scrapbook. He’d turned to an article about a young swimmer. In the larger photo she had her elbows up on the edge of the pool and was talking to a man who was evidently her coach. There was also a smaller picture of her swimming the breaststroke toward the camera.

“Mary Beth Jorgenson, 22,” he said.

DiPietro glanced briefly at Whittaker’s page, then returned to the story about the ballet dancer. “Jade Olmstead, 18,” he said.

Over the next few minutes the two of them recited the names and ages of other women. Ashley Blanton, 21 … Laura Taft, 28 … Tiffany Bridgeman, 19 … Sonya Oblonsky, 31 … Kellie Dye, 25 … Natalie Feeney, 22. It was really eerie, hearing them read the names off like that.

Whittaker evidently agreed because he said to DiPietro, “This guy needs a girlfriend.”

“I’d say the women in these stories are his girlfriends,” said DiPietro, turning another page.

Whittaker slowly shook his head. “Sad,” he said.

“Pathetic,” DiPietro replied.

Moments later, Whittaker reached the last page of the red scrapbook. He closed it, moved it to the side and pulled over the black scrapbook, which was also thick with clippings. But instead of stories, these were all newspaper advertisements with pictures of young women. There was a woman using an ATM in a bank ad, a woman with glasses in an ad for fashionable eyewear, and a health club ad with two women on side-by-side treadmills.

There were, I also noticed, several pages with ads for sales of department store lingerie. Stopping at a large color ad with two alluring models in lacy underwear, Whittaker said, “Well, at least he’s got good taste in women.”

DiPietro glanced over and said, “Stop drooling, Thumper.”

“No harm in enjoying my work,” Whittaker retorted. “Besides,” he added, pointing at a very beautiful, very shapely brunette, “this one reminds me of my ex-wife. Except she never looked this good, which is probably why she’s now my ex-wife.”

It was supposed to be a joke and he smiled. But DiPietro gave a little snort that sounded like an admonishment to knock off the silly talk.

They went back to flipping pages. DiPietro soon finished with the green scrapbook and opened the blue one on the far left. He glanced at the first few pages, turned another page and stopped abruptly.

“Look here,” he said.

Whittaker and I both leaned in. It was an empty page, but there was tape residue in the four corners, indicating that an article had been removed. From the locations of the residue, it was possible to see the missing clipping had been large and square.

Staring at the page, DiPietro said softly, “Jenna Tomlinson.”

I hadn’t seen the article about Jenna recently, but from what I remembered it would’ve fit in that space. Whittaker, meanwhile, was nodding his head.

DiPietro turned another page and stopped again. On the far left was a long, vertical clipping, but there was an empty space next to it with more tape residue. And from the four splotches, it was easy to see the missing clipping had also been long and vertical.

This time DiPietro said, “Julie Bedard.”

No question, the clipping found beside Ms. Bedard’s body was exactly that size.

DiPietro turned to Whittaker and said, “It’s him, Thumper. It’s Browning.”

Whittaker nodded slowly. His earlier humor had vanished. His face was grim.

DiPietro turned a few more pages and stopped again at another empty space with tape splotches. This missing clipping was large and horizontally rectangular. From my memory, the story about Harland Emerson Jr. — and that was the story where Cathy Hyde was quoted — would’ve matched those same dimensions.

Sure enough, DiPietro said, “Cathy Hyde,” and Whittaker replied, “Yep.”

An idea suddenly occurred to me.

“Maybe he used this one for the stories about the women he knew,” I said, pointing at the blue scrapbook.

It sounded good the moment I said it. And from DiPietro’s expression, I could tell he agreed.

He turned the next page and stopped again because there was another empty space surrounded by tape splotches. The space was almost square, roughly 4 inches in each direction. Just the right size for the photo of a woman on a horse with a short story.

This time it was Whittaker who said, “Holly Tannehill.”

DiPietro nodded. He then flipped through the remaining pages, but they were blank. He closed the scrapbook, took the cell phone from his jacket pocket, touched a number from his speed-dial list and waited with the phone at his ear.

“Rita, it’s Al,” he said. “Listen, it looks like we found our guy. There’s evidence here at the house that links Browning to these killings, so we need to start putting together a plan for finding him. Thumper and I will be leaving here in a few minutes, and I want you and Gino to meet us at the office in a half-hour.”

He fell silent, listening. Then he said, “OK, tell me what you’ve got.”

Still with the phone at his ear, he took a small notebook and pen from another pocket. Working with one hand, he flipped back the cover of the notebook to a blank white page and pushed the button at the top of the pen. He then spent the next minute listening, scribbling, listening, scribbling.

“What about a car?” he asked. Then, “OK, see if the DMV can match a vehicle to this address and let me know.”

He said good-bye and closed the call.

“It’s not much,” he said, looking up at Whittaker and me. “First of all, Browning’s 36. Also, he’s had a few traffic tickets over the years, but no arrests other than a shoplifting incident about six years ago. And no recent employment history, though I guess we already knew that.

“But she did come up with one thing that’s interesting. This goes back to when Browning was in high school. He was a photographer on the school paper, but he got kicked off the staff for taking inappropriate pictures of cheerleaders and other girls. That much was bad enough, but the real trouble came when he got caught trying to sell the pictures at school. He ended up in juvenile court, where the charges were eventually dropped because the pictures weren’t actually obscene. But the principal wasn’t quite so forgiving. He suspended Browning from school for the rest of the year, and from what we can tell he never went back.”

“Which high school?” I asked.

DiPietro glanced back at his notes.  “Truman High School, outside of Renton,” he said.

It apparently didn’t register with him, but it sure did with me.

“Al, that was Cathy Hyde’s high school,” I said.

The room got very quiet. DiPietro was staring at me.

“Do you remember how old she was?” he asked.

“Thirty-four,” I said. I knew that because it was in the follow-up story I wrote in the days after her death. It’s also why I remembered the name of her high school.

“Which means he probably would’ve known her back then,” he said. “Or at least known of her.”

Turning to Whittaker, he said, “Maybe he knew all these women after all.”

“Either that or it’s one heck of a coincidence,” Whittaker said. “And I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“Neither do I,” DiPietro said. “He obviously knew Julie Bedard from the strip club, it looks like he knew Cathy Hyde from high school, and now I’m betting he knew Jenna Tomlinson and Holly Tannehill, too. We’ll have to check at some point with Ms. Tomlinson and her mother, and then with Ms. Tannehill’s family to see if anyone remembers him. But in the meantime the important thing is that we find him real soon.”

DiPietro and Whittaker spent the next few minutes going over ideas for locating Browning, with Whittaker suggesting they start by increasing their stakeouts at Seattle’s more popular strip clubs. Since the conversation didn’t include me I stood and began looking around the room. To the right was the wet bar with a large painting of cowboys in an Old West saloon on the rear wall. To the left was the TV and some shelving for books and DVDs. I walked over and saw that several of the DVDs were old World War II movies, including “The Sands of Iwo Jima,” “Guadalcanal Diary,” “The Longest Day,” “The Thin Red Line,” “From Here to Eternity,” and “The Battle of the Bulge.” Likewise, many of the books were pictorials and non-fiction titles about World War II. I was betting they’d all once belonged to Browning’s dad, and that he’d either been a veteran or someone with a keen interest in military history.

I was about to turn away, but something at the end of the lower shelf caught my eye. It was a piece of white paper with pink lettering and trim, and as I stepped closer I realized it was a flyer from The Harem. It was an advertisement for the club’s recent anniversary celebration, with text promising a gala weekend of revues and other special performances. But what really caught my eye was the picture atop the first page. It was Julie Bedard, though she was identified by her stage name of Summer Darling. Standing with her back to the camera, clad only in a pair of skimpy panties, she was peering over her shoulder with a seductive smile.

“Hey, look at this,” I said, walking the flyer back to DiPietro and Whittaker.

I handed it to DiPietro, who took a quick look before showing it to Whittaker. Their eyes met and Whittaker said, “It’s all coming together.”

“Yeah,” DiPietro agreed. Then he said, “OK, Thumper, we’d better get back to the office.”

They stood, and as they were just starting for the stairs DiPietro’s cell phone rang. He took it from his pocket and checked the Caller ID window before holding it to his ear.

