The Fear Collector (27 page)

Tavio shook his head, his eyes grew wet, but he did not cry. Later, he would wonder if he’d lost part of his humanity because the mention of what he and his brother had done no longer produced the same emotion. Shame had replaced horror by then.

“Oh my God,” Mimi said. “You are not kidding.”

Tavio tried to explain, but it was a difficult thing to manage. “I will regret it forever. It was an accident. At least I think so.”

Later, he’d tell Mimi that once their baby was born, his brother would have to leave.

“I don’t trust him,” he said. “I don’t trust him to be good.”

Every now and then, Mimi would try to test Michael to see if he was just an immature young man or something sinister. He seemed to like girls. She and Tavio had gone out on several double dates with Michael.

One time she asked Michael if he dreamed of getting married.

“I guess so,” he said. “I don’t know if I will find anyone like the girlfriend I once had.”

Mimi held her tongue. She wanted to say, “You mean the one you killed?”

Yet she didn’t. There was something about her brother-in-law that scared her. More than what he’d done in the past. It was a fear about something he might do to
her
. It would probably be easier to kill a second time.

It was late, well after midnight, when Michael Navarro returned from wherever he’d been all night. He’d been evasive about what he was doing over the past few months, but neither Tavio nor Mimi pressed the issue. There was no real need for it. After all, they’d made a deal. Michael had said that when their baby was born he’d find a new place to live. He’d volunteered and the agreement had been amicable. Michael needed a place away from his brother, to start over, to begin his own life. It was true that he and Tavio would continue working together at the landscaping company, but there would be no more long drives to and from work locations. It was, Tavio agreed, the right thing to do.

“Best for you. Best for me,” he said.

Tavio was up watching a DIY show about landscaping—always good for a chuckle—when Michael came home that particular night. His younger brother literally kicked off his shoes and threw down his jacket. Though he was sometimes hard to read, this time there was no room for doubt. Michael seemed agitated about something.

“You pissed about having to move?” Tavio asked.

“No. Pissed about other stuff.”

Tavio studied his brother. His facial muscles were taut and he stood with his feet planted firmly. It was almost as if he was daring Tavio to take him on, to push him.

“Like what?” he asked, weighing his words and watching for the reaction. “Other stuff?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Michael said.

“I might,” he said. “But how would I know if you don’t tell me?”

“You have everything, Tavio. I have nothing.”

Tavio motioned for his brother to sit, but Michael refused. “I worked hard,” Tavio said. “You work hard.”

Michael shook his head. “It isn’t about that. I don’t care about that,” he said, looking at the big-screen TV. “I am stuck. I’m trying not to be. I’m trying to do like what they talk about on the radio. Move on. I want to move on.”

Tavio didn’t ask from where or what. He had an idea, a hope.

“Talk to me, Michael.”

“I won’t. I can’t. Sometimes I feel like there is a beast inside of me, eating me, clawing at me from inside my stomach.”

Tavio glanced at the TV, the sound of a commercial loudly filling the room. He pushed the M
UTE
button and turned to talk to his brother, only to find that he was alone.

Michael was gone.

* * *

The next morning, the
Tacoma News Tribune
ran another article on the dead and missing girls and women. Since there had been no real news, the reporter went for the easy way to advance the story by highlighting other Northwest cases that had held the attention of the region in years past.

The article, which included a timeline and bonus online features, highlighted the Ted cases from the 1970s and made mention that the lead detective in today’s case had a personal connection to the crimes.

Detective Alexander’s family has always maintained that Tricia O’Hare was a victim of Bundy’s. She disappeared just before the string of murders, but her remains were never found. She’s been listed as a victim by a number of authorities, including the FBI.

Tavio and Mimi Navarro sat in his landscaper’s pickup truck across the street from the Tacoma Police Department on Pine Street. They’d never been to a police department before—they’d never had a reason to. Both also knew there was a risk at coming there—a risk that by sharing their concerns with those who carry a badge they could destroy their family. Mimi, who had the most to lose, had been the most insistent of the pair.

