Skye Cree 02: The Bones Will Tell Page 16

  Josh came awake, all the way awake. Throwing his legs over the side of the bed, he popped up, rubbed the back of his neck. “We have a survivor.”

  “What?” Skye muttered as she tried to come out of a deep slumber and sit up. “What did you see?”

  “We have a survivor,” Josh repeated. “And the first cops on the scene blew it. They didn’t connect the rape attempt to our guy. But it was him.”

  Because he was shaking, Skye scooted over to him, put her arms around his neck. More awake now, she decided he needed to talk about it or he’d never get back to sleep. “What exactly happened?”

  Josh went over what he’d seen, describing the guy taking off his clothes, how he’d entered through the little boy’s room then crept past the child as he slept, and into where the woman had been napping on the couch in the living room.

  “You say the cops didn’t suspect it was an attempt by the serial killer. You know this for a fact?”

  “They didn’t make the connection. Why wouldn’t they make the connection, Skye? This case has been all over every news outlet in the state. If this is an example of police work, this is one reason we can’t nail him. There’s no coordinated effort.”

  “We’ll change that. I’ll get hold of Harry tomorrow.”

  “How many others are out there where the incidents didn’t get linked to our guy?”

  “This one won’t fall through the cracks, Josh. We won’t let it. Did you happen to catch where the attack took place?”

  Josh frowned, scrubbed his hands over his face, thought for a minute. “I don’t know. I’m not sure which neighborhood. But there has to be a way to check the logs of the patrol officers and find out which ones responded to a rape attempt on a woman where a little boy interrupted the attack. How many of those can there be in one night?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Frank De Palo was beyond pissed.

  How the hell was he supposed to explain his fucking broken nose to his trainer? Not only that, for the first time in ten years, he’d failed to control the situation.

  He’d let the bitch get away from him.

  Frank didn’t take failure well. Never had. His fractured schnozz still hurt. The bitch had caught him right across the bridge when he’d been distracted by her kid. If he hadn’t turned his head he’d have been able to take care of both woman and boy. Should’ve taken care of the damned kid beforehand, he thought now.

  Frank popped three more ibuprofen, even though he rarely took drugs of any kind, and gulped them down with half a bottle of water. He hoped like hell it eased the pain because he had a Goddamned match in less than two hours. What the hell would his opponent think when he walked into the arena with a bandage already stuck across his beak?

  Just thinking about last night had Frank making a fist, ready to pelt the face of his next challenger he faced in the octagon, the place where he ruled.

  For the past three years, he’d dominated the world of Mixed Martial Arts. Since pursuing his dream in MMA he’d discovered his calling. Without really knowing it, he’d been training for the sport most of his life. Originally a long-distance runner in high school, the sport gave him the one-on-one adrenaline of facing an opponent and beating the shit out of him with his superior skill. The game had turned out to be his means of escape. Even if that release valve didn’t last very long, it had more than likely prevented him from getting arrested many times over the last thirty-six months.

  Not only that, it encompassed all the disciplines he loved. Karate. Kickboxing. Jiu-jitsu. Judo. Muay thai. And of course, his first love, wrestling. Since he’d made varsity three straight years during high school, he’d been good enough to get a scholarship. Since first stepping into the octagon, he’d been able to maintain his welterweight status and the required minimum seven-percent body fat. Physically fit, in shape, he trained daily with Seattle’s well-known fitness guru Mick Hyatt.

  Mick hadn’t really taught him anything he didn’t already know. But appearances were everything, especially if you needed to hide a darker self. No one in their right mind would ever link Frank De Palo, the all-American athlete and MMA star, to his daily early-morning reconnaissance, or his B&E extracurricular activities, or Frank’s personal favorite—outdoing Gary Ridgway, the local man dubbed the Green River killer—in body count.

  While Ridgway had focused on many of society’s throwaways, hookers and teenagers with problems at home, Frank aspired to achieve greater things with better more worthwhile victims. With his strict religious upbringing he refused to go near prostitutes. And teen girls didn’t interest him much.

