Her Final Breath (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 2) (18 page)

So that was it. That was why Nolasco had backed her as the lead detective, why he’d given them a bare-bones task force. He wanted her to fail. He wanted every Cowboy murder to be another mark on her record. “Are we done?” Tracy asked.

“I’ll let OPA know where they can find you.”

As Tracy passed through the bull pen, she noticed a brown Bekins box on her desk, which momentarily puzzled her until she saw the name below the case number—“Beth Stinson.” She picked it up, took the stairs to the garage, and dropped the box in her truck cab. Then she returned to the Bundy Room.

Kins was on his desk phone but ended the conversation when she entered. “I’ll call you back,” he said. “Yes, I’ll talk to him when I get home. I don’t know. Hopefully not too late.”

“Everything all right?” Tracy asked when Kins disconnected. She could tell from the tone of his voice that he’d been talking with Shannah.

“What?”

“At home. Everything okay?”

“Eric’s flunking algebra.”

“I thought he was good at math.”

“He is. We don’t know what it is. We think maybe he’s got a girlfriend. What happened with Nolasco?”

She set her purse in the bottom drawer of her desk. “He chewed my ass and said I was on thin ice. Can you get him a tutor?”

“That’s what we were debating, but tutors aren’t cheap. Are you going to call the Guild?”

“I don’t know.”

“If there’s going to be an investigation, you should be represented.”

“We have computers yet?” She played with the mouse, and a generic screensaver of flying windows appeared on her monitor.

“Tracy?”

Maybe it was misguided pride, but Tracy didn’t want to tell Kins she’d been appointed the task force lead only because Nolasco wanted her to fail and derail her career. She wanted Kins, and everyone else, to believe it was because she’d earned it. “Nolasco says he’s going to back me.”

Kins thrust his hands into his pants pockets, studying her. “He said that?”

“That’s what he said.” She shrugged. “Surprised me too.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“Yeah, he asked when we were going to catch this asshole.”

CHAPTER 26

A
light drizzle splattered the truck’s windshield as Tracy left the parking garage just after seven. She’d decided to get home at a decent hour, anxious to review the Beth Stinson files in private. As she crossed the West Seattle Bridge, the drizzle became a steady rain and the wind churned the waters of Elliott Bay. Gusts caused her truck to shudder. By the time she took the off-ramp onto Admiral Way, the rain had become a downpour that her wiper blades struggled to clear.

She gave a wave to the officer in the patrol car parked in front of her home and drove into her garage. When the door rolled shut, Tracy retrieved the cardboard box containing Beth Stinson’s files. Juggling it on a knee, she freed a hand to unlock and open the door to the house, and stepped through. She immediately sensed someone inside. She heard approaching footsteps, dropped the box, drew her Glock, and took aim.

“Surpri—!” Dan swallowed the end of the word, and dropped the glasses of wine he’d been holding. They shattered on impact, red wine spraying.

Tracy lowered the gun. Her heart was jackhammering, and the backs of her knees felt weak.

Dan’s face had drained of color, and he looked to be having trouble catching his breath. “Surprise,” he said, though it came out an almost unintelligible croak.

Tracy fell back against the wall. “What are you doing here?”

“My arbitration settled, so I came over early to make you dinner. I thought I’d surprise you. I guess I succeeded.”

She felt like she’d been kicked in the gut. “Why didn’t you call?”

“Kind of spoils the surprise.”

“Where’s your car?”

“I parked across the street. I didn’t want to block the driveway and, again, it kind of spoils the surprise if I park in the driveway.”

Tracy shut her eyes, still feeling light-headed from the rush of adrenaline.

Dan touched her shoulder. “Hey, are you all right? I’m the one who should be—”

She fell into him, burying her face in his chest, fighting back tears of anger and frustration and fatigue.

Dan wrapped his arms around her. “Hey. Hey, take it easy. I’m fine.”

She pulled back, took a breath, and composed herself. “I’m sorry, Dan.”

“Don’t be sorry; I should have thought this through better, with everything you have going on. I should have called.”

“No. No, it was a nice gesture. I’m just on edge, and I’m tired and . . .” She wiped her cheeks. “It’s fine, really. I’m glad to see you.” She forced a smile and looked around the room. “Where are the boys?”

“I came straight from the arbitration. My neighbor said he’d look in on them to make sure they don’t tear the furniture apart. “You sure you’re okay?” he said.

“It’s been a rough few days. That’s all.” She stepped into the kitchen, grabbed a paper towel, and blew her nose. She’d spent twenty years burying her emotions. It had been easier than acknowledging that her entire family was gone, easier than acknowledging that, despite all her efforts to find justice for Sarah, she remained a long way from finding closure.

“Are you hungry?” Dan asked.

“Actually,” she said, stepping close and wrapping her arms around him, “I’m in the mood to be pitied.”

Unable to sleep, Tracy slid from bed without waking Dan. She retrieved the box containing Beth Stinson’s files from where she’d dropped it in the hallway, and set it on the dining room table. She didn’t immediately open it. She traced her finger through a layer of dust on the lid and thought of the moment when she’d pulled the box containing the files she’d compiled on Sarah’s murder from the closet in her bedroom.

Years earlier she’d conceded that the investigation had hit a dead end, and stored the files, determined to move on with her life. She recalled how hopeless she’d felt, and how profound her sense of loss. She never expected to open the box again. Then two hunters had stumbled across human remains in the hills above Cedar Grove, and Tracy’s hope had flared. When the medical examiner identified the remains as Sarah’s, Tracy got the box back out and renewed her investigation.

