Don’t Look Behind You

unanswered.
    Long after midnight, the weary detectives were forced to temporarily halt their search for Bethany Stokesberry’s killer.
    However, a few hours of sleep were all they could get. They were up with the first filtered morning light.
    Dan Nolan and Sergeant Don Actor were back in the north King County area early Monday morning. The tedious but vital door-to-door search began. They talked to many residents living in the houses surrounding Echo Lake.
    In addition to the scores of homes in the area, there were two sprawling apartment complexes with almost a hundred expensive units facing the lake. Again and again, the two detectives received the same disappointing answers; either the occupants had been away from home the night before—or they had heard nothing unusual because of the boom of fireworks.
    At length, Nolan and Actor struck pay dirt that at least gave them some estimate of the time of the attack on Bethany Stokesberry. A homeowner, who lived almost directly across the narrow lake from the spot where her belongings were found, told them that he had arrived home shortly after midnight. While he was fixing himself a late snack in the kitchen, he had been alarmed by what he termed a “penetrating, serious female scream.”
    “I thought it might be just some hijinks because it was the Fourth of July, but it was frightening enough that I went outside on my dock to hear better. I carried my flashlight, but I couldn’t make out anything across the lake. It was absolutely still for moments and then I heard it again. It was definitely a woman, but all I could make out was theword ‘help!’ I kept listening but there was nothing else. It was all quiet by about a quarter after twelve.”
    The man explained that he hadn’t called the police or checked further because shouts and screams on the lake were common during the summer months.
    Nolan and Actor canvassed the taverns and motels along Aurora Avenue North on Monday, July 5, with negative results. Most of the taverns were closed for the holiday—at least until evening—and the motel managers had no information at all about a woman screaming for help.
    Their repeated calls to the owner of the Frontier Tavern continued to be unanswered.
    “If Bethany Stokesberry went into the Frontier Tavern after her husband let her off around ten thirty,” Nolan surmised, “and she was screaming for help at midnight, the chances are pretty good that she met her killer inside. And if the bartender is as observant as most of them are, we may get lucky.”
    “Right,” Actor agreed. “But until we find him, we haven’t any way of knowing who else was in the Frontier Saturday night—unless we get a call from someone who hears about the murder on radio or television.”
    Luck, however, was not with the detectives. If anyone had seen Bethany Stokesberry on Saturday night and recalled who she had left the tavern with, he or she obviously did not want to become involved. A second night passed with no real clues to the victim’s movements on the last night of her life.
    At 6 a.m. on Tuesday morning, Dr. Gale Wilson, King County medical examiner, performed the autopsy on thefive-foot-tall, 120-pound blonde. Although she had been beaten savagely, the worst violence had been done to her head. There were nine wounds concentrated on her face and skull—some up to nine centimeters in length. Her nose was broken at the bridge, and she had severely bitten her lower lip when she was struck forcefully in the jaw. The tooth marks in her lip were her own.
    The wounds were what Dr. Wilson termed “upper force” injuries with crushed edges, as if the hapless woman had been struck with some manner of blunt instrument. She had suffered severe brain damage called contrecoup injuries, which macerate the brain as it slams against the opposite side of the skull from where the force of the blow struck. That damage was severe enough to have rendered her unconscious almost immediately—causing her death within hours if she didn’t get emergency medical help.
    Even with that, Dr. Wilson doubted that the woman could have survived.
    Bethany Stokesberry had been the victim of a savage attack. The medical examiner noted more human tooth marks—not her own—encircling one of the victim’s nipples. Both breasts were bruised extensively along their outer walls.
    Had a sexual attack sparked the violence that ended in death? The victim’s nudity and her breast injuries strongly suggested