  But snooty women who considered themselves independent and better than the common guy were a different story. Those types who thought they were so safe, tucked inside their upscale homes and snuggled in their beds where they were most vulnerable, presented a challenge to him. Getting to them, controlling them, and having them were the essence of the game.

  As he took a second look at his broken nose in the mirror, he decided Janie Holliman hadn’t been his first choice anyway.

  Who wanted a woman who’d gone through childbirth? He should’ve passed up the bitch and left her to the sleazebags she’d hooked up with in the past. Obviously, she wasn’t much of a woman in the sack if she couldn’t live with the man who’d fathered her child.

  From now on, he’d avoid single moms. They didn’t really do anything for him anyway. They weren’t worth his time and effort, too slutty. From now on, he reasoned, he’d stick with the hot, single women, he preferred.

  “Harry, you have a survivor. You just don’t know it. Check the log from last night. You had two patrol officers respond to an attempted rape by what they considered to be nothing more than a prowler in the neighborhood who got a little frisky. That prowler was our guy. And he got away.”

  “Goddamn it! I’ve told those beat cops to report anything like that to the task force. Which neighborhood, Skye?”

  “That I can’t tell you, Harry. Before you blow a gasket, I’m not holding back. I just don’t know the answer. But the woman escaped his attack with a little boy in tow. How many times could something like that have taken place last night?”

  “Good point. I’ll go through the incident reports and get back to you.”

  “Let us know what you find out. Because Josh wants to talk to the survivor.”

  The wheels of bureaucratic red tape were slow. Wading through reports took another ten hours before Harry got back to them.

  He had been able to confirm what Skye and Josh already knew. Janie Holliman had barely escaped from a serial killer with her life and probably that of her child. Over the phone Harry tracked Janie down at her mother’s house and got the woman to agree to sit down with all of them to recall what had happened.

  So the next day, Skye and Josh drove all the way out to Redmond because Janie refused to go back inside her little cottage in Olympic Hills.

  Harry met them on the sidewalk in front of a two-story, Tudor-style house belonging to Janie’s parents.

  “It’s probably a good thing she’s staying with someone,” Skye noted. “Just remember to go easy on her, guys. The woman’s been through a life-changing event.”

  Josh and Harry exchanged glances before turning to Skye. “I’m a little insulted by that,” Josh said. “I’m not here to beat her up.”

  “Nor am I,” Harry added.

  “I know that. But having to replay the whole cycle of events is traumatic and will conjure up all the panic and fear she felt at the time. That’s gonna stay with her for years even though she got away.”

  Janie’s mother, Jeanette Frazier, greeted them at the door, ushering the trio into the living area, she reminded them, “Janie hasn’t been herself since it happened. My daughter hasn’t stopped shaking for the past twenty-four hours. I’m mostly seeing to it that David is taken care of while Janie tries to deal with all of this. But every time I think about what could’ve happened to her in that house and to my grandson, I get sick to my s
tomach and break out in a cold sweat.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Skye said. “She got lucky, Mrs. Frazier. And she knows it. But she’ll move past this…eventually.”

  “Call me Jeanette. And I hope you’re right, Miss Cree because my Janie is a good person, a good mother even though she has to work and do the parenting for two people sometimes.”

  “What about David?” Josh asked which earned him a glare from Jeanette. “David saw this guy, too, right?”

  “Surely, you don’t intend to question a three-year-old, do you?” Jeanette wanted to know, ringing her hands in front of her. She sent an accusing scowl toward the detective. “You didn’t mention that you wanted to talk to David when you called.”

  But it was Josh who answered. “Don’t worry, we won’t talk to David. I doubt he’d be able to tell us much anyway because of his young age.”

  “Thank goodness for that,” Janie exclaimed from the doorway.

  Three pairs of eyes stared at their survivor. They hadn’t expected the woman to be so petite. The little brunette couldn’t have stood any taller than five-three at the most. She looked as if she might weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet.

