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Bellingham, Washington

Monday to Tuesday, March 9–10, 2020

What happens after the adrenaline rush wears off is like stepping out of a hot shower into a cold one. With an immediate threat

handled, time slows to a crawl.

I watched from afar as Snohomish County deputies ordered Constance to drop the gun and get on her knees. Then, without further

protest from her, they put her in cuffs and walked her back to a waiting patrol car. Suddenly the missing arrest warrant from

Liberty Lake no longer mattered. That night she was going to jail on charges of property damage and unlawfully discharging

a firearm. By the time she got cut loose on those, she’d be facing something far more serious.

It wasn’t until they had her in the back seat of the patrol car that I finally emerged from my hiding place into the glow of flashing red and blue lights surrounding the storage facility’s entrance. As soon as Scotty spotted me, he sprinted over to me and grabbed me into a relieved hug.

“Thank God you’re all right,” he breathed. “When I saw all the bullet holes in your car, I thought you were a goner. What

the hell happened?”

“I was afraid she was going to get away,” I answered. “I figured blocking the gate with my car would slow her down long enough

for you to get here, and it worked, but I sure as hell didn’t expect her to come out with all guns blazing and plug it full

of holes.”

We walked together as far as the Mercedes where I was able to shut down the alarm. We were standing there examining the damage

when Sandy Sechrest walked up to us with Ben Weston tagging along.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I am, thanks to my best friend over there, that telephone pole,” I told her, pointing in that direction. “But if you hadn’t

gotten here when you did, and if she’d managed to figure out where I was, it wouldn’t have ended well.”

“When I sent you after her,” Sandy said reprovingly, “I thought you’d keep tabs on her. I didn’t expect you to go up against

her single-handed.”

“Believe me,” I said, “I didn’t, either.”

“Well, take a look at this,” she added, holding up what looked to be a briefcase. Handing it over to Ben, she clicked open

the latch and raised the lid. What I saw staring back at me from inside were stacks of bound one-hundred-dollar bills.

“The money,” I breathed.

“The money,” Sandy agreed with a nod. “This was in her van. Liberty Lake is faxing a search warrant for the storage unit here over to the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office. I have a feeling that whatever we didn’t find at the residence is going to be here.”

Those hundred-dollar bills were exactly the confirmation I’d been waiting for. “We got her, didn’t we!”

“We sure as hell did,” Sandy replied with a smile.

At that point the YouStoreIt manager showed up and called Sandy aside. A flatbed tow truck arrived next. Once crime-scene

photos had been taken, the truck driver hauled my sorry-looking S 550 away to a body shop in Everett. As that was happening,

another deputy approached me.

“If you don’t mind, sir,” he said, “I’ll need to take you back to the station for an interview.”

“Fine,” I told him.

“Wait,” Scott said. “How are you going to get home? Once you finish with the interview, either I can take you, or Ben can.”

“No,” I said. “You guys head back to Seattle and don’t worry about me. I’ll handle it. If need be, I can always rent a car.”

The interview was no big deal, but it took time. Once that finished, it was three o’clock in the morning. Turns out renting

cars in Everett, Washington, at that hour of the morning isn’t an option, so a young deputy named Donald Davison was dispatched

to take me home to Bellingham.

“There was some kind of big deal up in Smokey Point tonight,” he commented as we pulled out of the parking lot. “Do you know

what went on?”

No one had clued him in, so I did. “Your department, working in conjunction with Seattle PD, took down a serial killer.”

“No way! A real serial killer?”

Did I mention Deputy Davison was young?

“Yes,” I told him, “a real serial killer. We know of five victims so far but suspect there may be more out there.”

“How did they catch him?” Donald asked.

“It’s a her,” I corrected. “A woman named Constance Herzog who looks for all the world like the sweetest little old lady you’d

ever hope to meet, which is one of the reasons she got away with doing what she did for so long. Too bad for her, she made

a couple of mistakes along the way, and we were finally able to connect those dots.”

Deputy Davison was quiet for a time after that. Finally he asked, “Are you a cop, too?”

“Used to be,” I said. “Now I’m a private investigator. My client is the grandmother of one of Constance’s victims.”

“A private investigator,” he repeated. “Really? I always thought all they did was track down cheating spouses in divorce cases.”

“I always thought so, too,” I told him. “Turns out I was wrong.”

Much earlier, I had called Mel to let her know what was going on. She had offered to drive down to get me, but I told her

not to bother. That was back when I still believed the car rental option would work. But when Donald pulled into our driveway

and let me out at a little past four, the lights in the house were still on. She threw the door open before I ever got as

far as the back porch. Not only was Mel there to greet me, so was a tail-wagging Sarah.

“You shouldn’t have waited up,” I told Mel after we’d exchanged a kiss. “You won’t be able to work on three hours’ worth of

sleep.”

“I’m not going to,” she replied. “I’ve called in sick. I’m staying home so you can give me a complete debrief.”

“Fine,” I said, “but that’s going to have to wait until after I have a hot shower and a few hours of sleep.”

