Killing Ways

Everett took out a red Sharpie and drew a large box on the photo. ‘This area here,’ he said, ‘is three acres square. The garbage runs twenty feet deep if we’re to go back almost a month to when Hope went missing …’

Jonathan recoiled. ‘What the hell are you showing me this for? What do you mean “go back almost a month”?’

Don’t look at me for answers. That’s not how this goes.

‘To search this area, we’re calling in all the favors we can,’ said Everett. ‘Law enforcement across a lot of different agencies, along with volunteer civilians. That’s the effect Hope has had on people. They’re coming from all over to offer to search a stinking hellhole for her, to suit up and go right in there to look for your missing fiancée. If we can in any way limit all that searching … or if we knew, for example, that we were wasting our time, or anyone else’s time … or if there’s somewhere else we should be looking …’

As Everett spoke, Ren was studying Jonathan Briar. You are a dull-eyed dope-smoking moron. I have little time for dope-smoking morons.

‘Is there anything you’d like to tell us?’ said Ren.

‘No!’ said Jonathan. ‘No. Except that you are wasting your time: thinking I did this!’ There was no anger, just a whining, pleading exhaustion.

‘Everyone in your position tells us we’re wasting our time,’ said Ren, ‘but, as you know, a lot of the time we’re not. The odds are not in your favor. Before we go in here,’ she pointed to the landfill photo, ‘before we bring people into this wonderland, we’d like to know the truth.’

‘I’ve told you the truth!’ said Jonathan. ‘I’ve told you a million times. I’m innocent! Last time I saw Hope she was alive and well. What more can I tell you? That’s my story.’

‘Story?’ said Ren.

‘You know what I mean,’ said Jonathan. ‘I didn’t mean it that way.’

‘Were you and Hope happy?’ said Ren.

‘Yes!’ said Jonathan. ‘Fucking leave me alone with the happiness bullshit! I don’t think I can take this any more! I feel like I’m losing my mind, here. All you people looking at me! It’s fucking driving me insane!’

Snap. Snap. Show your hand.

‘Jonathan, we found traces of Hope’s blood in the living room,’ said Ren. ‘Do you know how that got there?’

‘She cut her finger, I don’t know. Were they drops, smears, spatters?’

Go, CSI.

‘If they were drops or smears,’ he said, ‘then she cut her finger a while back. If they were spatters, then, I guess, someone might have killed her at home, right? Is that your point?’

How Not to Talk to Law Enforcement 101.

Ren looked at Everett.

Jonathan started to cry. ‘I love Hope. I always have. From when I was nine years old. I wouldn’t lay a finger on her. All I ever want to do is protect her.’ He cried harder. ‘What if you find her and she’s dead?’

Wow. Have you really only thought about that now?

He kept talking. ‘What if she’s there in all that garbage and she’s dead? Then what happens? Then do you just, like, assume it’s me? What evidence is going to be on that body at that stage? I’m terrified of what’s going to go down. I want Hope found, but I also don’t want her to be just pulled out of some garbage. I mean, I know what you’re thinking, it’s disgusting anyway, it’s a murder, who gives a shit, but I do.’ He went quiet. ‘I do, because Hope would. She wouldn’t want anyone seeing her that way.’

‘What way?’ said Ren, keeping her tone neutral.

Jonathan leapt from his seat. ‘Dead on a garbage heap! What do you think I mean? Why do you people always think I mean something I don’t mean?’

Because you say weird shit. Because your answers are weird. Your phraseology. Your language. Your focus.

‘Sit the fuck down,’ said Ren.

Jonathan sat down, but kept talking, the words speedy and tumbling. ‘Dead after weeks, rotting away and all that other shit. Jesus! Who would ever want anyone to see them that way? I know I never would. But what happens then? I say nothing to you today because I know nothing and then you arrest me? Like, will I look suspicious to you because of that? I mean, I’ll say anything not to come across as someone shady. I wasn’t there that night at the time you’re talking about. I was working! I’m not thinking about how Hope looks because I killed her in some horrible way. I’m thinking about what a fucked-up mess dead bodies are after all that time.’

