Sunset Hill

By Everett Powers

She got away at the end of The Mighty T, slipping through a dragnet of cops from four counties, not to mention the FBI and Homeland Security, and disappeared into a foggy Seattle night.

She is who she is so it was just a matter of time before bodies started showing up in dumpsters, with her signature kill wounds.

Modesto detectives Grant Starr, Amber Whitehall, and Ralph Bensen are in Seattle, Washington, where Grant is giving a brief talk on the case of the terrorist Samuel Raimes. After his talk he’s approached by Detective Ira Utter, the local cop in charge of the Sunset Hill Slasher case.

The Modesto detectives recognize her MO and agree to help find her. She’s a loose end that always bothered Grant.

But this time she had an accomplice and although she still kills with a knife, some things have changed that make catching her . . . impossible?

Grant and the cops engage in a game of cat and mouse through the streets of the Sunset Hill area of Seattle, trying to stop her before she kills again.

With twists and turns sure to catch the reader off guard, Sunset Hill is a novel that will haunt you long after you’ve finished it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Everett Powers
• Release date: Aug 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311108791

Everett Powers

Everett Powers is the author of THE MIGHTY T, DEATH OF A MATADOR, SUNSET HILL, and THE KING OF ROUND VALLEY, Grant Starr thrillers, and CANALS, a horror novel. He's currently working a new novel set in the future. He lives in Utah with his wife. The kids are close and the mountains are beautiful.

Book preview

Chapter 1

SHE PICKED HIM OUT the moment he entered the bar. She called it her Spidey sense. The ability to spot the most vulnerable, the weakest.

He hesitated for a few seconds, jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and shuffled to the nearest wall. His eyes flicked around the room.

He was either new to the area, or new to the bar scene. To the dive scene, she corrected herself. Calling the Inky Well a bar was a disservice to decent drinking establishments. But it would do for tonight. It’d been a while and she was concerned she’d be a little rusty.

She’d look for a wedding ring—if he ever took his hands out of his pockets. If he wore one and was here by himself, that meant something. Probably that he was newly separated. If the wife was having a girl’s night out and he was having a boy’s night out, if that’s all it was, he wouldn’t have come alone. And he wouldn’t be holding up the wall at the Inky Well. He and his rowdy friends would’ve gone to some upscale place in Ballard or downtown Seattle, where the female clientele and servers didn’t look five years shy of going on the liver transplant list.

If his left ring finger had a band of white skin, he’d be a recent divorcé. They were the easiest.

But, ring or no ring, it looked like he’d come alone, and he looked like easy pickings.

He surveyed the room a couple of times, then relaxed.

The Inky Well’s sole waitress, a tired old hag, wandered out of a back room wiping her hands on her apron. She saw him at the wall and frowned, but ignored him as she made her way through the sparse crowd.

When she’d scouted the dive two weeks ago, she’d decided she’d better tone things down. If she came in looking like a million bucks everyone would remember her, even the alcoholics knocking back shots of whiskey poured out of a plastic bottle.

She looked as good as she needed to look.

She watched him in her peripheral vision—it was too early for direct eye contact—wander to an empty table, finally take his hands out of his pockets and sit. He fidgeted with his hands, not knowing what to do with them, finally settling on clasping them together on the tabletop: no ring. The lighting was too dim to see if there was a white band on his ring finger, but she knew there would be. Probably his first night out after the divorce. Perfect.

They made eye contact, she gave him an encouraging smile but turned away. It was best if they thought it was their idea.

She’d been there an hour and her first drink was the only one she’d had to buy. But she’d let the drink-buyers know, with stoney looks, she wasn’t interested. Not being very motivated anyway, they’d returned to their cheap whiskey, stale peanuts, and watery beer.

Twenty minutes later, after she’d given him more encouragement than should’ve been necessary, he sent the waitress over to her table with a drink, something sweet and an unnatural shade of blue. The waitress set the drink down, spilling a little, scowled and said, See if you can teach this one how to tip. She gave the woman a dollar, and thought how fun it’d be to come back after things had quieted down and teach this bitch some manners. The woman snatched the bill up and left.