I was dead to the world before my head hit the pillow. When I woke up, it was 11:15 a.m. on Tuesday. Mel had abandoned me, but I found Sarah snoozing on her doggie cushion on the floor next to my side of the bed.

The two of us ambled into the living room together.

“It’s about time,” Mel said, greeting me without looking up from her computer. She may have been taking a sick day, but that

didn’t mean she wasn’t working. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I’m not as young as I used to be,” I replied, as I headed into the kitchen to press the coffee button. It wasn’t until

I was in the living room with my coffee that I got a good look at my wife’s face and realized something was wrong.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Mel bit her lip, covered her mouth with her hand for a moment, and shook her head before answering. “George Pritchard committed

suicide in his cell at the Whatcom County Jail last night,” she replied. “He hung himself with a bedsheet. They found him

this morning at six. I didn’t think to ask that they place him on suicide watch, but I should have.”

Sitting down beside her, I already knew that there was no right thing to say in that moment, but I had to say something.

“What happens in the jail isn’t your problem.”

“But it was my arrest,” she argued. “I’m the one who initiated having my department take him into custody.”

“Which, considering what he’d done, you were duty bound to do.”

“What Pritchard did to his students was abhorrent,” Mel con tinued as though I hadn’t said a word. “He was charged with a crime, yes, but he hadn’t been convicted. And the crimes he was accused of didn’t add up to death penalty cases. What can I possibly say to his wife and kids?”

In all the years we’d been together, I had never seen Mel Soames so completely shattered, but once again I knew that any expression

of sympathy from me would only make things worse.

“What you do,” I said after a pause, “is put on your big girl panties and your dress uniform. Then you go to the family’s

home, knock on their door, and tell them how very sorry you are for their loss. Because the truth is, you are. They have lost

a husband and father, and not just once, either. They’ve lost him in the flesh because he’s dead, but they’ve also lost the

person they always believed him to be. I’m not sure which of those two losses is worse.”

Mel isn’t one of those women who turns on the waterworks at the drop of a hat, but this time the floodgates opened. She leaned

into my chest and sobbed as though her heart was broken and she’d never be able to stop. I was glad it was just the two of

us there at the time and that she was at home instead of at work. If she’d had that kind of breakdown at the department, she

never would have lived it down. All of the hard-earned respect she has won over the years would have evaporated.

At last, getting a grip on herself, Mel pulled away, wiped her eyes, and abruptly changed the subject. “I already talked to

the insurance adjuster.”

“What did he have to say?”

“She,” Mel corrected. “She said that repairing the damage on the Mercedes will cost more than the car is worth. They’re totaling

it and sending over a rental for you to use until you can buy a replacement.”

Following her lead, I left the Pritchard family’s awful situation alone for the time being and focused on vehicular issues.

“So now I’m in the market for a new car?” I asked.

“Evidently,” she said.

“But a new S 550 will cost a fortune,” I objected.

“Then find a used one,” Mel suggested. “That’s what you did the last time.”

For the next two hours I told her everything that had happened the day before, including the welcome fact that Scott and Cherisse

were expecting a baby. During that time I heard intermittent email alerts coming in on my phone, but I ignored them. What

Mel needed to do right then was talk about something that wasn’t George Pritchard. And you’d better believe that when I told

the story, I somehow failed to mention that I hadn’t been wearing my bulletproof vest when all hell had broken loose.

Finally at three o’clock in the afternoon, Mel stood up. “All right,” she said. “I think I’m ready. I’m going to go take a

shower, get dressed, and go pay my respects to Alana Pritchard.”

“Would you like me to come along?”

“Please,” she said.

“Then I’d better get dressed, too.”

While doing so, I couldn’t help thinking about the similarity between what Caroline Richards had done to Kyle’s friend Gabe

and what George Pritchard had done to an unknown number of female victims. Both of them had committed sexual assaults. As

far as I knew, Caroline had been a first-time offender while Pritchard was a habitual one. She was getting a second chance.

Pritchard was dead.

We went in Mel’s Interceptor. I rode shotgun, and Mel drove. At the Pritchard residence I sat in the living room with her and with Pritchard’s widow and sons as Mel said her piece. I wish some of the Doubting Thomas members of Mel’s department had seen how she conducted herself that afternoon. The way she handled Alana Pritchard and her two shell-shocked kids was nothing short of masterful.

Alana and her boys were victims of her husband’s wrongdoing every bit as much as the high school girls he had sexually assaulted,

but that didn’t mean they weren’t shattered by his unexpected death. By the time we left the house forty-five minutes after

our arrival, Alana had agreed that she would welcome a visit from one of Bellingham PD’s victim advocates.

“Good work,” I told Mel as we headed back to the house. “I think she really appreciated your visit.”

“Thank you,” Mel said. “And thank you for encouraging me to do it. I don’t think I would have managed on my own.”

“Yes, you would have,” I assured her. “You’re the one person I know who always does the right thing.”

