Chapter 24

Seattle, Washington

Tuesday to Wednesday, March 3–4, 2020

It was late when I got home Tuesday night, but I was in high spirits. The conversations with Detective Byrd and Matt Barr

had made me feel as though I was making enormous forward progress, but it was clear from talking to them and to Detective

Sechrest as well that a trip back to Seattle PD’s Evidence unit was definitely in order, and that needed to happen sooner

rather than later.

However, my good mood pretty much evaporated once I found a grim-faced Mel glued to the TV set where a newscaster was saying

that multiple Covid deaths had been reported at a nursing home in Kirkland, another of Seattle’s Eastside suburbs. I paused

long enough to feed Sarah and make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before joining Mel on the sofa.

“You look upset,” I ventured.

“I am upset,” she said. “Very. People are dying of something that spreads like wildfire and that no one knows how to treat. Schools and restaurants and businesses are going to be shut down, but I can’t close the doors on the department. Public safety still matters, and crime isn’t going to magically go away just because there’s a pandemic in progress. Some of my people may be able to work from home, but most won’t. There are going to be mask mandates. I’ve spent the whole day trying to source masks for the department. It’s been frustrating as hell.”

Believe me, Mel Soames is not a complainer. She’s your basic perpetual optimist, someone who sees solutions where others see

only problems. In all the years I’ve known her, those were more negative words than I had ever heard her utter at one time.

But I also knew that telling her everything was going to be okay was a sure path to disaster. Either she’d think I was patronizing

her or, even worse, “mansplaining.” In this situation, my best course of action was to simply agree with everything she said.

“You’re right,” I said. “It’s going to be tough.”

Turns out, not minimizing the problem was the right strategy. Sarah, sensing something amiss, finished snarfing down her food

and then came over to the couch where she laid her massive head on Mel’s lap. Both those things seemed to help snap Mel out

of her funk. She switched off the TV. Then, absently petting the dog with one hand and glancing at her watch, she commented,

“You’re home late. How was your day?”

It was a long story, and bringing her up-to-date took time.

“With those new case numbers, I’m assuming your next step is to examine the evidence boxes,” she said.

I nodded. “With the pandemic bearing down on us, no telling how long before the Evidence unit will be on lockdown, too. But commuting ninety miles back and forth doesn’t sound like a good idea. If you can take Sarah to work with you tomorrow, I’ll head back to Seattle. That way, if need be, I can get a hotel room and stay over.”

“I wish we still had the condo,” Mel said wistfully. “I hate to think about your checking into a hotel with lots of other

people, travelers especially, when you don’t know where they’ve been. Not only that, according to everything I’ve read and

heard, older people are the ones most susceptible to Covid.”

In our marriage, the fifteen-year age difference between Mel and me doesn’t usually rear its ugly head, but it just had. I

could have been offended, but in that moment, we both needed to lighten the load, so I went for humor.

“That’s what you get for tying the knot with an old duffer,” I told her. “So here’s the deal. If you’ll take Sarah with you,

I’ll head back to Seattle first thing in the morning. If I can get everything I need done in one day, I will, and I promise

not to stay over unless it’s absolutely necessary. Fair enough?”

She smiled and nodded. “Fair enough,” she agreed.

Sensing that the tension had left the room, Sarah abandoned Mel’s lap in favor of curling up on her rug.

“How did Kyle fare today?” I asked.

“All right,” Mel said. “When I came home, he was sitting at the island doing homework, although he told me he didn’t think

there was much point. He said the teachers are all in a flap about switching over to online learning next week, and they’re

all acting weird.”

“Next week?” I echoed. “That soon?”

Mel nodded. “Next Wednesday, the eleventh.”

“So it’s coming for sure.”

“For sure,” she repeated, “and we’re all going to have to do the best we can.”

Knowing I’d need to get an early start the next day, we decided it was time to hit the hay. I let Sarah out for one last walk, then we all headed for the bedroom.

The next morning Kyle, eating breakfast at the kitchen island, was surprised when all three of us—Mel, Sarah, and I—emerged

from the bedroom at the same time. I had packed an overnight bag to take along, just in case. The TV set was off, and I, for

one, was very grateful about that.

Over coffee we explained the logistics for the day, and Kyle volunteered to help. “Would you like me to come by your office

after school and take Sarah for a walk?” he asked.

“That would be a huge help,” Mel said. “Come to think of it, there’s something else you could do.”

