She toyed with the ice in her glass for a moment before looking up.
“This son of a bitch really went to town on her. She’s got marks on her back that might be burns. Take a look.”
Maclean took a folder out of her briefcase and handed it across to Verraday. He slipped the eight-by-ten crime scene photo out and held it so that the fireplace light allowed him to get a better view of it.
“Christ almighty.”
Verraday had seen a lot in the course of his work, but the pairs of dotted burn marks down the spine and up the inner thighs of the girl known only as “Destiny” were new to him. It was a level of sadism he’d only read about from political death squads or inquisitional torturers. The pain must have been prolonged and excruciating.
“I haven’t seen anything like this before,” said Maclean. “We’re waiting for forensics, but I’m guessing it was done with a cattle prod.”
“What about Whitney? What did you find out?” asked Verraday.
“You were right about him. At least it looks like it so far. He claims he only hired Alana Carmichael and Rachel Friesen as booth bunnies for The Victorian Closet at fetish nights where he was promoting the store.”
“Strange that neither one of them appear in any of his Facebook albums.”
“He says he was afraid it would be bad for his business if it got out that two of his models had been murdered. So he deleted every image of them from the store’s site and his personal page before the press could get hold of them. I’m still having forensics check out his shop and backroom, but he’s got an airtight alibi on this latest murder: he was in a holding cell down at the station when it happened.”
“Do you have any idea who Destiny really is?”
“Not yet. There are no recent missing persons reports that match. That cell phone you texted was prepaid and unregistered. Whoever Destiny really is, she was probably afraid of being stalked. For good reason. So she made sure her phone was untraceable. As for the body, our killer didn’t miss a beat there either. The coroner says the corpse had been washed with great care. No trace of anything on it, not even soap residue.”
“So what’s our next move?”
“We caught one break. That escort service site you found her on is based in Seattle. I’ll pay a visit to their office tomorrow morning. You want to come along?”
“Yeah.”
Verraday still had more than half a pint of ale left in his glass, and Maclean had slowed down on her vodka and soda too. He began to wonder why she had asked him out for a drink instead of just giving him the information when she had called him. She gazed down contemplatively, then turned to look directly at him.
“Listen, there’s something else.”
“Yes?”
“That cop that you say ran the red light and hit your family’s car when you were a kid.”
“Robson, yeah.”
“I overheard two of the old timers talking today. Uniform cops from the traffic division. He’s dead.”
Verraday felt like he’d been hit in the chest with a hammer. “Dead? How?”
“The story is that he had an accident cleaning his revolver.”
Verraday sat stunned for a moment. He barely knew where to start.
“What else do you know about him?” Verraday asked.
“He retired from the Seattle PD eight years ago. Lived alone in a four-season cottage not far from Everett.”
“When did it happen?”
“A week ago. I looked into it a little for you. They did a blood test on Robson. He had a blood alcohol level of point-one-one. That’s well over the line for legally impaired. You probably won’t find that surprising.”
Verraday nodded agreement.
“Apparently he had Ativan in his system too,” said Maclean.
“That part does surprise me,” said Verraday. “Robson never struck me as the type who’d suffer from anxiety disorders. More the kind of person who would cause them.”
“Robson’s doctor never prescribed Ativan to him, but obviously anyone who drinks that heavily is doing a lot of self-medicating.”
Verraday had a momentary flash of selfconsciousness, wondering what Maclean would think if she’d had any idea of his own daily alcohol intake. And he’d only recently tossed out his stock of Ativan after his pharmacist, a soft-spoken young woman from Hong Kong, warned him in her mild and diplomatic way that many doctors were unaware that the drug was highly addictive and that if he had anxiety issues, there were safer ways of dealing with it.
“He probably bought his Ativan online without a prescription,” Maclean continued. “In any case, the coroner in Everett has ruled it an accidental death. End of story. But I thought you’d want to know.”
Verraday nodded. “Thanks.”
Neither of them spoke for a long moment. Verraday distractedly ran a hand through his hair.
“I almost can’t believe this has happened,” he said at last. “I always thought I’d feel thrilled when I heard that he’d died.”
“And now?”
“And now I feel sort of cheated.”