She picked up her drink and carried it to his table, pushing mounds of peanut shells with her feet. Thanks for the drink.

His face turned red and he stammered, You’re welcome. I hope it’s okay. The drink, I mean.

Well, it is kinda blue.

Looking a little worried he’d done something wrong, he said, It’s supposed to be a Blue Velvet.

There was a pause where they just looked at each other.

Um, are you waiting for someone?

He flushed again and said, I’m sorry. Please, have a seat. It’s just that...

She sat, set her drink down and said, It’s been a while, huh?

He nodded and folded his hands on the table. "My wife, ex-wife, drank those. Other than beer, it was the only thing I could think of to order for you."

A beer woulda been okay. She smiled and took a sip from her glass.

Here, don’t drink that if you don’t like it. He looked around for the waitress. Let me get you a beer.

The waitress had vanished, so she said, It’s probably better if you got it yourself at the bar. That way you can make sure no one spits in it.

Really? You think they do that here? He looked genuinely shocked. This was going to be too easy.

You saw the waitress didn’t you? Why don’t you get us a shot of tequila, too. You look like you need something to help you relax.

He laughed. Two beers and two tequilas, coming up. He sprang from his seat and bolted to the bar.

They drank and talked for thirty minutes. She flirted a little, turned any question he asked about her around so they talked about him the entire time, all-the-while pushing the booze. Get him drunk and get out as quickly as possible. The longer they stayed, the more attention they’d draw, and the more likely people would remember her.

She learned the only reason he’d picked the Inky Well was it was close enough to walk to. He lived a couple of blocks away in a rundown shack he’d overpaid for. The ex got the house, of course. And the Yukon, and the lawnmower and the bicycles and plasma television, and almost everything else. Blah blah. His two kids stayed over every-other-weekend.

He’d said, I didn’t want to risk a DUI my first night out after the divorce, and then put on a sad-dog face. It made her so sick she wanted to break her beer bottle on the edge of the table and gouge his eyes out. It was always the same with losers like him. Bitch and moan. He should’ve hired a better attorney. The world wouldn’t miss this guy because it already had a surplus of wimps.

She pushed the booze harder and matched him shot for shot, beer for beer. She was buzzing an hour later, but he’d die of alcohol poisoning before she got shitfaced. Yet another of her talents.

When he spilled beer across the table, she knew it was time to go.

Why don’t we take this party to my place? She slipped a shoe off and ran her foot up his leg to his crotch. She didn’t know why it was so effective, but men went crazy for it. But her timing was off: he was busy trying to mop up the spilled beer with a tiny cocktail napkin, while stammering an apology, and giggling, and hadn’t heard her. There was the rustiness coming out.

She put her shoe back on and stood, threw a five dollar bill on the table, grabbed him by the arm and said, Let the bitch clean it up, it’s her job. Let’s get out of here.

He muttered Who? but let her pull him out of his chair, across the floor and out of the bar, into a cool Seattle summer night.

You sure you wanna ... I mean...

So much for him thinking he was picking her up.

She said, pulling him toward her white Escalade, You need to get back in the saddle cowboy. Let’s go to my place. Your place will just remind you of your ex and you’ll get all depressed.

He weaved away from her, and she reeled him back in. He said, Damn straight! Less go ... yur place ... ride ’em cowboy! He giggled again, which greatly annoyed her.

Then he got that look on his face, and she thought, Better here than in the Escalade. She led him to a row of scraggly bushes bordering the parking lot and said, If you’re gonna barf, you better do it here.

He was still giggling, and he said, I don’t hafta— then vomited into the bushes.

A minute later: All done?

Shorry. Don’t wanna be a ... pussy. He stumbled along beside her. Shorry, I didn’t mean ... pussy ... thing. I... And he giggled.

She unlocked the doors with the remote, opened the door behind the driver’s seat and shoved him in, saying, Lay down if you want, if it makes you feel better. We’ll be at my place in ten minutes.

He mumbled, I should put my sheet belt ... my... then passed out.

Just in case, she flipped the child locks on.

She got in and took him to her place and played with him for a day, trying out a couple of new knives. When he got boring she killed him.

