The Bellingham was Maclean’s suggestion. Verraday had never been there before, but the pub had a warm, low-key ambience that immediately made him feel relaxed and at home. The bar was stained walnut. It stretched half the length of the room and matched the wainscoting as well as the booths on the opposite wall. Frosted-glass pendant lamps hung from the ceiling above the aisle, bathing the room in soft, indirect light. The music was turned up loud enough to ensure that they couldn’t be overheard, but not so much that they’d have to raise their voices above a normal conversational level.
As usual, Maclean was already there. Verraday was grateful to see that she’d taken up a position in one of two wingback chairs by the fireplace, in an alcove that would give them some privacy. She wore a close-fitting gray sweater, a denim skirt hemmed just above her knees, and black boots. Her hair was down. It was longer than he’d imagined it to be. He experienced a pang of regret. He was sorry that their trust in each other had hit such a big bump. He didn’t want to be angry with her. He liked this woman, didn’t want to feel estranged from her. But regardless, as he greeted her and sat down in the wingchair, he couldn’t help feeling some distance between them, on his own side if not from hers.
The waiter, a bearded young man with an affable manner and an easy smile, came by. Maclean ordered a vodka and soda. Verraday asked for a recommendation on a dark ale and chose what the waiter suggested, a local brew from the Willamette Valley. After the waiter left, Verraday sank back into his comfortable wingback chair. He loved the light and warmth from the fireplace and, under other circumstances, could have dozed off. But the situation he found himself in was far from conducive to sleep.
“What’s up?” he asked.
Maclean checked to make sure that no one had come within earshot, then leaned forward in her wingback chair.
“There’s been another murder.”
Verraday felt a leaden anticipation in his chest. “Who is it?”
Maclean pursed her lips. “The girl from the screengrab. Destiny. The one you sent me the message about.”
“Oh fuck.”
“A construction worker found her body this afternoon in a vacant lot behind a demolition site.”
“How was she killed?”
“The MO is the same as with Alana Carmichael and Rachel Friesen. Heavy beating with a leather belt, then strangulation, first with hand pressure, then with a garrote. Not a single defensive wound anywhere.”
Verraday felt a crushing sense of failure. “I tried to warn her. I texted her twice. First last night, then again this morning. She finally responded with a message telling me to fuck off.”
“I don’t think you—or anyone—could have saved her. According to the coroner, she’d been dead for about twenty-four hours.”
Maclean saw the dejection on Verraday’s face. “There’s nothing you could have done,” she said decisively. “It was probably the killer who texted you, trying to buy himself some time.”
Verraday felt revolted to realize he had unwittingly been trading text messages with a murderer. A murderer who could now potentially identify him from his phone number.
“I can’t believe I got sucked in,” said Verraday.
“James, you had no way of knowing. He fooled all of us. So far. But we will get him. I can find out where the text originated by having Destiny’s phone signal triangulated, but my guess is that it won’t be from the kill site or the dump site.”
“No,” agreed Verraday. “This guy’s much too clever to do that. Wouldn’t surprise me if he purposely sent it from near her home address, if he knew it.”
“We haven’t found her purse, phone, or any ID for that matter,” said Maclean. “He probably knew where she lived from her driver’s license.”
“How did you know who she was?”
“The screenshots you sent over.”
They stopped speaking for a moment as the waiter returned with the drinks. Verraday noticed that like the waitress at the Trabant, this waiter seemed to be aware that his arrival at their table caused a lull in the conversation. But unlike the young woman at the Trabant, their waiter just gave them a friendly, confident smile and told them to enjoy their drinks. Then he returned to the bar to polish the pint glasses with a cloth, humming contentedly. Why did some people react so differently to identical stimuli, wondered Verraday? How much was nature and how much was nurture? It was the eternal question that vexed psychologists. It certainly vexed him.
He took a sip of his dark ale. It was deep and rich, with just enough bitterness from the hops to balance the sweetness of the malt. He savored it and felt himself relaxing slightly. Maclean took a healthy sip of her vodka and soda.
“Are you willing to come back to the case?” she asked.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” responded Verraday. He was still smarting though. “But are you going to trust me from now on?”
Maclean took another sip of her drink before replying.
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,” she said, shifting slightly in the wingback chair.
Verraday was surprised by how uncomfortable Maclean suddenly looked. It was the first time he’d seen anything other than self-assurance in her manner. He hadn’t intended to rake her over the coals for being wrong about Whitney. It wouldn’t serve either of them, so he moved the conversation back to the case.
“Was there any escalation in the level of violence?”
Maclean nodded her head slowly. “Yes.”