In Her Tracks, page 5
Okay. There’s a round of golf with my name on it.
And as of five o’clock today, every day is now Saturday.
I hope I don’t regret this. You know the saying, right? It’s easier to live with failure than with regret.
Art
P.S. At least try out the chair. It’s supposed to be ergonomic, so your ass doesn’t fall asleep sitting in it. If you decline, just drop off the key with the captain.
Tracy laughed to herself. She should have just come to work and read Nunzio’s note rather than going to see Lisa Walsh.
It’s easier to live with failure than with regret.
She looked up at the binders. They didn’t seem as intimidating as just a moment ago. She rolled back the chair and sat, getting a feel for the place. It was nice to have privacy.
Maybe she couldn’t save them all.
Maybe she couldn’t find justice for them all, or for their families.
But maybe she could find justice for one. And wasn’t that better than not even trying?
She could live with failure. She couldn’t live with regret.
Start with one, Nunzio’s voice spoke in her head. Just start with one.
She flipped over the note and glanced at Nunzio’s case summaries, uncertain what she was looking for but diving in anyway. She opened desk drawers and found an assortment of colored highlighters. She took Nunzio’s advice and looked for sexual assault cases, cases that could have DNA evidence to be processed. She highlighted those in yellow. More-recent cases she highlighted in blue. She pulled cases off the shelves that had caught her attention on Nunzio’s summary and went through half a dozen. Her attention was drawn to one case in particular—the abduction of a five-year-old girl, Elle Chin, from a corn maze the night before Halloween. The timing seemed prophetic. Nearly five years to the day. She remembered the case, though she hadn’t worked it. It had involved an officer in the North Precinct.
She read Nunzio’s summary.
The father, twenty-eight-year-old Bobby Chin, had been a Seattle police officer going through a nasty and violent divorce. He’d picked up his five-year-old daughter, Elle, following his watch and had taken her to a corn maze and pumpkin patch. In his interview, Chin was adamant his ex-wife and her boyfriend had snatched his daughter and intended to blame him and put him in jail. The wife, Chin said, was crazy and vindictive. The police had been called to the house several times, but not because of the wife. Chin had pled to a domestic violence charge.
Tracy sat back. Chin sounded like a guy rationalizing his bad behavior by blaming the wife. Anything was plausible. Of import, the little girl had never been found, and the file contained no updates. Tracy shuddered at the thought of losing Daniella.
She finished Nunzio’s case synopsis, stood, found the corresponding binder on the shelf—Nunzio had alphabetized them—and pulled it out to read the contents for herself.
It was a parent’s worst nightmare. Her worst nightmare. She noted significant dates and details. The case wasn’t as old as some of the others, but of the two detectives who had worked it, one had retired, and the other had moved to a police department in another county.
Tracy set aside the binder and looked for other recent case summaries. Two grabbed her attention, prostitutes who had disappeared along the Aurora strip within nine months of each other. Like the Chin case, neither case was old, but the investigating detectives had moved on and the cases had gone cold. It seemed far too soon for Tracy. She had spent months tracking a serial killer of prostitutes known as “the Cowboy” working the same strip of motels and hotels. A quick review of each file provided another reason the cases had gone cold. There was no DNA evidence. No witnesses. No evidence of any kind. The women had simply vanished. She pulled out the correlating binders from the shelves and put them with the Elle Chin binder.
Keys rattled in the door. She glanced up as it pushed open. Johnny Nolasco looked surprised to see her. “Crosswhite, how’d you get in here?”
“The door was unlocked.”
“The door is always supposed to be locked.”
She held up Nunzio’s key. She suspected from the key and the personal note that Nunzio had purposefully left the door unlocked, knowing she’d be back. The thought made her smile. You give a shit. “You could fire Nunzio,” she said.
Nolasco’s eyes roamed over the binders on the desk and the sheets of paper. “What are you doing?”
Tracy looked up at the clock on the wall. It was nearly two in the afternoon. “Going through files.”
“The cold case files aren’t for casual reviewing.”
“Nunzio left me a summary.”
“He left . . . Did you . . . Did you meet with Nunzio?”
“Yesterday. It was the only time he was available. Yesterday was his last day.”
Nolasco ignored the jab. “Why didn’t you tell me yesterday you decided to take the position?”
“I didn’t make up my mind yesterday.”
“Then what are you doing in here now?”
Tracy looked around the office. “Making up my mind.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’ll take the position.”
Nolasco did his best to keep a straight face but she heard the surprise in his voice. “You will?”
“On one condition. A spot opens on the A Team, I get right of first refusal.”
“I can’t promise that.”
Tracy smiled. “Yeah, you can.”
Nolasco looked like he was biting his tongue. “There’s some paperwork—”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Nolasco nodded. Now looking uncertain.
“Something else, Captain?”
Nolasco shook his head and left the office.