She knew if she lifted the lid on Beth Stinson’s box, there might be no going back, and she doubted Stinson’s family, who believed their daughter’s killer had been brought to justice, would want to go through those horrible days again.

Still, she set the lid aside, pulled out one of the files, and started reading.

An hour into the task, she heard Dan come up behind her. He draped himself around her, nuzzling his chin into the side of her neck. “Didn’t hear you get up.” He sounded tired, his voice hoarse.

“I didn’t want to wake you.”

He yawned, sat in the chair beside her, and looked at the files spread across the table. “So what’s all this?”

“An old file. It came up when I was searching for cases similar to Nicole Hansen’s.”

“Similar how?”

“You don’t want to hear this now. You should go back to bed. You can sleep in.”

“I’m awake.”

“Then let me make some tea.”

Back at the table, Tracy grasped her mug of tea and explained what she’d learned about Beth Stinson and Wayne Gerhardt. “Gerhardt made a service call the prior afternoon to Stinson’s home in North Seattle. Otherwise, he had no connection to her, at least not one I can tell from the file.”

“And the theory is he came back that night and killed her,” Dan said.

“They had a witness—JoAnne Anderson, a neighbor across the street—who said she saw a man fitting Gerhardt’s description leaving Stinson’s home early in the morning.”

“But . . .”

“It was still dark, and in her statement she said she couldn’t be certain she’d even put on her glasses.”

“You think she made it up?”

She heard the doubt in Dan’s tone. “No. But she told the officers she got up to get a drink of water and was standing at the sink when she saw the man out the window and across the street. She was sixty-two, nearsighted, and may not have been wearing her glasses.”

“Then how’d she ID him?”

“According to the file, she picked him out of a police montage, then picked him out of a lineup.” Tracy handed Dan a typed witness statement. “Stinson’s credit card records had revealed the service call by Roto-Rooter, and they matched Gerhardt’s fingerprints to those found in Stinson’s bathroom and on the kitchen counter.”

“Gerhardt had no alibi?”

“He lived alone. He said he was sleeping.”

“So what’s the connection to the guy killing the dancers?”

Tracy handed Dan a couple of crime scene photographs. He considered them briefly and set them aside. “No wonder you can’t sleep.”

Tracy adjusted in her chair. “It’s not just the fact that Stinson was tied up. Look at the room.”

Dan reconsidered the photos. “It’s neat. No sign of a struggle.”

“Look at Stinson’s bed.”

“It’s made.”

“The beds in the motel rooms were still made, with the victims’ clothes neatly folded and placed on a corner. Stinson was killed early in the morning. Why would her bed be made?”

“What about DNA?”

“This is where it gets interesting; they obtained DNA from Stinson’s clothing and beneath her fingernails, but it was never tested.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the prosecutor didn’t see the need. They had an eyewitness. Fingerprints. Gerhardt had been at the home that afternoon. He had no alibi. We’re a lot more adept with DNA now than we were back then.”

“What about the defense attorney? Why didn’t he ask to have it tested?”

“Again, don’t know. He was court-appointed. He must have convinced Gerhardt to plead after JoAnne Anderson testified. That was the end of the trial.”

“So the prosecution decides they have enough evidence to convict,” Dan said, “and testing might only raise reasonable doubt if the DNA comes back as not being Gerhardt.”

“That’s my thinking.”

“And the defense attorney is lazy, stupid, or both, and he convinces Gerhardt to take the deal.”

“Maybe not so stupid. Gerhardt was facing the death penalty or life. He got twenty-five years. He’ll be early fifties when he gets out.”

“But if he was innocent, why not at least get the DNA tested?”

She shook her head. “Because it may not have exonerated him.”

“How could it not exonerate him?”

She handed Dan the HITS form. “The detective who filled this out checked the box indicating that Beth Stinson was sexually assaulted, which is probably why the case didn’t come up when I first ran the profile. None of the Cowboy’s three victims were sexually assaulted, which is unusual in these cases.” She handed Dan the medical examiner’s report for Beth Stinson. He squinted to read it without his glasses. “I’ll give you the highlights,” Tracy said. “They swabbed her body cavities for semen and didn’t find anything.”

“Condom?”

“Swabs were also clean for lubricants and spermicide.”

Dan sat back. Tracy knew what he was thinking even before he said it. “You know what’s going to happen if you pursue this? The media is going to crucify you. They’ll say you’re trying to free another murderer.”

“I know. And Nolasco would never allow it,” she said.

“What’s he got to do with it?”

“He and his partner were the investigating detectives.”

Dan set down the report. “Which is why you have the file here at home and not at work.”

“Faz once told me that Nolasco and Hattie liked to flaunt their perfect case record,” Tracy said, “but word around the unit was they didn’t always do everything exactly by the book.”

“All the more reason he won’t want you looking into this.”

“But what if I’m right, Dan? What if Gerhardt is innocent and the guy who killed Beth Stinson is still out there killing?”

After a moment of silence, Dan asked, “What would you need to know? What would you do?”

“Talk to the witness and clarify what she saw and didn’t see. Ask her why she was so certain it was Gerhardt. Talk to the other witnesses in the file. There’s no indication Nolasco or Hattie ever followed up with them.”