“Yeah, Rita,” he said into the phone.

He listened for almost a minute before saying, “That’s great, Rita. Listen, Thumper and I will head out there right now. We’ll talk to the lady and then drive back to the office to meet you and Gino. But it’s going to take us at least an hour to get out there and back, so let’s make it 90 minutes.” He checked his watch before saying, “And in the meantime, get the word out to the sheriff’s office and the other agencies. I want everyone on the lookout for this guy.”

Another pause. Then, “Good enough, Rita. Thanks.”

Closing the call, he said, “Lynnwood PD had some guys in Ms. Tannehill’s neighborhood earlier today. There’d been a couple of houses with no one home yesterday, so their guys went back this morning to knock on a few doors. And they got lucky with a woman who lives in the cul-de-sac, about four houses down from Ms. Tannehill. This woman says she saw someone driving past Ms. Tannehill’s house earlier on the day she was killed, and the woman not only got a good look at the car, but at the driver, too. If we go out there and show her Browning’s picture, I’ll bet she can confirm it was him.”

He nodded at Whittaker and said, “Let’s get going.”

The two of them started for the stairs, and I followed as they went up to the hallway and then out through the back door, which DiPietro locked and closed. We continued around the side of the house to the front yard, and then down the steps to the street.

Clifford Brent was sitting in his car. DiPietro went over to thank him again, to tell him the house was locked and that we were all leaving. After a brief conversation, Brent started his car and drove off.

As DiPietro walked back to his car, I suddenly remembered that I needed to be a reporter.

“Hey, Al, how much of this can I write?” I asked.

I knew, of course, that I couldn’t report that Lyle Browning was the Clip Killer. It was way too early for anything like that. But I thought it would be good to write that police detectives had come up with a big break in their investigation, and one that put them on the verge of an arrest. It was a huge story — one of the biggest of my journalism career — and I couldn’t wait to get back to the office and see Harvey Connell’s face when I told him what I had.

The only problem was DiPietro. Because as soon as he heard my question he looked at me like I was nuts.

Then he actually said, “Are you nuts?”

He’d just opened his car door, but he stopped and faced me.

“Think, Crowley,” he said in a tone suggesting I was an idiot. “This guy obviously reads newspapers, and if you write a story like that he’s bound to get spooked and disappear. And I’m not just talking about somewhere out of state. I’m talking about out of the country. If he’s as smart as I think he is, he’s probably got all kinds of fake IDs stashed away somewhere and he’d need only a day or two to end up halfway around the world. We’d never find him.”

He made a good point, I had to admit. But I was also thinking that it was my tip that’d brought them to Browning’s house in the first place. In other words, none of this would’ve happened if it hadn’t been for me, and I was thinking that DiPietro ought to lighten up and toss me a bone.

I was all set to point that out, too, but DiPietro cut me off by saying, “Don’t even think about messing this one up, Crowley. You’ll get your story, but first things first. And right now the first thing we need to do is find this guy and get him into custody.”

I must’ve still looked ready to argue because he stopped me with an upraised hand.

“Seriously, Crowley,” he said, “you don’t want to be the reason we lose this guy and he ends up killing someone else, do you?”

DiPietro has never been above a good cheap shot and that was one of his best. It was outrageous that he’d even suggest such a thing and I really wanted to tell him so, too. But I held my tongue because I knew I was on the wrong end of a losing argument. The fact was, I needed DiPietro a whole lot more at that moment than he needed me. He could still be a great cop without any help from me, but my job as a reporter would be much more difficult without him.

Bottom line, as much as I wanted to turn our search of Browning’s house into a big Page 1 story, I knew it simply wasn’t worth burning DiPietro as a source, both now and forever.

It took me a few seconds to think all this through, and in those moments I was still looking at him and he was still looking back at me. And he must’ve realized the same thing I did — that is, that he had all the leverage and I had none — because I saw the corners of his mouth pull back into a slight smile.

“Do we have a deal, Crowley?” he asked.

Then he just kept looking at me. He apparently wasn’t going to drive off until I gave him my word.

I didn’t like the way he was bossing me around, but there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it. So I nodded in agreement, and I did it distinctly so he’d know I meant it.

And I guess that did the trick because his smile grew. Not a smirking, in-your-face smile. It was truly a smile of appreciation.

Then, wouldn’t you know, he tossed me a bone after all.

“Thanks, Crowley,” he said. “When this is all done you’ll get a big story. And it’ll be a good one, I promise.”

I watched as the two of them drove off.

CHAPTER 23

Several days went by and the search for Lyle Browning continued, albeit without much success. Because despite the best efforts of Al DiPietro and his fellow detectives, Browning’s whereabouts were anyone’s guess. It was possible he was still somewhere in the Seattle area. It was also possible he was on his way to Timbuktu. The police had no idea because they had no solid leads, and there was a growing sense that Browning had somehow slipped through their collective fingers.

I knew all this because I was checking in with DiPietro at least once a day. He never had much to say, and it wasn’t just that he was being tight-lipped. The cops had cast a wide net, but they didn’t have a lot to show for it. Browning’s parents were dead, he had no other family in the Seattle area, and no friends to speak of. Detectives were questioning people who’d known his mom and dad — mostly neighbors, work colleagues and other acquaintances — but no one had much information. For sure no one had seen him recently. Lyle Browning, they all agreed, was a guy who didn’t bother keeping in touch.

The scary thing was, DiPietro confided at one point, Browning might end up killing again before the police finally found the clues they needed to track him down.

Needless to say, the lagging investigation had everyone on edge, and no one more so than DiPietro. Not only was he more ornery than usual, but he’d also decided that it was time to start managing the media. Which, for the most part, meant me. He began by requesting — no, demanding — that I back off on my reporting about the case. Because even though I’d vowed not to name Browning in my stories, DiPietro was still afraid I’d let something slip and tip off Browning that the cops were on his tail. DiPietro wouldn’t even let me report that Harland Emerson Jr., Leo Jacklin and James Carter had all been released from custody because, as he explained, he didn’t want Browning figuring out that detectives had zeroed in on a primary suspect, given that all the other guys were going free.

I tried to negotiate some of this, but DiPietro wouldn’t budge. Then he went a step further by suggesting I write a story saying the police had absolutely no idea who the Clip Killer was. He thought it might give Browning a false sense of security and lead him into a misstep or two. But that’s where I drew the line. It’s one thing for a journalist not to report everything he or she knows, but quite another to print something that’s flat-out untrue. So I told him no dice and then rolled my eyes — which he couldn’t see, of course, since we were talking on the phone — as he complained that I wasn’t doing everything I could to help him catch a serial killer. I let him have his say, but then asked how much help he thought he’d get if the Press-Tribune fired me, which is what’d happen if Harvey Connell found out I was writing stories that were knowingly false.

From the tone of his reply, I could tell DiPietro wasn’t convinced.

So he was mad at me, and he wasn’t alone. Harvey liked a follow-up story I wrote about Holly Tannehill based on interviews with her family and friends, but he was upset that we weren’t getting more police updates. First thing every morning he’d stroll by my desk to ask what was up, and he sure didn’t care for my stock answer, which was not much. He went from nodding to frowning to scowling, all in the space of a few days, and he got so grumpy that I didn’t dare mention that the police actually knew the Clip Killer’s identity — as did I, for that matter. Harvey would’ve gone berserk to know we were sitting on that one. He probably thought I was slacking off as it was, and the notion that we weren’t living up to our foremost mission — that is, reporting the news when we know it — would’ve been, in his mind, a grave journalistic sin.

So I was getting flak from Harvey and from DiPietro, too, and it made me think the two of them ought to get together and work things out. And in the meantime maybe they’d both get off my back.

Yet despite all the aggravation and disappointment of those days, there was occasional progress. Most importantly, the police did learn a few things about Browning from people who’d known his father and mother. Donald Browning had indeed been a veteran, having spent a year in Vietnam as an Army medic before returning home and enrolling at the University of Washington. He earned a pharmacy degree, and then spent his career working at various drug stores and hospitals in the Seattle area — first in Renton when Lyle was a boy, and later in north Seattle, which is when the family moved to the Greenwood area. His wife, Bernice Browning, was a homemaker early in their marriage, but later went back to school and received a degree in library science. By the time Lyle was in high school, she’d been hired at one of the north-end branches of the Seattle Public Library system, where she worked until about a year before her death.