2

Ren closed the door behind her and walked with Everett into the bullpen – the open-plan office the task force worked out of. Their boss, Supervisory Special Agent Gary Dettling, had his own office. The admin team had theirs. There were two interview rooms, two conference rooms, an A/V room, two cells, rest rooms, a creaky elevator, a haunted basement – everything brought together under the roof of one of Denver’s oldest buildings, The Livestock Exchange Building – an icon of cowboy heritage.

‘Well?’ said Gary, looking up, hands on his hips. He was a fit and handsome man of few words.

I am tiring of you, Gary. The look that says ‘impress me’, ‘prove yourself to me’ every time. Your smart-ass bullshit. Everything.

‘Early morning landfill search it is!’ said Ren.

Gary’s face said it all.

Ren looked at Everett. ‘I don’t know about you, but is Briar just a dumb asshole?’

‘That’s in no doubt,’ said Everett.

‘I get that he doesn’t have a face for TV,’ said Ren, ‘and that indefinably weird shit falls out of his mouth, but …’ She shrugged. ‘Does he say things that raise my suspicion because he is guilty or because he is just dumb, dumb, dumb? Because he has no filter? Because he cannot understand that in an interview with a Fed, you might want to not say some of the shit your low-flying brain fires out? I mean, even if you just imagine the physical distance between your brain and your mouth – that’s time to pause, isn’t it? Pause while it’s at your nostrils or something. God, do you ever feel like the world is just populated with a lot of really dumb people? His face! I want to slap it.’

She drew breath.

You are all looking at me funny. Am I talking too fast again? Keep up, bitches. Jesus.

‘So, here’s what we know,’ said Ren. ‘Hope Coulson was last seen, alone, at eight thirty p.m. leaving Good Shepherd Church on East 7th Avenue where she’d gone to host a youth meeting. Everyone else had left ahead of her – a person walking by ID’d her. She was to drive right home – that’s what she told Jonathan. He was out working at the pizza place, her last text to him at eight fifteen p.m. was “See you at home, kiss kiss”. That’s it. We have no witnesses. There are no HALO cams in the immediate vicinity.’

Denver had over one hundred HALO – High Activity Location Observation – cameras, all monitored from a central location by DPD.

‘Hope Coulson’s car was still in the church parking lot the next morning,’ said Ren. ‘Did she leave her car because she was planning on drinking? Wouldn’t she need her car to get to work the next morning? Was she having an affair? In that case, again, why wouldn’t she drive home if she was planning to take a guy back there? Unless she was going back to his place.’ She shrugged. ‘And if she was going for a drink alone, wouldn’t she have chosen somewhere near her apartment? She was a twenty-minute drive from there. So she either walked a route with no HALO cams, or someone drove by and picked her up. But this can’t have been pre-arranged on her phone, because there were no calls or texts to indicate that. And nothing came up with friends, family, acquaintances, work, church members, etc. The neighborhood canvas came up empty. We have a list of vehicles and owners with no priors.’

‘Could something have happened at the church?’ said Everett. ‘I don’t know – someone made a pass at her. Maybe she needed to go have a drink, calm down … she decided to have another …’ He paused. ‘Yet, no one from the local bars ID’d her. Her face has been everywhere. At this point, we would have heard something.’

‘My gut is just not liking Jonathan Briar for this,’ said Ren.

‘How many times has the partner killed the wife or girlfriend in the house at night, then claimed they never made it home?’ said Gary.

‘Many, many times,’ said Ren. ‘Just this is not one of them.’

As everyone dispersed, Ren sat down at her desk and dragged her keyboard toward her. She started typing up her notes, super speedy. Her phone rang.

Go away.

She kept typing.

Fuck. Off.

The phone kept ringing.

Her cell phone beeped.

Jesus Christ.

She glanced at the text. It was from Gary: Pick up.

She picked up. ‘Hi.’

‘Can you come into my office, please?’

‘Sure,’ said Ren. ‘What’s the emergency? Nothing you can say over the phone?’

Silence.

Alrighty then.

She walked into Gary’s office.

‘You stink,’ said Gary.

‘Wait ’til you smell me after the landfill search,’ said Ren, sitting down.

Gary was staring at her.

‘Hold on – are you serious?’ said Ren. ‘What do you mean stink? Literally?’

‘In a way that tells me if I don’t open a window, I’ll have to check my own blood-alcohol level.’

Oh.

Shit.

‘Please tell me,’ said Gary, ‘that you did not go drinking last night with some lost soul you picked up at your meeting.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Ren. ‘I didn’t even have a meeting last night.’ Which is the truth.

‘Just remember you’re not there to make friends,’ said Gary. ‘Or even eye contact. The rule is you walk in there alone, you walk out alone.’

‘That’s me – Renegade.’ She fired an imaginary gun. She paused. ‘Was that your way of trying to find out if I’m going to my meetings?’

He eyeballed her. ‘Lose the tone. This is about my concern that you are over the blood-alcohol level this morning.’

‘I apologize for my tone,’ said Ren. ‘And yes, I did drink last night. As people often do after work, meeting or no meeting. Is that forbidden? Is the whole of Safe Streets fired?’ Stop. Talking.

Gary dared her to hold eye contact with him.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Ren.

‘Go.’

Eight hours later, Ren and Everett were six drinks down in a new bar off Sixteenth Street.

‘Do not let me drink tonight,’ said Ren.

They laughed. Ren looked around her. ‘There is nothing more unattractive to me than a group of men in their late forties in leisurewear on a night out,’ said Ren. ‘Especially the ones who were once hot, you can see the traces, and now they’re just beat-down and filled with loss and white carbs.’

‘Jesus, Ren.’ Everett craned his neck. ‘I need to see who you are savaging. “Filled with loss and white carbs” …’

‘I know, I know,’ said Ren. ‘And, really, can something be filled with loss? Like, with an absence of something. But why abandon all hope at that age? You’ve half your life left. Go to the fucking gym.’ Like Ben. Like Gary. Like you. ‘And I say this while not actually finding super-buff bodies attractive.’

‘Which makes no sense,’ said Everett.

‘I maintain that a lot of unhappiness in life is caused by people trying to make sense of things,’ said Ren. ‘Try this: for one week when someone says something strange to you, just say to yourself “interesting and senseless, goodbye”. Like, goodbye to considering it any further.’

‘If I did that, I don’t think I could actually carry out my job,’ said Everett.

‘OK – maybe restrict it just to things I say.’

‘The things I can do with those reclaimed hours,’ said Everett. ‘Go to the gym, for example.’

‘Shall we dance?’ said Ren. ‘It’s filthy rap.’

‘Yes, we shall,’ said Everett.

They hit the empty dance floor and immediately drew attention. Everett was clean-cut, dark-haired, side-parted kind of handsome. Ren had an exotic look of wild abandon.

‘And so they danced, and the eyes of the onlookers fell upon them!’ said Ren into his ear.

This is high-larious!

Everett was laughing at her, but when he really started to move, Ren was the one who had to fall away to the side she was laughing so hard. He was an excellent dancer.

They went back to the bar and slumped into their seats.

I am soooo shitfaced. ‘I think I look like a whore when I dance the way I really want to dance.’

‘I agree,’ said Everett. ‘Don’t ever change.’

‘And you dance like no one is looking,’ said Ren. ‘Pinterest gold.’

At two a.m., a cab with Ren in it pulled up outside the home of Annie Lowell, a dear Bryce family friend, who had allowed Ren to house-sit her beautiful, historic home while she was touring Europe.

‘This is me!’ said Ren, reaching forward and handing the driver twenty dollars.

She looked out the window. Then back at the driver.

‘Oh, shit,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t live here any more.’

3

It was a beautiful ninety-degree morning in Denver: the landfill site sweltered under the same sun that was giving everyone else’s day a glorious start. Ren was sitting in the passenger seat of her Jeep.

This cannot be my life.

Outside, the rest of Safe Streets were already dressed in white Tyvek suits, Kevlar gloves, and black half-face masks, sharing a range of looks that covered misery, repulsion, sorrow, and panic.

The panic was flickering in the eyes of Janine Hooks, Ren’s closest friend, and ex-Jefferson County cold case detective. Janine had joined Safe Streets three months earlier. She was a brilliant, thorough investigator with a sharp, wise mind and a heart of gold. Ren was certain Janine had an eating disorder, but had never dared to raise it.

It breaks my heart how tiny you look inside your suit.

Janine was staring down at her feet, lining the tips of her boots up.

Terrified about wearing a mask. Or shy around Robbie.

Robbie Truax was ex-Aurora PD, with Safe Streets from the beginning. Janine had met him first through Ren, and was comfortable liking him from afar, a little less so now that they were up-close colleagues.

Everett came into Ren’s line of vision, walking her way. He pulled open the door of the Jeep.

‘How’s my girl?’

‘Seriously,’ said Ren, ‘I have zero idea how I got into the apartment I did not remember I lived in.’

‘Too much grammar in that sentence …’

‘But you look fine – that’s not fair,’ said Ren. ‘I don’t think I can go through with this.’

‘You can. You can always puke into the mask.’

‘Jesus Christ. Thanks. My ultimate nightmare.’

Fifteen minutes and one fake urgent phone call later, Ren was suited up with the others.

I made it.

They stood in a group, still apart from the other searchers.

‘OK,’ said Ren. ‘Let’s go through the hand signals again …’

Everyone looked at her. She pushed her hand into the circle, low down, and raised her middle finger. ‘Fuck. This.’

The others smiled.

And fuck this heat.

Ren surveyed the landscape ahead of them: rotting food, filthy diapers, decaying animals … stop the inventory of this hellhole.

‘Stretched out before us,’ said Ren, ‘is a landscape that looks like how my mouth feels. There may be a cadaver in both. May your masks serve and protect you.’

She walked toward the rest of the searchers: Denver PD detectives, Sheriff’s Office investigators, landfill site workers, and volunteers.

Volunteers, you extraordinary people. Have you no place else to be? God bless you all.

They moved in and began the search. It was as hot, foul and arduous as they expected. Two days later, they were back. Four days. Five. On day six, the body of Hope Coulson, hanging from black plastic coming undone, was hoisted from a stinking mound of life’s waste and set on the ground at the feet of the Safe Streets’ team. Janine Hooks’ eagle eye had spotted the bag, the Duck tape wrapped around it at each end with extra at the center.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Everett, Janine and four DPD detectives stayed with the body until the coroner arrived. Ren called for Robbie and they moved quickly toward her Jeep. They stripped out of their filthy Tyvek suits, balled them into a bag in the back, and hopped in.

You have gained quite a bit of weight, Robbie Truax, which I feel mean noticing.

‘So, how’ve you been?’ he said, as he strapped himself in.

Ren looked at him. We’re together almost every day …

She started the engine, and drove.

‘I mean – we only see each other at work these days,’ said Robbie.

‘I know,’ said Ren. ‘It’s been crazy. And you’ve missed some nights out. A lot of nights out. Is everything OK?’

They both understood the silence that followed. Robbie, the blond, fresh-faced, boy-scout Mormon, was in treatment for porn addiction, a problem that had been going on for months before he finally told Ren, the sole guardian of his secret.

He shrugged. ‘I … was wondering if you were so … horrified by what I told you, that … you were trying to create distance.’

‘Oh my God,’ said Ren. ‘Please tell me you don’t mean that. Did I seem horrified to you? Jesus – I’d have no friends if I distanced myself from people with porn and promiscuity issues. And how could I distance myself from myself?’

Robbie smiled. ‘I guess I just miss hanging out, you coming over, or staying around after work. Just having pizza or whatever.’

But not drinking. Which isn’t seeming like fun to me right now. Sorry!

‘You and Everett,’ said Robbie, ‘you’re—’

Ren’s heart sank.

And now we have hit the real problem. You think I have abandoned you for Everett.

After three months, Robbie was struggling to get along with Everett, and it was making for some awkward moments.

But, you’re right. I have abandoned you. Everett is more fun. Everett drinks. He dances. I can’t hurt Everett. I could hurt you, sensitive man.

Robbie had once admitted to Ren that he loved her, and she had told him that she saw him more as a brother. Their friendship was strong, they had recovered from it, but Ren couldn’t help feeling that a responsibility had come with the admission: if he loves you, if he ever did, you could still hurt him.

I never want to hurt you, Robbie Truax. You mean too much to me.

‘I’m sorry if you feel like I haven’t been around,’ said Ren. ‘You’re right. I’ve just been party, party, party. I think it’s moving into the apartment, everything … I can’t settle. I feel like I’m jumping out of my skin.’

