Page 91 of Water's Edge

“I’ll be there.”

I end the call and pull up my work email. Ronnie has already sent her list. She also included the hospital video. It’s a massive file. I will be glad to have help going through it. Maybe it will be a waste of time. But I trust my gut.

Forty-Four

I spend the night reading Ronnie’s list of people that we need to interview for Karynn’s murder and finding anything and everything I can about Margie Benton. I hate to admit Larry Gray was right about any of this, but Margie Benton did not exist. No police record. Nothing on social media. Nothing in the news. Ever.

I phone Clallam County and ask the weary dispatcher to check her address for previous runs. There were only two police calls for service to that address or near it. Neither involved Margie. One was a drunk on the street and the other was a report of someone peeping in windows. The dispatcher tells me the deputies said there was no one there when they arrived both times.

“Calls were determined to be a hoax,” she says. “Kids maybe thought it was funny to cause a commotion and were just giving random addresses.”

Margie’s landlord’s name was in Larry’s report, but according to Ronnie the landlord is now deceased. Her little house is being rented by an elderly couple. According to Larry he talked to them. I’ll go back and do it again. I decide not to call Larry and tell him about the new victim until I am finished reinvestigating Margie Benton’s murder.

I suddenly think about Karynn Eades. She wasn’t a name I requested from the hospital records. I’ll have to get another court order and I don’t want to take the time. At the rate the killer is working, he’ll probably hit again.

I call Clay.

“Detective Carpenter,” he says. “What can I do for you at this time of night?”

I look at the clock. Normal people are sound asleep. Clay doesn’t sound like he was asleep. “I just wanted to say again how sorry I am I went around you at the hospital. I just really needed that stuff and I’m a little freaked by this guy. You know?”

I hear a sigh. “All is forgiven. You need to remember, we’re on the same team. I take it you always work alone.”

“That’s right,” I say.

“If you’re a loner, you do things in a pattern. You know how you want to do something and then you do it. If something gets in your way, you work around it.”

He’s right.

“I understand,” he says. “Really I do. I’m the same way. I always work alone. Then I worked with Larry for a short time and that convinced me that I was better off working alone.”

I laugh. “He’s a ball of fire,” I say.

“Yeah. He is that. So did you just call to apologize, or do you need another favor?”

This guy is good, I think.

“Since you asked so nicely, I do need something. Don’t get mad, but I need to see if the hospital has records for Karynn Eades. That’s ‘Karynn’ with ayand twon’s.”

“What, no court order this time?”

He sounds ticked off. I don’t blame him, but he’ll get over it.

“No court order,” I say. “Just a request from one team member to another.”

He’s quiet. I wait.

“Can you text me her information? I’ll get the records for you, but you’ll owe me.”

I want to tell him I don’t owe him anything for doing his job. I’m solving his cases too.

“I understand.”

He is true to his word. Five minutes later I have a record attached to a text:

‘Karynn Eades delivered a baby boy six months ago. Given up for adoption. Father unknown. She was on public assistance.’

I pull up the hospital record on my computer. It lists no workplace. The address is the same one I found on her driver’s license. No next of kin is listed. She’s as invisible as the others.

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