Lyle was an only child, but the problems he caused his parents were the equivalent of two or three kids, friends said. He had difficulty fitting in, whether at school, in the Boy Scouts, on his youth sports teams, in the church choir, and with various other organizations and activities. Trouble seemed to follow him everywhere, and it seemed to be the reason he kept bouncing from one thing to the next.

The police were able to locate a man who’d been one of Browning’s close friends — and maybe his only friend — in high school. The guy’s name was David Oszienski and he lived with a wife and three kids in Renton, where he owned a furniture repair business. Browning and Oszienski met in a sophomore biology class, and at first they hit it off. But the friendship cooled over time because Browning’s quirks were becoming, well, quirkier. Among other things, he’d developed a rather bizarre fascination with death.

“He asked me once if I’d ever thought about how I’d kill myself,” Oszienski told investigators. “I said no, of course not, and he said, ‘Well, I know how I’d do it.’ That seemed pretty weird to me, and it got me to thinking that maybe we shouldn’t be hanging out so much anymore.”

An uncle who lived in Michigan added another chapter to Browning’s life story. After getting suspended from high school, the uncle said, Browning enrolled at a Seattle community college to earn his GED before joining the Army, where he trained to be a medic like his father. But his years in the military were evidently as spotty as the rest of his early life. He completed a two-year enlistment and received an honorable discharge, but was turned down when he tried to re-enlist. The Army, like so many other groups throughout his life, seemed ready to be done with Lyle Browning.

With nowhere else to go, he returned home and lived off the largesse of his parents. A year or two later, his father died from a cerebral aneurysm. His grieving mother did the best she could, but in time she seemed to lose control of her recalcitrant son. With no interest in working, he became an idler who spent his days watching television while his mom was at work, and then when she came home he’d head out to one of his favorite strip clubs. His sole income was a modest monthly allowance, provided by his mother from the proceeds of his father’s life insurance policy. It wasn’t much, but at least it paid the cover charges at clubs like The Harem.

Of course, nothing in this rather pitiable tale made Browning a serial killer. But that’s where the eyewitness from Holly Tannehill’s neighborhood came in.

The woman, whose name was Grace Heide, was an elderly widow who lived three houses down from Ms. Tannehill. Frail and mostly housebound, she spent a good bit of every day sitting in her living room, either reading, doing needlepoint or watching TV game shows and soap operas. Her large front window had a sweeping view of the cul-de-sac, which turned out to be a big break for police because she got a good look at the brown Ford that showed up earlier on the day Ms. Tannehill was killed. The description she gave police matched a car registered to Bernice Browning, according to Department of Motor Vehicles records. And since the DMV showed no vehicle registered to Lyle Browning, it appeared that he’d been driving his mother’s car, having never bothered to change the title to his own name after her death.

The day DiPietro and Whittaker drove out to interview Mrs. Heide, they took along several photos. There was one of Browning, of course, but also pictures of Harland Emerson Jr., the long-haired guy from The Harem, and two or three others that DiPietro happened to have in his briefcase. As Mrs. Heide poured the coffee, DiPietro arranged the photos on the kitchen table, creating a kind of pictorial police lineup. He then asked if she could identify the man she’d seen driving the brown Ford.

Mrs. Heide immediately pointed at Browning’s photo. “That’s him,” she said.

When DiPietro asked her to look again, just to be sure, she shook her head. “I don’t need to,” she said firmly. “That’s him. I’m positive.”

When DiPietro and Whittaker left the house minutes later, they were convinced beyond all doubt that Lyle Browning was the Clip Killer.

And now they just needed to find him.

Using the license number provided by the DMV, every cop in the Puget Sound area had been on the lookout for Browning’s brown Ford. DiPietro also assigned a few detectives to stake out the rest of Seattle’s largest strip clubs. Lastly, he set up around-the-clock surveillance at Browning’s home on the chance he might show up there again. There happened to be a vacant house on the next block with a kitchen window that looked out on Browning’s backyard, so the cops moved in and kept up a 24-hour vigil.

At that point it became a waiting game.

The wait continued through the rest of that week and into the next week, but still with no trace of Browning. And since the Press-Tribune was continuing to put out a daily newspaper, and since I wasn’t contributing much in the way of Clip Killer copy, Harvey decided I needed other work to keep me busy. When I showed up on Tuesday of that following week he assigned me two new stories. One was an investigation of a Puget Sound-area restaurant chain that had several recent King County Health District violations. The other was a profile of the state’s oldest serving legislator, an 85-year-old retired Air Force lieutenant colonel named George Bush. “No relation,” he’d joke, and the quip always got a laugh because this George Bush was African-American.

The day Harvey gave me the two new assignments he told me I should continue to keep an eye on the Clip Killer investigation. And if there was any breaking news he wanted me to drop everything else and jump back in.

So that’s where things stood as I drove to the office the next morning, a Wednesday. My plan was to check in with Harvey, take a few minutes to go through my email and phone messages, and then head back to my car for the drive across town to the county administrative offices, where I had a 10 o’clock interview scheduled with a guy named Jerry Yeager, who’s in charge of the health district’s food safety investigations unit. That interview would probably last about an hour, with Yeager laying out the case against Danny’s Diner, a restaurant chain with a string of minor but still troubling violations over a period of several months. After that interview, I’d get back in my car and drive to the state capital of Olympia, which is a good hour south of Seattle via the I-5 freeway. Barring any traffic tie-ups, I’d be there in time for the afternoon session of the state senate in order to watch George Bush in action. Later, I’d interview senators from both parties about their elderly colleague, and since Bush was known to be sometimes genial, sometimes cantankerous, I was expecting his fellow senators to offer some colorful remarks.

All that was the plan anyway.

I pulled into the Press-Tribune parking lot a little after 9 o’clock that morning and went in the employee entrance to the newsroom. As always, I used my walk through the office to see if Stacy was at her desk. She was not, though I wasn’t surprised. I knew she had a mid-morning interview with the four members of Dogs of Mercy, the latest in a long line of Seattle-area grunge rock bands, and I assumed she’d be going straight from her apartment to the band’s recording studio for the interview. We’d probably exchange text messages throughout the day, and then hook up for dinner after I returned from Olympia.

At my desk, I logged on at my computer and began working my way through a big batch of overnight emails. Most were junk and I quickly deleted them. I typed some short responses to others, and as I worked I could see Harvey at his desk across the newsroom. After finishing with my emails and checking for any phone messages, I figured to swing by and chat with him about my day before heading back out for my interview.

I was just reading the next-to-last email when my phone rang. I reached for the receiver, hoping to hear Stacy’s voice.

It turned out to be DiPietro.

“I’m glad I caught you, Crowley,” he said. “I need your help.”

“And I’m always happy to help, Al,” I said affably.

He was in no mood for affable. “This is important, Crowley,” he said sharply.

“Sure thing,” I said, switching to my serious voice. “What do you need?”

“We found the place where Browning’s been staying,” he said. “It’s a one-bedroom apartment in Renton that he’s apparently been renting for the last few months.”

“That’s great,” I said, knowing it meant the cops were finally closing in on the Clip Killer. It also meant that my plans for the day were about to change.

But then he said, “Yeah, though unfortunately that’s the only good news. The bad news is, he’s not here. We showed up about 15 minutes ago and he’s gone. But we know he was here earlier because the morning paper is on the kitchen counter.”

I had a hunch where this was going even before he said it.

“There’s a clipping missing,” he said.

I felt my heartbeat quicken.

“So here’s what I need you to do,” he said. “I need you to look in today’s paper and tell me the story that’s been cut out. Because I’m betting there’s a woman in that story and she’s going to be his next victim. And whoever she is, we need to find her before he does. Her life probably depends on it.”

Yeah, this was definitely important. And urgent.

“I’ve got the paper right here,” I told him. “What page is it?”

“It’s 6D.”

“OK, hold on.”

I reached for the paper on my desk, which I’d been planning to peruse once I finished checking my messages. I pulled out the D section, which the Press-Tribune calls “Puget Sound Living.” It’s the section that has stories about food and fashion along with general features and things like the comics and crossword puzzle. And on Wednesdays …

The realization hit me suddenly.

