will know. He’ll be safe. Probably. My mother might know, but there’s no way I’ll open that wound again.
Forty-Two
The gun is next to me on the nightstand. I close my eyes but I can’t get Michael Rader out of my mind. The picture Ronnie showed me reminds me too much of my bio-dad, too much of me, too much of the genes we share. I wonder if there’s a DNA strand specifically for killers. If gene splicing, like I saw on a Twitter video clip, can replace that malignant gene with a normal one.
My mom said to look in the past. If it was meant to be a clue maybe it meant Michael Rader’s past and not mine. I give up trying to sleep and take the gun back to my desk. I lay the gun down, get on the computer and skim through the news articles and blogs about the Moriarty case and Mock’s death in prison. I pause and stare at a picture of Mock. He looks bewildered, sitting next to his defense attorney.
In the picture’s background I see Dan Moriarty—younger but out of shape. Next to him is a woman with her hands pressed against her chest as if she’s holding her breaking heart inside. Megan’s mom. She has those same haunted eyes that I saw in Mrs. Blume. No mother ever gets over such a loss.
Next, I scroll down and read one of the articles. The headline is:
Mock Succumbs to Injuries
The article gives me a recap of his crime and a better sense of who Kim Mock was as a person. He was eighteen years old when he was convicted and given a life sentence. He was moved from the juvenile justice center in Seattle to the men’s correctional facility in Monroe. I remember Monroe as a sleepy prison town east of Everett, Washington. As I read, it is as though I’m in a race to capture every detail I can in one giant gulp. He was considered a model prisoner there, teaching other inmates how to read and write. He even led a Bible study group.
The article reads:
On Tuesday Mock was in the prison chapel when an assailant stabbed him with a knife made from a flattened and sharpened spoon. Mock was taken to the infirmary, where he died after surgery. His attacker was never identified. The prison was on lockdown for twenty-four hours, but is operating normally today.
At the bottom of the piece, mention is made that there was a pending investigation into Mock’s death.
I move further down the computer screen. The follow-up article is so brief that if I blinked at the moment it passed in front of me I would have missed it.
Review into Mock Death Complete
Once again, I see the name of the guard who found Kim Mock stabbed to death and alone.
Michael Rader.
Ronnie had found an old address and possibly a phone number for Michael. I need to verify he’s still there. Back when I was hunting for his brother, I found that Alex wasn’t listed anywhere but water records. I need to ask Ronnie if she checked that.
A benefit of being in the Sheriff’s Office is that I am tied into the city and county databases. One of the things I can now access is the department of water records for bills and usage. They will also show if he transferred his water service. It’s just possible he lives in such a remote area that there are no utility services of any kind. Some people live rough in the county. I think of Snow Creek. Still, it’s something I can do.
But there are only a few computer stations that have IT permission to access those records. One of the stations, luckily, is mine. At work only. I’ll check it in the morning.
If that doesn’t reveal where Michael is living, I’ll ask Sheriff Gray to call the sheriff of Snohomish County and make some inquiries. If Michael isn’t working at the prison or living in the county anymore, there must be a reason. He doesn’t have a warrant issued for his arrest, so he hasn’t been caught for the murder of Kim Mock or others.
I put the tapes and player away. The empty Scotch bottle goes in the trash with the Cheetos wrappers. I’m a little hungry but I don’t want to eat. My stomach is queasy. I need sleep.
Forty-Three
In the morning, the hot water from the sputtering shower relaxes me. Washes the bad stuff away. The body wash Ronnie