In Her Tracks, page 7
Tracy again took down the details.
“Did you go out last night for Halloween?” Kins asked.
Barnes shook his head. “No.”
“No parties?” Tracy asked.
“The parties at school were Wednesday. It keeps the high school kids away. There’s too much liability for the fraternities.”
“You said Stephanie runs after work?”
“She’s pretty religious about it.”
“Where does she run?”
“Usually here, around Green Lake, or in Woodland Park.” He pointed across the lake to the tops of trees.
“Does she have friends she runs with or goes out with?”
“Not that I’m aware of. Usually she just comes home, runs on her own, then eats a salad, watches television, and goes to bed.”
“What did you do last night?”
“Studied in my apartment.”
“All night?”
“Until about eleven. Then I watched a Jack Ryan episode and went to bed.”
“How did you have the mom’s number to call?”
“It’s the emergency contact on Stephanie’s rental application. I called the apartment manager.”
Kins asked for and Barnes provided the apartment manager’s name and phone number. “Does Stephanie have any issues with mental illness, anything you know of?”
“Not that I know of.”
“You never saw prescription bottles in the bathroom drawers or on the counter?”
He shrugged. “No.”
“Drugs?”
“Not that I know of.”
“She never indicated she wanted to hurt herself?”
He shook his head. “Not to me.”
They told Barnes they wanted to come by the apartment and have a look around Stephanie’s room. He told them he’d be home around five that afternoon.
Tracy and Kins left Barnes to finish his dog walk and headed back to their car. “Did you put in a request on Cole’s car?” Tracy asked.
Kins nodded. “According to her mom, and the California DMV, she drives a 2010 Prius with California plates. I had them send a picture.”
“Shouldn’t be hard to find. Barnes said she ran around Green Lake or Woodland Park every afternoon,” Tracy said. “This parking lot has cameras atop the light poles. I’ll get the video and we can check to see if Cole showed up Wednesday or Thursday afternoon.”
“What do you think of Barnes?” Kins stepped aside for a woman jogger pushing a baby carriage.
“At first I questioned his calling the mother; most guys his age wouldn’t have bothered, but he seems like he’s responsible,” Tracy said. “Goes to school and holds down two jobs.”
“A lot more responsible than my sons,” Kins said.
“Maybe he really was worried about her well-being.”
“Or wants it to appear that way,” Kins said.
“I thought I was supposed to be the skeptical one,” Tracy said.
“It’s rubbed off on me.” Kins pulled open the car door and lowered himself inside.
“Let’s drive over to Woodland Park since we’re close and determine if the parking lot also has any cameras,” Tracy said.
Woodland Park comprised nearly a hundred acres of running trails, picnic spaces, gardens, and open space. The park also was home to the Woodland Park Zoo.
“We had a zoo pass when the boys were young,” Kins said. “I think it kept Shannah sane.” They did not see video cameras in the parking lot and decided to walk a portion of a running trail that zigzagged through the well-kept grass. The deciduous trees displayed full autumn colors, though some had begun to shed their leaves, littering the dirt path. “My boys ran cross-country meets here,” Kins said. “The trail is well defined and popular among joggers and walkers. I don’t think anyone would be bold enough to snatch a runner here.”
With time to kill before Barnes went home to his apartment, they drove to the trucking company in Fremont and spoke to the company’s employee manager. The woman confirmed Cole worked as a receptionist Monday through Friday from 7:50 in the morning until 3:50 in the afternoon. She confirmed Cole worked Wednesday as scheduled, but didn’t show up Thursday or today. They asked the woman about a party Wednesday night. She had no personal knowledge, but she did know of a party and called in a woman who worked in dispatch.
Ame Diaz said she’d invited Cole to the party, but that Cole did not attend. Diaz was in her midtwenties, short, and heavyset. Though her last name sounded Hispanic, the woman looked like she could be Filipina. She said she coordinated the drivers’ routes and fielded calls from customers expecting shipments.
“Did Stephanie tell you she was going running before the party?”
“I don’t recall her saying she was going for a run. She might have, but I just don’t recall it. It sounded like she ran every day.”
“Did other people here at work know she was a runner?”
Diaz shrugged. “It’s possible.”
“Do you know anyone who would have known Stephanie was going for a run Wednesday afternoon?”
Diaz shook her head. “No one I can think of.”
“Was Stephanie close to anyone here at work? Did she have someone she hung out with?”
“I can’t really say.”
The manager added, “Stephanie just started working here a couple of weeks ago. Most of our employees are older and married.”
“She ate in the lunchroom with the rest of us,” Diaz offered. “But I’m not sure there was anyone she was particularly close to. Everyone just sort of eats together.”
“Do you know if she was seeing anyone?”
“You mean dating someone? Here at work?” Diaz did not sound like that was likely.
“Did she ever mention anyone?”
“Not to me. She mentioned her roommate once, but it wasn’t anything in particular.”
“What did she say?”
“I think I just asked where she was living, and she said she had rented a room in an apartment with some guy. I think he was a student.”
