Her Final Breath (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 2) (42 page)

It brought the first genuine smile to her face in days. She’d miss being a part of it.

Nolasco’s door was open. He sat at his desk, considering paperwork. He glanced up, then motioned her in with no show of emotion. “Take a seat.”

Tracy sat. Her arm remained in a sling. She cradled it in her lap.

Nolasco seemed in no hurry, continuing to read. After a long minute, he set down the document. “OPA says you’re dodging them.”

“I’m on painkillers. My doctor advises against attending a hearing until I’m off them. Have them talk to my attorney.”

Nolasco sat back. “Someone needs to put the Cowboy file to bed and shut it down. And the Bundy Room needs to be cleaned out, boxed up, and shipped to storage. I figured you had the time.”

The task added insult to injury, but if it meant getting out of the Justice Center for a few days, Tracy didn’t mind. “Not a problem,” she said.

“Good. Get on it right away, will you.”

She stood and headed for the door. Just being near Nolasco made her feel like she needed to take a shower.

“You had to know it wouldn’t end well,” he said.

There it was. She knew he couldn’t resist. His ego was just too big, almost as if he were genetically predisposed to be an ass. When she turned around, Nolasco remained seated, leaning back in his chair. He was pathetic, a bully, maybe even a sociopath. Tracy almost felt sorry for him. But at that moment, what she felt most prominently was that twinge of doubt, the one she’d felt occasionally while recuperating at home, the twinge that something wasn’t quite right.

She managed a smile. “I’ll let you know when it does,” she said.

She spent the weekend relaxing with Dan in Cedar Grove. They made gourmet dinners, watched movies on the couch, eating popcorn and candy, and slept in late. Monday morning, when she got up early to make the drive back to Seattle, she felt sad to be leaving. Going to work no longer excited her the way it used to. She felt ready to move on, to leave SPD and return to Cedar Grove full-time. She contemplated telling Dan, but decided instead to wait, to make the moment special.

She spent Monday and Tuesday in the Cowboy Room boxing up tip sheets, notebooks, and calendars, and clearing out desks. It wasn’t easy work with only one good arm, but she also wasn’t in a rush to get it done. As the second day came to an end, she’d filled a dozen boxes, labeled them, and left them to be picked up and taken to storage. Fitting the final lid on the last box, she took a moment to consider the room. The walls were once again stripped bare, though now with a few more holes where thumbtacks had held photos and charts. The desks were vacant. The phones and computers would be disconnected again soon. Despite the grim history of the room, she recalled fondly Vera Fazzio’s Italian dinner and Faz’s toast, promising they’d pull together as a task force. She couldn’t help but think she’d let them down. They’d all wanted nothing more than to prove Nolasco wrong and catch the Cowboy.

Tracy turned out the lights, about to shut the door, when her desk phone rang. She almost ignored it, figuring it had to be Nolasco, since no one else knew she was there, but she decided she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of thinking she was dodging him. She turned on the lights and stepped back in, answering.

“Detective Crosswhite,” she said. There was no immediate response. “Hello?”

The voice, a man’s, stumbled over his words. “Sorry. I didn’t expect
you
to answer the phone.” It wasn’t Nolasco or Faz.

“Who am I speaking to?”

“I’d prefer to not say.”

“Okay. Then what’s this about?”

“It’s about the Cowboy.”

“If this is about the reward—”

“It’s not about the reward.”

“What is it about?”

“I think you might have killed the wrong guy.”

Tracy sat on the edge of the desk. She’d taken enough of these calls during the investigation from people claiming to know the identity of the killer to remain guarded. This could be just another one of the crazies, the people who thought they’d solved the crime, the psychics who called to say they’d been in communication with the dead. But there was something about the calm tone of the voice on the other end of the line that made her think otherwise. That, and the call had come from a phone inside SPD. “Okay. Tell me why.”

“I don’t want to talk over the phone.”

“Tell me how you got this number?”

“Isn’t this the number for the task force?”

It was, though it was not the tip line that had been broadcast by the news media. Only someone within SPD would have access to her desk number, or know how to get it. “Tell me where and when.”

“You choose,” he said.

“You know a bar on First Avenue called Hooverville?”

“I’ll find it.”

They arranged a time for that evening. “How will I know you?” she asked.

“I know you,” he said.

Hooverville was already crowded with Mariners fans. There was a home game, and the bar was located just down the street from the baseball stadium, where, early in the season, hope still sprung eternal. It seemed a little odd for people to be watching the game on TV, given the proximity of the stadium just half a mile away.

Tracy looked around the room for the tipster. Two men worked the pinball machines. The barstools were full, as were most of the tables. When no one waved or acknowledged her, she settled into a booth facing the door and ordered a Diet Coke while continuing to survey faces, looking for someone distracted, disinterested, fidgeting.

