The ground is thick with fir needles. I kick some of them around. There’s no telling exactly when the picture was taken, but it couldn’t have been more than two weeks ago. The toe of my boot shoves some of the debris around and I’m about to give up when I see something red flash. It’s a Camel cigarette butt. The red lipstick is fluorescent red.
Who would wear this grotesque color?
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office is a no-smoking zone within fifty feet of the building. I take an evidence bag from my blazer pocket and use it to retrieve the butt. I’ll give it to Crime Scene to have tested and compared with what they found at the scene. It’s more than a long shot and I might have to use my secret weapon, aka Ronnie, to get Marley Yang, the supervisor of the state crime lab, to run the test for me. Marley has a thing for Ronnie. She thinks he’s cute in a nerdy way and has gone out with him a few times. Marley drops by the office two or three times a week, using any excuse to see her.
Shoving more of the dry needles around reveals nothing except a PayDay wrapper and a pair of women’s black lace panties.
Eww.
I collect the wrapper. I suspect stalking is a hard job and they might have gotten hungry. But I can’t imagine someone stalking me and taking off their panties. I might have a naked stalker with a sweet tooth who smokes Camels and wears fluorescent red lipstick. I walk away and then come back and collect the panties too. If they belong to Nan, Sheriff Gray’s secretary, I’m going to bust a gut. Nan has done the walk of shame a few times since I’ve worked here.
I think I remember her wearing that shade of lipstick too.
Ronnie holds the door for me. “What were you doing out there? Did you lose something?”
“Actually, I found something,” I say, and go to my desk. I take the three evidence bags from my blazer pocket and lay them on the desktop.
“That’s the start of a joke,” she says. “A cigarette butt, a candy wrapper, and a pair of panties walks into a bar…” Ronnie giggles. It’s not funny. Well, kind of. Lately she’s started telling lame jokes. She says it’s stress relief. I guess it’s better than her incessant chatter about absolutely nothing.
“Did you run the name Sheriff Gray gave you?” I ask.
She’s holding a manila folder and lays it on the desk.
“I’ve run the name through local, state and federal databanks. And the Washington State Department of Licensing. The DOL had a license photo and I’ve made a copy of the license.”
She opens the folder and the driver’s license copy is on top. There’s a driver’s license number, the date the license was issued, the expiration date, the license class, Monique D. Delmont’s name and date of birth, a physical description, and her photo. Hard to believe that an entire person’s life can be documented on a three-by-four-inch piece of paper.
My high school photo the sheriff gave me is laminated. I wonder about that. You laminate something to preserve it. Why would someone go to that trouble and then leave it at the scene of a murder? I feel my jacket pocket to be sure the photo is still there. I panic when I don’t feel it. I check my other pockets. It’s in my shirt pocket. I don’t remember putting it there. I’m rattled. I can’t afford to be this way.
“Sheriff Gray called and said you requested me on this case. Is that okay?”
“Yeah. I mean, yes.”
She looks excited. I take a moment to steady myself for the dam burst of words that flow whenever Ronnie is excited.
“I’d be happy to work another murder case. I mean, it’s not anything to be happy about. Someone died and that’s really bad. But I can’t wait to get to work on it. I’ve already run the records from the name, but what else do you need? Sheriff Gray says I’m not to leave the office. I don’t see how I can be much help if I stay at my desk. But if he says not to leave the office, I won’t. Unless you ask me to, of course. Then I’ll—”
I hold a hand up to stop her. My head is spinning already.
“Breathe, Ronnie.” I don’t realize I say this out loud until it’s out.
“Sorry, Detective Carpenter. It’s just that I’ve been sitting around, doing nothing for so long that I think my butt is going flat. I’m so bored. And I love working with you. I hope I don’t sound like one of those, uh…”
“Ass kissers?” I say.
“Yeah. One of those.”
“Don’t worry. Someone else holds that trophy,” I say, and look toward Nan’s desk. Nan turns to me like she heard my comment. She probably did. Sometimes it seems like she has super-hearing. It helps with her super-nosiness. I notice she’s wearing the same color lipstick as that on the cigarette butt. Come to think of it, the underwear is about the right size too. Double eww!
“Do you want me to call Marley?” Ronnie asks.
I hand her the stuff I found in the woods. “I hate to ask.” I don’t really.
“If he wants me to bring it to him, is it okay if I leave the office to do that?”
I give her my blessing and she gets on the phone.
Nan may have super-hearing, but I have Ronnie.
Eleven
While Ronnie chats Marley up, I open the file she has given me. Monique’s driver’s license photo is a newer one. Her hair is shorter and seems to have lost its luster. Her face looks craggy, as if she hasn’t gotten much sleep. Of course, the DOL counter employees take only the worst side of you. Eyes half-closed. Every chin exposed. I’m all but certain they have a contest to see who can take the worst picture.
I close the folder and decide to take the file home to read. With Scotch. I don’t like invading the privacy of a friend.
Even a dead one.
I throw my purse on the table by the door, kick my shoes off and hang up my blazer. I keep the shoulder holster on. It’s become a habit after receiving my stalker’s emails. Now I have a better reason. Someone knows who I am. They know about my past. If it’s not my stalker, I have double trouble.
A bottle of Glen-something-or-other Scotch beckons. After the first sip they all taste the same, so I’m not picky when I buy it. I pour a generous amount in a plastic cup.
After my ordeal with Alex Rader, I began seeing a therapist. Dr. Karen Albright. The tapes of our sessions might hold a clue to Monique’s murder. I take the box of tapes and the tape player out of the bottom desk drawer. I’ve given up storing them in the top of the closet.
I select a tape, slot it and think back to how I ended up with these tapes of my sessions with Dr. Albright, my therapist. I recollect how Dr. Albright’s blue eyes scared me at first. Almost otherworldly. How her office smelled of microwave popcorn. How much I grew to trust her. I was eighteen when I first saw her. Defensive. Closed off like a street barricade. I had never let anyone inside, but I was smart enough to know that everything inside of me—from my experiences to my bloodline—had to be exorcised somehow. I’d been traumatized, and while I couldn’t see it in the mirror, others did. Night terrors are traumatic and uniquely embarrassing. You don’t know if anyone hears your screams.
Dr. Albright had said, “You’ll want these someday.”