  “So you took down a man who outweighed you by seventy pounds and had you in height by seven or eight inches?” Skye asked, clearly impressed.

  Before she replied, Janie turned to her mother and suggested, “Mom, will you go make sure David is occupied while I talk to these people.”

  “Sure, honey. You call me if you need anything.”

  As soon as Jeanette had left the room, Janie sunk down into the nearest chair. She finally addressed Skye’s question. “I guess I was able to take down the asshole because David ran into the room and he turned his attention on my child. It was all fear then. I thought he’d hurt my son. And when I saw an opening, I took it. I was afraid he was going to hurt David,” Janie repeated, her eyes misting over at the reminder.

  “From reading the police report, I’d say you kicked his fucking ass and broke his nose,” Skye commented. “Way to go, Janie!”

  Janie couldn’t help it. That assessment caused her to crack a grin. Her smile broke some of the tension in the room. “You know it wasn’t until much later that morning that I realized who it was in my house that tried to attack me. I’d seen the news, never ever considered I’d be a potential victim.”

  “What can you tell us about him?” Harry wanted to know, getting right down to business. “From the report I read, we already know he wore some kind of a ski mask. We know you wouldn’t recognize him again. We’re not dragging you anywhere to look at a lineup of suspects. There’s no need. So relax here. We just want to see if, by any chance, you can give us something, remember anything that might help us catch this guy.”

  Janie shook her head and corrected Harry. “Well, for one, I never said he wore a ski mask. That to me means like a knitted cap or something. This was more lightweight and sheer. A stretchy fabric almost like what Spider-Man wears.” At that, Janie smiled a little wider. “That’s what David asked me after the cops left and I was putting him to bed at Tara’s. It was Tara’s house I ran to, to get away. Anyway, when I was trying to get David to go back down to sleep, he asked why Spider-Man came into our house naked.”

  “Interesting,” Skye mumbled, as if considering the child’s take on what he saw. “Could this mask have been homemade?”

  “Sure, I guess. It reminded me of one of those masks the wrestlers we sometimes watch on television wear. But instead of ending around the mouth this one covered his entire face and his throat area. It was shiny, too. At least that’s what I remember thinking.”

  Josh exchanged glances with Skye as if keying in on the wrestler angle. “You mean it sparkled or glistened in the light?” he asked.

  Janie closed her eyes to try to remember. “Sort of, I guess I’d say it glistened more than sparkled. Huh, that’s odd.”

  “What?” Skye prompted.

  “When I fell asleep on the sofa, the lights were on and so was the TV. Oh my God! When I woke up the only light came from my little kitchen, the light above the stove. He must have turned the light on in there.” Both of Janie’s hands flew to her mouth. “I just realized. He must’ve been in my house with us for some time before I woke up, long enough to make himself at home. I remember trying to wake up because I could hear footsteps. I don’t know how much time passed before I was able to fully come awake. I remembering thinking it was David and hoped he would go back to sleep. Then I heard a dragging sound or some kind of thumping along the floor. I thought David had gotten up to play.”

  Janie sat there stricken at the realization. “I make sure I lock all the doors and check them every night. Like I said, I’d listened to the news. He got in anyway. I didn’t respond to the noise I heard soon enough. I thought it came from outside, a cat or dog. But…how did he get in?”

  Harry thumbed through the police report. “The two officers agreed that he made entry into the house by way of the window in the smaller bedroom.”

  Janie’s eyes went wide and she swallowed hard, before her hand moved to her stomach. “David’s room? I think I might be sick. I’ve already told my landlord I can’t live there after what happened.”

  “Anything else, at all, you remember about the guy?” Josh asked.

  “He wore Paco Rabanne cologne.”

  Skye’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding? How do you know that?”

  “I work in a salon all day, cutting hair. Men come and go all the time. I recognize their aftershave. Actually it’s kind of a game with me guessing which fragrance they use. His was Paco Rabanne, not exactly cheap either.”

