Eagle River, Alaska
Annie and Stone left the Grant home. Once alone in their vehicle, she addressed him. “The victimology between Natalie and Alison couldn’t be more different.”
Stone started the engine. “I was thinking the same thing.”
“He treated Natalie’s body with some reverence in the way she was posed. I wonder if her age had anything to do with it.”
As they turned down the street where Natalie’s latest BFF Tiffany lived, Annie noted the blatant difference between the girls’ economic backgrounds. The homes were more like McMansions set on at least an acre each. Stone pulled up to an enormous Swiss chalet; trees filled the surrounding land and snow covered peaks rose up behind the house. A silver Mercedes proudly adorned the driveway.
When Annie exited the vehicle, all was quiet. Not a child in sight. She determined that the children in this neighborhood didn’t play outside. The sky had been growing increasingly darker all day. The storm, which had been predicted to begin late tonight was moving in quicker than anticipated.
Stone came around the SUV and they walked up the curved driveway together. Her gait was a bit swifter this time since she hadn’t been sitting idle as long.
He stared at the sky. “This storm is supposed to be an especially nasty one. I hope it doesn’t hit before we’re on the other side of Highway One. Of course the traffic is probably already a bitch with the Anchorage commuters leaving work early.”
They climbed the flat rock steps to the porch. Stone rapped on the front door several times before it opened a crack. The pale face of a teenaged girl with swollen eyes poked through; gone were any traces of make-up, Goth or otherwise. Her tresses were knotted on the top of her head.
The severity in which her hair was pulled back showed roughly an inch worth of re-growth. Her natural blonde roots were a shock against the jet-black dye, as if someone had taken an eraser to the color. She wore a pair of sweatpants with a long sleeved t-shirt.
“Tiffany?” Stone inquired.
She squinted. “Who wants to know?”
Stone made the introductions. “We’ve got some questions. Can we come in?”
She shrugged. The door opened further, and they were shown her back as she walked away. They followed her into a modern kitchen with slate grey marble counters and stainless steel appliances.
The view of the mountains at the back of the property came through the windows on either side of a rock fireplace. Tiffany plopped herself down in one of the six chairs at a fine-grained rectangle table. She hugged one leg tight against her chest.
“Are either of your parents home?” Annie asked.
“My mother’s lying down. She has another one of her headaches.” She did air quotes around the word. “It’s called a hangover.” She rolled her eyes. “But whatever.”
“And your father?” Stone asked.
“Another business trip. In other words, he’s schtupping his secretary.”
“We can’t question a minor without a parent present,” Stone replied.
“I’m eighteen, but you can go on up and wake her royal highness if you want to.”
Stone glanced at Annie, and she nodded her approval.
Tiffany sniffled. “Is it true Natalie’s dead?”
“I’m afraid so,” Annie replied compassionately, before she helped herself to the chair next to the young girl.
Tiffany’s eyes welled up and the tough façade crumbled.
Stone positioned himself directly across the table from them and took out his notebook and pen. “Tiffany, tell us about the night Natalie disappeared.”
“I got a text about this rave in Anchorage. Nat and I went.”
“Do your folks mind you going into the city alone?” Annie asked. Tiffany shrugged. Annie guessed her parents didn’t know and left it at that.
“Where was it?” Stone asked.
“Some old abandoned warehouse. They move around, never hitting the same location twice. There’s not much notice. That way it cuts down on having the cops bust it.”
Stone nodded. “Was it just the two of you?”
“Yeah. We saw a couple of people from school. There could have been more, but the place was super packed. You could barely get around.”
“Did you get separated in the crowd?” Annie asked.
She stared down at the table. “Well…” Tears dripped on the shiny wood surface. “Actually, it’s all my fault.”
Annie touched the girl’s shoulder and said softly, “Tell us what happened.”
Tiffany wiped her eyes with the cuffs of her sleeves. “We’d just gotten there and Nat wanted to leave already. She’s all, it’s too loud. Everybody’s pushing and shoving. You can’t even dance. I told her not before I found Jason. He’s this guy I’d met at a previous rave.”
