Entering Port Angeles from the east, we continue along Highway 101 until it morphs into Front Street. A few blocks later we turn right onto North Washington Street and find the Olympic Medical Center lying just ahead. It’s a squat building, unimpressive at first glance, but it’s situated on a bluff overlooking the tempestuous Strait of Juan de Fuca, a ninety-five-mile stretch of water that connects the Salish Sea to the Pacific Ocean.
The view is breathtaking, a feature of the hospital that’s often lost on the patients. I mean, who cares if whitecaps dot the strait and birds glide overhead if you just stroked out and your blood pressure is too high?
Jason drew the short straw when it came to the question of who was going to ride with Faceman in the ambulance, much to Nate’s relief. By the time we park, he and the EMTs are wheeling our peculiar suspect through the emergency room entrance. Even from a distance I can tell that he’s calmed down a bit during the drive, either because the OC is finally out of his eyes, or the warming blanket is putting him to sleep; maybe both.
Jason and the EMTs are gone by the time we enter the emergency room. A pleasant nursing assistant directs us down a hall to the left and we catch up to them just as they’re parking the gurney behind a cloth partition tucked away in the corner, away from other patients. The attending nurse, obviously briefed by the EMTs while en route, doesn’t say more than ten words before opening and spiking a new IV bag, which she hangs next to the gurney.
“Gentlemen, give us some room,” she says briskly, shooing us from the curtained cubicle. She doesn’t ask what Faceman’s crime was, nor does she show any fear as she manipulates his forearms and hands in search of an adequate vein.
It’s not her first shift among the wicked.
Detective Sergeant Jason Sturman double-checks the handcuffs that secure the unhinged kidnapper to the gurney and then steps grudgingly away, waving for us to follow. Once out of earshot of the nurse and her patient, he turns and says, “This Onion King might just be in his head. He was saying some pretty outlandish things on the way here.”
“Such as?” I press.
“Well, he kept repeating what he said earlier, about her being Eight, as if that’s her name, and how he was going to fix her.”
“Fix her?”
“Yeah, I pressed him on that and all he’d say is that she’s broken, that she’s ruining her life somehow and he can fix it.”
“How far gone is this guy?” Jimmy asks, tapping his right temple with his index finger.
“He’s pretty baked. Probably should be institutionalized—and I’m guessing he will be after this little episode.”
“Did he give you a name?” Nate asks.
“No, but we can’t keep calling him Faceman. I think he likes it.” He unzips his jacket and lets his body breathe. “I talked to the jail ten minutes ago and they’re sending someone over with one of the mobile fingerprint scanners,” Jason continues. “If he’s ever been booked—and I’m betting he has—we should have an identification shortly.” His eyes are suddenly drawn to movement at the end of the hall. “And speak of the devil, here comes our scanner.”
Lumbering down the hall in a Clallam County corrections uniform that must have been carved from a sultan’s tent is the biggest man I’ve seen since serial killer Pat McCourt leveled a double-barreled shotgun at me almost three years ago. He’s easily six-eight and three hundred pounds, though not an ounce of the man appears to be fat. His uniform ripples and stretches with each movement, as if holding back a nest of coiled car springs. Lieutenant bars adorn his oversized collar, looking small by comparison.
“Now, there’s a man who’s never lost a fight,” I mutter to Jimmy.
Jason greets the lieutenant with a handshake that looks like a botched mugging, and then turns our way. “Oak, meet Jimmy and Steps,” he says by way of introduction. “They’ve been wandering the woods with us half the day trying to find this guy. You ever need someone tracked down,” he adds, wagging a finger my way, “Steps is your man. I don’t know how he does it, but he’s scary-good.”
We shake hands all the way around and I say, “Oak? Is that your first name or last?”
“Just a nickname,” the giant replies. “Steve McKenna’s my given name, but no one calls me Steve, not since I was in middle school.” He eyes me. “How about you?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, Steps isn’t exactly … well, it’s not really a name, now, is it?”
“Came with the job,” I say. “That’s what happens when you follow footsteps for a living.” I could give him the long explanation, but I’m tired of the telling. I’ve recited the story so many times at so many crime scenes that I’m starting to hate my own sad history.
Oak just chuckles and doesn’t push it any further.
In the lieutenant’s right hand is a smartphone with an attachment at the bottom that adds four or five inches to the phone’s length. Closer examination reveals a small glass screen in the center of the attachment that’s not much bigger than a postage stamp.
“You want to scan him,” he asks Jason, holding out the unit, “or can I do the honors?”
“Oh, please,” the detective sergeant says, sweeping him forward with a gesture. As the big guy makes for the curtained partition, Jason adds, “Try not to scare him too badly.” Oak casts a glance back over his mountainous shoulder and grins.
I suddenly pity Faceman.
Less than a minute later and without a peep from behind the curtain, the lieutenant emerges, his eyes fixed on the smartphone screen as he waits for a digital return.
It doesn’t take long.
“Murphy Haze Cotton,” Oak reads off the screen. “Twenty-seven years of age, last known address is on Down Street in Bremerton. No felonies, but several misdemeanor convictions for shoplifting, harassment, and threats.”
Jimmy scratches out some notes as the lieutenant rattles off the info, which also includes an FBI number assigned to Murphy years earlier, and other data pulled from the National Crime Information Center, or NCIC, the national database that tracks criminal history, warrants, no-contact orders, and other crime-related information.
“The guy is a nobody,” Oak says in summary.
Jimmy finishes writing and mutters, “That may be about to change.”
“Murphy Cotton—sounds like a brand of underwear,” I say, “or bedsheets or something.”
Jimmy looks at me.
“Murphy Cotton,” I repeat, stressing the words, but he still doesn’t get it.
Retrieving the phone from his jacket pocket, Jimmy dials Diane. She answers on the first ring and in two condensed sentences he gives her Murphy’s horsepower—his identifying info, such as date of birth, height, weight, FBI number—and asks her to dig up as much as she can. He ends the call, stuffs the phone into his pocket, and stands there staring at me.
“It does sound a bit like underwear, doesn’t it?”