  “That sells for at least fifty bucks,” Josh said in agreement.

  “Sometimes more,” Janie added. “My ex got it as a Christmas gift one year.”

  “Mommy!” David shouted from the doorway before he ran and crawled into Janie’s lap.

  Janie wrapped her arms around his little body and brought him into her. “This is David.”

  “Hi,” David said, not a bit shy for a three-year-old. “Are you gonna catch da naked man wif da dog?”

  Skye looked at Harry then at Josh. “What dog? The naked man had a dog?” Skye asked clearly perplexed by that news.

  David bobbed his little head up down. “Right dere,” the little boy said, pointing to the upper part of his arm. “The doggie was right dere.”

  “A tattoo,” Skye reasoned. “Just the face, David? Or did the picture have a body with it?”

  “Doggie face,” David replied.

  “What kind of doggie?” Harry said, almost jumping off the couch in the direction of the child.

  But Janie gave the detective a hard stare. “Detective, he isn’t old enough to know about different breeds of dogs.”

  “But he could point to a picture if he recognized the same kind, right?” Josh proffered. “Couldn’t he?” It was worth a shot. Josh brought out his iPhone, searched the Internet for a website featuring photos of all kinds of dogs. “Would you like to see my phone, David? It has pictures of doggies.”

  For the next forty-five minutes, Josh took the little boy through a series of websites until David finally pointed to one. “Dat one. It looks like dat one.”

  Josh glanced at the screen, held up the phone for Skye to see.

  “I thought it would be a bulldog,” Skye admitted, as she stared at the image. She shrugged one shoulder. “You know, like some kind of fierce dog. That’s a terrier, a cute one at that.”

  Josh turned to Janie. “You didn’t see the tattoo, did you, Janie?” Josh asked, hoping for any type of confirmation other than a flimsy lead from a three-year-old witness.

  But Janie shook her head. “Sorry, I didn’t notice it. I was too shaken and scared of what he might do to my son.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of,” Josh mumbled as they turned to go.

  Outside as they stood on the street, the three of them went over what they’d learned.

  “He wears a mas
k that looks like Spider-Man,” Josh said.

  “Or the wrestlers on television,” Skye added, biting her lip. “And he has a tattoo of a cute, little terrier on the upper part of his arm.”

  “He wears expensive aftershave lotion and spent time in the house before waking Janie up to assault her.”

  “How reliable is information from a toddler anyway?” Harry pointed out.

  “Reliable or not, it’s more than we had before we got here,” Skye reasoned, as they headed to the car.

  Chapter Eighteen

  An eager fourteen-year-old Frank waited for his girlfriend, Denise Holland, at the secret place they liked to meet after school.

  The abandoned winery had been closed down decades earlier by his own grandfather back in the seventies. Located a good half a mile out of town, down a road no one bothered using any more, the old building was off the main thoroughfare, the spot remote.

  They had to ride their bikes to get here. But since the afternoon was warm and sunny, everything a spring day in May should be, it gave the two of them a chance to be alone to talk and to maybe neck. The last time they’d been together here, Denise had let him get to second base. Since then, he hadn’t been able to think of anything else.

  While he sat in the overgrown courtyard on the concrete rim of the circular water fountain, waiting for Denise, Frank grew impatient. The idea of touching Denise’s boobs, what there was of them, got him excited. He hoped she let him fondle them again today. Of course, hers weren’t like any of the others he’d felt. Denise’s were small and round and the nipples didn’t stick out the way he preferred but they were still breasts.

  But as he sat among the weeds and scrub, tapping a stick he’d found on the ground—Frank realized this was the perfect, out-of-way spot for two kids to meet who had sorta been going steady—since they’d gone to the spring dance together back in April. It was now almost the end of the school year when they could spend a lot more time together. That is, if the two of them could manage to sneak away at camp this summer. Since Denise was a member of the same church he went to, his mother liked Denise just fine which was a huge plus. His mother didn’t like everyone.