“Which story is it?” I asked, feeling my throat tighten.

“It must be an engagement announcement. There’s a bunch of them on that page.”

My heart was racing as I flipped the pages back to 6D.

“It’s on the left side of the page, about halfway down,” he said. “There’s an announcement for a couple with the names of Brown and Delisle. It’s the one under that.”

I was staring at the page and telling myself it couldn’t possibly be true, even though I knew it was.

“Crowley, are you there?” DiPietro said impatiently. “C’mon, we’re in a hurry. I need the name in that story.”

It took another few seconds before I finally found my voice.

“It’s me, Al,” I said in a weak whisper. “Me and Stacy. It’s … it’s our engagement announcement.”

CHAPTER 24

Al DiPietro was still talking, but I wasn’t listening. All I could think about was my beloved Stacy, in danger of becoming the Clip Killer’s next victim.

It took DiPietro’s raised voice to snap me out of it.

“Crowley, listen to me,” he shouted. “You need to get in touch with Stacy right away. We’ve got to find her.”

Just like that I was on my feet. And once I was up I kept moving.

“I’ll call you when I know something,” I yelled into the phone.

I heard him say something else, but by then I was already hanging up. I grabbed my coat and started running for the door, and I must’ve looked absolutely frantic because a few startled co-workers called after me, “John, what’s wrong?!!”

I wasn’t about to stop and explain.

I raced outside, jumped in my car and squealed the tires as I pulled out of the staff parking lot. I was headed to Stacy’s apartment, which was about a mile away, and in those first few seconds I said every prayer I knew that she’d still be there.

But the trip was going to take at least five minutes and I couldn’t wait that long to find out. At a red light I’d been tempted to drive straight through — I couldn’t because there was too much cross traffic — I used my cell phone to call her apartment. I heard it ring four times and then her answering machine came on. Since I was now only about three minutes away, I didn’t bother leaving a message. Instead I hung up and dialed her cell phone. This time the call went right to her message, indicating that she was either on her phone or that it was turned off.

In the most normal voice I could manage, I asked her to call me right away.

At another red light — I was bellowing curses at the delays — I called DiPietro and explained about Stacy’s interview with the Dogs of Mercy. I also told him that I’d been unable to reach her and that I was on my way to her apartment. She hadn’t told me the location of her interview, but I was hoping to find something at the apartment that’d give me an idea where she was.

DiPietro said that detectives were in the process of turning Browning’s place upside down, but they’d yet to come up with any telling clues about his itinerary that day — except for a newspaper with a missing clipping, that is. Then he asked for a description of Stacy’s car so he could put out an APB to police in Seattle and Renton. I gave him the color, make and model along with the license plate number, which I fortunately remembered.

“Call me when you get to her apartment,” he said as the light turned to green. “Let me know what you find.”

I said sure, ended the call and drove off down a long stretch of road where there was thankfully little traffic. I was also thankful there weren’t any cops around because I was driving close to 60 mph in a 30 mph zone. A minute later I swung into a handicapped space in front of Stacy’s apartment building — this wasn’t a time to worry about tickets, speeding or parking — and raced into the lobby, where the elevator door opened immediately.

Her apartment was on the fifth floor, and since the two of us had previously exchanged keys there was no problem getting in. I unlocked the door, pushed it open and called her name. No answer, so I called again. Still no answer, which was pretty much what I’d expected since she hadn’t answered her phone.

I went quickly from room to room to confirm she wasn’t there, and her absence was both a disappointment and a relief. A disappointment because I still had no idea where she was. But also a relief because of the terrible premonition I’d had on the drive over. I imagined myself walking in and finding her lying dead on the floor, and with the clipping of our engagement beside her body. No question, my relief right then definitely outweighed my disappointment. I was no less desperate to find her, but for the time being I felt certain that she was still alive.

Her apartment seemed to be in perfect order. Her bed was neatly made and there were no stray clothes anywhere, either in the bedroom or the bathroom. The kitchen was likewise immaculate, with all the breakfast dishes loaded in the dishwasher and the counter wiped clean. Stacy is something of a neat freak, which is sort of an ongoing gag between us, given that I’m probably toward the other end of the spectrum. Still, I took the apartment’s tidiness as a good sign. It showed that her day had begun without incident.

One thing caught my eye. It was our engagement photograph — the same picture that was in the morning paper, except this was an 8x10 glossy — in a gold frame on one of the living room end tables. I remembered her saying that she’d picked it up from the photographer the day before. Seeing it now, with the two of us together and smiling happily, was almost more than I could bear. My eyes started welling and I had to force myself to turn away.

I returned to the kitchen and went to her answering machine, which is on the counter by the window. I was hoping there’d be a message to help me find her, but the message light was dark, indicating no new messages. I pushed the playback button to hear any old messages. There was one from the day before, and it was her mother calling to confirm their visit to the bridal shop the next afternoon — which was today — for Stacy’s wedding dress fitting. As I listened, Mrs. Langwell also suggested they meet for lunch before the appointment.

That didn’t give me much to go on, so I took the phone from the holder to check for any recent calls. The first was from my cell phone a few minutes earlier, but there’d been another call about an hour before mine. It was from a number I didn’t recognize and there was no name, only “Anonymous.”

Using a pad and pen by the phone, I jotted down the number.

Then, because Stacy’s phone also records the numbers she calls for redial purposes, I looked to see if she’d made any calls that morning. She’d called her mother, and when I double-checked the time I saw that it’d been about five minutes after the anonymous call.

That meant I needed to call Mrs. Langwell on the chance she knew something. But just as I was reaching for my cell phone, it buzzed.

I checked the Caller ID, praying that it was Stacy, but it was DiPietro. “Yeah, Al,” I said, not bothering with a greeting.

“Any luck?” he asked.

I told him that Stacy had been there earlier, but was already gone. Then I mentioned the anonymous call.

“What’s the number?” he asked, and I read it aloud. There was a pause as he scribbled it into his notebook. Then he said, “OK, we’ll check it out. But in the meantime there’s something you should know.”

My stomach, already in knots, tightened further.

“Browning’s got a laptop computer, which he was kind enough to leave on,” DiPietro said. “We checked his browser history and it shows he’s spent the last few days tracking Stacy. Among other things, he’s been checking her stories on the paper’s web page as well as going to her Facebook page. The other thing is, he somehow managed to get into her Press-Tribune email account. I’m not sure how he pulled that off, but he’s obviously got some computer savvy. All those days he spent sitting around his mom’s house, he must’ve been doing something more than just watching TV.”

My head was spinning.

“Why would he want to read her emails?” I asked.

“Well, for starters it would’ve tipped him off to what she was doing today. There’s an open email on the screen from the band manager to Stacy, confirming the time and place of this morning’s interview. So Browning would’ve known all about that.”

Something went click in my head.

“That anonymous call she got this morning, I’ll bet it was Browning,” I said. “He must’ve got her phone number and called her and … ”

I broke off, waiting for my brain to catch up with my mouth.

DiPietro was a step ahead of me.

“He probably called her pretending to be someone else. He might’ve told her that he was with the band and that he was calling … ”

“That he was calling to change the location of the interview,” I interrupted, and in my excitement my voice rose an octave. “She’d arranged to do the interview at the studio where the band was rehearsing, but he probably told her they wanted to meet somewhere else. So she’ll go to the new location, but when she shows up there won’t be anybody there but him.”

Hearing myself say it out loud, I got a sick feeling. It was a clever plan from a demented mind, and I had no doubt that Stacy would’ve gone along without a second thought.

DiPietro must’ve sensed that I was getting ready to freak out because he said, “Look, Crowley, don’t panic. If that’s Browning’s plan — and I think it makes sense it is — he almost certainly would’ve arranged to meet her somewhere between Renton and Seattle. That really narrows down the area we have to search. And since we’ve already put out a description of her car, including the license plate, there’s a good chance we’ll find her before anything happens.”

That made me feel a little better, but not a lot.

“In the meantime,” he added, “keep trying her phone. Who knows, maybe she’ll answer.”