“She didn’t express any romantic interest in him?”
“Not to me. I’m pretty sure she left LA and came up here alone. So I would say she wasn’t seeing anyone, but I don’t really know for certain.”
“She didn’t express any interest in anyone?”
Diaz smiled, but it was nerves. “Not to me.”
“Did anyone express any interest in her?”
“Again, not to me.”
Tracy looked to Kins, who shook his head to indicate he had no further questions. They thanked Diaz, and the manager excused her. “Did Stephanie have any interaction with the drivers or warehouse workers that you’re aware of?” Tracy asked the manager.
“She shouldn’t have,” the manager said. “She didn’t act as a dispatcher. She was a receptionist.”
“You didn’t see anyone hanging around reception talking to her?”
“That’s not really allowed here.”
“Allowed or not,” Tracy said.
“No,” the manager said. “I didn’t see anyone.”
Kins sat forward. “Do the warehouse workers or drivers wear a uniform?”
“They have a company shirt.”
“What does it look like?”
“It’s light gray with black pinstripes and has the company name and logo over the breast pocket.”
“What about uniform pants or shoes?”
Kins was thinking ahead, in case they found a witness who had seen Cole with someone or they found shoeprints.
“They’re supposed to wear black pants. They can wear whatever shoes they want.”
“Are there cameras in the parking lot?” Kins asked, knowing many trucking companies had cameras to deter theft.
“In the parking lot and the loading bays.”
“We’re going to need the video for Wednesday afternoon. Say, from three thirty to four thirty. Would you please send it to me?” He handed the woman a business card that included his work email address and cell phone. Kins and Tracy would review the video, then have it sent to the video unit at Park 90/5 on Airport Way. The building housed CSI, the Latent Print Unit, SWAT, and other SPD forensics units.
Tracy and Kins thanked the woman and left. Near five o’clock, they drove to the two-story apartment complex where Cole and Barnes lived. On the way there, Tracy called the number Barnes had provided for the apartment manager and set up a meeting in the parking lot. Tracy wanted to ask about video cameras.
The manager, a man, met them dressed in a long down coat, knit hat, and gloves.
“You ever have any complaints about either of them?” Tracy asked.
“Had a couple complaints about him and his prior roommate playing loud music, but nothing since Cole moved in.”
Tracy noted cameras in the parking lot, but the manager told her the cameras were mainly just a deterrent. “They haven’t been operational in more than a year.” He then showed them Cole’s designated parking spot, which was empty, and confirmed Cole had listed a Prius with a California license plate on her rental application.
After speaking to the manager, Tracy and Kins walked to the second floor of the building. Barnes was not yet home. They knocked on the apartment next door. A midthirties woman answered. She didn’t know Barnes or Cole, other than in passing. She said Cole was quiet and largely kept to herself.
“You ever hear any arguing? Yelling or screaming?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Any indication they were more than roommates?” Kins asked.
“You mean romantically involved?” She shrugged. “I never got that impression. But I was never in their apartment either, so I don’t really know.”
“Never saw them holding hands, kissing, anything like that?” Kins asked.
“No.” She shook her head. “This generation is not like your generation. Young people now don’t have a problem living as roommates with members of the opposite sex.”
Tracy and Kins glanced at one another. Tracy hadn’t felt old before, but she did now. They thanked the woman and went back to the car to wait for Barnes.
“The last statement about our generation got to you, didn’t it?” Kins said.
“How old does she think we are?”
“Old enough,” Kins said. “Get used to it now that you have a kid.”
Tracy had. She’d tried a PEPS class for mothers and their newborns but felt like a dinosaur.
When Barnes got home, he let Tracy and Kins into the apartment. Things inside looked exactly as Barnes had described. Cole’s bedroom door was open, a mattress and box spring on the floor covered beneath a light-blue down quilt. On the quilt lay the cut-up white T-shirt and red skirt, and an unopened package of black fishnet stockings.
“Looks like she intended to go to the party,” Tracy said.
“Like Barnes said, a lot of effort if she was going to just blow it off.”
Tracy noted a laptop—a MacBook—also on the bed. She made a note to have CSI—if they needed CSI—grab it, and have the Technical and Electronic Support Unit find out if there were any emails or if Cole had conducted any searches of interest.
Cole’s closet door was also open. Though it was a mess, they didn’t see anything disconcerting. Tracy noted several pairs of running shoes. All New Balance. They checked the bathroom Barnes and Cole shared, but they did not find any prescription medications, or anything suspicious or of particular interest. They looked for bloodstains in the tile cracks and on the carpet but could not detect anything with the naked eye. They didn’t smell bleach. They photographed Cole’s bedroom and the bathroom, then shut the bedroom door and sealed it with yellow-and-black crime scene tape.
“Why are you doing that?” Barnes looked and sounded concerned.
“We’re going to get a court order and have a CSI unit come by and take a closer look. Are you all right with that?” Kins asked.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll be here.”
As they left the apartment, Kins said, “He’s way too calm and open for someone who’s guilty.”