CHAPTER 8
Late in the afternoon, Tracy pulled into a parking lot of a one-story business park in Kirkland and found the Amazon warehouse. She’d spent the remainder of the afternoon going through the Elle Chin file, reading the missing person report, the police reports, the statements of witnesses, family members, friends, and portions of the massive police investigation that followed up on more than 2,000 tips that eventually came through a dedicated tip line. Chin was one of SPD’s own, and they’d spared nothing to find his daughter. Despite the police effort, the use of dogs, a search of the homes and the cars belonging to Chin, his wife, and the wife’s boyfriend, the little girl was never found.
The case had generated a significant amount of press because of the juicy circumstances: Chin being a Seattle police officer, and his wife alleging physical and verbal abuse that had led to a domestic violence arrest, a restraining order, and a custody hearing that had limited Chin’s contact with her and his daughter until he completed an anger-management course and community service. The newspaper articles and news reports on the TV had liberally quoted Jewel Chin after her daughter’s disappearance, and it was clear she had initiated a lot of the coverage to draw attention to her husband as the prime suspect and, in the process, make herself out to be a victim.
Neither was a new tactic. Tracy knew from experience that the husband and wife, especially in these circumstances, were always the prime suspects. The detectives handling the case had spoken to both Bobby and Jewel Chin and noted this. They wrote that both had become agitated when the detectives suggested they were responsible for their daughter’s disappearance. Each blamed the other. Tracy would have to tread lightly and strategically when she spoke to them. She might only get one chance, if they spoke to her at all. She had questions for others and hoped to educate herself fully before she took another shot at either Bobby or Jewel Chin.
Tracy parked beneath autumn leaves clinging to the spindly branches of small trees in parking lot planters. She loved the fall in Seattle. Parts of it, anyway. She loved the colors, which reminded her of her childhood in Cedar Grove. As the years passed, though, the falls seemed to get shorter, the colors faded more quickly, and the dark days of winter descended more rapidly. Now, the sun set at four thirty in the afternoon and didn’t rise until seven thirty in the morning, if it rose at all. Pewter-gray clouds hung over the city, at times an oppressive curtain. Kids would be trick-or-treating in the dark, though hopefully not the rain. She and Dan had discussed taking Daniella to the closest neighborhood for her first Halloween. Tracy knew taking a ten-month-old out for candy was ridiculous, but she also wanted her daughter to experience the holidays, the way she had.
As she approached the one-story office park, a glass door opened and a young man stepped out dressed in a warehouse uniform—black shirt, blue pants, and a matching jacket. “Are you Detective Crosswhite?” he asked as Tracy neared.
Tracy extended her hand. “I assume you’re James Ingram?”
“Yes,” he said. Ingram looked and sounded nervous, though he was putting up a pretty good front. Five years ago, Ingram had been a seventeen-year-old working a seasonal job at the corn maze. Now twenty-two, he had an AA degree from Bellevue College and worked a warehouse job for Amazon. “I thought we could talk next door. It’s a coffee shop.”
“That’s fine,” Tracy said. “Lead the way.”
Ingram pulled open the door and sat at a table near the windows. Java House clearly catered to the office-park employees, with minimum window signage. In addition to serving coffee and tea, a glass case displayed juices, muffins, cookies, and prepackaged sandwiches.
“Can I get you anything?” Tracy asked.
Ingram shook his head. “We have coffee and stuff at the warehouse.”
Tracy hadn’t eaten since having a protein shake that morning. She ordered a black tea and a whole-wheat muffin, bringing both to the table. As she set down her cup, the table wobbled, tea spilling from the brim. Ingram, a veteran customer, folded a napkin and slipped it under one of the four legs to steady the table.
“Thanks for talking to me,” Tracy said. “Are you under any time constraint?”
“I get off at five.”
Tracy had made her intentions known in their telephone conversation, but she liked to look witnesses in the eye and hear the tone of their voices when they spoke. She had a notebook full of questions, not all for Ingram.
“You saw the little girl with her father that night, correct?” Tracy asked.
“That’s right.”
“Tell me what you remember.”
“Has there been some kind of break in the case or something?” Ingram asked. He looked sheepish. “I told the other two detectives everything I could remember about that night. I was questioned about it several times.”
“I understand. But those detectives have retired, so the case is now mine.”
“But that was five years ago,” Ingram said. “I’m not sure what more I can remember.”
“I’m just taking a fresh look at the evidence,” Tracy said. “And trying to determine if maybe there was something that somebody might have missed.”
“Okay.” Ingram shrugged, not sounding convinced or enthusiastic. “I guess the first time I saw them I was working the food tent. He came in pretty late; we were shutting things down.”
Ingram told her about Bobby Chin ordering corn dogs and seeing Chin later at the corn maze entrance. “I told them it was too late, that we stopped selling tickets at nine twenty because it took about forty minutes to get through the maze.”
“But you sold the father tickets anyway?”
“I told him no, but he was like, ‘Hey, I only get my daughter once a week, and I promised her I’d take her to the corn maze.’ He was pretty adamant, so I said, ‘Fine. But be done by ten ’cause the lights shut off.’”
“He knew the lights went off at ten.”
Ingram shrugged. “I told him.”
Tracy had found that interesting when reading the file, that and the fact that Chin said his daughter slipped away when he closed his eyes to play hide-and-seek. She thought the lights going out to be convenient, and a father agreeing to play hide-and-seek with a five-year-old little girl irresponsible.
