Shawn Inmon - The Vigilante Life of Scott McKenzie

In the life Scott used as a baseline for all his missions, Gary Ridgway, also known as the Green River Killer, had been actively killing women throughout the eighties and nineties. However, he hadn’t been arrested for his crimes until 2001. Scott had died before Ridgway had pled guilty to forty-eight murders in exchange for not receiving the death penalty, so he had limited details.

He knew his name and what he looked like, though, and the approximate area in Puget Sound where Ridgway lived. Scott had been to the area so often, he had become comfortable with navigating the area.

Ridgway had a familiar modus operandi. He had lured prostitutes along Highway 99 south of Seattle into his vehicle, then strangled them. He counted on the fact that when sex workers disappeared, they were less likely to be noticed and reported. It wasn’t unusual for days or weeks to pass before someone reported the murdered women as missing.

Scott thought it would be good to have a vehicle, so he stopped in Olympia, Washington’s state capital, and bought a 1977 Chevy Luv pickup. It was small, dinged-up, and somewhat underpowered, but it would serve his needs nicely.

He drove north from Olympia, through Lacey, then Tacoma. He pulled off Interstate 5 at Auburn, a sleepy little town that would eventually become one of many bedroom communities of Seattle. He stopped at a gas station and filled up. While he was there, Scott tore the page out of the South King County phonebook that had the listing for Gary Ridgway.

Scott wasn’t familiar with the address, or the area around Auburn, but he wasn’t in an incredible hurry. He had been bedded down in one spot for a month and a half. He was enjoying the freedom of being in the wind, as Joe Hart had said.

It got dark before Scott found the address, so he retreated to a busy street he had passed a mile back that had a lot of fast food franchises and a few inexpensive motels. He checked in and noted for the thousandth time that all crappy motel rooms looked the same. Cheap television on an equally cheap dresser, a bed covered in a glossy bedspread that repelled stains and with sheets and pillowcases that smelled strongly of bleach. Although they were thousands of miles apart, the myriad motels he stayed in had taken on the feeling of home in this lifetime, and he was glad to have it.

The next morning, he had breakfast at the Denny’s down the street from his motel and read the newspaper. An article buried in the local news section mentioned that another body had been found in a remote area. It was attributed to the unknown person known as The Green River Killer.

Unknown to everyone else, but not to me.

After breakfast, he drove the Luv to the quaint downtown area of Auburn. There was a used bookstore there. Although Scott loved to while away the hours at bookstores, this time he was looking for something specific.

An older lady that might have been the spiritual twin of Greta back in Waitsfield, Vermont, sat behind the counter, sorting books out of a brown paper bag. She peered at Scott over her half-spectacles and said, “Can I help you?”

“I’m new to the area and I find myself getting lost. I’ve got a state map, but that’s not helping me. Have you got something that’s got the local streets on it?”

“Of course,” she said with a slight groan as she pushed herself off her stool. “You need a Thomas Brothers Guide.” She glanced at Scott. “Never heard of Thomas Brothers? Huh. They’ve been around forever. Or, sixty years or more, I guess, which counts as forever in these times.”

She walked to a spinning rack of oversized books and plucked one from the top row. She handed it to Scott. “9.99, and it’s got both King and Pierce counties in it. Can’t go wrong.”

“Well, I seem to keep coming back to the area for business, so it’s worth the investment,” Scott said as he laid the map book on the counter next to the cash register.

The older lady punched some keys on an old-fashioned cash register and said, “Ten seventy-nine.” She glanced at the ten-dollar bill Scott was offering, then back at him. “Got to pay the Governor, you know.”

“Right, right, of course! Scott pulled an extra dollar from his wallet and handed it to her. He walked out of the bookstore into typical western Washington weather—cool, misty drizzle. He hurried to the cab of the pickup and flipped open his new purchase. It didn’t take him long to figure out how it worked. A listing of all streets were in the back, along with what map pages they appeared on.

Within thirty minutes, he was parked across the street from the house listed for Gary Ridgway in the phone book. It was a smallish house, one story, one-car garage. There were no cars in the driveway and no lights on inside.

Scott sat watch on the house all morning and afternoon with no luck. The house was located in a rural part of town, so there weren’t a lot of inquisitive neighbors out walking their dogs and wondering who he was and why he was there.

Scott’s patience was rewarded at 5:45, when an old pickup pulled into the driveway. Scott slipped low in his seat so he could barely see over the steering wheel. Gary Ridgway emerged from the truck, glanced around, unlocked his front door, and disappeared inside.

I’ve got the right place. I know he was married to three different women, but I don’t know when. I don’t want to go charging in and find him enjoying a cozy domestic scene with his wife and scare her half to death.

Scott sat and watched the house for another hour, but nothing changed. Finally, he started the Luv and eased away from his parking spot. He drove to a little café for dinner, then returned. Still no change.

For the next three days, Scott drove by the house at odd hours. He never saw another vehicle besides Ridgway’s pickup, and he never saw another person.

Over the weekend, Ridgway’s schedule became more unpredictable, coming and going at odd hours, which concerned Scott. No one knew exactly where the Green River Killer had taken his victims, but one popular theory was that he had brought many of them to his home and killed them there.

Scott decided to stakeout the house and follow him if he left. He parked a block-and-a-half up from Ridgway’s house and kept an eye on his truck through binoculars. Time dragged and eventually Scott nodded off. When he woke with a start, the pickup was gone.

He glanced at his watch. Just past midnight.

Where does your friendly neighborhood serial killer go in the middle of a Saturday night? Cruising for victims, probably.

Kicking himself, Scott threw the Luv into gear and drove down the hill in search of Ridgway. After a few miles, he realized it was a lost cause. He pulled into a 7-11, got a large coffee, and returned to his same parking spot.

Hours passed, but Scott didn’t nod off again. At a quarter past four, Ridgway’s pickup rolled up the road and into his driveway. The truck sat idling for two, three, four minutes. Finally, Ridgway and a woman dressed in high heels, a tube top and a neon green miniskirt emerged and went in the front door.

Adrenaline spiked through Scott McKenzie. He sat bolt upright.

Shit! This wasn’t the way I wanted this to go down.

He fumbled around in the cab of the truck, grabbed his pack, then ran for the house.

He slowed as he approached the front door. The porch light was on, but the bulb was weak and barely illuminated anything. Scott melted into the shadows along the side of the house. He tried to look in the windows, but the blinds were pulled snug.