Victim Six (20 page)

“What’s that?” she asked.

“You mentioned your sister being a kitchen junk collector.”

She rolled her eyes. “Among other things.”

He nodded. “Yeah, among other things.”

Condensation clung to her glass, and she wiped it away with a paper napkin.

“Her name came up today on a list of buyers of stuff that may be related to the case.”

Serenity wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but she didn’t press for details right then.

“My sister’s a little loopy and her husband is a creep, but since my folks died they’re pretty much all I have,” she said.

He drank some wine. “You don’t mention them much.”

“We’re not close. Sometimes I wish we were,” she said.

“I know how that goes.”

October 22, 3:30 p.m.
Key Center

Max Castile had begged for months to be Indiana Jones for Halloween. At first Melody had been surprised by the choice. It seemed to be a character out of her own childhood and an unlikely candidate to inspire the imagination of a child of today. She had her sister to thank. It was an Indiana Jones video game that Serenity had given Max for his birthday.

She took out her mother’s old Singer sewing machine and worked day and night at the kitchen table, taking one of Sam’s work shirts and reducing it in size for her little boy to wear. She’d found an appropriately beat-up fedora at the Gig Harbor Goodwill that smelled of someone’s grandpa.

Max had found the whip.

“Mom, I love you,” he said, holding up the small black riding crop with a silver skull at its knob end. “This is so cool.”

The whip was not part of the costume she was making but had been among the toys that she and Sam employed in the Fun House.

“Where did you get this?” she asked, her voice a controlled scream.

Max looked confused and then burst into tears.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I thought you got it for me, Mom.”

“This is not for you,” she said, taking the whip back.

The little boy ran from the kitchen. His mother did not follow. She didn’t know what to say or whether it was worth making any more issue of it.

She turned the machine on and started sewing.

Melody Castile had been the star of Sam’s little productions nearly since the time they were first together. At first it made her feel uncomfortable, doing the things that he insisted turned him on. When it came to lipstick, he wanted her to wear bright red, not muted shades of brick and persimmon. Candy Apple was the color he desired on her lips. He wanted her to wear crotchless panties that he purchased off some Frederick’s of Hollywood–type site on the Internet.

“For my all-access pass,” he said when he gave her the sheer underwear with the slit on the front panel.

Sam’s requests escalated over time. No longer did he seem to be content to make her over into his version of sexy. He had her
do
things. Oral sex in a bathroom at the Space Needle. Allow him to slip his fingers into her vagina while they waited in the drive-through line at the Port Orchard Starbucks. Each time she acquiesced, the line moved closer toward the sordid.

“Baby, I need you to put this on and be my dirty little bitch.”

He handed her a short dress, pale blue: it looked like the kind of garment a flower girl might wear at a summer wedding.

“No panties, bitch,” he said as she dressed.

What is this game? Why am I doing this?

“I want you to put this inside of you, bitch,” he said, handing her a clear Lucite dildo. She’d never seen it before. It was enormous, shiny, like a phallic icicle. God only knew where he’d purchased it. At one of those seedy sex shops near the Navy base in Bremerton? Or in Tacoma at that suburban-style superstore, Castles? There, a credit card and a taste for the wild side could get a customer Jenna Jameson’s vagina or Johnny Wadd’s penis made of rubber or silicone with a starburst on the package proclaiming that it was dishwasher safe.

“Get on the bed,” he said, pushing her slightly, as his digital camera started to whir.

It wasn’t just that his voice was demanding: It was more that she
wanted
to please him. Melody knew that men sometimes needed something more than the usual. She wanted to help him, to please him. So she obeyed.

He took off his pants and underwear but not his shirt or socks as he stood before her. He almost never took off his socks when they had sex. Yet, she had to be devoid of all clothing and jewelry, down to her wedding band. It was what he preferred.

“Legs up. Spread your legs, bitch,” he said. “Higher.”

He held out his camera.

“But you can’t take sexy pictures of me, baby, if you can’t see my face,” she said.

