The Last Victim (33 page)

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Authors: Kevin O'Brien

BOOK: The Last Victim
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“Why did you go through directory assistance when you have the number right there on the card?” Zach asked.
“This way my phone number won’t show up on their caller ID,” Bridget explained.
They sat in his car, parked down the street from Mrs. Rankin’s house. Bridget was on her cell phone to the law offices of Bard and Mitchell. She was on hold, listening to Willie Nelson sing “Unchained Melody.”
“Do you really think Sonny might have seen something that night?” Zach asked, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.
“It’s worth a shot, isn’t it?” She glanced at her wristwatch. “If this sanitarium is somewhere between here and Portland, we might have time to swing by today.”
“ ‘Doesn’t take no visitors,’ remember?”
“Well, maybe we can work our way around that—”
“Rachel Towles speaking,” the voice came on the other end.
“Oh, hello, I’m Cheryl—Matthias of Blooms Floral in Longview,” Bridget lied. “And we have a mum plant for delivery to a Lon Fessler Junior. I was told I could get an address from you. Is that correct?”
“I’m sorry, we can’t give out that information.”
“Well, this is a 69.95 order, and our delivery guy’s waiting in his car for an address. I understand Mr. Fessler’s in a rest home. I’m calling from Longview. Is he within our seventy-five-mile delivery area?”
“Once again, I’m sorry,” the attorney said. “I can’t give you that information. May I ask who purchased this plant for Mr. Fessler?”
Bridget hesitated. “Well, if you’re not going to help me, I don’t see why I should help you,” she said. “This is a 69.95 order, and now I can’t fill it. Tell you what, if you give me an address, then I’ll give you a name.”
There was a silence on the other end. Bridget bit her lip and waited.
“Um, you said you’re with Blooms Floral in Longview?” the attorney asked. “Is there a number where I can call you back, Ms. Matthias?”
“Well, I’m the only one here in the store, and I’m leaving soon. I—have to handle a big funeral this afternoon. If you can’t give me an address where we can send this mum plant, I guess there’s nothing more for us to discuss.”
Bridget waited, hoping Rachel Towles might acquiesce and give her the name of the rest home where they had Sonny Fessler.
But there was a click on the other end, and the line went dead.
“Maybe we’ll have more luck with Olivia’s mother,” Zach said, parking across the street from Mrs. Rankin’s modest, gray ranch house. It was dwarfed by a huge evergreen tree on the front lawn.
Bridget had phoned Mrs. Rankin last night. She hadn’t been sure how to approach the subject. After all, what she and Zach wanted to do was interview Mrs. Rankin—and maybe, if they could, sift through Olivia’s personal effects for clues regarding her “suicide” and the “new information” she’d had about Gorman’s Creek. But Bridget couldn’t exactly tell Mrs. Rankin that.
Instead, she’d merely asked if she and Zachary Matthias could stop by and talk with her about Olivia. “I guess we’re looking for answers too,” she’d explained.
Apparently, it had been the right thing to say, because Mrs. Rankin had invited them to her house this afternoon.
She even had coffee brewed and served it to them in her living room with a plate full of Chips Ahoys that she arranged in front of them—directly from the bag. Mrs. Rankin wore a flowery print blouse and khakis. She’d made up her face—just a trace too heavily—but it didn’t camouflage the fact that she looked tired. Bridget asked how she was holding up.
“Some days are harder than others,” she said, sitting across from them in an easy chair.
Bridget and Zach sat on the slightly worn, beige and brown sofa. Nearly everything in the living room was beige, brown, or navy blue. Bridget had been there before on a couple of occasions back in high school. The place hadn’t changed much since then. She remembered this drab living room. It had always amazed her that a wild, edgy girl like Olivia lived in such a colorless house.
“Have you talked to any of Olivia’s friends in Seattle?” Bridget asked, a Chips Ahoy in her hand. “Were they any help?”
Mrs. Rankin shook her head. “Not really. Several of her friends came down for the funeral—along with her work colleagues. She was a receptionist for this group of chiropractors, you know. Very nice people, but no one was able to give me one reason why Olivia would take her own life. It doesn’t make sense.”
