Page 51 of Water's Edge

“Leave them. I need to see all of them.”

I start with Margie. The description under the photo shows her height at five feet six inches, weight 110, hair color red, eyes blue, age twenty-two, white, female. The date she went missing and the date the body was found are listed last.

The second picture in the stack is a missing person’s poster. It appears to be a selfie taken in a car. It captures her from the chest up. The top of the steering wheel is in the picture but can’t hide the fullness of her breasts. Not now. She is giving a sexyYou know you want melook. Her hair shines with a lustrous copper hue. Her face is flushed with happiness.

The contrast is like a negative of the autopsy photo.

Dina Knowles is listed as five feet eight inches, weight 120, hair red, eyes hazel, age twenty, white, female. The dates she went missing and was found are also recorded. I turn to the second page, which is also a missing person poster. This one is captured in the backyard of a home. She is sitting at a picnic table with a large drink in front of her. Maybe an iced tea or Long Island tea. There are several beer cans and bottles on the table. She is smiling and playfully holding a hand up in a fake attempt to block the camera. No rings on her fingers. No jewelry.Wrong.She is wearing a nose ring, a small gold hook. I did that once to look like a college student. I was only seventeen and had faked my admissions papers to get into Portland State.

I look again at the “Missing” photo of Margie. She is wearing earrings that look like little gold multicolor butterflies.

They are missing in her autopsy photo.

Margie was killed almost two years ago. Dina six months ago. The dates they were reported missing were not the same months, or even close. The killer wasn’t driven by a season or date like some. Instead he focused on the similarity of his victims.

Leann’s description from her license matches the description given by Dr. Andrade at the autopsy. Height five feet seven inches, weight 125, hair red, eyes hazel, age twenty-one—one month shy of twenty-two—white, female. She is wearing hoop earrings in the license photo. In the autopsy photo, her hair is washed-out red. Dead looking. Tiny puncture marks indent each earlobe. The earrings are missing from her pierced ears.

Ronnie said there was no jewelry in Leann’s cabin except for the locket.

Maybe this guy is a collector?

Margie’s butterflies.

Dina’s nose ring.

Leann’s hoop earrings.

Serial killers frequently keep mementos of their victims. I knew of one guy in Indiana who kept the driver’s licenses or ID cards of his victims. The pictures turned him on. They also proved to be his downfall.

“They all have the most beautiful red hair,” Ronnie says, bringing me back to the moment. “Mine was bright like that until I put a ridiculous rinse on it. I think I’ll change it back.”

She’s right. They all look like sisters. I don’t say it, but it passes through my mind just then: Ronnie looks like she could be related to the dead girls.

Twenty-Six

I flip through the remaining crime scene photos provided by the detectives in the Clallam and Kitsap County Sheriff’s Offices. The injuries on the bodies are almost identical to our victim’s. Dark narrow cuts encircle the wrists, the same marks are around the ankles, and there is a wider, deeper bruise around the throat. A buckle mark cut into the back of the neck. The bodies only differ in the amount of deep tissue bruising from a fist or feet.

Margie also had some bruising that their pathologist stated was caused by a club about two inches wide that had broken some of the ribs in her back. She was the first victim. It’s possible her killer changed his method a little in the next killings for some reason.

Refining his techniques.

Anxious he’d be caught.

Playing with his victim.

I couldn’t look at the pictures of Margie’s evisceration too closely. Just so violent. So unspeakably cruel. I would read the autopsy report findings for that one. The idea of a baby being cut from her made me sick to my stomach. My mother escaped her captor and stayed lost long enough to have me. He didn’t cut me out of her.

I see Ronnie is having trouble with it also.

I have an idea and call Cass at the Nordland General Store. The phone rings several times before she answers.

“Nordland General Store. Eat in or carry out?”

“Cass, it’s me. Megan Carpenter with Jefferson County Sheriff’s.”

“I thought it might be you or that friend of yours. The Sheriff’s Office number came up on the screen. What can I get you?” she asks, before adding her two cents: “I hope you don’t want to talk to that no-account Bobbsey twin again. He gives me the creeps.”

I tell her what I have in mind without giving her a reason. She draws her own conclusion and agrees. She promises to call me.

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