“How did the father seem to you?”
Ingram shrugged. “Like he was in kind of a hurry. And he really wanted to do the maze.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He just seemed like he was on edge.”
“Nervous? Anxious?” Tracy asked.
“No. I wouldn’t say that. More like it was a really big deal that he take his daughter through the maze.”
Tracy wondered if that was because Chin knew someone was to meet him and Elle in the maze.
“I don’t know,” Ingram continued. “I mean, I don’t have any kids or anything, but she was like four or something. How big a deal could it have been to her? Don’t kids that age get excited about candy and stuff? I thought it was more important for him than her.”
Interesting. “You thought maybe he had another agenda?”
“A what?”
“Another reason to get into the maze.”
“I thought about it after everything went down—you know? I mean, not that night, but when I started getting asked all these questions. I thought that if he had it set up, you know, that maybe that was why he wanted to go so badly. And maybe that was why he timed it so close to the end of the night.”
Tracy was thinking the same thing.
“Had you sold tickets to anyone before the father and daughter?”
“I didn’t. I’d just gotten transferred over there to shut it down.”
“Do you know if others were still in the maze?”
“There were still a few cars in the parking lot, so I guess it’s possible. I can’t say for sure.”
“Can people get into the maze without going past the booth?”
“Well, yeah,” Ingram said, suppressing a grin. “I mean, it’s just a big cornfield.”
Tracy smiled. “Tell me about the next time you saw the father and his daughter.”
“You’re asking about when I saw the girl and the woman?”
“What did you see?”
“Well, like I told that other detective, it was only like a couple of seconds. I was picking up the trash and putting it in the can, and I thought I saw the little girl walking with a woman and a man—not really with the man as much as the woman. I mean, he was like a few feet ahead of them.”
“What else do you remember?”
“She was holding the woman’s hand.”
“The little girl was holding the woman’s hand?”
“Yeah and then, bam. The lights went out.”
“You said in your statement the little girl didn’t have her wings on then?”
“My memory is she had a dark coat on.”
“And the woman?”
“Also a dark coat.”
“Did you see their faces?”
Ingram shook his head. “No.”
“How do you know it was the little girl you saw earlier that evening?”
Ingram started to answer, then stopped. The prior detectives had not asked him this basic question. “What do you mean?”
“You didn’t see her wings or her face. How do you know it was her and not another little girl?”
His face contorted. After a moment, he said, “I don’t know. I guess . . . I guess because given the time, and I don’t recall any other little girls at that time . . . Not that age.”
“But you had just been transferred over there.”
Ingram again looked stumped. “I guess it could have been somebody else. Another family. I never really thought about that.” He shrugged. “I guess I don’t really know.”
“You recall the little girl holding this woman’s hand, at least in that brief moment you saw her. Did she appear to be walking with the woman willingly?”
“Willingly?”
“Did the little girl look like she was struggling or resisting, trying to get away?”
“No. They were just walking along together.”
“And you didn’t hear the little girl scream or yell?”
Another shrug. “No. Nothing like that.”
Which was why, when Tracy read Ingram’s statement in the file, her first thought was he had been led to his conclusion that the little girl had been Elle Chin by the detectives questioning him. The facts were, Ingram never saw the little girl’s face, she wasn’t wearing the colorful butterfly wings Elle Chin had been wearing, and she wasn’t resisting. In his police statement, Bobby Chin said Elle had been proud to show off her wings, so much so that she wouldn’t let him put on her coat. He’d also said that she had become upset when he initially would not play hide-and-seek, that she had sat in the dirt and cried. The little girl was clearly capable of being defiant—or Chin was lying.
Either way, Tracy didn’t put much stock in what Ingram claimed to have seen.
“Can you describe the woman?”
“Not really. She was wearing a baseball cap.”
“What about the man?”
“I didn’t really see him either, but I think he was wearing a baseball hat also—I mean the style, you know.”
“You didn’t see his face?”
“No.”
“What do you recall happening next?”
“After the lights shut off? I heard a man yelling. You know, ‘Elle! Elle! Come out!’ Like that. The father came running out of the maze like it was on fire. I mean, he was going crazy—telling me to turn the lights back on and to have everyone lock down the parking lot and stuff, but we couldn’t really do that.”
“Why not?”
“The lights were on a timer and it was a farm so, I mean, there was a parking lot, yeah, but anyone could have just driven in or out. Anyway, people came running, and the father was telling us where to go and what to do. He was telling everyone what his daughter was wearing, how tall she was. And then there were a lot of police. I mean, they were everywhere, and they had dogs. They kept us all there most of the night asking us questions.”
“Did you see the car that the little girl got into?”
“No. Like I said, everything went dark.”
Tracy thanked Ingram and stood from the table even more convinced that Ingram had not seen Elle Chin. Kidnappers would have picked Elle up, or covered her with a coat or a blanket. And, at five, Elle would have been terrified. She would have been screaming, kicking. Something. Tracy was about to ask the next question but paused at a thought. Terrified, unless perhaps she knew the woman and the man.