When we got back to the house, Kyle was home from what was likely his last day of in-person high school education. To my dismay,

he looked almost as upset as Mel had been earlier.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“It’s my dad,” he said. “I just got off the phone with him. He was bawling like a baby. He told me that Caroline has left

him, and he begged me to come home so he won’t be there all alone. I’m worried about him, Gramps. I’ve never heard him like

that. He sounded desperate.”

Gramps wasn’t the one who delivered the comfort that time around. Mel did.

“Of course he’s desperate,” she said. “He’s been played for a fool and had his heart broken to boot, but it’s not your job to fix him, Kyle. If you would rather go home than stay here, that’s up to you. But even though Caroline is gone, don’t assume that somehow you’ll be able to wave a magic wand and get your folks back together. I’m pretty sure there were serious issues in their marriage long before Caroline showed up on the scene, and those aren’t going to go away, either, not without some serious work and soul-searching on both their parts.”

“What did you tell him?” I asked.

“I told him I’d think it over.”

“You do that,” I said, “but remember, this is a situation where you need to put yourself first. Don’t let your father’s mistakes,

or your mother’s, either, for that matter, impact your own future. They’re supposed to be the grown-ups here, but they’re

not exactly acting like it.”

“And you really don’t mind either way?”

Mel and I both shook our heads. “Either way,” I said.

At that moment I would have bet money that he’d end up knuckling under to his father, but somehow I managed to stifle saying

anything more. My lobbying him in one direction was no more fair than his father’s pulling him in the other.

All I could do was shut my mouth, and hope things would turn out all right. Obviously being a parent isn’t easy, but sometimes

being a grandparent isn’t exactly a barrel of laughs, either.

When I finally had a chance to take a look at my email, the one from Scott was the first one I opened.

Hey, Dad, what a night! That storage unit was a treasure trove. We found an ice chest that functioned as Constance’s killer toolbox—bags of fentanyl tablets, a mortar and pestle, needles, a box of latex gloves, and all kinds of vaping equipment.

We also found an envelope full of mug shots, twenty-three in all. Five of them we already know—Darius Jackson, Jake Spaulding,

Xavier Delgado, Loren Gregson, and Raymond Loper. The others are from jurisdictions all over the Pacific Northwest. The ones

Sandy has checked so far are all dead of fentanyl overdoses. As for the framed photo of her father? It was part of his old

FBI Wanted poster.

For right now Seattle PD isn’t releasing any information about the arrest. It’s a CYA maneuver on their part, because too

many of those other cases were originally ours. We’ve been asked not to notify any of the victims’ family members until after

the brass are ready to go public.

The part about the brass didn’t surprise me in the least, but thinking about a total of twenty-three victims was mind-blowing.

Constance Herzog wasn’t just a serial killer, she was a serial killer on steroids. Operating from her brightly lit den of

iniquity, she had escaped detection for years by hiding behind the facade of a harmless little old lady and garnering sympathy

by pretending to be homeless. Her father’s stolen hundred-dollar bills had been her calling cards, and her trophies were the

collection of mug shots found in her van.

I thought about how Yolanda Aguirre’s painstakingly conducted interviews had helped reveal the pattern and modus operandi

that connected all the cases. But now there were eighteen additional families—grieving families—who may or may not have been

interviewed and whose lost loved ones had never had a chance at justice being served. Maybe now it would be.

Finally, I went back to reading.

I wish you could have seen Constance’s face when we walked into the call center armed with our search warrants. She was dumbfounded.

She didn’t have a clue that anyone was onto her, but once she realized we didn’t have an arrest warrant, she took off. Thank

God for you and that AirTag.

At this point she’s still in the Snohomish County Jail, but Liberty Lake’s arrest warrant has come through. As soon as she’s

released from Everett, she’ll be transferred directly to the Spokane County Jail to face charges in the death of Jake Spaulding.

Ballistics have matched the gun she used last night to two other drug-related homicides that took place years ago when a war

broke out between two competing networks of dealers. The thinking is that Constance wasn’t directly involved in any of those,

but bought the weapon on the street later for her own protection. Why she went nuts and shot the hell out of your car is anybody’s

guess. I think she had gotten away with murder for so long that the thought of being caught sent her into panic mode.

As for the money? It adds up to 86k. If we hadn’t caught her when we did, she would have been able to hide out and live on

that for a very long time.

In other words, good job, Dad! No, make that GREAT job! But what’s the word on your car?

Scotty

Of all the people in the conference room at the time, my son was the only one who had understood how pissed I was at being excluded from the search warrant team. And now he had done something about it by filling me in on the details. I hoped he hadn’t sent the message on a work computer, because he could easily be fired for discussing an ongoing investigation with someone outside the department. But I wasn’t going to breathe a word about it, and I knew he wouldn’t, either. My response was suitably brief.

Thanks for keeping me in the loop. As for the car? It’s totaled, and I’ll be shopping for a new one.

Dad

For the rest of the day things were pretty quiet around our place. When it was time for dinner, Mel wasn’t hungry. I settled

for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Kyle rummaged around in the fridge and found the tail end of his package of bologna,

so no one starved to death. Everybody went to bed early, but when I fell asleep, Mel was still tossing and turning.