After several minutes a lean man with a buzz cut looked in her direction, swiveled from his barstool at the end of the bar, and walked over. Tracy guessed him to be early thirties. He had the build of a rock climber or avid biker, and intense narrow-set eyes, indicating the unrelenting demeanor needed to compete in those sports. She noted a wedding ring on his left hand and a college ring on his right, which held a half-empty pint of beer. “Detective Crosswhite. Thanks for meeting with me.”

Tracy gestured for him to take a seat. Beneath the table, her right hand rested on her Glock.

“Interesting place,” he said.

“A friend introduced me to it. It’s far enough from the city that only the cool kids know about it.”

“Maybe a few years ago I would have too,” he said.

“Yeah? Not anymore?”

“I have two kids. Those days are behind me.” He sat back, then sat forward, seemingly unable to get comfortable. He glanced at the television, at the bar, back to her. He tapped the edge of the table with the fingers of his right hand. “Sorry about the clandestine meeting.”

“Why don’t you tell me your name?”

“Izak Casterline.”

“How long you been a cop, Izak Casterline?”

He let out a puff of air, not quite a chuckle. “You’re good.”

“Not that good. You called an inside number. Only SPD has it.”

“Eighteen months. I work out of the North Precinct.”

The North Precinct patrolled the Aurora strip. “Relax,” Tracy said. “I’m just here to listen.”

Casterline sipped his beer. “My wife is pregnant.”

“Congratulations.”

Another half smile. “Thanks. She’s a preschool teacher. She was. She stopped. It was cheaper to stay home than pay for day care.”

“Money’s tight. I get it.”

“Very,” Casterline said.

“So talk to me. Why do you think they got the wrong guy?”

Casterline took another sip of beer. “I was working graveyard the night they found the third dancer, Veronica Watson.”

“Okay.”

“I’m doing my normal patrol, driving Aurora, right at Eighty-Fifth Street. That’s the corner of the motel where you found the third body.”

“Right.”

“I make the turn, and there’s a car in front of me. Its back light is out.”

“What time was this?”

“Between two thirty and three. Right around the time the ME says that dancer was killed. I looked up the report online.”

“Did you pull the driver over?”

Casterline nodded. “I asked him what he’s doing out so late. He said it was actually early for him—that he was heading to work after a morning workout. He was perspiring heavily and had a bag in the back, you know, like a gym bag. Big guy. Anyway, he said he was also on cat patrol.”

“Cat patrol?”

“He said his daughter’s cat had gone missing and she was heartbroken over it, so he was putting up fliers. He handed me one.” Casterline reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a piece of paper, unfolded it, and handed it across the table.

Tracy looked at it. There was a black-and-white picture of the cat in the center of the flier. “Angus,” she said.

“Like I said, I have two daughters. They’d be heartbroken if they lost their cat. So I asked for one of the fliers and said I’d keep my eyes open.” Casterline pointed to the address below the picture. “Two days ago I realized I was driving in that neighborhood. I still had the flier with me. I have a neighbor whose cat just had kittens, so I figured I’d stop and find out if they ever found Angus, you know, and if not, maybe they’d like one of the kittens. I thought maybe it might look good to my sergeant, you know, if they called and told him.”

“What happened when you stopped, Izak?”

“The guy comes to the door, and I show him the flier. He’s a little surprised, but he tells me they never found their cat. He was appreciative that I would make the effort and asked for my friend’s number so they could go take a look at the kittens.” Casterline took another sip of beer. “It wasn’t him, Detective. It was the right address, but the guy who came to the door wasn’t the guy I pulled over that night. And that’s when I started putting the pieces together.”

“The guy you pulled over could have been leaving a prostitute, a drug dealer,” Tracy surmised.

“I don’t think so. This guy was smooth and clearly prepared. How many meth-heads and johns have you ever come across who had the foresight to have a flier ready to hand out. I think he did it to distract me, throw me off my routine.”

“Good point.”

“This guy had taken the flier from somewhere and gone and made copies. And he was calm. I remember that about him. If he’d had drugs in the car, he wouldn’t have been so calm, would he?”

“Did you get a license plate?”

Casterline pursed his lips and shook his head. “I didn’t run it. Look, I know I should have. But I figured I’d give the guy a break, you know? I just told him to get the light fixed.” Casterline started fidgeting. “I should have run it. I know I should have called it in and run it, and, man, I’m sick, because if I’m right . . .”

“Take it easy,” she said. “A lot of cops wouldn’t have run the plate under those circumstances. What do you remember about the car?”

“It was a hybrid, but not a cheap one, a Lexus.”

“What color?”

“Dark blue or black.”

Tracy thought about the car in the video as it drove down the street parallel to the Pink Palace. “Can you describe the driver?”

“That’s the other thing. This guy didn’t look like a meth-head. Big guy. Well built. Dark hair. Spiked in the front.”

Tracy’s pulse quickened. “If you saw him again, could you pick him out?”