❧ ❧ ❧

Hey, shit-for-brains, why is the garbage can still full? You know how many beaners come in here every week looking for a job? Get your lazy ass in gear and take out the garbage!

Lupe muttered Pendejo, spit into and then grabbed the big wheeled trash can that should’ve been emptied the night before, rolled it through the back door into the alley behind the restaurant. He couldn’t understand why people loved seafood so much, was sure they wouldn’t if they got a chance to smell it after it’d sat around at room temperature overnight.

The building the restaurant was in was over a hundred years old and while the inside and front had been remodeled several times, the back hadn’t. Lupe pushed the heavy can by chipped and gouged red brick, over shards of broken glass and the grime of thirty years of spilled seafood, toward the battered dumpster.

He shoved the trash can against the dumpster and said, "How’m I s’posed to lift this heavy bastard? ¡Pendejos!" He spit on the ground and yanked on the top of the plastic trash liner, hoping to free enough of the bag to twist it closed; day-old clam chowder and soggy fried calamari splashed onto his jeans and shoes. He swore and shook each foot, kicked them against the side of the dumpster, then fished around in the trash for something reasonably clean, found a couple of napkins, and wiped his shoes and pants.

He dropped the napkins on the ground and pulled a pack of Marlboros out of a pocket, shook one out, stuffed the pack back into the pocket and dug into the other pocket for a lighter. He lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply, leaned against the brick wall.

His dickhead boss was a liar. Dishwasher jobs weren’t that hard to come by in Seattle; every corner had a seafood restaurant. He hated his boss, who surely thought his dick was the biggest west of the Cascades, and seriously considered walking away. Right now. Let Dickhead rupture a disk emptying the trash.

He took his time with the cigarette, smoking it down to the butt, then flicked the butt into the alley, looked at his shoes again, tapped them against the dumpster again, and grabbed the dumpster lid and flung it open. The stench hit him hard, pushing him back and making his eyes water.

And people eat this shit.

He grabbed the can’s handle with one hand, the bottom of the can with the other, grunted it halfway up the dumpster, shifted the handle-hand to the bottom and heaved up with all his strength. The can cleared the dumpster’s metal lip, slipped out of his hands and landed upside down in the dumpster. He cursed, again, thought about having to climb into the dumpster to retrieve the can and considered quitting, again. It’d be easier to get another job than get the stink of fifty pounds of rotten seafood out of his clothes.

He lit another cigarette, but flicked it away half smoked; Dickhead would soon appear and resume yelling, which was all he ever did. He couldn’t recall ever hearing the prick speak to him in a normal voice. He dragged a stack of milk crates over to the dumpster, took the top three off one at a time and tried to break them by throwing them against the wall, then climbed on top of the last one and looked into the dumpster.

A pair of empty eye sockets stared up at him.

He jumped off the crate and ran into the restaurant to fetch Dickhead.

❧ ❧ ❧

Detective Ira Utter peered into the dumpster and sighed. He stood on a footstool he kept in his trunk so he wouldn’t have to climb on or into filthy things like dumpsters. They were worse than public toilets; at least the toilets were disinfected once a week, some daily. Dumpsters were never sanitized.

The crime scene photographer, whose name was Blair Ruddick, and who stood half a foot taller than Utter, peered into the dumpster with Utter, covered his nose with a handkerchief he pulled out of a back pocket and said, Sure glad I don’t have to dig him out. Utter had called Crime Scene immediately after seeing the body. Ruddick was the first to arrive. I suppose there’s a reason why he got his eyes cut out. What’s that mean, Ira? The killer’s ugly and didn’t want the guy looking at him?

Could be.

Huh. He almost got his head cut off. What’s that imply? Repressed anger? Issues with his father?

Utter looked at Ruddick and said, Are you taking a forensics class or something Blair?

"Nah, I watch a lot of Criminal Minds. You ever see that show? FBI profilers?"

I don’t watch a lot of TV.

Well you should, seeing as how you come face to face with this kind of thing all the time. You could learn a lot from watching that show. Personally, I think it means the killer was angry about something. Maybe the guy cut him off in traffic and then flipped him off, something like that. And the killer caught up with him and cut him up.