“Did you find him?” Stone asked.
She nodded.
“And then you left?” Annie asked.
Tiffany wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Not exactly.”
Annie concentrated on keeping her voice soothing. She didn’t want to scare the girl off. “Okay. What happened next?”
“Jason and I wanted to find a place to hook up. Nat and I argued. I told her I’d meet her at the entrance in thirty minutes. She got all aggro and stormed off.”
“What did you do then?” Annie asked.
“I let her have her hissy fit.”
“So you and Jason went off to have sex?” Stone said.
Tiffany nodded keeping her eyes averted. She put a finger in her mouth. All her nails had been chewed to the quick; her fingertips were red and swollen.
“Then what?” Stone asked.
“I went to the entrance, but couldn’t find her. I searched forever and I finally gave up. I decided she must have gone back to my house. When she wasn’t there either, I figured she was still pissed and went home.”
“What about when her mother called looking for her?” Stone asked.
She finally met his gaze. “Nat wasn’t supposed to hang out with me. I’d promised I’d never tell her mother she’d been here. So I didn’t.”
Annie asked. “And what about when the police came to question you?”
She sniffled. “I didn’t want to get her in trouble. I mean, what if she’d hooked up with some guy?”
“Did she do that often?” Annie said.
She shook her head. “But there’s always a first time.”
“In other words, you didn’t give a shit whether your friend was hurt or worse?” Stone’s harsh tone irritated Annie, so she caught his attention and warned him with her eyes.
“No. I mean, yeah,” Tiffany stuttered. “I thought she was just being a drama queen, you know, making everyone worry about her to teach me a lesson.”
“When did you finally realize something bad might have happened to Natalie?” Annie asked.
“When she didn’t show up for school on Monday. I texted and called, but she wouldn’t answer me. I thought maybe she was still cheesed off, so I had a couple of other people try, but they had the same result.”
“Did you notice any guys that night showing her unwanted attention?” Stone asked.
“Dude, have you seen her? She’s DDG.”
His brows rose. “What the hell is DDG?”
“Drop. Dead. Gorgeous.”
“Were you attracted to her?” Stone said.
“No, fuckwit. I’m not a carpet muncher. O.M.G.” She rolled her eyes. “It was one of the bennies of being her friend. She’d attract the hotties and I’d get the overflow.”
“You didn’t mind getting her sloppy seconds?” Stone asked.
“Oh, please. What planet are you from?”
Annie interrupted. “Tiffany, close your eyes for a moment.”
She pinned Annie with a stare. “Huh?”
“Indulge me.”
“Fine.” Tiffany closed her eyes.
“I want you to think back to that night. From the moment you and Natalie arrived. Look around. Is there anyone who stands out for any reason?”
The room was silent as they waited for her response.
“There was this one dude.” Her face scrunched up. “That’s funny, I didn’t remember him until just now.”
“What’s strange about him?” Annie prodded.
Tiffany continued. “He was way older than anyone else.”
“How old are we talking? Your dad old, or grandfather old?”
She shook her head. “Like your age.”
Annie said, “Me or Detective Stone?”
“The detective. He had those tiny wrinkles on the sides of his eyes like him.”
“Crow’s feet?” Stone asked.
“I guess.”
Stone addressed Annie, “I’m thirty-two.”
“Okay, so he’s in his thirties.” Annie made a note in her pad.
Stone cupped his chin. “What was a man his age doing there?”
Tiffany used the universal language of teenagers everywhere by shrugging again. “I just figured he was one of the dudes putting the rave on.”
“Did he say anything to you or Natalie?” Annie prodded.
“I don’t think so,” she said each word slowly as if trying to remember. “It’s hard to say, the place was so loud. Nat didn’t mention it, and if he spoke to me, I didn’t hear him.”
“Anything else stand out about this man?” Stone asked.
