For the first time, Ridgway bridled at Reichert, telling him firmly that he would not find any evidence in the houses he and Judith had lived in. “There are no souvenirs—the jewelry was at Kenworth, and the other places I told you. Your X-rays won’t find them—that’s a major quote. I’m one hundred percent sure you’re not going to find anything.”

“I don’t believe you,” Reichert said, and then asked, “Are you mad at me?

“No.” But it was clear that he was. Reichert had managed to get under Ridgway’s skin. Whatever he remembered, he would have to walk a geographical tightrope, aware of county and state boundary lines. He admitted that he was worried that he may have forgotten some of his murders, and that would mean he had broken the agreement. He said he expected to be back in King County within a year on new charges. He didn’t mention that there could be other counties and other states involved. He wanted to live, but he knew the death penalty was hovering over him. That was what was scaring him.

He was clearly holding back. Earlier in this last interview, Ridgway had mentioned seventy-one victims, and yet he had admitted to only forty-eight. Kase Lee, Keli Kay McGinness, and Patricia Osborn had never been found. And there were still unidentified bones, and probably undiscovered bones, of some of the women who had never been reported missing. Who were the others? And what proof did any of the agencies interested in him have that there weren’t eighty-one or ninety-one? He had sometimes said he had killed right up until 2001.

Ridgway’s eyes darted, showing that his mind was racing, searching the dark corners of his memory to be sure he didn’t reveal something that would break his deal with the prosecutor.

“You’re a coward,” Reichert said scathingly. “You’re an evil, murdering, monstrous, cowardly man. You got behind sixteen-year-old girls and choked them.”

“They died slow,” Ridgway said, accidentally giving new information in his anger. “I never had one wake up on me. I counted to sixty to be sure. I used a ruler to twist the knot to be sure they were dead. That’s why there was a tourniquet mark. That was after they were dead.”

“You’re a rapist.”

“I had sex for money.”

“Isn’t that rape?”

“No, it’s robbery.”

“A rapist is lowest on the totem pole in prison.”

“I’m not a rapist. I paid them for sex and I killed them.”

“No, it’s rape, robbery, and murder,” Reichert countered. “You’re a coward. That’s why you chose women. You chose weak, young women because you’re a coward.” He reminded Ridgway that he hadn’t killed the witness in the raft in the Green River because he was a man.

“I might have,” Ridgway objected. “I might have.”

“Judith and Chad won’t visit you,” Reichert said. Why would Chad visit his father now that he knew he might well have killed him?

Ridgway said he thought Judith was going on with her life, and seeing other men. “I have to suffer now,” he said mournfully.

“You think you’re going to suffer?”

Dave Reichert gave Gary Ridgway one more chance to tell the task force everything he knew. If he did that, the sheriff would try to buy him another six months outside prison walls. He wouldn’t have to watch his back all the time, the food would be better, and there would be more field trips. Eventually, of course, he was going to the “joint,” but he could stave it off if he told them the truth—all of the truth.

“Right now, give me something?” Reichert asked, mentioning the name of an unsolved case.

“I can’t.”

“Then you’re on your way,” Reichert said in disgust. “I hope, Ridgway, for your sake, you’ve told us everything you know. Well, this is it. I can’t say it’s been a pleasure because it hasn’t. I don’t like you. I don’t like what you did. No one does. You don’t even like yourself…. This will end the interview process.”

The scene froze on a room empty save for Gary Ridgway. It was the end of the interview process. But he still had to face a courtroom full of people who had every reason to hate him.

THE WEATHER on December 18, 2003, was unseasonably warm and the sun shone brightly on the self-contained satellite television trucks parked along 4th Avenue and Yesler Street, and even on the scrubby grass of City Hall Park next to the courthouse. The moment the sentencing was over, local stations, Court TV, and CNN would go on-air. Media seats for December 18, 2003, were at a premium. Reporters would sit where juries usually sat, our names thrown into a “hat” to be drawn, hopefully, by Gene Johnston, the designated Associated Press correspondent. Because I was neither fish nor fowl—not a newspaper, radio, television, or wire service correspondent—I first had to establish that I was a journalist, albeit one whose coverage of legal proceedings came out months after verdicts and sentences were announced. I managed to do that by listing my twenty-two books and hundreds of articles on actual criminal cases. I was relieved to see my name on the list of those who would be allowed into the courtroom. My assigned seat was in the middle of the front row of the jury box, between Liz Rocha from KOMO, the ABC affiliate in Seattle, who had covered the Green River murders for almost as long as I had but in more depth in recent years, and a Washington Post correspondent.

I’d won the draw, but was I lucky to be there? As a journalist, yes, but the pain in that courtroom was pervasive, clinging to everyone, except, perhaps, the man who would be sentenced. I had never witnessed a more intensely compressed period of grief, fury, hopelessness, or, in a few surprising instances, forgiveness.

Before Judge Jones handed down Ridgway’s sentences, each family member who wished to speak directly to the man who had murdered a daughter, granddaughter, sister, mother, niece, or best friend would be allowed ten minutes to tell him what they thought of him. That broke down to less than thirty seconds for every year they had waited to see the nameless, faceless Green River Killer caught. It had to be that way, or the proceedings could go on endlessly.

The families filled the benches from the front of the courtroom to more than halfway back, some just behind the rail where it looked as if they could have leaned forward close enough to touch Gary Ridgway, although court security would have stopped them. Most of the detectives who had worked the Green River cases since 1982 sat in the rear, or off to the side. Many of those who had retired, including Dick Kraske, had come back to see the ending of it all for themselves. Frank Adamson had decided he couldn’t stand the pain of it. Some detectives were long dead.

Court security was no-nonsense, and everyone had passed through very sensitive metal detectors outside the courtroom in addition to those at the entrance to the courthouse itself. I hugged Mertie Winston, a friend as well as Tracy’s mother, and was told the press was not allowed to talk to anyone. When Sue Peters said “Hi” to me, it was the same. No conversation. Everyone in the courtroom was to take his or her seat, entering and exiting as we were directed. This was, of course, understandable. Despite the court deputies’ vigilance there was great potential for violence. Ironically, Gary Ridgway had to be protected from harm.

Once everyone was seated, Ridgway was brought in through a door on Judge Jones’s right, surrounded by armed guards and his six attorneys. Although he had claimed he was five feet ten inches tall, he appeared to be five feet six at most, a pallid little man in white scrubs that advertised his ultra-security status. Beneath that, he wore his usual wine-colored long-sleeved T-shirt. The central crease in his forehead had deepened since his arrest, and there were several half-moon-shaped wrinkles above his eyes, all of which made his face appear to be made of immutable clay or plastic. Six feet away from me, he sat looking down, both hands flat on the table in front of him.