Utter climbed down and said, I’ll take that into advisement. He’s all yours.

Hey, can I use your footstool? It’ll save me from having to go back and get mine. I had to park a block away.

Utter frowned, thought for a few seconds before sighing and saying, I guess. Try not to track fish guts on it, would you?

I wouldn’t think of it. Ruddick climbed the two steps while thumbing his Nikon D300 on, which had a big flash mounted on it. He tracked smashed and fermented clam chowder onto the footstool’s steps.

Utter turned away and stuck his hands into his pockets, and looked up and down the alley. It was closed off with yellow crime scene tape and a uniformed officer stood at either end to make sure no one ducked under the tape. He remembered those days. Few duties were more boring than standing by crime scene tape, keeping an eye on the morbidly curious.

He’d briefly spoken to the responding officer, a woman named Felicia Gjokaj. He’d glanced at her name tag and hadn’t even tried to pronounce her last name. She’d said the dishwasher from the restaurant the dumpster sat behind had found the body, after he’d dumped half a night’s worth of leftover seafood on it. When he’d said, Thanks, Officer...

Joe-Codge, sir. The ‘G’ is silent.

Okay, Utter had said, Officer Joke-Age.

Joe. Codge.

Well, thanks.

Officer Gjokaj had shook her head and walked away.

The dishwasher was hanging around the restaurant’s back door, an L.A. Dodgers cap sitting sideways on his head. Utter approached him and said, Lupé, isn’t it? but he pronounced it Loop.

Lupé was trying to trim a hangnail off a filthy finger with his teeth. He glanced at Utter with a frown on his face. You say it ‘Loo-peh’. Not ‘Loop’.

Okay, Utter said. Tell me what happened.

I took out the garbage and saw the dead dude. That’s all that happened. He inspected the hangnail, turned the hand sideways and went at it again.

What time was that?

I dunno. I don’t got a watch.

Officer Gjokaj had said the body had been found at about nine-thirty. Did you see anyone else in the alley?

I didn’t see no one else, Lupé said, gnawing away. He leaned against the brick wall, took his cap off, flipped it around and put it back on.

Did you notice a car or vehicle in the alley?

Lupé shook his head and inspected the hangnail. Utter noticed the end of the hangnail finger was now clean and said, That’s a filthy habit. You shouldn’t do that.

Do what?

Never mind. How many times did you come out here?

Just that one time. I barely got to work.

How long were you out here?

I dunno. Like I told you, I don’t got a watch.

How long would you like talk to me, Loop? At the rate we’re going this could take an hour.

Lupé frowned again. It’s ‘Loo-peh’, man, and I wish I never showed up to work today. This shit’s gonna mess me up.

Did you come out and go right to the dumpster, or did you hang around a little, take your time?

Lupé’s frown became a scowl. I smoked a couple of cigarettes, then dumped the trash. The can slipped outta my hand so I looked in the dumpster and saw ... you know, the body.

I’m glad you told me that. We’ll need a sample of your DNA so when we analyze the cigarette butts we find we’ll know which ones are yours. Did you climb up on the dumpster to look inside or did you stand on something?

The frown had left Lupé’s face, and he said, You gotta take a what?

A DNA sample. The crime scene people will be here any minute, it’ll only take a few seconds.

Ah man. His eyes shifted around the alley. In front of all these people?

It’s a simple procedure. There’s nothing to worry about.

You gonna give me a, you know, a porno magazine or something?

Utter paused before saying, What are you talking about?

You know. To get the DNA thing you want.

Utter finally got it. We don’t need a sperm sample, Loop. They collect the DNA from inside your mouth with a cotton swab.

Lupé looked relieved. Oh. I thought I had to, you know...

Thank God, no.

Utter asked Lupé a series of questions, mostly the same ones Officer Gjokaj had asked, but got nothing useful, so he told him he could return to work.

Work nothin’. I quit. I’m gonna have nightmares about this shit. He continued muttering as his made his way into the back of the restaurant, which Utter thought smelled a little more rank than it should have.