She didn’t tell him that she’d spent a half hour on her hair and makeup, thinking that the sexy pictures he had in mind were more
Playboy
than
Hustler
. She was a pretty woman who didn’t need a heavy hand with the lipstick or blush, but he liked her to “paint it up” a little. She’d even put a little foundation on the thin white stretch marks she carried after childbirth.

He laughed. “Bitch, I don’t care about your face.”

She looked a little hurt, and he seemed to respond to her concern.

“I want to show these to my friends. If they see your face, they’ll know it’s you. Then they’ll hit on you. I don’t want that.”

She relaxed a little.

“Good, bitch. Now, put it in!”

Later she would think back to this moment, wondering if she’d crossed over to a dark and dangerous side. Was this her turning point? If she’d said no to the photos, the dildos, the leather straps, the chains…would things be different?

“It hurts,” she said.

“Oh, bitch, that’s good. That’s how I like it. That’s how you like it too.”

She lay back on the bed, feeling sore and ashamed. Whatever questions she had about what they were doing stayed unasked.

A few days later he came home from the shipyard, beaming. She was in the kitchen.

“I showed your pictures to some of the guys,” he said, cornering her in the kitchen while she prepared dinner. He spoke in low, conspiratorial tones. It was as if they’d done it together as a team. She’d felt she was just an object under his direction. But he seemed to suggest more.
Your pictures.
It made her feel good. “I didn’t tell them it was you, just some bitch I photographed.”

There was pride and excitement in his voice, and it stirred something in her. It was dark, nasty, and wrong on every level, but she wanted more. She wanted to make him happy.

“I’m glad to be your hot bitch,” she finally said, sliding her pink top up to reveal her breasts, still round and lovely even after having had a child. “Pinch me hard.”

Sam complied, taking her nipples between his rough, callused fingertips and twisting as if he were turning a stuck cap on a ketchup bottle. He could feel her tense up in pain, and it aroused him. She reached down and grabbed his crotch, feeling the power of her own.

“Good girl,” he said, twisting her harder.

“Yes, I am.” Tears rolled down her face, and her knees buckled. “I’m a very good girl, Daddy.”

He kissed her, his breath smoky and sweet from a beer he’d had with his friends.

“I want you to put it in me,” she said, almost pleading.

“My bitch wants it bad?”

“Oh, yes,” she said.

“Real bad?”

“Yes, Daddy, yes.”

He took his hands off her breasts and smacked his palms against her shoulders, sending her backward into the counter. A dinner plate fell and shattered.

“Only
I
say when!”

She pulled herself up as their son, Max, entered the room.

“Mom, what happened?” he asked, looking first her, then at his father. “Dad?”

Sam turned away, and Melody gathered herself. “We’re fine. Mommy just slipped. Dinner’s ready in five minutes.”

Max stood in the doorway for a beat and then went back to watching TV.

“Good, bitch,” he said, his voice a whisper. “You know just what to do.”

Melody Castile dreaded the encounter for more than a week. Her husband had rented a motel room in Tacoma a couple of exits south of the mall. She got a babysitter and had her hair done at the Gene Juarez Salon, a big splurge.

“I like your hair that way. Special occasion?” the sitter, a neighbor girl, asked as the couple was headed out the door.

“Any time with my husband is special,” she said, feeling her heart beat a little faster under her blouse.

“When will you be home tomorrow?”

“Early afternoon. There’s a frozen pizza you can fix for lunch.”

The conversation was mundane, constructed on what had to be said. What was an acceptable bedtime? Which snacks were okay, and which were verboten. The conversation with the sitter was a part of the deception that had started to overrun their lives. Soon everything was a lie. What they did. Who they were doing it with.

Except for their love. That would always be grounded in truth. And fear.

She told herself over and over that it was like going out on a double date, except there would be three of them. He had promised that the guy was “clean” and “in good shape” and that “he thinks your pictures are hot.”

His name was Paul. He was in his late thirties, divorced, no kids. He’d made the remark that swinging as a single would be a better use of his free time than trying to find another woman to settle down with.
Women are heartbreakers
, she sensed he was thinking, although she also sensed that he’d never admitted to Sam or anyone that his heart
had
been broken.

