A young King County deputy with a buzz cut pointed to the location where Robert Carmichael had indicated he’d found the purse.

“See that fan of roots?” he asked Kendall, pointing to a mighty old fir that had succumbed to the crumbling cliffs on one side of the passage or the other.

She nodded.

“Near the base of that.”

Kendall sighed. There was no chance that there was any more evidence. The tide was high. Everything that might have been a clue was submerged.

The deputy handed her the Dooney, sealed in a large clear-plastic bag.

“Anyhow, I hope this helps,” he said.

“Of course I do too,” she said, knowing Carol Godding was more than merely missing. In all likelihood she was, indeed, victim four.

The day after the quarreling brother and sister found Carol Godding’s purse, a Native American fishing crew dropped their nets in Colvos Passage near Olalla Bay, about a mile south of Lisabeula. The water, rippled shiny like corroded shellac on an old tabletop, accepted the weighted nets, and the men on the boat took a moment to kick back and pass the time. Fishing was always about waiting; and in the case of Native Americans, it was also about putting up with the glares and hostile looks of the fisherman on the causeway bridge who cannot match the catch of a net dropped into the blue. At about 4 P.M, it was time to reel in the curtain of nets.

“Pretty heavy,” one of the younger men said as the winch strained to lift a load of salmon.

“Maybe you snagged a deadhead,” another said.

“Not that bad,” the first fisherman shot back. “Just a good haul.”

Yet, it wasn’t a good haul. As the net broke the rippled surface of the passage, first a hand appeared, then the arm, and finally, the remainder of a nude and battered body.

Carol Godding had risen to the surface.

April 2, 9 a.m.

Port Orchard

The nude corpse on Birdy Waterman’s stainless-steel table was not like the others who had been defiled by the Cutter. In fact, even those who profile such things would have discounted Carol Godding as a possible victim of the same man who had murdered Celesta, Skye, and Midnight. At forty-five, Carol was no ingénue. She might have been a lovely woman in life, but the waters of Puget Sound, the knotted fury of the fishermen’s nets, and, of course, what the killer had done to her had stolen that all away. However, the forensic pathologist also noticed two small scars behind Carol’s ears, indications that she had likely had a face-lift. There were also several tiny and recent scars running along her abdomen, the telltale signs of a tumescent liposuction procedure.

Birdy knew that Carol had recently gotten divorced. Birdy had never married herself, but she understood the reaction to aging. The need to halt it all before it was too late. Some women didn’t see themselves for the greatness they held but as a package, a vessel, that had been coveted by men. Carol Godding had likely spent the last few months of her life pulling out all the stops to get herself back in the game before a ruthless killer stopped her.

Birdy noted how Carol’s wrists and ankles were striated by wounds exactly like those of the other victims. She hated to use the gimmicky name for the perpetrator, but in seeing the teasing injuries made by a blade on Carol’s torso, Birdy had to admit that the Kitsap Cutter had struck again.

She took out the camera and started documenting the body as found. There was an indignity to the process, and Birdy knew it. A woman like the one on the table had been consumed with how she looked, how she was progressing in her personal makeover.

The one that would put her life back on track.

“You’re late,” Birdy said as the Kitsap County detectives entered the room.

“You started early,” Josh said.

“Reset your watch. I started on time.”

“Sorry, Doctor,” Kendall said, setting down her things and disappearing into the changing room. She kept talking through the cracked doorway. “We got held up by some media calls. Word is out about Ms. Godding being victim four.”

Birdy looked up from the body.

“Word is about right, I’d say,” she said.

As Kendall emerged in her pale green scrubs, Josh went to change. Again the door was kept open.

“This gal’s no spring chicken,” he called out. “What would a sexual sadist want with her?”

The two women looked at each other and shook their heads.

“This isn’t necessarily about sex but about the feeling that the killer gets from the pain that he’s causing,” Kendall said.

She also wanted to say something about how the victim on the table was younger than Josh was, by about six years, and he still considered himself hot stuff.

Yet, she didn’t.

As the three hovered over Carol’s remains, there was an unplanned moment of silence. Each took in what could not be ignored. The body had been pierced by a knife a total of fourteen times. The wounds had not been deep, no more than a quarter inch at best.

The stabbing had been part of the game.

“Did she bleed to death?” Kendall finally asked.

Birdy stopped taking pictures. “No. Look here.” She tilted the head slightly as she opened Carol’s blue eyes.

“Patriotic, this gal. Red, white, and blue,” Josh said, clever and cruel at the same time.

Neither woman commented on Josh’s second inappropriate comment of the hour.

“Petechial hemorrhaging,” Birdy said. “I expect the hyoid has been crushed too. This victim was manually strangled. No ligature marks.” The pathologist pointed at some bruising on the neck. “Look, you can see the fingertips here.”

“Looks like dirt,” Josh said.

Kendall peered at the skin. “I see them.”

Josh took a step closer. “Yeah, I guess so. But if she was strangled, that doesn’t fit the MO of the killer.”

“She was raped, wasn’t she?” Kendall said.

The pathologist made a nod of resignation. “I’ve swabbed. This perpetrator is careful, smart.”

She reached for her scalpel to do what the killer had done. The blade of her knife was not so different from the one that had tortured Carol Godding. Birdy performed a zipper pull, opening up the battered body.

Dr. Waterman fixed her eyes on Josh. “Just so you know,” she said, “if I see any of this report in the paper tomorrow, I’ll go to the sheriff and have you bounced off this case for good. You understand?”

Josh Anderson’s face went a little pink. “Look, Birdy, I’ve never compromised a case. Ever. I resent what you’re implying.”

“I’m not implying anything, Detective. I’m stating a fact. That’s what I’ll do.”

“Look,” he said. “I’ve never compromised a case for any reason, and you know that.” He looked at Kendall, maybe for support. She stayed mute.

“Josh, I end up with the result of what these maniacs do,” Dr. Waterman said. She looked over at Carol. “We have a serial killer working in our own backyard, and some of the things that have been in the paper could compromise what I think we both want: an end to this.”

“You know something, Doctor,” Josh said, dispensing with familiarity, “you couldn’t be more wrong.”

“I hope so,” she said. “I actually don’t mind being wrong now and then. I learn from it.” She was thinking of Celesta just then and how the early discounting of her disappearance as an abduction had delayed an effective investigation. She wished she could turn back the clock for all of them-Celesta, Skye, Marissa, Carol, and in all likelihood Paige.

With the skill that comes with practice, Birdy rolled Carol’s body over so that she could view the wounds on her back. She’d been sliced in four places, not deeply but teasingly shallow. She noted the locations on the body chart that accompanied every autopsy. It was a bald, alien-like figure that reduced the person to nothing more than an outline.