Those crimes were committed in Clearview, a small town north of Seattle in Snohomish County. That meant there was no reason for Scott to go too far, too fast, so he decided to stay a few more nights in the same hotel in Issaquah and use that as his base of operations.
He consulted his map and saw that he could get back on I-90, jump down to I-405, and not have to drive through downtown Seattle.
The weather was still beautiful, so he decided to take the Valiant and drive north through Bellevue, Kirkland, and up to Snohomish county. In his notes, he had written “Charles Rodman Campbell, Edmonds.” He had also memorized the victim’s address in case he wasn’t able to find Campbell before the day he showed up at her door.
Scott rolled his windows down, turned the music up on 950 KJR, and rolled up I-405. With the sun beating down and the wind ruffling his hair, he felt better than he had in some time.
A mile later, he hit a traffic backup in Bellevue that lasted all the way up to where 405 merged with I-5.
Eventually, Scott did make it to Edmonds. He looked up “Campbell” in the phone book, but there were dozens of them listed. He tore the page out and decided to try and drive around to some of the addresses listed and see what he could see.
I don’t want to ask a lot of people questions about him, because they might remember that when he goes missing, but I know what he looks like, so if I spot him coming out of a house, I’ll recognize him. It’s not much of a plan, but I’ve got plenty of time.
Campbell would be easy to spot. He was a big man, 6’5” and built like an offensive lineman.
He was a big, strong man. I’m going to have to be careful how I approach him. What I could really use is a Taser. This is the problem with living a lot of lives, though. I’m not even sure those have been invented yet.
Edmonds was a spread out city, so it wasn’t easy to find many of the addresses on the phone book page. He did locate a few, and of course they looked like normal houses. He parked across the street from several of them, but after an hour or so of watching each one, he felt like he was wasting his time.
He abandoned his surveillance in Edmonds and headed inland toward the tiny town of Clearview. He had to stop at a gas station and ask for directions, but he did eventually find the house where the original crime would take place.
I hope I can find him and take him out earlier. But, if not, I’ll be right here waiting for him.
Chapter Thirty-Four
It was ten days before anyone discovered Ted Bundy’s body.
After the stretch of sunny, beautiful weather, temperatures had cooled and a rainy front set in, which held the number of visitors to Lake Sammamish State Park down.
Eventually, the sun returned and so did the visitors.
One Tuesday afternoon, a young woman from Federal Way drove to the park to walk her dogs around the lake. While she was getting her Chocolate Lab on its leash, her German Shephard slipped by her and made a beeline into the woods, where the partially decomposed body was discovered.
Scott had made a point of watching the 11:00 news every night, waiting for just that to happen. He was still staying in the motel in Issaquah when the newscaster announced that a body had been found at Lake Sammamish, but no further details were available.
I’m sure by now, someone has missed him and reported him missing. Eventually, they’ll put two and two together and he’ll be identified. His family will mourn him, but they were destined to do that eventually anyway. At least this way, they’ll never know how he besmirched the Bundy name. And, there will be women in Utah, Colorado, and Florida, who will live their lives through, never knowing they would have been one of his victims. And that’s just fine.
FOR A BIG MAN, CHARLES Campbell proved elusive to Scott.
Shortly after Bundy’s body was found, Scott moved from Issaquah up to the University District, which was north of Seattle and closer to Edmonds. He could have gone all the way up to Snohomish County to stay, but he didn’t want to show his face there for four or five months before Campbell was killed.
Instead, he used the same strategy he had in Waterville. He got to know the University District and found bulletin boards advertising for tenants for the upcoming semester at the University of Washington.
Classes didn’t start until late September, so in early August, Scott had his choice of places to land. He found a room to rent in a house on Roosevelt Avenue, just north of the U-District. It was a small room, and he would eventually share a kitchen and bathroom with four other people. But, it was only seventy-five dollars a month, it came furnished with a bed and there was no lease.
Scott still spent time driving up to Edmonds a few times a week, but the longer he looked, the less hopeful he became. Eventually, it became easier to hang around home. He knew he had his date with destiny in a few months.
Overall, Scott didn’t love large cities. Having lived his life first in Middle Falls, Oregon, and then Evansville, Indiana, he was used to the slower pace of non-metropolitan areas. The U-District felt different to him, though.
First, the UW campus was absolutely lovely, with open squares, majestic old buildings, and libraries that surpassed anything he had ever seen. Then, there was the community around the university. It was diverse, vibrant, and ever changing.
Over the weeks and months that Scott lived in the U-District, the summer sun became a forgotten memory and fog and misty rain became standard-issue weather. Still, he hated being cooped up inside all day with nothing to do, so Scott would walk the mile or so down Roosevelt onto the Ave. He found a tiny Russian restaurant that made incredible borscht for $1.50 a bowl and he took advantage of that several days a week. There were also half a dozen used record stores and even though he traveled too light to have a turntable, he still loved to browse through the albums and read the liner notes. He kept a small blue notebook in his pocket and jotted down album titles for a day when he was more settled.
Best of all, though, were the used bookstores. When he lived in Vermont, he had lived over such a store, but that had been the only one in town and, truth be told, it was on the smallish side. Here, he had seven bookstores within walking distance. The biggest was the University Bookstore itself, which took up most of a city block. From Scott’s perspective, the other bookstores were better. One had a loft that you had to climb a ladder to get to. Once you were up there, though, you could settle in for a long afternoon’s browse with no one to bother you.
Another specialized in lesser-known memoirs and biographies. Scott ended up hauling a lot of books out of that one.
One afternoon as he walked toward home, he saw a hulking figure ahead of him that set off alarm bells in the back of his mind. The man was with two other men, but he towered over both of them by at least half a head.
Have I been chasing him for months and he shows up right here in my back yard?
His knife and telescoping baton were tucked away back in his room—he never carried them with him unless he was expecting trouble. He had forgotten that sometimes trouble can come looking for you. He did have his jo, but he didn’t want to think about getting into a brawl with a man who outweighed him by eighty pounds with only that.
The three men ducked into a coffee shop and stood in line at the counter. Scott hadn’t seen the man’s face clearly, but what he had seen matched the photos he had memorized of Campbell. Scott got in line behind the men and listened to their conversation.