“My records are lousy. Lou-zee. I don’t know what they bought. You’ll have to ask ’em. Kat and Ronni live in Port Orchard. Melody’s out on the peninsula.”

Josh Anderson’s eyes flashed recognition at one name on the list, and when Kendall hung up, he wasted no time telling her what he knew.

“Melody Castile is Serenity’s sister. She’s one of those collectors, big-time. About all she does. I’ll run this one down.”

Kendall didn’t have a great feeling about Josh “running down” anything when it came to Serenity Hutchins, but she agreed. She’d follow up on the other two vintage kitchen collectors. She always did two-thirds of the work when she and Josh worked a case together, anyway. Why should the Cutter be any different?

Josh Anderson pulled the cork from the slender neck of a wine bottle, sending a nice pop into the air.

“You’ll get a kick out of this,” he said to Serenity as he poured some wine into the last two goblets that his wife had left when she packed up (his first wife, not his last wife). The pair were holed up in his condo in Bremerton, taking in the view of the moonlight water and a passing pleasure boat.

Serenity tasted the wine and nodded in approval. It was a crisp chardonnay that she favored, and Josh knew it.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“You mentioned your sister being a kitchen junk collector.”

She rolled her eyes. “Among other things.”

He nodded. “Yeah, among other things.”

Condensation clung to her glass, and she wiped it away with a paper napkin.

“Her name came up today on a list of buyers of stuff that may be related to the case.”

Serenity wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but she didn’t press for details right then.

“My sister’s a little loopy and her husband is a creep, but since my folks died they’re pretty much all I have,” she said.

He drank some wine. “You don’t mention them much.”

“We’re not close. Sometimes I wish we were,” she said.

“I know how that goes.”

October 22, 3:30 p.m.

Key Center

Max Castile had begged for months to be Indiana Jones for Halloween. At first Melody had been surprised by the choice. It seemed to be a character out of her own childhood and an unlikely candidate to inspire the imagination of a child of today. She had her sister to thank. It was an Indiana Jones video game that Serenity had given Max for his birthday.

She took out her mother’s old Singer sewing machine and worked day and night at the kitchen table, taking one of Sam’s work shirts and reducing it in size for her little boy to wear. She’d found an appropriately beat-up fedora at the Gig Harbor Goodwill that smelled of someone’s grandpa.

Max had found the whip.

“Mom, I love you,” he said, holding up the small black riding crop with a silver skull at its knob end. “This is so cool.”

The whip was not part of the costume she was making but had been among the toys that she and Sam employed in the Fun House.

“Where did you get this?” she asked, her voice a controlled scream.

Max looked confused and then burst into tears.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I thought you got it for me, Mom.”

“This is not for you,” she said, taking the whip back.

The little boy ran from the kitchen. His mother did not follow. She didn’t know what to say or whether it was worth making any more issue of it.

She turned the machine on and started sewing.

Melody Castile had been the star of Sam’s little productions nearly since the time they were first together. At first it made her feel uncomfortable, doing the things that he insisted turned him on. When it came to lipstick, he wanted her to wear bright red, not muted shades of brick and persimmon. Candy Apple was the color he desired on her lips. He wanted her to wear crotchless panties that he purchased off some Frederick’s of Hollywood-type site on the Internet.

“For my all-access pass,” he said when he gave her the sheer underwear with the slit on the front panel.

Sam’s requests escalated over time. No longer did he seem to be content to make her over into his version of sexy. He had her do things. Oral sex in a bathroom at the Space Needle. Allow him to slip his fingers into her vagina while they waited in the drive-through line at the Port Orchard Starbucks. Each time she acquiesced, the line moved closer toward the sordid.

“Baby, I need you to put this on and be my dirty little bitch.”

He handed her a short dress, pale blue: it looked like the kind of garment a flower girl might wear at a summer wedding.

“No panties, bitch,” he said as she dressed.

What is this game? Why am I doing this?

“I want you to put this inside of you, bitch,” he said, handing her a clear Lucite dildo. She’d never seen it before. It was enormous, shiny, like a phallic icicle. God only knew where he’d purchased it. At one of those seedy sex shops near the Navy base in Bremerton? Or in Tacoma at that suburban-style superstore, Castles? There, a credit card and a taste for the wild side could get a customer Jenna Jameson’s vagina or Johnny Wadd’s penis made of rubber or silicone with a starburst on the package proclaiming that it was dishwasher safe.

“Get on the bed,” he said, pushing her slightly, as his digital camera started to whir.

It wasn’t just that his voice was demanding: It was more that she wanted to please him. Melody knew that men sometimes needed something more than the usual. She wanted to help him, to please him. So she obeyed.

He took off his pants and underwear but not his shirt or socks as he stood before her. He almost never took off his socks when they had sex. Yet, she had to be devoid of all clothing and jewelry, down to her wedding band. It was what he preferred.

“Legs up. Spread your legs, bitch,” he said. “Higher.”

He held out his camera.

“But you can’t take sexy pictures of me, baby, if you can’t see my face,” she said.

She didn’t tell him that she’d spent a half hour on her hair and makeup, thinking that the sexy pictures he had in mind were more Playboy than Hustler. She was a pretty woman who didn’t need a heavy hand with the lipstick or blush, but he liked her to “paint it up” a little. She’d even put a little foundation on the thin white stretch marks she carried after childbirth.

He laughed. “Bitch, I don’t care about your face.”

She looked a little hurt, and he seemed to respond to her concern.

“I want to show these to my friends. If they see your face, they’ll know it’s you. Then they’ll hit on you. I don’t want that.”

She relaxed a little.

“Good, bitch. Now, put it in!”

Later she would think back to this moment, wondering if she’d crossed over to a dark and dangerous side. Was this her turning point? If she’d said no to the photos, the dildos, the leather straps, the chains…would things be different?

“It hurts,” she said.

“Oh, bitch, that’s good. That’s how I like it. That’s how you like it too.”

She lay back on the bed, feeling sore and ashamed. Whatever questions she had about what they were doing stayed unasked.

A few days later he came home from the shipyard, beaming. She was in the kitchen.

“I showed your pictures to some of the guys,” he said, cornering her in the kitchen while she prepared dinner. He spoke in low, conspiratorial tones. It was as if they’d done it together as a team. She’d felt she was just an object under his direction. But he seemed to suggest more. Your pictures. It made her feel good. “I didn’t tell them it was you, just some bitch I photographed.”

There was pride and excitement in his voice, and it stirred something in her. It was dark, nasty, and wrong on every level, but she wanted more. She wanted to make him happy.