Melody remembered little of the encounter, and what she did recall came to her in pieces like the colors of a kaleidoscope, moving, turning, never really fitting into any identifiable shape. Her husband tied her up and took pictures as Paul penetrated her in every orifice. Repeatedly. After he could no longer maintain an erection, he used the neck of a champagne bottle that he’d brought along “to get us all in the mood.” Sam put down the camera and let Paul take photographs of her while he “tickled” her nipples with the tip of a hunting knife.

At one point Melody remembered looking down on herself as one man straddled her, forcing his penis in her mouth, while the other entered her anally. She could not be sure which of the pair of sweaty men was her husband and which was their playmate. When the man ejaculated into her mouth, he rolled out of view. In a mirror over a cheap dresser, she could see her face, smeared makeup, puffy eyes, and a small river of tears.

“Take it, whore! Take it!”

When she woke up the next day, Paul was gone. Sam was next to her, spooning her naked body with his own.

“Fun last night,” he said. His breath was hot on the nape of her neck, and she fought the urge to recoil.

Melody moved her head slightly, indicating her approval with a nod. But she swore to herself that she’d never do that again. How had it gone so far? How could this man who loved her so brutally violate her with another man? It was cruel. Scary. She would never get herself into that kind of a situation again. Not one in which
she
was the object of her husband’s twisted fantasies.

If there were any more three-ways, there’d be a second woman.

And I don’t care what happens to her,
she thought.
So long as it isn’t me and as long as it keeps my love happy.

When he offered up an alternative scenario, she jumped at it.

“I was thinking,” he said as she helped him shove a new chest freezer into a corner of the old mobile home. “Wouldn’t it be hot if we, you know, caught someone?”

“‘Caught?’”

“Yeah, you know, snagged some chick that we could play with together.”

Melody’s heart raced. “A woman?” she asked.

Her husband’s eyes flashed that look that she knew better than anyone. It wasn’t a question. It was a demand. “That’s what I was thinking.”

“I like it,” she said. “Sounds like fun.”

Melody Castile brought a bag of Nacho Doritos to pass the time by feeding the seagulls. She drove all over Kitsap County before finding herself on Olalla Valley Road in the very southern part of Kitsap County. Just after the Olalla Bay Bridge, she crossed the centerline and parked, her car facing traffic. If there was any. A young man sat in his pickup truck twenty yards ahead, his window cracked, smoke sliding out into the sea breeze. She opened the car door, found her footing on the rocks that edged the causeway, and ambled down to the water. She was alone. Her hands dipped into the Doritos bag, her fingertips turning orange. As if on cue, the birds came.

As they circled around her, pulling the DayGlo snack from her fingers, she winced at the pain.

The girl begging for her life.

The shadowy figure of a man as he penetrated a woman’s severed head.

A baby crying for its mother.

The images that came to her mind were raw. They brought a visceral response that shocked and soothed her at the same time. The birds mistook her orange-colored fingertips and bit her. Blood rolled down her wrist.

The smell of sex and murder.

The taste of a man after he’d finished having sex with a dead girl.

The light that went out in a young woman’s eyes as she tumbled into the depths of her terror.

Melody continued feeding the birds as a man with a clam bucket and shovel walked toward her.

“Hey, you okay?” he asked.

She didn’t respond.

“Those birds are hurting you.”

Snapped out of her thoughts, she turned toward the man.

“You all right?”

Melody’s eyes were dilated and scarcely showed the recognition that another human being had asked her a question.

The man put down the bucket and shovel. “Seriously, you all right?”

The last of the Doritos were snatched by a particularly aggressive gray gull.

“Fine. Yes. Fine.” She smiled at him. “Just lost in my thoughts, that’s all.”

Weeks passed and the temperatures dropped. Northwest rains came and turned maple leaves into a sodden mass. Detectives Kendall Stark and Josh Anderson felt the case of the so-called Kitsap Cutter grow cold. The FBI’s famed Behavioral Science Unit was consulted, but offered up nothing more than what an avid viewer of
Forensic Files
could: the killer was a white male, in his late thirties to forties, and likely had someone who helped him either with the procurement or torture of his victims.

Kendall put it this way on an interdepartmental memorandum: