Gregg Olsen - Fear Collector

“What are you doing? Dumpster diving at a time like this?”

“Hardly,” she said, prying off one of the lids and peering inside. “Look here,” she said, hoisting up a half-full black plastic bag. “Look familiar?”

Paul shrugged a little. “Like who doesn’t use those bags?”

“I admit Shane and I use them, too, but let’s bring this in to the lab to see if they are the same manufacturing lot as the one recovered from the scene.”

“You really don’t think that Ms. Lancaster and that creepola Marty offed Lisa,” he said.

“Maybe. You saw the printouts on the table.”

“Maui does sound nice,” he said.

She nodded. “Yeah, a great place to run away to.”

“Okay, so the daughter’s ex-boyfriend is shagging her mother,” Paul said. “Disgusting on all grounds, but why kill her? If anyone should have been hacked up it would have been Party Marty.”

Grace smiled grimly at the mention of the nickname Naomi had given Lisa’s ex.

“Agreed. There something more going on here,” she said. “Maybe there’s a conspiracy here? Maybe Mom was mad at Lisa.”

“She said she was a saint on that TV news report.”

Grace glanced back at the house. “She oversold that, didn’t she? The guilty often overdo it when it comes to lauding the victim.”

“Right. But why kill the girl?”

Grace opened the trunk and put the plastic bag and its smelly contents inside. “Maybe there was a money reason.”

A money reason. Aside from jealousy and rage, money was the most frequent flash point for crimes that led to murder. People killed because they had too little money. Because they were afraid someone would take some of their money. Sometimes they killed for profit. Although children were rarely murdered by their parents for insurance proceeds, there had been cases in which that had occurred. Indeed, more than one wary insurance salesperson had begrudgingly sold a policy in the tens of thousands on a child whose earning power-the measure of a person’s worth-was nil. How they slept at night was beyond Grace Alexander’s comprehension. In one notorious Northwest case, a couple purchased nearly a million dollars on the life of a child who later died in a terrible and suspicious house fire.

The kicker there was the little girl had been adopted only seven months before the fire swept through the couple’s house in Yelm, southeast of Tacoma. Law enforcement speculated that they had adopted the girl only to kill her for the insurance money. The case could never be proved and National Life had to make good on its policy. The couple took the proceeds and disappeared, leaving observers to wonder if they’d do it again somewhere else.

Could Lisa’s mother be one of those coldhearted people? By all accounts she was a devoted nurse, a caring soul whose compassion for others knew no limits. Why was she sleeping with her daughter’s ex? Why was she going to take a trip to Maui? And if she wasn’t the worst kind of a mother in the world, was Party Marty the ultimate evil?

It was after 7 PM when Diana Rose returned home from work. The day had been brutal; as of late, that was more a common occurrence than a rarity. She’d spent two hours at the church before going to her class at Annie Wright. Mocha was waiting for her by the back door and she bent down to give the cat a little attention before setting her purse on the counter. She made a face when she noticed that Emma hadn’t put out the frozen chicken to thaw. She’d have to microwave it and that was always risky. More often than not, she’d learned over the years, defrosting meat semi-cooked it.

“Emma?” she called up the stairs. She noticed the cat’s bowl was empty, so she filled it with water.

No answer.

She went upstairs and opened the bedroom door. The room was such a mess. Like always. The bed was unmade, a tangle of clothes were heaped on the floor, and dishes were stacked on the nightstand.

Diana speed-dialed her daughter, but it went right to voice mail, a surefire sign that Emma had let the battery run down again.

She punched in the speed dial number for Starbucks.

“Hi,” she said, “this is Diana Rose. Can I speak to Emma?”

“Hi, Ms. Rose. This is Devon, her manger. She’s not here. We tried calling her phone, but no answer.”

Diana was confused. “What do you mean, not here?”

“She’s two hours late. She didn’t even call to let us know. Really had us in a bind.”

“Are you sure she was supposed to be in today?” Diana asked, trying to stave off the uneasiness that had started to sweep over her. She found herself sinking onto her daughter’s crumpled linens on the edge of the bed.

“Must have missed the bus,” Devon said, picking up on the mother’s anxiety.

“Maybe,” Diana said. “Maybe one, but there are buses every half hour. She’d have to have missed at least three or four. That’s not possible. I’m really worried, Devon.”

The sound of coffee grinder churned in the background.

“I’ll let you know,” Devon said. “We’re super short-staffed today. Besides Emma, I have another no-show today. Gotta go.”

“Wait!” Diana said, nearly yelling into the phone.

“What? I’m, like, super busy.”

“Call me as soon as she gets in.”

“Okay. Will do. Thank you for calling Starbucks.”

It was early evening when Diana phoned her husband, Emma’s stepfather. Dan Walton answered on the first ring. From the background sound, it was obvious he was in his car heading home.

“Need something from the store?” he asked.

“Honey, Emma didn’t show up for work today. I don’t think she came home last night, either.”

“What do you mean, didn’t come home?”

She looked around the room. “I really can’t tell for sure, but I called Starbucks and they said she didn’t make it to work today. We have to call the police. We have to find out where she is. This isn’t like her. Something bad happened to her. I know it.”

“Calm down,” Dan said. “I’ll be home in five minutes. I’m sure she’s okay.”

“Hurry,” she said. “Please, Dan. Get here as fast as you can. Something is very, very wrong. I’m her mother. I feel it.”

Dan promised he would. He dialed 911 and explained the possible emergency to the dispatcher. He gave his address and said he was headed home.

“My wife is there now,” he said, running a hard yellow light-something Cautious Dan would never have done. “I’ll be there in three minutes.”

“We’ll send a car out,” the dispatcher said.

Dan Walton had an uneasy feeling, too.

At 6:45 a Tacoma police officer named Antonio Lorenzo knocked on the Roses’ front door. He was a young officer, barely thirty. He had warm eyes and an instantly soothing countenance that no doubt served him well responding to calls such as the one made by Dan Walton.

“Let’s back up a little,” he said. “Tell me what’s going on with your daughter.”

“Emma didn’t show up for work today,” Diana said, her words coming out in quick gulps. She hadn’t cried yet, but Officer Lorenzo could easily see she was on the verge.

“May I come inside?” he asked.

“Yes, please,” Dan said. “I’m Dan Walton. This is my wife, Diana. Our daughter is Emma Rose. We didn’t see her last night after work and they said she didn’t show up today.”

Officer Lorenzo had a kind, calm face, which in that moment and in the hundreds of others that preceded it, was put to good use.

“Is this unusual for Emma?”

Diana’s face tightened. Not facelift smoothed out, but stretched with worry. “ Very. Of course it is. We wouldn’t have called the police if it was commonplace, now would we?”