She reached into her pocket, fished out her wallet, and extracted her Visa card. “Once you finish walking her, how about if

you go by Costco and stock up on all the things you like to eat. If the restaurants are going to be closed, there’s going

to be a lot of panicky shopping, and it’ll be crowded, but since Grandpa and I are so dependent on takeout, I don’t want any

of us to starve to death.”

“Will do,” Kyle said, pocketing the credit card. “And I’m guessing this is for groceries only,” he added with a grin. “I’m

not allowed to pick up a new computer while I’m at it?”

“In your dreams,” Mel replied, but she was smiling, too.

It seemed as though a night’s sleep had done all of us a world of good. However, to avoid my having to visit any restaurants, Mel insisted on packing a lunch for me—an amount of food equal to several lunches in fact. I hit the road laden with a bag containing four PB&J sandwiches, a bag of sour-cream-and-onion potato chips, and a bunch of bananas. If we’d owned an old-fashioned thermos, I’m sure Mel would have insisted that I fill that with coffee before leaving the house.

“Not to worry,” I told her. “The Evidence unit is part of Seattle PD. I’m sure I’ll be able to scrounge up coffee as needed.”

Out in the garage, Sarah seemed a little confused when I ordered her into the back seat of Mel’s Interceptor rather than into

my Mercedes, but once she realized that her rug was already there and waiting, she complied at once. By the time I shut the

car door, she was curled up and settled in.

When it came time for Mel to climb into the driver’s seat, she gave me a quick kiss. “Be safe,” she said.

In the years I had known her, I had seldom seen Mel scared or even so much as spooked. In that moment, I could see in her

eyes how frightened she was, not just for me, but for Kyle, for her department, her country, and maybe even for the whole

world. I wanted to tell her, You need to stop watching so much news , but there wasn’t any point.

“I will be,” I said. “I promise.”

Heading south, I was grateful it was overcast but not raining. Had it been clear, the moisture from the previous day’s rainstorms

might have left a coating of black ice on the roadway. The marine layer meant the road was wet but not slick. I had started

late enough that, by the time I reached Everett, the worst of Seattle’s inbound morning traffic was beginning to subside.

I made straight for SODO without passing Go and without paying two hundred dollars.

Officer Harriman recognized me on sight. “You again?” she asked.

“Just call me the bad penny.”

“What do you need this time?”

On the drive down, I’d made up my mind that I needed to revisit the Darius Jackson file along with the other two.

“I need the same file you gave me last time—the one on Darius Jackson—and a couple more besides,” I told her, handing over

Sandra Sechrest’s Post-it note. “I’ll also need to be able to view any DVDs that may be included.”

Thankfully, I didn’t have to go through the whole rigamarole of showing my ID. Officer Harriman handed me a clipboard and

told me to sign in while she dispatched someone else to fetch the evidence files. But then she eyed the bag Mel had packed

for me. “What’s in that?” she asked.

“My lunch,” I explained.

“No food or beverages are allowed in evidence rooms. You’ll need to stow it in one of the lockers over there,” she said, pointing

to a bank of lockers, most of which had keys in the doors.

“Not many visitors here today,” she added, “so take your pick.”

The clerk who brought the evidence boxes from wherever they were kept escorted me into a different room and then gave me a

quick lesson on how to operate the video equipment. I’m sure Scotty Beaumont wouldn’t have had the least bit of trouble with

it, but his dear old dad required some assistance. After the food bank video was locked and loaded, it took a few practice

tries for me to master the art of frame-by-frame viewing, along with using the keyboard to increase and decrease the size

of the images I was examining.

And that’s how I studied the video footage of Darius Jackson and the unidentified homeless woman as they left the entrance

of the food bank and walked through the darkness toward the street on Thanksgiving night. They moved in sync with him on the

right and her on the left and closer to the camera.

One frame at a time, almost one step at a time, I followed their movements. Then, as they reached the sidewalk and turned left, I saw what I was looking for—a tiny pinprick of light gleaming on the woman’s left wrist. At regular speed it had been invisible, and it appeared only during the step or two it took for her to turn the corner, but the movements involved must have inadvertently caused the sleeve of her coat to ride up slightly on her arm, enough so that the camera lens captured what I was now sure was a momentary flash of light from the glowing face of an Apple Watch.

My emotional response was much the same as Matt Barr’s had been. What the hell was a homeless woman doing with an Apple Watch?

Where had she gotten it and how did she charge it? Did she have a solar panel hidden in that cart of hers so she could recharge

the watch as needed? No, there was only one answer to the Apple Watch question. This woman wasn’t homeless at all. She was

masquerading as someone who was.