‘That’s how I feel when I’m …’ He stared out the window. ‘Treatment is hard.’

‘I didn’t want to ask,’ said Ren. ‘It’s so personal.’

He turned to her, his eyes bright with sincerity. ‘But you’re the only person in the world I can talk to about personal things.’

Ren reached out and squeezed his forearm. ‘I love you, Robbie Truax. I’m so sorry. Please talk to me. I know it’s probably like—’

‘Trying to catch a wild horse?’

‘Blindfolded.’

Robbie raised a hand in mock-defiance. ‘His eyes filled, nevertheless, with hope …’

Ren pictured the smiling face of Hope Coulson.

Jonathan Briar, here we come. And this time, we have Hope.

When Jonathan Briar heard that his fiancée’s body had been found, his knees buckled, and he cried out with such force, Ren was startled. She had been standing with Robbie in the living room of the apartment Jonathan and Hope had shared for the previous two years. Ren caught Jonathan as he went down. Now she was on her knees, and he was limp and weeping in her arms.

This was not my vision.

Ren glanced up at Robbie, who had been temporarily immobilized. Eventually, he kicked into action and helped Jonathan Briar onto the sofa. Ren took a seat opposite and looked around the room. It was her first time there.

This is a beautiful place. Cozy and cute. Seems like the home of two people in love. This is … so strange. There is nothing cold here. No sense of death or darkness.

‘How could this happen?’ wailed Jonathan. ‘How? I thought she was alive! She’s … Hope isn’t someone … just she wouldn’t be murdered. By anyone! She was in the garbage, just like that? She didn’t belong there. Jesus Christ! I just thought she was alive!’

‘Where did you think she was?’ said Ren. Seriously. It’s been almost five weeks.

Jonathan stopped sobbing. ‘I couldn’t even bring myself to think about that.’ His hair was standing on end. ‘I just couldn’t go there. Where did I think she was? I was thinking nothing. I was thinking nothing bad. I was—’

In shock. All this time. You weren’t an emotionless asshole. You were resisting being forced to think of a horrific ending. It was the last thing you wanted to think of for your sweet, beautiful, caring Hope.

Jonathan Briar locked eyes with Ren.

The pain. You can’t fake that. That agony cannot be faked. Can it?

4

Hope Coulson’s autopsy revealed that she had been strangled, and it likely happened not long after she had gone missing. She had been raped with something green and ceramic that had broken, and left shards behind, one of which had a partial fingerprint that matched Jonathan Briar’s. Her father identified her body. Jonathan Briar identified the shards as parts of a tall green ceramic sculpture – an engagement gift they had been given – that he had failed to notice was missing from their living room.

‘Well, being raped with one of your engagement gifts would be a serious fuck-you if you cheated on your fiancé,’ said Ren. She was sitting at the edge of her desk in the bullpen, where most of the squad was gathered. ‘Yet no one in all the interviews has suggested that Briar was anything other than kind and loving toward her. But, of course, behind closed doors … who knows. However, if he raped her with that in the apartment and it broke, which it clearly did, there should be more blood there. And it’s highly unlikely there would be no evidence of the sculpture. Unless he raped her on something that he took away and destroyed. His car was clean. Nothing was found with her in the landfill. The black plastic used has no connection to any product found in their home, which doesn’t mean much. Then there’s the issue – if we are to believe he was the rapist and it didn’t happen in their home – he would’ve had to have taken her somewhere to carry it out, and he would also have had to carefully package up the sculpture and bring it with them. Would someone do that? I don’t think so.’

‘Who gave them the gift?’ said Everett. ‘That could be significant.’

‘If that guy’s innocent, I would be amazed,’ said Gary.

‘Prepare to be amazed,’ said Ren.

Gary stared at her. As Gary often did.

‘We also have to consider the fact that she was raped with a foreign object,’ said Ren. ‘That’s typically carried out by a man with sexual problems, which, again, there is no evidence of in Briar’s case.’

‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ said Gary. ‘He could have had a problem for months not being able to get it up. He’s a young guy, too embarrassed to go to the doctor, she’s too embarrassed to mention it to anyone, thinks it’s her fault … and, maybe, she goes elsewhere to get what she’s not getting at home …’

He has made up his mind.