Page 62 of Water's Edge

I hang up and go back to find Clay and Larry sitting back, listening to Ronnie vent about her tough life, and how she always wanted to be a detective, and how the earth cooled, and the dinosaurs evolved, et cetera. I can tell they are trapped when their pained expressions turn to hope as I come back into view.

Ronnie has been at it the entire time I’ve been on the phone. I don’t feel sorry for them. Better them than me.

I interrupt Ronnie’s monologue. “That was the crime lab. Marley’s doing the comparisons as we speak. And I guess I should tell you that I have two other DNA samples he’s going to check against them. By the way, he says hello, Ronnie.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” is all she says.

I’ll have to work on her.

Clay leans forward in his chair. “What samples?”

“Oh, no you don’t. You said our killer was proud of his work and leaving his mark. You explain that first. Then I’ll tell you about the samples. Deal?”

Clay looks from face to face. “Okay. Somewhere near the dump sites he leaves a symbol. A triangle with an eye. Larry’s was scratched into the rock beside the body. Mine was scratched onto a log near Dina’s body. You don’t have one listed in your report.”

I didn’t put it in my report. I thought it might be nothing. Now I know better.

Larry scoffs. “Hell, we have a lot of little freaks around the islands that believe in all kinds of shit. Voodoo, even. We had a house fire last year. It was an abandoned place. The fire started in the kitchen. I thought it might be homeless, squatters, but then they found the real cause. Some kids were burning a bird’s skeleton. I talked to the boys and they saw it on television and were summoning a demon. I gave them demon. Right on their little rears. What I’m getting at is those things could have already been there. They weren’t carved into the body, were they? No. It don’t mean nothing.”

Ronnie speaks up. “I read both of your reports and there’s no mention of an all-seeing eye in either of them.”

“She’s right,” I say.

“I guess we all had the same thought: leaks. I wanted to keep something back in case we caught the killer. If he told me about the drawing, I’d know I had the right guy.” It’s a lie, but it sounds good to me.

Ronnie hands her legal pad to Clay. “Can you draw it for me?”

He does and gives the pad back. It was what Deputy Davis found scratched into the bottom of a rock at Leann’s dump site.

Ronnie draws in a breath. “I just remembered: I saw this on the website.”

“What website?” I ask.

“Remember the ‘Warrior Priestess’ shirt Leann’s dad was wearing and how strange he talked?”

I did. I thought he was putting it on.

“I looked it up,” she goes on. “There’s a website. I found this symbol on one of the pages.”

I’m thinking Jim Truitt.

Ronnie shoots me an embarrassed look. She didn’t tell me about this, and she knows she should have. In her defense, I didn’t ask. It was my fault for not looking into it myself. I’ve been slipping.Remember this moment, I tell myself. This is another good reason not to work with a partner—or quasi-partner.I remind myself that I’m only at this meeting to get information. I don’t need their help. Or hers. I will use them, however. That’s fair game.

My mother taught me that.

Larry scoffs a second time. “Let’s not go jumping to conclusions here, little missy. Kids. Vandals. Aspiring taggers. Hell, it’s not even a coincidence. Half the religions around here have similar symbols if that’s even what it is. This land has always had Native tribes. Lots of superstition around the Salish. Gods of this and that. Some believe in witches up in my section.”

“Pagan symbols,” Ronnie adds, pulling herself out of the quicksand of her embarrassment. “Wiccan. It’s Egyptian, the Eye of Horus. It means protection and health for the royals. It’s also a Masonic symbol.”

“It’s on the back of the dollar bill too,” Clay says.

Larry pulls a crumpled bill from his jean’s pocket. “I knew I’d seen it somewhere. See? It don’t mean nothing.”

“I don’t think we can read too much into the symbol,” Clay says, “except it was found at each of our crime scenes. It must mean something to the killer. I agree with Megan. If we find him, he can tell us what it means.”

I don’t want to get pulled into this line of thought. And I’m not over the “little missy” comment, either. I still have to eliminate several suspects before I start looking into Native myths or religious sects of every variety that dot the state. Yet, to be safe, I’ll have Ronnie keep digging into it. She is the computer wizard. I’ll find subjects to interview.

I give them a copy of the pathologist’s report. Ronnie made several. She has her uses. They both skim it and I watch them nod as they read.

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