“Gotcha!” I exclaimed aloud to the image on the screen. “I may not know who the hell you are at the moment, but you’d better

believe I’m coming for you.”

The next box I had requested was the one for Loren Gregson. Once the dog-walker called in to report finding a dead body in

a blackberry patch, uniformed officers had been first to respond. Shortly thereafter, Seattle PD detectives had been summoned,

and there I spotted a familiar name. Detective Sandra Sechrest had been one of the original investigators on the scene. No

wonder she’d been willing to give me the case numbers. Not only had she spoken to Matilda Jackson, she’d also been required

to walk away from the Gregson case once the M.E. made the autopsy call.

The detectives had initiated a neighborhood canvass to see if anything out of line had been reported from the night before. That turned up nothing. The detectives had collected surveillance footage from three separate businesses in the area—a mini-mart, a restaurant, and a bar: the Fremont Inn, the very one Loren Gregson’s mother had mentioned. The footage had then been transferred to DVDs, which were placed in the evidence box, but no notation in the accompanying murder book indicated that any of the video material had ever been analyzed. My best guess was that once the accidental death ruling came in, the investigation into Loren Gregson’s death had ground to a halt. At that point, further examination of any evidence would have been deemed unnecessary.

The M.E. had reported the time of death as being sometime overnight on Saturday, January 10. During wintertime Seattle, nights

are long indeed. It made sense that someone committing a crime would aim to do so late at night, thus lessening the risk of

having possible witnesses out and about. I decided arbitrarily that I’d focus my attention on the footage time-stamped between

the hours of eleven p.m. and five a.m. , but that was a hell of a lot of footage to review, especially since I was doing the job solo.

Not only that, there was no way to make use of the fast-forward button. Depending on the speed of movement, vehicles especially

and even pedestrians passed in and out of camera range in mere seconds. That meant every scrap of video had to be examined

in real time. So that’s what I did, minute by minute and hour by hour. Knowing that late-night trouble often occurs in bars,

I examined the bar’s interior video first—reviewing the evening of January tenth both outside and inside the Fremont Inn starting

at seven p.m.

Having seen Loren’s various mug shots, I had a reasonably good idea of who I was looking for. The resolution on the bar’s interior surveillance system was excellent, allowing me to view the goings-on from several different angles. That took even more time. While the time stamp on the video moved from seven to nine thirty, noon my time came and went. By then my eyes were killing me and so was my back. I was about to give up, but when I hit the 9:30 p.m. time stamp, that’s when my perseverance paid off.

There Loren was, big as life. It turned out he was a little more portly than I would have expected. He marched in through

the entrance as though he owned the place, bellied up to the bar, and immediately placed an order without bothering to consult

a menu. His first and second drinks were both delivered shot-glass style with a clear liquid inside both—either vodka or tequila,

I surmised. Those had both gone down the hatch before his meal showed up. It was a platter of bar food that looked like a

chiliburger although I couldn’t tell for sure. His food was accompanied by two more shots. Right about 10:45, he pushed his

plate away, signaled for his bill and signed his mother’s tab, and then staggered out of the bar in far worse shape than when

he’d first entered.

At that point, I switched over to the Fremont Inn’s exterior footage. Here the resolution wasn’t nearly as clear, but I was

able to see long piles of plowed snow lining the sidewalk. I queued the video to 10:45 p.m. Only a few frames in, Loren Gregson appeared, exiting the bar and stepping out onto the sidewalk. He paused long enough to

tug his sagging pants back into position. Then, after looking around for a moment, he pulled his jacket tighter around him

and staggered away, westbound toward the Ship Canal rather than away from it.

Considering the weather that night, he certainly wasn’t dressed for a long walk outdoors. I watched as he set off down the sidewalk. Then, stepping out of camera range, he disappeared from view. That was a sobering moment. I sat there realizing that I had just watched a badly impaired man stroll out of sight and into the darkness, totally oblivious to the reality that he was walking straight into the arms of the grim reaper. For several seconds I stared at the monitor and dealing with the reality that I was now one of the last people on earth to see Loren Gregson alive.

But then something else caught my eye as another figure entered camera range, coming from the north. It was swathed in what

appeared to be a light-colored blanket of some kind, one that was draped around the person’s shoulders and fell all the way

to the ground where it scraped along the sidewalk. Straining to get a closer look at this ghostlike visage, I caught sight

of the hoodie underneath the blanket that completely obscured the person’s face from the surveilling camera’s lens.