I told him I would and we hung up. I immediately called Stacy’s cell again, but once more it went right to the recording. The sound of her sweet voice — “Hi, this is Stacy. I’m sorry I missed your call, but if you leave a number I’ll call you back … ” — almost brought me to tears again.

I hit the disconnect button and stood for a few moments, taking some much-needed deep breaths. I knew I needed to make my brain do its thing calmly, quickly and without distractions because at that point minutes counted. And my next step was to call Stacy’s mother.

She answered on the third ring.

“Good morning, Mrs. Langwell. This is John,” I said. Not wanting to frighten her, I was trying to sound nonchalant.

“Good morning, John,” she said. “What a nice surprise. But remember, you’re supposed to call me Mom. And you might as well start doing it now because in a few weeks it’ll be official.”

“Sure thing, Mom,” I said, forcing a little laugh. Then I said, “The reason I’m calling is, I’m trying to reach Stacy. Do you know where she is this morning? She’s not answering her cell phone and she hasn’t returned my call.”

“She has an interview, so she’s probably got her phone turned off,” Mrs. Langwell said. “As you know, she always does that during interviews because she doesn’t want to be interrupted.”

“Oh, of course,” I said, still feigning nonchalance.

The fact is, I did know that about Stacy. It’s something she started doing after I told her it’s what I do. It’s kind of rude, not to mention annoying, to have your cell phone ring right in the middle of an interview, so I always turn it off at the last minute. And when I’d mentioned that to Stacy a few months earlier, she’d agreed and started doing the same.

Now I was hoping desperately that was the only reason she wasn’t answering her phone.

“I just talked to her a little bit ago,” Mrs. Langwell said, which reassured me some. “She told me her interview would probably last an hour. Afterward we’re going to meet for lunch before heading to the bridal shop.”

In a playful tone, she added, “Now don’t you dare show up and try to peek in the window, John. You’re not supposed to see her in her wedding dress until she walks down the aisle.”

By this time I was wondering if I’d ever get to see my bride on our wedding day. It was a terrible thought, and one that forced me to take another deep, calming breath.

Then I said, “Mrs. Langwell … I mean Mom, I promise I won’t show up and peek in the window. But I still need to talk to Stacy. It’s about … ” — I hesitated, trying to come up with a decent fib, and the best I could do was — “ … it’s about our dinner tonight. We’re getting together with friends after she’s done at the bridal shop.”

“That’s funny, Stacy never mentioned anything about that,” she said. “But I’m not surprised. She had a lot on her mind this morning. She was getting ready to leave for her interview, and then they called to change the location at the last minute.”

My heartbeat did a little skip.

“Did she tell you where the interview’s going to be now? Where they moved it to? I … ” — I hesitated again, needing another fib — “ … I was telling her how much I liked the Dogs of Mercy and she said it’d be OK if I swung by. The band is rehearsing after the interview, and we get to stick around and listen.”

A total lie. You couldn’t pay me to listen to that kind of music.

“Stacy didn’t mention the address,” Mrs. Langwell replied. “She just said it’s down by Boeing Field. The guy who called told her said it’s a big warehouse that looks abandoned, but they like to keep it that way so people won’t know what’s there. There’s actually a large studio inside.”

“And it’s by Boeing Field?”

“That’s what she said. Just south of the airport, as I recall, but that’s all I can tell you. You know, you might try calling her cell again. Of course, you could also just drive down there. I bet you’ll find it if you drive around and look for her car.”

That’s exactly what I was going to do, since I knew it’d be my best chance — and maybe my only chance — to save her.

I was getting ready to say good-bye, but then realized I had one last question. “By the way,” I said, “do you remember if Stacy ever knew a guy named Lyle Browning?”

“Hmmm, not that I recall. … Oh, wait a minute. Now that you mention it, I think there was a guy named Lyle she knew a few years ago. I’m not sure what his last name was, but it might’ve been Browning.”

“Were they friends?”

“Sort of. He worked at the Tacoma paper when Stacy was there. The way I remember it, he had a crush on her, though I know she wasn’t interested in him. She said he was kind of strange, but she still tried to be nice because he seemed harmless.”

Hardly, I thought.

“How come you’re asking about him?” she said.

“Oh, it’s nothing really. It’s because … — I had to think of one last fib — “ … it’s because I bumped into someone this morning who knew him. And Stacy’s name came up. If we’re talking about the same guy, she apparently made quite an impression on him.”

“Well, I’m not surprised,” Mrs. Langwell said. “She’s done that to quite a few men over the years. And fortunately, John, one of them was you.”

“Yes, and fortunate for me,” I managed to quip. Then I said, “Mrs. Langwell … Mom, thanks very much. I’ll see if I can reach Stacy. And then … well, I hope the two of you enjoy the rest of your day.”

It felt lousy lying to her like that, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth.

Five seconds after ending the call I was out the door. Not wanting to wait for the elevator, I scrambled down five flights of stairs, sprinted outside, got in my car — no ticket on the windshield, I noticed — revved the engine to life and pulled out into traffic. I cut right in front of an oncoming taxi, forcing the driver to slam on his brakes to avoid hitting me. He sounded his displeasure with a long blast from his horn, but I barely gave it a second thought as I sped off, leaving him far behind.

Weaving my way around slower cars, I drove south through downtown Seattle and then past the side-by-side stadiums that are the homes to Seattle’s Seahawks and Mariners. By now the traffic had thinned and there were fewer traffic lights, which was good. It took me about five minutes to arrive at Boeing Field and three more minutes to reach the south end of the airport, which was off to my left. By then I was driving with one hand on the wheel, and with the other hand I was talking on the phone to DiPietro. I told him what Mrs. Langwell had said, including the general location of the supposed interview, and that I was already in the vicinity.

“OK, Crowley, but don’t do anything stupid,” he said. “We’re leaving right now and we’ll be only a few minutes behind you. We’ve also got some other officers in the area. So if you see Browning, call us and let us know where you are. Don’t try to handle this yourself.”

I stayed silent because there’s no way I was making that promise. I was going to Stacy’s rescue and to heck with DiPietro’s instructions.

He must’ve known what I was thinking because he said, “I mean it, Crowley. I don’t want you … ”

I killed the call. And since I knew he’d probably call back, I flipped the phone in the back seat, out of reach.

Sure enough, the phone rang 20 seconds later. But I ignored it and kept on driving.

By this time I was south of the airport, so I slowed and began looking left and right for Stacy’s car. I continued south for a mile, but saw nothing, so I turned and went east for a long block, then turned again and headed back to the north.

I drove all the way to the south end of the airport — the runaway lights were flashing just in front of me — but still without seeing anything. I swung to the east again and went over another long block before heading back to the south.

Two hundred yards later, I saw her car.

It was parked in front of a large, nondescript and apparently abandoned warehouse. There were other warehouses on both sides of the street and a few cars parked here and there, but no other people. The area seemed deserted.

I pulled in behind Stacy’s car and came to a jolting stop. As I leaped out, I noticed that one of the nearby cars was a brown Ford, matching the description of Browning’s car. It meant that he’d been there waiting for her when she showed up.

It took me about five seconds to reach the warehouse door, which was all the time I had to figure out how I was going to handle this. It was possible that Browning had a gun, which meant I might be a few moments away from getting shot. But if that was to be my fate, so be it. Stacy was inside, she was in danger, and I was going to do whatever was necessary to save her, even if it meant taking a bullet or two. Gun or no gun, I was going in.

Something else occurred to me, too. I knew I should call DiPietro and give him the address since the police were probably only a few minutes away and it wouldn’t hurt to have backup. But I also knew the 30 seconds I’d need to make the call might be the difference between life and death for Stacy. No way was I taking that chance.

Then I was at the door. It wasn’t locked — the handle turned easily in my hand — but it still wouldn’t open. I gave it a good shove and it moved about an inch, but that was all. There was apparently something wedged against the door on the other side, like maybe a chair, so I shoved again and this time it moved about a half-inch. I was making progress, but much too slowly under the circumstances, so at that point I decided to use the same tactic I’d used on the locked door in Browning’s garage. I raised my right foot and jammed it against the bottom of the door, moving it another inch or two.

In desperation, I stepped back to give myself a bit more room and then slammed the bottom of my foot against the door as hard as I could.