“It’s like he was always there.”
“He was following you?” Stone appeared excited by this new information, Annie knew how he felt.
“You know how when you push through a crowd and people follow in your wake? At the time that’s what I thought was going on.”
“And now?” Annie asked.
“When I look back, I see him everywhere, even when Nat and I had our fight.”
Stone leaned forward. “Can you describe him?”
“Basic.”
“I wish you would speak English,” Stone said.
Tiffany opened her eyes and rolled them at him. Annie held back a grin. “Medium height. Medium build. Medium colored hair. Not ugly, but not hot either. The dude was just basic. I think that’s why I didn’t give him a second thought.”
“White or Alaskan Native?”
“White.”
“What color was his hair?”
“Brown, I think, it was pretty dark. I do know it was short, I mean like, shaved on the sides short.”
“Did he have any tattoos or piercings?” Stone asked.
“Nope. He was pretty boring.”
“How about moles, birthmarks or facial hair?” Annie asked.
“Nope.”
“That’s okay, you’re doing great, Tiffany,” Annie offered.
A smile graced the girl’s face for the first time since they’d arrived.
“Do you think you could describe him to a sketch artist?” Stone asked.
The smile dropped and her eyes turned into saucers. “I don’t know. . .”
Annie rushed to reassure her. “The artist would work on it with you. They’re known for their patience.”
Tiffany shook her head. “I don’t think I can.”
“This is not a test, just do your best,” Annie said.
“What if I screw it up?”
“You won’t, trust me. You’d be amazed what the brain can remember.” Annie pleaded with her eyes.
Tiffany stared at her awhile. “I guess I could give it a try.”
“Wonderful.” Annie patted the top of her hand. “Thank you.”
The girl noticeably relaxed.
“Can we get the names and phone numbers of the other kids you saw there?” Stone asked.
“I can give you their names, but not their numbers. We don’t hang out.”
“That’s fine. Anything you can tell us will help,” Annie answered.
“One last thing. We noticed a statue of a raven on Natalie’s nightstand. Do you know anything about it?” Stone said.
“That was just plain weird. A couple of days before the party, Nat got that in the mail. There was no note or return address. She thought it was a gift from me, but I didn’t know anything about it. I told her she had a secret admirer.”
“Did she belong to any online groups regarding Edgar Allen Poe or his books?” Annie asked.
“Nat wasn’t a reader, so I doubt it. She didn’t say anything to me anyway.”
Tiffany excused herself to use the restroom.
“Not sure how much that helped. This bland guy might not even be our perp,” Stone said.
“Basic.”
“Huh?”
“She called him basic.”
“Oh, forgive me. I’m not up on the current lingo.”
“You’re forgiven.” She showed him her biggest grin. “Who knows, once we have a composite sketch, it could help greatly.”
Stone called Anchorage PD to borrow their artist for the sketch.
Once the composite was finished, Stone held it up. “Okay, we’ll get this sketch out to all law enforcement agencies in the area along with a BOLO.”
They showed the sketch to all the people on Tiffany’s list. No one remembered seeing the man. Nor did they have anything new to add.
After he’d shut the SUV’s door. “Well, that was time well spent.”
“I’d say all in all this day has been pretty productive. We have a sketch and general age of the guy. That’s more than we had this morning.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s just that, well. . .” He glanced her way with a defeated expression. “I want to stop this killer before he takes another life.”
“Look, I know how you feel, but there are a couple of things you should know about tracking multiple offenders. Each victim tells us something about the UNSUB. If we have nothing to go on, then we need to wait until he murders again and hope he screws up.”
“And the other?”
“We may not ever catch him.”
“You suck at pep talks,” he said.
A laugh bubbled up. “I’m just trying to prepare you. I know you’ve never hunted a serial killer and this is something I had to learn the hard way.”
His cell phone rang and he dug it out of his jacket.
“Stone here.”
Annie could hear someone talking on the other end, but not what they were saying, then he shouted, “What the hell?”