He walked back to the dumpster to see if Ruddick had finished with his footstool. He had, so Utter folded it and took it to his car, popped the trunk and pulled out a brush and brushed off the steps of the stool. He laid it in the trunk while making a mental note to spray it down with Lysol when he got home, made another mental note to get an extra can of Lysol for the trunk.

A Crime Scene truck pulled into the alley, followed by the medical examiner’s van. The vehicles stopped just inside the yellow tape, which was restrung across the alley by the bored cop. A man and a woman got out of each vehicle and made their way to the dumpster.

The man from Crime Scene said to Utter, What do we have here, Detective?

Utter recalled the man’s first name, Simon, and said, feeling pleased with himself, Good morning, Simon. A restaurant employee found a body in this dumpster at approximately nine-thirty this morning. Unfortunately, he didn’t see the body until after he’d dumped a can of garbage on it.

Simon said, Again?

The same thing had been going through Utter’s mind. He said, Mikki Sorrentino is doing life in Gig Harbor.

Yeah, I guess you’re right. But, you know, the memory of pulling her victims out of dumpsters is kind of hard to shake. He looked at the pavement. You guys been stepping all over my evidence?

Just Ruddick and I, and I guess Officer Joke-Age, when she first arrived.

Who? Simon said.

The responding officer.

The four new people tiptoed to the dumpster and looked inside, and the woman from the ME’s office said, You won’t be needing us for at least a couple of hours. We have another body up in Crown Hill. Give us a ring when you’re ready for us and we’ll come back and get him. She and her partner left in their van.

❧ ❧ ❧

Simon and his partner went about collecting and cataloguing evidence.

Utter sent Officer Gjokaj and her partner to canvas neighborhood businesses, then hung around.

Fifteen minutes later, a KOMO 4 news truck appeared at the north end of the alley. Keely Wolfe popped out and began mussing with her hair. She saw Utter, gave him her TV smile, which Utter found captivating, and waved him over. He hustled over.

Wolfe said, It’s nice to see you again, Detective Utter, when he’d arrived at the yellow tape.

He liked the thought of Keely Wolfe happy to see him, and that she’d remembered his name. He said, Good morning, Ms. Wolfe.

Please, call me Keely.

Now that he was five feet away, he noticed her nose crinkled when she smiled. That wasn’t apparent on TV. And she had legs all the way up to her ass. He permitted himself a brief married-man indulgence, then pushed the thoughts away and said, Keely, and smiled.

Wolfe got right to the point: We heard another body was found in a dumpster. She’d covered the case the press had dubbed the Sunset Hill Slasher two years prior. It had been a boon for TV ratings and newspaper sales.

Utter took a few seconds to answer, because he was enjoying the moment. Yes, that’s true. But Mikki Sorrentino was apprehended and is in prison serving a life sentence. Without a chance of parole, I might add.

Wolfe said, Thanks to you, and amped her smile up fifty watts. We’ve been thinking about doing a follow-up on the Slasher case for a few weeks. Finding another body in a dumpster would make the perfect lead-in, don’t you think?

Personally, I would rather forget about it. Especially if I lived in Sunset Hill.

Wolfe forged ahead: Do you mind if I interview you for the segment? It’ll help me get the story bumped up to tonight. Again with the megawatt smile.

Utter stuck his hands into the pockets of his pants and shuffled his feet. He’d been told he should accept more media opportunities because he had a TV-friendly face, but he was uncomfortable talking into a camera lens. He’d done okay during the Slasher case but he knew one day he’d screw up and the TV station wouldn’t edit out the error. He’d look like a fool, and God forbid if it was bad enough to hit YouTube.

He said, Sure.

The interview was short and sweet, and Keely Wolfe was tall and sweet. He confirmed that a body had been found in a dumpster but refused to divulge details. She alluded to the Sunset Hill Slasher case, he said it’d been solved. She thanked him and started bossing her cameraman around, telling him what footage to shoot.

Utter wandered away, toward his car. The stress of the interview left him wanting a beer, a twenty-four ounce ice cold draft. Be easy to slip in the back of the restaurant into the dark bar and fall onto a stool, nod at the bartender and order up a cold one. Who would know?