Immediately I felt a sharp pain in my knee, but all that adrenalin did the trick because the door opened about 2 feet and that was enough for me to squeeze through. Once inside, I saw that it was indeed an aluminum chair that’d been wedged against the door, though the force of my kicks had slid it just far enough on the concrete floor to let me in.

I was in a dark hallway with office and storage spaces on both sides, maybe eight in all. Fortunately the doors were all open and I was able to glance into each one as I ran past. They were empty.

At the end of the hallway was a set of double doors. I was afraid they might be locked, but when I tried the handle they opened and …

… and I saw something I’ll never forget.

Stacy was on the floor and Browning was kneeling on top of her, pinning her with his knees against her legs and his hands holding her wrists. She was wriggling desperately, trying to get free, but he was just too large and too strong for her to have any chance.

In the next moment, I saw his hands move to her throat.

I gave a shout, Browning turned his head, and I saw his eyes widen with surprise. And I remember being surprised that he was surprised because I thought surely he would’ve heard me crashing through the outside door. But that feeling lasted only about a millisecond, and it was also my last conscious thought because from that point on I reacted solely on instinct.

And that instinct was screaming for vengeance.

I went straight for Browning, who jumped up and started running for the far door. But with a full head of steam I reached him in just a few strides, and I took him down with a flying tackle that would’ve made my high school football coach proud. He landed on his side and rolled onto his back, and then I was on him, straddling his chest. My left hand was gripping his throat, and with my clenched right fist I was bashing his face as hard as I could. It was like I wanted to pound his nose through his brain and out the back of his skull. He kept turning his face from side to side as he tried to protect himself with his forearms, but he was simply no match for my fury, which right then was on full boil. I hit him again and again, and pretty quick there was blood everywhere. On my hands, on my shirt, but mostly all over him.

I have no idea how long this lasted. It might’ve been 30 seconds or maybe a few minutes, but I’ll split the difference and say it was probably close to a minute. Long enough that my hand was starting to hurt, though not bad enough that I had any intention of letting up. In fact, every time I thought about how close he’d come to killing Stacy, I tried to hit him harder. I don’t remember thinking about Julie Bedard, Cathy Hyde, Jenna Tomlinson and Holly Tannehill, and for his sake that’s probably a good thing. If I’d thought about those other women, I might’ve killed him.

At some point I sensed other people in the room, but I didn’t let up until I felt myself being grabbed and lifted. I was furious at whoever was holding me back and kept struggling to get free, but there was simply too many of them. I was hoisted to my feet with my arms pinned to my side, and suddenly Al DiPietro was in front of me, his face just inches from mine.

“Take it easy, Crowley,” he yelled. “We’re here and we’ve got things under control.”

It took a few seconds for that message to get through. I was still breathing heavily, but my eyes stayed locked on DiPietro until it finally sank in and I quit struggling.

I felt my arms being released.

A quick head count revealed there were six cops in the room. Four suits — DiPietro, Tommy Whittaker, Rita Blankenship and Eugene Delemarter — and two uniforms, both guys I didn’t know. As I watched, the guys in uniform rolled Browning onto his stomach, pulled his arms behind his back and handcuffed his wrists before lifting him up and plopping him into a nearby chair. Close to unconscious, he started to slump as they stepped away, so one of the officers had to stand there and hold on to keep him from toppling over.

I’m not proud of what happened next. But the fact is, I thought again about what he’d almost done to Stacy and I wanted another crack at him. So I took a few steps in his direction, though fortunately the cops had cooler heads than mine. DiPietro stepped in front of me again and with a firm hand against my chest — actually it was more like a shove and a pretty good one at that — he persuaded me to knock it off.

Then he said, “Your girlfriend is over there, Crowley, and she needs you. Why don’t you go check on her and leave Browning to us.”

Just like that, all my anger disappeared. I turned and saw Whittaker and Delemarter helping Stacy into another chair. They were talking to her and she was nodding her head numbly, apparently confirming that she was OK. But she still had a dazed expression, like she couldn’t quite comprehend what’d just happened.

I walked over, leaned down and said, “I’m here, Stacy. And it’s over.”

She looked at me and for the first time her eyes seemed to focus. I took her hands in mine and pulled her gently to her feet, and in the next moment she was in my arms. I held her tightly as she sobbed against my chest.

I heard a siren in the distance. Faint at first and then louder, and I realized it was an aid car coming for us. But Stacy still clung to me and she wouldn’t let go until the EMTs were in the warehouse, requesting that I step away so they could check her over. They determined that she was extremely shaken, but otherwise unhurt, though they insisted that she be taken to the hospital just to be sure.

“Sir, I think you should go, too,” one of them told me, and he pointed at my right fist.

Looking down, I realized that my hand was not only a bloody mess, but that it also hurt like heck. But injured hand or not, I would’ve gone to the hospital anyway. There’s no way I was leaving Stacy at that point, both for her sake and for mine.

So they started to lead us away, and as we took our first steps I saw a piece of paper flutter to the warehouse floor. It’d evidently been caught on the lapel of Stacy’s jacket.

I bent to pick it up.

It was, as I expected, our engagement announcement. Clipped from that morning’s paper.

CHAPTER 25

A week later I was in the car with Stacy. We were on our way to Harborview Medical Center to visit with Jenna Tomlinson and her mother.

Our outing came at the end of a very difficult week for Stacy. About the only good news was that she was fine physically. She had some bruises from her struggle with Lyle Browning, but she was otherwise unhurt. At the hospital she’d been checked over by an emergency room physician, prescribed some pain medication and released that same afternoon.

So in that respect she was lucky. But the blessing of having only minor injuries was offset by an emotional trauma that was severe and almost debilitating. She spent the next two days in a fog of disbelief, and on the third day the tears began. She cried for much of the remaining week, and when she wasn’t crying she was often staring off, reliving those terrible moments in the warehouse. Stacy lives in a world of goodness and joy, and she tends to see only the very best in everyone, friends and strangers alike. She doesn’t understand that some people are prone to evil, and it’s beyond her comprehension that anyone would do evil to her. They’re naïve notions, of course, but they’ve been hers for a long time and the process of losing them — which was the upshot of her experience with Browning — was unsettling, to say the least.

Fortunately, her flashbacks were becoming fewer and less severe by the end of that week. She was on indefinite leave from the Press-Tribune, and Harvey Connell had graciously agreed to give me a few days off, too. Stacy and I spent most of that time together, including daily walks that were therapeutic enough that we began going out once in the morning and again in the evening. She’d hold my arm the entire way, and if we stopped in a coffee shop or to sit on a park bench she’d snuggle close and then poke me in the ribs until I wrapped an arm around her shoulder. I think she felt safety in my embrace.

As it turned out, my own injuries were more serious than hers. For starters, I’d damaged ligaments in my knee when I kicked open the warehouse door, leaving me with a limp that was supposed to last about four weeks. Also, I’d suffered some small fractures in the index and ring fingers of my right hand from my attempt to pulverize Browning’s face. The human skull is evidently a lot harder than I knew, and my penalty for that ignorance was a small cast that I’d be wearing for those same four weeks.

Given my bum knee, the walks with Stacy were limited to short distances and always in the vicinity of her apartment. Otherwise we mostly stayed in and watched a lot of rented movies, and for obvious reasons we avoided anything with depictions of violent crime. The hospital had provided the names and phone numbers of counselors that specialized in treating victims of emotional trauma, but to that point we hadn’t made any calls. Stacy’s a strong woman with good people around her, and I felt certain that what she needed more than anything was time.

But I also knew she needed to start getting out again, so at the end of the week I suggested some day trips to scenic places in and around Seattle. Stacy agreed, but said she first wanted to visit Jenna. I hesitated, thinking we ought to avoid seeing anyone or anything that might bring back memories of her encounter with Browning. But Stacy insisted, so I phoned Mrs. Tomlinson who urged us to come, and the next morning we were off.

It was a cloudy day with light rain, and for the first few minutes the only sound in the car was the radio, tuned to Stacy’s favorite classical music station. She was unusually quiet, which got me to thinking this was maybe too much, too soon. I was concerned enough to look over a few times, and I guess she noticed because she finally turned and gave a little nod to let me know she was OK.