Zach leaned forward and put down his coffee cup. “This sounds like a strange question—and totally unrelated,” he said. “But did Olivia ever talk to you about Mallory Meehan?”
Bridget shifted a bit on the lumpy sofa. She couldn’t believe he’d just cut to the chase like that—and blurted out Mallory’s name.
Staring down at the beige shag carpet, Mrs. Rankin pursed her lips. “Hmmm, you mean that strange girl who disappeared sometime after graduation?”
Zach nodded.
“No, I don’t think Olivia was friends with her. Whatever happened to that girl anyway? Did they ever find her?”
“No, they didn’t,” Bridget said. “Um, Mrs. Rankin, I was wondering if Olivia’s mail got forwarded to you. The reason I ask is that if you have her most recent phone bill, we might be able to track down some of the people she was calling near the end. Maybe they can tell us something about Olivia’s state of mind around that time.”
“Well, that’s a very good idea,” Mrs. Rankin said, reaching for a cookie. “I never thought of doing that. I have most of Olivia’s mail at my office. I work mornings in the billing department at Longview Paper and Pulp.”
“Do you think there’s any way Zach and I could take a look at that phone bill?” Bridget asked.
“Well, I can drive back there this afternoon and fax the phone bill to you. Do you have a fax machine?”
Bridget nodded. “Yes, thank you. That would be great. I’ll give you my fax number before we leave.”
“Mrs. Rankin, this is another question out of the blue,” Zach said.
Bridget started to squirm again.
“I was wondering,” he went on. “Did Olivia ever say anything to you about Gorman’s Creek?”
Mrs. Rankin had a mouthful of cookie, but she stopped chewing for a moment. Then she reached for her coffee and took a big gulp. “Um, yes,” she said finally. “Olivia got into some trouble there—with the police. They caught her and some friends swimming in the pond there—without any swimsuits.” She muttered the last part. “At least, that’s what the police said.”
“That’s all?” Zach pressed. “She didn’t mention any other incident there? She didn’t say anything about Gorman’s Creek to you recently?”
Mrs. Rankin shrugged. “Not that I recall. Why do you ask? Is there something else that happened at Gorman’s Creek I should know about?”
Zach shook his head. “No. It’s just that I was one of the kids who were there at the pond when the cops came. Some of the kids were naked, but not Olivia. She swam in her underwear. I remember her saying she didn’t want to do anything that she might be ashamed of later. Olivia had a lot of integrity.”
Mrs. Rankin smiled at him. She had tears in her eyes. “Thank you for telling me that,” she said, wiping her eyes with a napkin. “You’re very sweet.”
Bridget sipped her coffee and watched the two of them. Zach was lying, of course. He was telling Mrs. Rankin what she needed to hear. Bridget admired how he kept a lid on the Gorman’s Creek connection and managed to make Mrs. Rankin feel good about her daughter. Still, he was lying. Bridget wondered how many times he’d lied to her and told her what
she
needed to hear.
“Do you know if Olivia kept a journal, Mrs. Rankin?” he asked.
She sighed and shook her head. “No, I thought of that too. I’ve been through all her things. I spent last week cleaning out her town house up in Seattle. I gave away a ton of things to Goodwill. But I still have a basement full of stuff downstairs—mostly clothes and knickknacks.”
“Would it be all right if we had a look?” Bridget asked sheepishly.
Mrs. Rankin took a cookie with her as she led them through the kitchen. She switched on the light at the top of the basement stairs. “Sorry, it’s an awful mess down here,” she said.
They descended a creaky wooden staircase to the dank-smelling cellar. Clothes—some in dry-cleaner plastic bags—were on hangers, suspended from a pipe running along the ceiling. Boxes had been piled on top of a Ping-Pong table that also held various other bulky items. Among the odds and ends, Bridget noticed a Lava Lamp, a big stuffed rabbit, a box full of framed prints (Olivia seemed fond of Gustav Klimt), a guitar, and an open box full of Olivia’s shoes. Bridget picked up a red high heel out of the group, and she felt a sudden, overwhelming sadness. She imagined Olivia, the party girl in her red pumps.