“If another girl dies,” she said, “then it is blood on our hands. I cannot live with that.”

“But what about . . .”

Mimi didn’t blink. She was completely sure. “I would rather be sent back to Mexico than live knowing I could have stopped Michael from hurting another girl.”

It was more than
hurting
, of course. The Navarros were heartsick about the possibility that Michael was a killer.

“Remember, we are here with the hope that he didn’t kill that girl,” Tavio said, reiterating a kind of fantastic wish that seemed like the longest shot imaginable. Everything had pointed to Michael.

Grace Alexander met them in the lobby among the historic uniforms and other relics that played out the history of the Tacoma Police like a mini law enforcement museum. The Navarros followed her to a second-floor interview room and she offered them coffee or water, but they declined.

“I know this is difficult,” the Tacoma Police detective said. “And I know your circumstances concern you, but do not worry. I’m not concerned with that. I’m not looking at causing you any harm, I just want to understand why you think your brother killed the girls found by the river.”

“I am not a police officer,” Mimi said, stating the obvious. “But I do watch
CSI
and
Investigation Discovery
all the time.”

Grace smiled. “Yes, many people do.”

Tavio spoke up. “I don’t watch them. But I do fear, I mean,
know
that he killed that girl in Yakima. I am sorry that I never said anything before. I am very, very sorry. I think I just believed him enough to stop me from telling anyone. And when they found the girl, what more could I do anyway? She was dead. There was no bringing her back. He’s my brother and I will always love him right or wrong. At the time, I didn’t want to think that he really killed her. . . .”

Grace leaned forward. “But you know he did, right?”

Tavio nodded. “Yes. Are you going to arrest him for that?”

“No,” she said. “That’s not the case I’m working, but the police in Yakima will be taking another look and we will see some kind of an outcome concerning their investigation later. I’m more interested in learning more about your brother and how it is that you think he’s involved in the murders here.”

“Yes, but what will happen with Yakima?” Mimi asked.

“I talked with the police there,” Grace said. “Other than your statement, it looks like there is not much evidence.”

“What about his DNA?” Mimi said, a little proud that she could bring up a technical term. Although she was taking classes, she didn’t have much opportunity to talk about things like that. Tavio was a good man, but he was not complicated.

“Unfortunately, the samples from Catalina’s body,” Grace said, “were compromised.” She didn’t tell them that the samples had vanished from the crime lab.

As Mimi listened to the detective, she reached into her purse and pulled out the photographs of the young women she’d found in her brother-in-law’s bureau drawer.

“Makes me sick, this stuff,” she said.

Grace looked down at the images. None of the girls looked familiar. No Kelsey, no Emma, no Lisa. It was a collection of porn, disturbing, certainly. Evidence, possibly.

“Look,” Mimi said, “All of the girls look the same. Just like the missing girls in the newspaper. He must be collecting these for some perverted reason, Detective.”

Grace turned the photos over. She didn’t say that the girls were a match, because they weren’t. Not really. Yes, they had dark hair and dark eyes, but they were Hispanic.

None of the missing or dead girls were.

P
almer Morton was good looking in the way that men with money can afford to be. He wore the best clothes—clothing that he purchased on trips to New York because he insisted that Seattle or, even more so, Tacoma, had no sartorial finesse. He didn’t admit to it, but he dyed his hair—or rather had a stylist come to his house and do it. No Grecian Formula for his locks. Palmer was a small man, but like actor Tom Cruise, he carried himself in such a way that most people didn’t realize that he was under five-foot-eight. Lifts in his custom Italian shoes didn’t hurt the perception, either.

Yet right then as he stood in his son’s room overstuffed with the accoutrements of a father with a guilty conscience—a plasma screen that nearly covered one wall, and a computer workstation that would have made computer geeks Apple-green with envy.

“You little shit,” Palmer said, jabbing his fingers into Alex’s shoulder as the teenager sat up on his bed.

“Hey! That hurts!” Alex yelped.

“You ungrateful little shit. You made Calla cry!”