He sighed, got in his car and left.

❧ ❧ ❧

Detective Ira Utter worked out of Seattle PD’s North Precinct, which covered territory north of Union Lake to 145th. He futzed around his office for a couple of hours, went out and got a sandwich, took his time eating it, then got the call he’d been waiting for: the medical examiner had started the autopsy on his victim. Utter grabbed his keys and left.

The King County Medical Examiner’s Office was in downtown Seattle, a twenty-five-to-thirty-five minute drive from the North Precinct, depending on the time of day and the amount of road construction going on. It was Sunday, so Utter made the drive in twenty minutes.

He entered the autopsy room a few minutes before three.

The victim’s body had been washed and Dr. Axell Rooth, King County’s Medical Examiner for twelve years, was looking it over, his bald black head luminous under bright exam lights.

When Utter stepped up to the table, Rooth looked up and said, after he’d inspected Utter to make sure he was properly masked, gloved, and shod, Detective Utter.

Utter nodded at Rooth and said, Afternoon Doc. I’m sorry you had to come in on a sunny Sunday afternoon. We don’t get too many.

I’ll have time to sit in the sun when I’m old. By then I’ll be in Hawaii, where the sun shines three hundred and twenty-five days a year. Rooth was probing the deep throat wound with a metal instrument.

Ah, you’ll move there and find after a couple of months that you miss the rain and fog.

I most certainly will not miss the rain and fog, Rooth said. And please don’t try to tell me I’ll miss the coffee. Some of the finest coffee in the world is grown on the island of Kona.

Perhaps, but do they know how to brew it correctly?

Rooth smiled and looked at Utter, and said, You could have waited for the report, Ira. I would have called it in tomorrow.

You know why I’m here, Doc.

Rooth nodded, turned back to the corpse and pointed with the probe. You couldn’t have seen the abdominal wound because it was obscured by garbage, but you saw the neck wound. And, of course, the victim was left in a dumpster. After what Seattle went through two years ago, it would be hard to ignore such ... coincidences.

Well?

The victim has Sorrentino’s signature cuts: up through the abdomen and across the throat. But there’s far more damage here than she ever inflicted on any of her victims. She never took the time to castrate anyone or remove their eyes. And there are multiple small puncture wounds, made with a sharp narrow instrument. So, similar but different.

Utter moved around the table to be closer to the victim’s neck, and said, Of course, Sorrentino was imprisoned in Gig Harbor when this man was killed.

Rooth picked up a pair of calipers and measured a wound, and said, She was at that.

Utter examined the neck wound for a while, then said, You mentioned a long sharp object, but what about the knife?

Same. Serrated on one side, razor sharp on the other. Your basic hunting knife. I’ve got two at home myself. Did you notice his wrists and ankles?

Utter looked closely at the victim’s right wrist. Adhesive?

Found it on his wrists, ankles, and mouth.

Probably restrained with duct tape. Can you determine if any of the wounds were caused postmortem?

At this point I’d estimate at least half of the wounds were made while the victim was alive. Most of them were in non-life-threatening places, like the forearm, femur, and hip joints, and certain areas of the abdomen. The tibias. My guess is they were inflicted to increase the victim’s suffering. He pointed the calipers at the victim’s face. The eyes were removed postmortem.

Utter said, Thank God for small favors.

I don’t think God was with this man. At least I hope not. Dr. Rooth laid the calipers down and picked up the probe to resume his poking and prodding. He lifted a flap of tissue and peered beneath it.

Utter said, Fingerprints sent to the lab?

Of course. He’s had a lot of dental work. I’ll take impressions in case you can’t otherwise identify him.

Utter had had enough. The facility was as clean as a cafeteria, but nothing could be done about the smell. Thanks Doc. I can’t wait to read your report.

Dr. Rooth said, as Utter walked away from the autopsy table, Let’s hope this is the only one.

❧ ❧ ❧

The victim’s prints weren’t in any database, but Utter identified him the following day, Monday, when he cross-referenced his appearance with that of a recent missing persons report. Seattle is full of white guys about the victim’s height and weight, but only two were reported missing that weekend. His name was Connor Leffers and he’d been reported missing by his ex-wife, Carrie Leffers.

