“All he did was talk about science and things I’m barely familiar with. I felt like I was out with Bill Nye the Science Guy.”
We both chuckle. Marley looks nothing like Bill Nye but he definitely had the science guy routine down.
“I had him send his lab report directly to me,” Ronnie says in a whisper. “The DNA on the coffee mug matched the body. The DNA we took from Gabrielle suggested she was the daughter of the victim. The DNA from the items you found out in the trees wasn’t in the database. It’s an unknown. Marley was a little angry that he had to check it, but I told him I found it and put your name on the request form. I told him you said it was a waste of time but I had a hunch.”
I like this girl more each day.
“Thanks, Ronnie. At least we have the DNA on file in case something else turns up.” As I say that I can’t help but feel I’ve jinxed myself. I don’t want anything else to turn up because I don’t want anyone else to die.
“I’ve got something else that I’d like him to run.” I hand her the bag with Nan’s cigarette butt. “It needs to be eliminated from the other things I—you—found out there. If those things belonged to Nan, she won’t have DNA on file, either, but he can tell if that butt matches the other butt. If it does, we can probably pitch all that stuff.”
Ronnie grins mischievously. “So you’ve got Nan’s butt in a bag and you want Marley to look at her butt to compare it to another butt?”
“May the best butt win,” I say, and Ronnie giggles. It isn’t that funny, but it kind of is.
“I checked on Alex Rader,” Ronnie says. “He was a detective with King County Sheriff’s Office. He disappeared a couple of years back. No trace of him.”
I’m surprised. I thought his body would eventually be found. The smell would draw attention. Marie had found him. I wonder what she did with his body. I know they found hers, because they made a big fuss over it, since Alex was a cop. One of theirs.
“His wife, Marie Rader, was found brutally murdered in their home. The detective I talked to said they suspect Alex might have killed her in a rage and fled. No one’s heard from him. They don’t have enough evidence to issue a warrant.”
And they never will. “Were the murders anything like ours?” I ask, knowing they were nothing like ours.
“I told the detective we were working a case where the name Alex Rader was mentioned. It’s not a totally uncommon name. I told him we’d get back to him if we had anything linking our case to their Alex Rader.”
“It’s probably nothing. I’m more interested in finding Michael Rader. Any luck there?”
Ronnie finds a photo on her phone, a face shot of a man, forty to fifty years old, craggy features, dark hair and eyes that look evil. “This guy was a corrections officer.”
All I was able to find out was that Alex Rader had a younger brother, Michael. I only saw a photo of him in a news article.
“He was last at the men’s correctional facility in Monroe,” she says.
“Where is he now?”
“He moved six months ago. I haven’t been able to find out where. I didn’t want to call the prison without talking to you first.”
“How did you find out he moved?”
“I checked utility companies around Monroe,” Ronnie says. “I got an old address but there were no bills for the last six months. I assume he had the utilities turned off.”
Thirty-Eight
Michael Rader is in the wind. To find him I’d need Sheriff Gray’s help. He could call the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office and check Michael out. The Monroe Correctional Complex is in that county. But to do that Sheriff Gray will want to know why I’m interested. I don’t want to tell him more about my past.
I doubt he would have hired me if he knew everything about me. I know I wouldn’t. I think that’s because, deep down, I feel like a fraud. Dr. Albright warned me that it would be a lifelong battle and I might never fully believe that I am a good person but that the sins of my past don’t define me.
Maybe I’m wrong about Michael Rader. Maybe the sins of his past don’t define him.