Zach peeked into one of the boxes and pulled out a couple of fat, glittery pillar candles. He gave her a furtive look, then sighed and shook his head. They seemed to be wasting their time.
Mrs. Rankin stayed by the bottom of the stairs. “Bridget, if you’d like any of Olivia’s clothes, help yourself. They might be a little roomy on you. I don’t know why, but I don’t want strangers wearing Olivia’s things. I just couldn’t give them away to charity. I’d feel better if one of her friends had her clothes. Go on, take a look.”
Obliging her, Bridget started looking through the clothes hanging from the pipe. She and Olivia didn’t have the same taste in apparel. “This is so nice of you, Mrs. Rankin,” she said. “But I don’t think anything here is going to fit me.”
Bridget stopped sorting through the garments as she found a couple of white nurse’s uniforms. “These must be from Olivia’s job at the chiropractors’ office,” she remarked—almost to herself.
“No, those uniforms are from her job before that,” Mrs. Rankin explained.
“She was a nurse?” Bridget asked.
“Not a
registered
nurse. Olivia was a caregiver. She wore the uniforms last year, when she was working in this rest home in Olympia. Well, it’s more like a fancy sanitarium, I guess. Glenhaven Hills.”
“Glenhaven Hills,” the operator answered. “How may I help you?”
“Hi, this is Carol, and I’m one of the clerks from Bard and Mitchell,” Bridget lied. She sat in the front seat of Zach’s car, parked across the street from Mrs. Rankin’s house. She had a couple of Olivia’s sweaters in plastic bags on the backseat. Bridget didn’t think she’d ever wear them, but Mrs. Rankin had insisted she take something.
Zach was behind the wheel, biting his lip as he watched her.
“I wanted to check if a package arrived for Lon Fessler yet,” Bridget continued. “I might be too early. We just sent it on Tuesday.”
“One minute please.”
Bridget glanced at Zach. “They’re checking,” she said under her breath.
She could hear someone talking in the background: “. . . wet the bed again in twenty-two-A. But I don’t think we should . . .”
“Hello, Carol?” the woman said, back on the line.
“Yes?”
“Nothing came for Lon today.”
“Well, thanks for checking. Um, one more thing. I want to make sure we have the right room number on file here. We have two different numbers. Someone shows him in sixteen-A, but I don’t think that’s right.”
“Lon’s in C Ward,” the woman said. “Nine-C.”
“That’s right,” Bridget said. “That’s the other room number we have here. Thanks very much. Bye now.”
She clicked off her cell phone. “Sonny Fessler is in C Ward, room nine.”
Zach nodded pensively. “So we think Olivia got this ‘new information’ about Gorman’s Creek from Sonny Fessler while she was working at Glenhaven Hills. And that means Sonny must have seen what happened to Mallory that night.” He frowned. “It’s going to be tricky getting in there to see him if he ‘doesn’t take no visitors,’ like the lady said.”
“Well, I don’t think we can go there today anyway.” Bridget glanced at her wristwatch. “It’s over an hour to Olympia from here. And I need to pick up my boys from school at three-thirty.”
This was their first day back to school since their father was killed, and she needed to be outside the school waiting for them when the bell rang. “Maybe we can drive up there tomorrow.”
Zach nodded and started up the car. “Huh, I might just head up to Glenhaven Hills—after I drop you off—check this place out.”
“Do you think Sonny will talk to you?” Bridget asked. “I mean, if you can get to him. Did you even know him very well?”
“No, but—”
“I think he might talk to me,” Bridget said. “I want to go up there with you. Let’s wait until tomorrow, okay?”
Zach shifted gears and pulled down the street. “Yeah, we can go tomorrow,” he said, eyes on the road. “Still, I might poke around there this afternoon and see what the layout is like.”
Bridget’s cell phone rang. “Sorry,” she said, pulling it out of her purse. She checked the caller number, then clicked it on. “Hi, Brad. What’s up?”
“Um, can you came over—right away?” he asked.

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