Page 58 of Water's Edge

Ronnie’scase?

“Let’s get busy,” Clay says, taking out legal-size notepads and handing them out. “Why don’t you go first, Detective Carpenter? You have the newest case, right?”

I know his type. I know it like a fox knows a chicken.

I will always be the fox.

Twenty-Nine

The Kingston, Kitsap County, substation is silent. No purr of a heating system. No ringing of phones. It’s quiet like a prayer. It occurs to me that prayer isn’t a bad idea. Finding Leann’s killer is about saving another victim. Young. Pretty. Dreaming of the future, while he lies in wait.

I start with the discovery of Leann’s body on Marrowstone Island by Robbie Boyd; I look at the men I’ve just met. I wonder if they will be territorial or if they will understand that serial killers don’t care about wandering over various jurisdictions. Indeed, that’s what works best for them. We need to unite. Not posture.

I keep my fingers crossed.

“Do either of you have anything on that name?”

“I ran him through the system,” Clay says. “I don’t think that’s his real name.”

“Why?” Larry asks.

“I have a friend who’s a policeman that works security at the college,” Clay says. “I had him run the guy through their files and he said they had a Robbie Boyd, full name Robert Aloysius Boyd. I had Jimmy—that’s my buddy—send me a picture from his campus ID. I compared that to the link to the Facebook page Ronnie sent. Doesn’t look anything like him. In fact, the Robbie Boyd attending school there is a black male.”

That disclosure absolutely stuns me. I had Ronnie call the college and check to see if Robbie Boyd was supposed to have been in a class during the time we were at the scene. Hewasin class. But apparently it wasn’t the right Robbie Boyd. I hate being completely wrong about anything. Not a smart way to live. The Boyd at the crime scene could have used someone’s name and identification. It was confusing because the license plate on his crap Ford Pinto came back to Boyd.

“He must know Boyd,” I suggest. “The license tags came back to Robert Boyd. Boyd showed Ronnie a Washington driver’s license with that name. He knew that the real Boyd was supposed to be in class.”

Clay picks up the desk phone and punches in a number.

“Hi, this is Detective Osborne. Is Jimmy there? Yeah, let me talk to him.” Clay holds the phone away from his ear. “I’m going to have my friend see if he can locate the real Boyd and try to round up the impersonator.”

While we wait for Jimmy to get to the phone, I keep going.

“State Patrolman MacDonald was the first officer on the scene, followed by Deputy Davis.”

“‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’ MacDonald?” Larry asks. “Did he get out of his car?”

Interesting, I think. He knows MacDonald. “Yeah. He stayed with Boyd while Deputy Davis climbed down a cliff to secure the scene.”

Larry grins and nods. “Sounds like him.”

I pull out photos of my crime scene, taken in vivid color: blood red against the blue of Port Townsend Bay. Shots from the water showing the body’s position on the shore. Shots in each direction showing the limited access to the scene.

“Have either of you heard of a strainer?” I ask.

Both shake their heads.

I go on: “It’s an obstacle that catches animals or people that are caught up in the current and they die because they can’t get out.”

They clearly don’t know where I’m going.

“Boyd has a website that talks about such things. He calls it a ‘Killing Box,’” I say as I tap my finger on the photograph. “If you notice, my crime scene is kind of boxed in. There are only a couple of ways to get to that spot, and all are very difficult. Either down a forty-foot cliff, by swimming, or by boat.”

Larry gives me a questioning look.

“You think Boyd’s our guy?” he asks.

“He’s a suspect.”

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