“Let’s wait and see if they find anything in the apartment before we exonerate him.”
“We need to find her car,” Kins said.
“Let’s have Katie get out a news release with photographs of Cole and her car. We’re too late for the six o’clock news tonight, but maybe the ten o’clock news and the news tomorrow. Maybe somebody saw her or her car.”
Darkness had descended, and they returned to a parking lot cast in pools of light. Tracy recalled from Elle Chin’s file that Bobby and his ex-wife had lived in Green Lake. There being no time like the present, while Kins made his phone calls, Tracy pulled up what had been the address to the Chins’ home and plugged it into the map on her phone. It was nine minutes away.
CHAPTER 11
Tracy parked across the street from what once had been Bobby Chin’s home on Latona Avenue near Northeast Sixty-Second Street. A one-story house with dark-green wood siding that Tracy estimated to be no more than 1,000 square feet. A white picket fence with a trellis enclosed the front yard, a dormant and gnarled wisteria vine growing over the wood slats. With the property lots so small, no more than fifteen feet separated Chin’s home from his adjacent neighbors.
Tracy left Kins making phone calls in the car and approached the house to the right. The man who answered told her his family bought the home just two years ago, and he never knew the Chins. She tried the house to the left, a light-blue stucco home with an arched doorway atop three brick steps. Blinds covered the two front windows, but the porch light burned bright. A woman answered Tracy’s knock. Mid to late seventies, she looked tentative. A television—what sounded like the news—played inside the house.
Tracy held up her identification and told the woman the nature of her visit.
The woman made a face and gave a slight eye roll. “I figured it had something to do with them. Did one of them finally kill the other?”
The statement caught Tracy off guard. “Why would you say that?”
“You’re standing here asking about them.”
“I wanted to talk about the disappearance of their daughter.”
“Oh. Sorry. That had to be what, five years ago now?”
“It is,” Tracy said.
“Something new develop?”
“I’m taking another look at the file,” Tracy said.
The woman identified herself as Evelyn Robertson. She and her husband had purchased the home and raised two kids before he passed away.
“I’m assuming from what you said that the Chin house was volatile?”
“That’s a polite way to put it. I thought it would be nice having a police officer living next door. Never knew I’d have the whole department over here. More than once.”
“Do you know what for?”
“I knew,” she said. “Bobby left the house in handcuffs one time. He came over later to apologize. He said he was embarrassed and sorry about it.”
“How well did you know him?”
“Not that well. We’d see each other in passing. He wasn’t a bad man. At least I didn’t think so when we talked.”
“Did you talk much with the wife?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Sounds like you had a run-in with her?”
Robertson pursed her lips. Then she said, “I’m not sure what she did, before the baby anyway. After the baby, she stayed home, mostly. I used to see her in running gear pushing the stroller, and a big guy would come by the house, a lot.”
“Do you know who he was?”
“I asked her one time, and she told me he was her trainer, and I should mind my own business. Said it just like that. ‘He’s my trainer. Mind your own business.’” Robertson made a face like the trainer had been more than a trainer.
“Can you describe him?”
“I could, but no reason to now. He shot himself.”
This gave Tracy pause. There had been no mention of this in Elle Chin’s file, and it raised several red flags. “When did this happen?”
“After the little girl went missing. About a year later, if I’m remembering correctly. And I don’t always.”
“And you said he shot himself?”
“It was in the paper. I didn’t hear it or see anything . . . That’s not true. There was an ambulance and a lot of police that night. I guess you could say I saw the aftermath.”
“He shot himself inside the house?”
“Yep.”
“Did the police interview you?”
“Just asked if I saw or heard anything. I didn’t. Until the police showed up, that is.”
Tracy wondered if the death was, in fact, a suicide. She could think of reasons why either Bobby or Jewel Chin might want the boyfriend dead. “Was his first name Graham?” She fumbled through her notes from the case file. “Graham Jacobsen?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, the wife told me to mind my own business. I did. I was glad when they finally sold that house. So much tragedy there. First the little girl disappears, then the trainer shoots himself.”
“Did the trainer come around before the Chins were divorced?”
“Before, after.” She shrugged. “Seemed like he was always there.”
“You think Jewel Chin was having an affair.”
“Don’t know. Didn’t ask. Didn’t care to know.” But she did think it.
“Sounds like you weren’t too fond of Jewel Chin.”
“She wasn’t real friendly, and based on some things I heard coming from over there, I chose not to get too close.”
Tracy made a mental note to ask Robertson what she had heard, but first asked, “Other than talking with Bobby Chin in passing, what else can you tell me about him?”
“He worked a lot and he had odd hours. I’d hear him leave early and get home late.”
Tracy deduced that had to do with the nature of Chin’s watch. “You live alone?”
“Since my husband passed away, going on ten years, but I have three sons who come by often and take good care of me.”
“You said on occasions you heard things coming from the house next door? What kind of things?”
“Arguing. Fighting. And the language . . . I couldn’t believe the language she would use with that little girl in the house.”
