Page 75 of Den of Iniquity

“Really,” I said. “When I hear someone saying, ‘911. What is the nature of your emergency?,’ I don’t envision someone whose spare time would be devoted to making quilts.”

Ellen laughed. “They do. In fact, one of the dispatchers in Seattle, Constance Herzog, is a nationally acclaimed quilter. She’s won prizes all over the country. And she’s been recognized for donating her work to domestic violence shelters so that when the women there move on to permanent housing, they’ll have something tangible to take with them.”

“Very commendable,” Mel said. “Most of the time they come to shelters with nothing but the clothes on their backs.”

“As far as Connie goes, I suspect there might be a bit of personal history involved,” Ellen continued. “When she finished remodeling her studio, she held an open house, so several girls from the call center went. There was a framed picture hanging on one wall that looked like a mug shot, which was weird, so one of the girls askedabout it. Connie said it was her dad and explained that was the only picture she had of him since her mother burned all the others.”

“A mug shot?” Mel repeated. “Really? So did her father end up going to prison?”

“Nope,” Ellen replied. “Whatever he was accused of doing, Connie said he got off.”

By now I was all ears. Was this what we were looking for? Someone with a law enforcement connection, a personal interest in domestic violence issues, and possibly some personal experience with domestic violence? The burning of an ex’s photos made that sound like a distinct possibility. And saying “he got off” was a far cry from saying “he didn’t do it.” The killer we were looking for seemed to target domestic violence perpetrators who had indeed gotten off. As far as I was concerned, that framed picture was unlikely to be a caring daughter’s tribute to a beloved father, not by a long shot.

“We all talked about how weird it was afterward, but we decided that what a person does in the privacy of her own home was none of our business.”

None of your business, maybe, I thought,but it sure as hell sounds like mine!

What I was feeling right then was that sense of euphoria that comes over you when you’re working on a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle and two pieces with nothing on them but clear blue sky suddenly click together perfectly. In this instance, my two separate puzzle pieces were Ron Wang’s suggestion that our killer might be some kind of vigilante and Sandy Sechrest’s revelation about how working with domestic violence victims while serving as a 911 dispatcher had motivated her to become a police officer. Maybe Constance Herzog had been pushed in the opposite direction.

At this point, she was still a 911 dispatcher who seemed to havea laserlike focus on domestic violence issues. So was it possible that this prizewinning Seattle quilter was also our serial killer?

There was nothing I wanted to do more right then than to race out of the house and get Todd Hatcher on the line, but you’re not supposed to eat and run. So I minded my p’s and q’s and stayed put, all the while feeling as though I wanted to jump out of my skin. Finally, though, it was time to leave. As we gathered coats and jackets, inspiration struck and I turned back to Ellen.

“Is that other quilter’s work anything like yours?” I asked.

“I suppose,” Ellen said with a shrug. “She does landscapes, too.”

“And if I wanted to see some of her quilts, how would I go about it?”

“Google the name Constance Herzog. You should be able to see what she currently has available online.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll do that. Mel’s birthday is coming up. One of those might be just what the doctor ordered.”

We finished thanking them for the lovely meal and headed out. Their front door had barely closed, when Mel turned on me.

“What the hell?” she demanded. “When have I ever mentioned wanting to own a quilt? Yes, I offered to buy raffle tickets, but I was only being polite.”

Kyle and Sarah had gone on ahead. “I’ll tell you later,” I muttered under my breath, “but not right now.”

Chapter 35

Bellingham, Washington

Sunday, March 8, 2020

The next day, Kyle took charge of Sunday morning breakfast. We had bacon and waffles—not the kind that would have required the use of a waffle iron, which we definitely don’t own. No, these were frozen ones Kyle had dragged home from his Costco shopping trip—the kind that pops up out of a toaster, which we do have. As for his Costco bacon cooked in the microwave? It was perfectly crisp without a smidgeon of grease left on the stovetop. It was beginning to dawn on me that having a teenager around wasn’t half bad.

After getting home the night before and once Kyle had disappeared into his room, I had brought Mel into the picture and laid out my plan. Cops can compel suspects to provide DNA samplesby obtaining the appropriate warrants. Private investigators can’t request warrants, but, like the clown says inThe Little Engine That Could—there’s more than one way over the mountain to Yon. A handmade quilt would be covered with the quilter’s touch DNA, and, in this case, my Visa card would take the place of a warrant.

“And you really think Constance Herzog is your killer?” Mel asked.

“I do,” I said.

“And you’re willing to buy a quilt to get a sample of her DNA to prove it?”

“Yup,” I said. “It beats digging through her trash cans. If she actually made the quilt, skin cells, containing her DNA, should be all over it.”

That sounded fine and dandy until we went online and studied Constance Herzog’s inventory of available quilts. They were jaw-droppingly expensive. The one that caught Mel’s eye contained a striking black-and-white silhouette of Seattle’s skyline with the Space Needle front and center. It was a view that almost mirrored the one from the bedroom window of our old condo. The problem was it cost a cool two thousand bucks.

---