We pulled into the hospital parking lot, found a spot near the main entrance, and walked hand in hand to the door — and because of my cast Stacy had to come around and hold my left hand. We rode an elevator to the fifth floor and checked in at the nursing station, where the young woman at the desk waved us through. With Browning in custody, there was no longer a need to announce visitors. Or for that matter, to keep a police officer stationed in the hallway.

I’d been wondering if Jenna knew what’d happened to Stacy and me, and I got the answer as soon as we walked into the room. Jenna, who was sitting up in bed, greeted us with a smile. But then she blinked, her jaw trembled and she began to cry. That’s all it took for Stacy to start crying, too, and Mrs. Tomlinson promptly joined in. I held my own for about 15 seconds, but my composure was no match for the tears of three women I care about very much. My eyes were filling as the four of us had a group hug right there at the edge of the bed.

Mrs. Tomlinson passed around the tissue box and then pulled over some chairs for Stacy and me.

Right off, Jenna asked about our ordeal. I let Stacy tell the story, and it was really the first time she’d opened up to anyone other than her family or me. She went through that awful day from beginning to end, speaking calmly at times, choking up at other times, and even admitting in a quavering voice that she thought she was going to die — right up to the moment I came charging into the warehouse.

Jenna was hanging on every word and occasionally looking at me like it was the most amazing thing that I’d come to Stacy’s rescue. She then asked about my injuries, and she didn’t seem convinced when I told her that some broken fingers and a gimpy knee were no big thing. From her expression, there’s apparently nothing more gallant than a man who risks life and limb to save his beloved.

“I’m so glad you’re both OK,” she said softly, touching at her eyes with another tissue.

At that point Stacy turned the conversation to Jenna’s recovery. Which had been, by all indications, remarkable. Gone were the blank expressions and verbal lapses caused by the gaps in her memory. She was back to being her usual vivacious self, and for Jenna that means a smile that can light up a room. Seeing her so bright and cheerful, it was easy to remember why I’d once fallen for her. And why I probably would’ve fallen for her all over again if it hadn’t been for Stacy.

And speaking of Stacy, she’d moved her chair to the edge of the bed and was sitting there holding Jenna’s hand like they were old friends. Seeing the two of them together like that was, I must admit, rather remarkable. After all, one of them was about to become Mrs. John Crowley and the other had nearly become Mrs. John Crowley. At the very least I would’ve expected some diffidence, if not outright disdain. But it wasn’t like that at all. For her part, Jenna couldn’t have been more gracious. She gushed over Stacy’s engagement ring, asked about the wedding and wished us every happiness. And Stacy was no less cordial. She wanted to hear all about Jenna’s return to the Seattle stage, beginning with auditions for a forthcoming production of “My Fair Lady,” with Jenna in the running for the starring role of Eliza Doolittle.

“I ’ope I get it,” Jenna said in her best cockney accent, and we all had a good laugh.

“You will,” Stacy told her confidently. “And when you do, John and I will be right there in the front row cheering you on.”

“You’re a dear,” Jenna replied, squeezing Stacy’s hand. “I can see why John’s in love with you.” She gave me a quick look and then told Stacy, “Take good care of him. He’s a special guy.”

Stacy promised she would, and then they both turned and smiled at me. It was all I could do not to choke up again.

At that point Mrs. Tomlinson began telling us about Jenna’s ongoing physical therapy. She explained that her daughter was still struggling with certain fine motor skills, apparently due to bruising in the motor cortex area of her brain. For example, her once elegant penmanship was now more of a childish scrawl, and she was also having trouble tying her shoes and even using a knife to cut her food.

“It’s like being a 4-year-old all over again,” Jenna said with a laugh, confirming that at least her sense of humor was intact.

Until that moment I’d been unsure if I should ask about her own encounter with Browning. In fact, I’d pretty well decided against it on the drive to the hospital. But seeing her in such good spirits and realizing there were still things I wanted to know, I changed my mind. I guess the inquisitive reporter in me won out.

“How much do you remember about that night?” I asked her.

Stacy immediately gave me a questioning look, like I’d brought up a taboo subject. But Jenna didn’t seem to mind.

“Not much,” she said, brushing some loose hair back from her face. “I remember a few things, like going to dinner with my friends and later being at the club. I even remember going outside afterward and chatting with them on the sidewalk for a few minutes before we all said good-bye. But I don’t remember anything after that. Not until I woke up here at the hospital.”

“The police say that man was waiting for her outside,” said Mrs. Tomlinson, who was sitting on the bed beside her daughter. “They think he’d been following her, and unfortunately she’d parked away from the others. Not only that, her car was on a poorly lit side street where there was no one else around. The police think he was probably hiding nearby, and that he jumped out and attacked her just as she was getting into her car.”

“Was he someone you knew from before?” I asked Jenna.

“A little bit,” she said. “He used to come into the restaurant where I worked.”

In her last year of college, Jenna was a waitress at the Elliott Bay Grille, an upscale restaurant on the Seattle waterfront. With her appealing looks, great smile and vibrant personality, she was always a hit with the customers, and particularly with the men. She used to rake in big tips, which is why she always seemed to have more money in her wallet than I did.

“The first time he came in he was with his mother,” she said. “As I recall, they were celebrating something. His birthday, I think. But as we all got to talking, it somehow came up that I was an actress. His mother didn’t seem impressed, but he sure was. He asked a lot of questions, and then a few days later he showed up again and it was the same thing, except this time he was by himself. He told me he’d already gone to see the show I was in at the time and that he thought I was great.

“After that he started coming in about once a week and he always asked to sit in my section. I could see where it was headed, so I finally told him I had a boyfriend” — she nodded at me — “and I assumed that’d be the end of it. The other thing was, I was getting ready to leave for New York in a few weeks so there was no reason to think I’d ever see him again.”

This was, I realized, one of the big remaining pieces to the Clip Killer puzzle. It confirmed that Browning had indeed known all his victims — Julie Bedard from his many visits to The Harem, Cathy Hyde as an acquaintance from high school, Jenna as an actress he idolized, and Stacy from the time they worked together at the Tacoma newspaper. As for Holly Tannehill, she was the only one of the five he’d actually dated. Earlier in the week, Al DiPietro had told me that Browning met Ms. Tannehill through an on-line matchmaking service a few years before. They’d hooked up for drinks at a downtown Seattle bar, and it took Ms. Tannehill about two minutes to realize that Browning was much less appealing than he’d portrayed himself in his greatly embellished profile. She quickly found an excuse to end the date.

There were, however, a few final unknowns, and the foremost of these was Browning’s motive for his horrific killing spree. Investigators could only speculate because he still wasn’t talking, but the prevailing theory, according to DiPietro, was that Browning had simply grown tired of feeling like a loser. He’d apparently come to believe that his dismal life was the result of never having had a great girlfriend, and for that circumstance he blamed the women, not himself. A string of murders seemed his way of getting even, and likewise a way of getting the attention he craved and — in his horribly warped mind — the respect he deserved.

The clippings, meanwhile, were apparently a product of his longtime fascination with newspapers. A few days after his arrest, detectives were able to track down a family friend who said that Browning started making scrapbooks as a boy. At the outset he collected stories about people he knew, but over time he also clipped articles about individuals and subjects of interest. According to the friend, Browning kept buying more scrapbooks and filling them with more clippings, and he always delighted at the chance to show them off. It was a harmless hobby, at least in his childhood, but somewhere along the way — probably about the time puberty kicked in, DiPietro surmised — Browning started cutting out stories and photos of attractive women. Most were strangers, but he also collected articles about women he knew, and the latter became the source of the clippings he left beside the bodies of his victims.

“It was an obsession,” DiPietro told me. “A consuming, perverted and ultimately deadly obsession.”

As it happened, the Holly Tannehill story appeared in the paper about the same time Browning decided to start killing the women who’d rejected him over the years. He cut out the article about Ms. Tannehill, put it with the other clippings about Julie Bedard, Cathy Hyde and Jenna Tomlinson that he’d removed from his scrapbook, and at that point he disappeared from his north Seattle home. He evidently figured the police might come looking for him at some point, so a newly rented apartment in Renton became his hideout. But he was still spending a few nights a week at The Harem, and all the while getting angrier and more vengeful. Shortly after Benny Walser told him to get lost, Ms. Bedard became Victim No. 1.