A wave of excitement swept through me as I realized exactly what I was seeing. I had just watched Loren Gregson wander off

into the night. Now here was his stone-cold killer, clearly stalking her prey. That was her, I was sure of it. She hadn’t

been waiting for him inside the Fremont Inn, but outside it. I suspected that she had been somewhere nearby, wrapped in the

blanket and huddled against a building and virtually invisible. Passersby might have walked around her or even stepped over

her without actually seeing her. Because that’s what most people do about homeless people—they ignore them.

I stopped the footage in the last frame before she would have walked out of range. Her left wrist was facing me, but both

of her hands and arms were hidden from view under the blanket. If she was wearing the Apple Watch that night, there was no

way for me to catch sight of it. Nor was there a chance of spotting any distinguishing facial features.

I was beside myself with a weird mix of conflicting emotions consisting of equal parts excitement and frustration. I was sure this was the killer—it had to be—but I had no way of identifying her. Who was she? Where had she come from? How had she gotten there? Was her grocery cart hidden somewhere nearby but out of sight? And even though my whole being said I was right, everything I had so far was completely circumstantial. Down deep I knew that I still didn’t have enough to get Seattle PD to move off the dime on any of these cases.

At that moment, I needed a break in the very worst way, so I abandoned the evidence room and went looking for one of my PB&Js.

I collected my lunch bag from the locker and headed for the break room, which was totally deserted. I went straight to the

Keurig setup where there was a selection of coffees and an honor jar asking for a dollar a pop. Figuring I was in for the

day, I dropped in a fiver and collected my first cup of java. It wasn’t up to what I’m used to from our freshly ground beans

at home, but beggars can’t be choosers.

I settled down at one of the tables and unwrapped my sandwich. Not wanting to be disturbed, I had turned my phone off while

I had been in the evidence room. When I turned it back on, the phone practically blew up. I suddenly had eighty-eight emails

I hadn’t had earlier. All of those came from Yolanda Aguirre’s intern, so now I was in possession of that many new files in

need of examination. And then there were three text messages from Lulu Benson. The first one had come in at ten a.m. : Please give me a call. The one at eleven thirty was a bit more terse: Call me. Message number three had come in at 1:15. It was in all caps: ARE YOU GOING TO CALL ME BACK OR WHAT?

Thinking she might now be in possession of Caroline Richards’s DNA profile, I dialed her number.

“It’s about damned time you called,” she muttered irritably.

“You’ve got the profile already?” I asked.

“Not only a profile, dummy,” she snapped back. “I’ve got a name for you. Now, are you going to shut up and listen or not?”

Not wanting to tangle with Lulu Benson, I shut up, and she continued, “The DNA profile obtained from Caroline Richards led

to a woman who was born in Princeton, New Jersey, on April 12, 1977. Her birth name was Patricia Ann Bledsoe. She was the

daughter of a Princeton philosophy professor named Arnold Bledsoe and a stay-at-home mom named Lila Anderson Bledsoe. Her

sister, Marisa Bledsoe Young, who was three years younger than Patricia, aka Phyllis Baylor, entered her own DNA into NamUs

and also in GEDmatch two years ago in an effort to locate her long-lost sister as well as Patricia’s daughter, Serena, aka

Lindsey Baylor, both of whom disappeared without a trace in 2002.”

NamUs is a national database of missing persons. Individuals as well as law enforcement are able to post entries including

names, dental records, and DNA profiles. They’re also able to do their own online searches. A similar organization in the

private sector is the nonprofit DNA Doe Project, which focuses on human remains that may have gone unidentified for decades.

I was so astonished by Lulu’s revelations that I could barely speak, but eventually I did. “That’s how you found her?” I asked.

“Through NamUs.”

“I didn’t do it personally,” she replied, “but once my DNA tech had the profile, I had her run it. That way it goes through

the proper channels. Marisa currently lives in Fountain Hills, Arizona, which is somewhere near Scottsdale. Would you like

her phone number?”

“Are you kidding? Absolutely!”

Lulu gave me a number with a 480 area code. “You should prob ably call her right away,” she added. “Notification of the match may turn up in her email any minute now if it hasn’t already.”

“Will do,” I said.

My mother was always a big proponent of “think before you speak.” In this case, I certainly could have used some more thinking

time before opening my big mouth, but I didn’t want to risk it. I wanted to get to Marisa Young before someone from NamUs

did.

Downing one last sip of coffee for luck, I keyed her number into my phone and waited for it to ring. If Marisa had been born

in 1980, she was about forty. At this hour of the day, chances are she’d be at work, but I crossed my fingers and hoped to

hell she’d answer.