Mortal Danger

Carignan, the “Want-Ad Killer,” killed women from Alaska to Minnesota, marking their body sites with red crayon circles on a map. Serial killers came in two categories: cross-country travelers trolling for victims and those attached to one area.
    Maybe there was a good reason that Sara Beth’s killer had strayed outside his “comfort zone.”
    Ciesynski called the Monroe Correctional Complex. He wanted to be sure that Williams was still there. He was. Corrections investigator Bob Hoover e-mailed a photo of him as he looked twenty-eight years after Laura died. He was the same man who appeared in the lineup photos viewed by people who had come into the 7-Eleven on Beacon Hill the night Laura disappeared. But now he was an old man, grizzled with gray beard stubble.
    The cold case probe moved ahead rapidly. There was a real sense of urgency; Clarence Williams would be up for parole in fewer than eight years, when he was seventy-one. At that age, and after almost forty years behind bars, there was a good chance the Washington State Parole Board would release him.
    Reading over Laura’s and Sara Beth’s files, Ciesynski was convinced that Clarence Williams would still be dangerous—probably murderously dangerous. Mike Ciesynski agrees with other experts on serial murder; as long as they are physically able and free, serial killers continue to take lives, and it doesn’t matter how old they are.
    In February 2007, Mike Ciesynski and Detective Weklych drove to the Monroe Complex armed with a search warrant. Weklych read Clarence Williams his Miranda rights, and he signed the form that showed he understood and was willing to talk with them.
    Ciesynski advised Clarence that he was under investigation for the murder of Sara Beth Lundquist. There was little reaction from the suspect. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “I didn’t do either of those murders.”
    “We’ve matched your DNA to Sara Beth,” Ciesynski said.
    Again, Williams shrugged. “I picked up a seventeen-or eighteen-year-old girl on Pike Street and paid her twenty dollars for sex,” he said almost casually. “I dropped her off around the Fremont Bridge. I picked up a lot of prostitutes around Pike Street, and I had regular sex and sometimes oral sex with them. I didn’t use no condom.”
    Mike Ciesynski managed to hide his distaste for the prisoner as he told Williams that explanation wouldn’t wash. “Sara Beth Lundquist wasn’t a prostitute. She was a young girl in high school, a virgin.
    “Are you familiar with the Ballard area?” he asked next.
    “No.”
    The detectives knew that was a lie. Ciesynski had checked Williams’s work record, along with job applications. He listed Foss Shipyard as a former employer. Foss Tugs and Foss Shipyard were located on the waterfront in Ballard.
    “Sara Beth was found at Bill’s Tire Store. You said you worked for Seattle Disposal, too. That’s at Thirty-four hundred Phinney North, exactly one mile from Bill’s.”
    “Okay,” Williams said, annoyed. “You want me to say I killed her. I killed her. I picked her up on Pike Street, drove to the tire store, and dumped her. Is that what you want? I don’t need another homicide beef.”
    It was, in a sense, a confession, but it probably wouldn’t hold up. Clarence Williams was being sarcastic. Ciesynski and Weklych left, with a promise to be back. They would bring along the DNA results and let Williams read them for himself.
    On March 16, Mike Ciesynski returned to the Monroe complex. He handed a copy of the DNA report to Williams. He scanned it and then said, “You’re asking me to remember something that happened thirty years ago.” He shrugged once more and said, “What can I say?”
    He didn’t say anything. When Ciesynski saw that Williams had shut down again, he concluded the interview. Handing him a card, he said, “Give me a call if you ever decide to talk.”
    Four days later, Frankie Aldalotti finally called the cold case detective. He was no longer a suspect, but Ciesynski was interested in talking with him anyway. He might have some bit of information that would add to the strength of murder charges against Williams.
    He didn’t. Frankie said that Sara Beth had really been Benny’s friend. “I didn’t know her very well, and I never dated her or was interested in dating her. We didn’t have any type of relationship and I don’t know anything about her background.”
    Mike Ciesynski was confident that they were close to