When Utter first went to work for Seattle PD, the deceased had to be identified at the morgue, an experience as intimidating as it was depressing. Now, thanks to high resolution digital imaging and fast Internet, Utter had only to sit Carrie Leffers down in front of a large computer monitor and show her enhanced images of her deceased ex.

Her jaw dropped and she said, That’s Connor! Oh my God! She put a hand to her mouth and tears leaked from the corners of her eyes.

Utter put a hand on her shoulder and said, Are you positive?

She nodded.

Why don’t we step into my office?

Leffers stood and followed Utter. Do you know what happened? Why were his eyes blurred out in the pictures?

Utter remained quiet until they’d reached his office. He closed the door behind her and said, motioning toward a chair, Please, have a seat. She sat and he said, Your ex-husband was murdered some time this weekend. I’m sorry for your loss.

Tears now flowed freely from her eyes. She pulled several tissues out of a box on Utter’s desk and wiped them away. Do you know what happened?

I’m afraid we don’t.

Why were his eyes blurred in the pictures?

Whoever killed him removed his eyes, after he’d died.

She tried to compose herself, but couldn’t stop her hands from shaking. What will I tell the boys? They’ll be devastated.

The department has a grief counselor. I’ve never seen her myself but I hear she’s pretty good. I can see if she’s got some time today. She might be able to help you come up with something appropriate for their ages.

She dropped her hands in her lap, wringing the tissues into twisted strands. Can I think about it? I’ve got family in Olympia. I’ll see if someone can come over tonight when I talk to the boys. They’re seven and four, and they worshiped Connor. The tears started again so she grabbed another couple of tissues and dabbed at her eyes. I’m sorry. You probably have some questions. What do you want to know?

I apologize for having to put you through this, Ms. Leffers. When did you and Mr. Leffers split up?

We separated in May of last year and the divorce was finalized in March, on the fifteenth.

I’ve never been divorced myself, but I understand they can be nasty.

She shook her head. It wasn’t like that. I don’t think Connor has, had, it in him to get really mad. He was so low-key. He was hurt, and we did have some harsh words ... but it was like he always felt bad afterward, for saying them.

"So you left him?"

She nodded. I just couldn’t take it anymore. Being married to him was so, stifling. Don’t ask me to explain because I can’t. Maybe I’m just not the marrying type.

Do you know if he hung out with anyone who used drugs or had done time in prison? Anything like that?

She frowned at Utter. "I’d be surprised if he ever knew anyone like that. In his life. Detective, he is—was, God it’s going to be so hard to get used to that. Sorry. He was a boring man who lived a boring life. He got up and went to work at a boring job, came home and drove the kids around if they had soccer or a school function, watched a little TV, maybe had one beer, then went to bed. He’d be asleep ten seconds after his head hit the pillow."

Utter nodded. He knew plenty of guys like that. Do you have any idea where he might have gone Friday night?

We had had a little, spat, last week. Monday. I’d gone out on a date and he didn’t like it, said it was too soon for the boys. I disagreed and told him as long as I wasn’t bringing strange men into the house it wasn’t any of his business what I did. Then, on Thursday, he sent me a text saying he’d be unavailable—she rolled her eyes—Friday night, in case the boys needed him. He said he was going out. I think it was his way of trying to get back at me.

Did he say he had a date?

No. He just said he was going out. I didn’t respond to the text and he didn’t say anything else. She looked at the tissues in her hand.

Would he have gone out with friends? Other guys?

I seriously doubt it, but I guess it’s possible. He didn’t really have any close friends, or what most people would call close friends. He had acquaintances. Boring people don’t go out with friends or do fun things. They stay home. That’s why they’re boring.

Can you write down some names and phone numbers for me? Utter slid a note pad and pen across the desk to her. If you can, could you list the ones first you think are most likely to have gone out with Connor?

Sure. She started writing, consulting her cell phone for numbers.

Three minutes later she slid the pad back to Utter. He glanced at it and said, That’s it? Six names?

She shrugged.