Alex shot his dad a lightning-fast cold look—so fast that he hoped his dad hadn’t seen it. “That’s what you’re mad at? You made Mom cry when she caught you screwing Calla at the beach house.”

Palmer jabbed at his son again, but Alex pulled back in time. This brought an even darker red hue to the older man’s face. His eyes were now bulging and the veins on his neck pulsed in time with his anger in a staccato fashion.

“Alex, that’s done,” he said, seething. “You mention that one more time and you’re going to go to a state school. Don’t ever make Calla cry again. Don’t ever threaten her again. Got that?”

Alex got up and not so skillfully hid a package of cigarettes from his father’s prying eyes. “Can we forget about her?” he asked, looking up. “I’m in trouble, Dad.”

Palmer shed his jacket. He was hot and angry. He knew he’d already blown up, but there was always the threat of an aftershock of anger.

“You are always in trouble,” Palmer said. “You seem to make a sport of trying to find ways to piss me off and make me wish I pushed harder for an abortion when I had the chance.”

Alex had heard that particularly hurtful regret before. His father claimed that his mother tricked him into marriage by getting pregnant. His dad had never wanted him.

“The cops came today,” he said, refusing to look into his father’s eyes.

As Alex predicted, Palmer exploded again. “Jesus! What did you do? Shoplift at Frye’s again? What an idiot!”

Alex pulled back and let his eyes look into his father’s only for a half-second. “No. No. I haven’t done that in a long time.”

Doesn’t he know the difference between shoplifting and real trouble?

“Good, because the next time you do I’m not going to bail you out by paying off the manager. He’s using me like a damn ATM. So what is it now?”

“The cops came today about Emma. She’s missing.”

“Is that the chick you were doing?” Palmer asked, a smirk now spreading over his face.

Alex glared at his father. “I didn’t
do
her, and yes, it was the girl I really liked.”

Palmer shook his head in utter disgust. “Liked? God! You’re nineteen, grow a pair and use ’em. Use ’em a lot. Forget
liking
any girl. There’s time for that later.”

Alex hated his father so much just then. More than he ever did. He knew that his dad had no real attachments to anyone. Not even Calla. Certainly not to
him
. Alex knew that there were things about him that were genetically linked to his father—his eyes, his build. Thankfully
not his height.
By his sixteenth birthday, Alex had been a good five inches taller than his dad—an achievement that made Palmer Morton bitter. As Alex watched his father, he often worried that his near sociopathic personality had transferred to him. His dad was an ass. He probably had some of that in him, too. When he’d told a friend about what he thought, she’d told him that he “absolutely” wasn’t like his dad at all.

“The fact that you recognize what kind of person he is and that you don’t want to be like him is proof enough that you’re not headed down that path.”

It was Emma Rose who had said those words. And when she had, he’d fallen for her. Hard. It was as if for the first time ever he’d found someone who wanted to believe that he had some good inside him. He wasn’t just the rich kid with the blowhard dad. He wasn’t a petty thief who shoplifted iPods and other stuff he didn’t need.

Palmer pressed on with the quasi interrogation of his son. “Why did the police come to talk to you about her?”

“She’s missing. I told you that.”

“Look, I can’t remember every detail of your social life, as puny as it is. But why did they come to
you
about Emma?”

“You know, because we went out a few times. That’s all. They were just looking for information.”

“What’s the big deal then?” Palmer asked.

Alex searched for the right words. Some things his dad could never understand. “I don’t know.”

Palmer unbuttoned his shirt collar. His anger still percolated, but it had subsided a little. “Alex, I can’t fix this if I don’t know what kind of problem we’re facing here.”

“Dad, I’m not sure. We had a big fight. Emma actually dumped me. I said some stuff about wanting to get her back. I didn’t want her to break up with me. Now, you know, she’s gone and it looks like, well, bad. Real bad.”

Palmer sighed. “What a pussy you are. Jesus! I never thought I’d have a dickless wonder for a son. But I’ll fix it. I always do.”