Emily Kenyon 01 - A Cold Dark Place

and the rushing water was the only answer. He kept poking and calling out.
    But nothing. The plastic-wrapped package just lay there. He knew. He’d found what everyone in the Northwest had been looking for, because it was clear the bundle contained two people. He felt a shiver deep in his bones. It was better than 80 degrees that sunny afternoon, but he was shaking like it was a midwinter snowstorm. The smell of death blew over the water, just under the summer breeze.
    “Hey, you all right?” he said, his voice almost a prayer by then. Soft. Pleading. Yet, at the same time, knowing the worst had come to pass.
    “Not sure why I called over to them,” he told his dad, crying, some days later. “I know it seems stupid and wrong, but I really didn’t want it to be those girls. I was hoping it was a couple of store mannequins wrapped up in a painter’s tarp”
    Shelley Marie Smith and Lorrie Ann Warner had been found.
    Olga Morris moved methodically through apartment 703 in the monolithic redbrick building that Cascade University students called “Bucky Towers” or “BT.” Buchanan Towers was the kind of building that could only have been dreamed up by architects working on a bare-bones state budget. Floors were warrens of studio and double units. Windows were tiny vertical slots and rooms were sparsely furnished with bunk beds, desks, and a pair of chairs. Upholstered love seats dominated the living room/kitchen combinations.
    Olga Morris was a detective for the Meridian Police De partment and the irony of the task at hand weighed heavily on her. She was there investigating the murder of two coeds, across the hall from the same apartment that she had lived in when she was a student.
    Olga was barely five feet tall, a sparkplug of a woman with short-cropped blond hair and a confident presence that always made her seem taller. Even though a decade had passed since she had lived in the building, it felt exceedingly, and painfully, familiar. The faucet dripped in 703 as it had in her apartment. Blue mineral deposits corroded what was supposed to be a stainless steel sink. The ventilation was poor and she cranked open one of the narrow windows. A faint breeze moved the miniblinds.
    Morris retreated to the bedroom. Shelley had the bottom bunk; Lorrie, the top. The bedding had been removed by the crime scene investigators and had been processed for fibers and hairs. Semen and pubic hairs that weren’t Lorrie’s were found on her sheets, a cheery lemon and orange percale that her mother had bought for her junior year.
    Her mother, Morris thought as she pulled a desk drawer open, seemed more upset that her daughter had a boyfriend and was sexually active than the fact she was missing.
    But she was no longer missing. She and Shelley, or rather their remains, had been discovered by a kayaker on the Nooksack River.
    “Find anything?” It was Tammi Swenson, the resident aide, who apparently had the uncanny ability to come into any room unnoticed. “How’s the case going?”
    Olga looked up and managed a smile. She shut the drawer. Tammi was one of those upbeat young women who talked in the peppy cadence of a cheerleader.
    “Fine, Tammi. We’ll catch whoever it was that killed the girls. You can count on that”
    Tammi sipped her lemon-flavored Pepsi Lite, her blue eyes widening. “I hope so. I mean, I know you will. I feel like I’m way out of line, but my supervisor wanted me to ask you again-nicely-when you’re gonna release the room. I have two girls on the wait list and they’re really nice. I mean, a good fit for the floor.”
    Detective Morris nodded. “I see. Well, tell your manager—2’
    “-he’s just a supervisor. He thinks he’s a manager, though”
    “As I was trying to say,” the diminutive detective continued, “the room is available. We’ve processed everything. Nothing left. This wasn’t the crime scene-be sure to tell the new girls that, okay?”
    Light streamed through the slashes of glass and the blinds moved once more. Music rumbled from down the hall. It was Fleetwood Mac with Stevie Nicks doing her best to rock Bucky Towers.
    Tammi brightened for a moment. “Good to know. Thanks! Can I ask you a question?”
    Olga nodded. “Sure, I’ll try to answer.”
    Tammi took a deep breath. The detective had seen that move a time or two, usually when a suspect is being questioned and is suddenly ready to reveal something they think will help throw the interrogator off the track.
    Tammi