As for Stacy, she’d been one of his intended victims all long. When the police searched his apartment, they found he had a smaller photograph of her in a folder near his computer. It was actually her column logo, which sometimes accompanied stories she wrote about the performing arts. But in a bizarre coincidence, our engagement announcement showed up on the same day Browning was planning to surprise her in the abandoned Seattle warehouse. Seeing the photo in the paper that morning, he simply swapped out the smaller picture of Stacy for the larger photo of the two of us. Yes, it was truly a bizarre coincidence, and a fortunate one, too. The appearance of our engagement announcement in the paper that morning and the discovery of the missing clipping by the police a few hours later were part of a fortuitous chain of events that allowed us to save her life.

DiPietro was also able to clear up some things that’d puzzled me in the days since Browning’s arrest. On our earlier visit to Jenna’s hospital room, DiPietro had shown her pictures of the three men banished from The Harem. She hadn’t reacted to the first two — and one was Browning, suggesting that she hadn’t seen him on the night of the assault — but she’d panicked on seeing the photo of James Carter. DiPietro was curious about the same thing, and later got an explanation from Mrs. Tomlinson. In Jenna’s second year in New York she’d been the victim of a violent purse-snatching incident near Central Park, and the assault left her with significant, though fortunately not life-threatening injuries. Her attacker had been a black man who resembled James Carter, and his picture had evidently triggered confusing memories in Jenna’s traumatized brain.

Then there was Leo Jacklin, The Harem’s burly bouncer and the man who’d been following Julie Bedard and later her friend Rhonda Kendall. The cops had questioned Jacklin extensively and came to find out that he had trouble relating to women. Strange as it sounds — and it sounded very strange to me, given all the beauties he saw at the club every day — he was completely nonplussed when it came to females. So he became a voyeur of sorts, and one who always preferred watching from a distance. He admired Ms. Bedard enough to follow her for a time, and he later did the same with Ms. Kendall, whom he’d first seen on the night she visited The Harem. As he later admitted to police, he’d tailed her to the parking lot when she walked out, got her license number, traced her address, and then took to parking his dark SUV in places where he could watch her, even if only for a few seconds. It was certainly peculiar behavior, but the bottom line was that he had nothing to do with the Clip Killer cases.

And neither did Harland Emerson Jr., just as his dad had insisted all along. A week after Browning’s arrest, the elder Emerson went public with his plan to file a civil lawsuit seeking monetary damages for the grievous harm suffered by his son for two unwarranted arrests. In time he backed off, and in a press release he explained that it was because his family had urged him to let it go. But according to courthouse insiders, who spoke to me in confidence, the only reason he changed his mind was because he knew he didn’t have a prayer of winning.

As for Browning, he was safely locked up in the King County jail, where he’d stay while awaiting trial on three counts of capital murder, plus various other charges for the attacks on Stacy and Jenna. Prosecutors were hoping for an eventual confession, but in the meantime they were building a case that left Browning little hope of an acquittal. His computer was filled with information on all the victims, confirming that he’d put in considerable time and effort planning the string of murders.

“He’s looking at spending the rest of his life in prison,” DiPietro told me. “And that’s if he’s lucky.”

Meaning, of course, that Browning was a likely candidate for Washington’s death penalty. But that decision would be up to prosecutors, and their announcement was not expected for several weeks.

So all that’s what I was thinking as I sat there in Jenna’s hospital room, and meanwhile the three women were chatting away about other topics including, once again, the wedding. Jenna and her mother had lots of questions about the church, the color scheme, the music, Stacy’s dress, the bridal party and the ceremony itself, and it was great to see Stacy perk up as she talked about our big day.

The conversation was interrupted by a knock at the door. It was a doctor coming in to check on Jenna, except this was a different doctor from the one we’d met on our last visit.

And the reason was soon obvious.

He introduced himself as Dr. Mark Chambers, and he was probably in his mid-30s, remarkably good looking, and with an interest in Jenna that was clearly more than professional. As I soon found out, they already had a dinner date planned for the Friday after her discharge.

“This hospital prides itself in following up with its patients,” he told the rest of us, flashing a big smile.

Then he turned and smiled at Jenna, who smiled right back. Knowing her as I do, I could tell she was smitten. And wouldn’t you know, I felt a little pang of, well, I guess you’d call it jealously. Which was silly, of course, given my pending marriage to Stacy. Jenna and I had moved on a long time ago, and at that point I’m sure we both wanted only what was best for the other.

In the next moment I glanced at Stacy. She was looking at me with a little smile and I’m sure she knew what I was thinking, which of course made me feel even more foolish.

Then she subtly tapped her watch, indicating that it was probably time for us to leave.

I nodded and we stood to say our good-byes. There were hugs all around — well, I didn’t hug Dr. Chambers, deciding a handshake would suffice — and then Stacy and I departed, having promised Jenna and her mother that we’d keep in touch.

We took the elevator down, walked to the main doors, stepped outside and continued across the parking lot. Neither of us had said anything since leaving Jenna’s room, and it was not until we were almost to the car that Stacy broke the silence.

“This was good for me,” she said.

“Was it?” I said absently.

“Yes, it was.”

Then she stopped in her tracks, and since she was gripping my hand I had to stop, too.

“I’ve been feeling sorry for myself,” she said, looking at me. “What that man did to me was terrible and it wasn’t fair, and it seemed like the worst thing that could’ve happened. But it wasn’t the worst thing at all because I’m still alive. I’m a lot luckier than those other women, and I’m even luckier than Jenna because she’s still in the hospital. Seeing her today helped me realize just how lucky I am.”

I nodded with understanding and turned toward the car, but she wasn’t finished.

“There’s something else I realize, too,” she said. “What happened was awful, but it’s behind us now. And that means it’s time for me to start thinking again about marrying the most wonderful man in the world.”

She was looking me straight in the eye and speaking from the heart, and what she said touched me in a way that was beyond words. And I mean that literally because for a few seconds I couldn’t speak.

Then I said the first thing that came to mind, which happened to be the only words that made sense right then.

“I love you,” I told her.

“I love you, too,” she replied softly.

We reached the car and I held the door for her. Then I went around, got in the driver’s seat and started the engine. The windshield was still wet from earlier, but it’d stopped raining. In fact, the clouds were parting and the sun was breaking through in brilliant rays, and it seemed a fitting metaphor for everything that’d happened in our lives over the last week.

“Where should we go?” Stacy asked.

“It’s your call,” I said. “This is your day, so you decide.”

“Anywhere I want?” she asked.

“Yep.”

“Well … ” she said, pretending to give the matter great thought.

Then she said, “OK, I have an idea. But first I have to ask you a question.”

“All right.”

“When do I find out where we’re going for our honeymoon?”

Since Stacy was handling all the wedding preparations, I told her it was my job to plan the honeymoon. And since we were still a few weeks away, I’d yet to tip my hand.

“I’m asking,” she said, “because I need to know if I should bring a bathing suit.”

“Fair enough,” I replied. “We’re indeed going someplace warm and I’m sure we’ll go swimming. So, yes, you’ll need a bathing suit.”

“OK,” she said, “then I should tell you that I bought a new bathing suit the other day. And I think maybe I should show it to you. Because if you don’t like it, then I’ll need to take it back for an exchange.”

“You want to show me your bathing suit?” I asked, unable to keep from grinning.

“Uh-huh. I know you’re not supposed to see my wedding dress before I walk down the aisle, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with showing you my bathing suit for the honeymoon.”

Very innocently, she added, “Do you?”

“Not at all,” I said quickly. “I actually think it’s a good idea. In fact, I think it’s a great idea.”

“Oh, good. Because, you see, I’m a little concerned about this bathing suit. It’s a bikini and I’m afraid it might actually be too small. I thought maybe you could tell me what you think.”

“I can do that,” I said. “I can definitely do that. So where should we go? Your place?”

She smiled.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Richard Myhre is a longtime Seattle-area sports journalist. He lives with his wife in the nearby city of Edmonds, and they have three adult children. This is his second novel.

Table of Contents

Also by Richard MyhreCarkeek Park

For Joyce, who gives me inspiration, encouragement, devotion, kindness and, above all, joy. Her love ...

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

ABOUT THE AUTHOR