In Her Tracks, page 8
“The wife?”
“She had a mouth like a sewer.”
“What about Bobby?”
“He was no angel, but I never heard him swear. Not like the wife anyway. At times he’d just leave the house. I’d be watching television and I’d see him get in his car and drive off. I looked to see if he took the little girl with him. He didn’t, unfortunately.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because the wife drank. I think that was part of the problem.”
“How do you know she drank?”
“Because she was always worse at night than during the day. I’d see her some mornings and she’d be pleasant. By night she got cross. My father drank at night. I know a drinker. She was a drinker. Bobby would leave the house and she’d be standing in the doorway, yelling and swearing at him. Got so bad one night I finally called CPS.”
“Child Protective Services?”
“That house was no place for a little girl. They figured I was the one to report them and it didn’t sit well with either of them, let me tell you, though Bobby said he understood why I did it. Not the wife. If I saw her, she shot daggers at me.”
“Did the Chins’ arguments ever become violent?”
“I heard things banging around. My kitchen window is on that side of the house. And, like I said, the police showed up a couple of times. The last time is when they took Bobby away in handcuffs. I felt sorry for the little girl. She was standing right there in the middle of it, watching her parents fight like that. Watching the police take her father in handcuffs.”
“Did you see Elle often?”
“Every so often. She’d be in the backyard and I’d see her over the fence, or she’d be out walking with her father when I was watering the lawn and they’d stop for a minute. Sweet little girl. He seemed to really care for her too.”
“Were you home the night Elle disappeared?”
She nodded. “Sure was. I was watching television. The next thing I knew there were police cars and police officers all over the house. I thought one of them finally killed the other, there were so many officers. And then they sent in the people wearing masks and rubber gloves.”
“CSI.”
“Is that what they call them? The little girl’s disappearance was all over the news.”
“You saw the wife and the boyfriend together after Elle disappeared?”
“I saw them before she disappeared. He came to the house, and he was there when the police showed up. Like I said, he was there all the time. It was more of the same, just different participants.”
“More of the same?”
“The yelling and the screaming and the swearing. Different guy but same thing. Except he swore back at her.”
“Did you ever call the police?”
“No,” she said emphatically. “I didn’t want any part of that.”
“The night Elle went missing, did you see the wife or the boyfriend leave the house?” Tracy asked.
“No,” Robertson said. “But I wasn’t looking. I believe I was watching television. I usually keep the blinds down this time of year to keep the heat in. I do recall the police came later. So sad they never found that little girl, but . . .”
Tracy waited. “But . . .”
Robertson shook her head. “Nothing,” she said. “It’s just sad.”
CHAPTER 12
Following a late shift at work, Franklin set his plate and his Budweiser bottle on the collapsible TV dinner tray and sat to view the 10 p.m. news on the twenty-six-inch Sharp box television. Piles of newspapers, magazines, VCR tapes, and other things their mother had collected took up most of the rest of the space. The three brothers had learned to live around it. Franklin could not bring himself to discard the stuff. More than once he’d contemplated getting a Dumpster and just throwing the shit out, but he never seemed to get around to doing it, and there was never any impetus to do so. It wasn’t like any of them had unexpected guests drop by.
He picked up the remote and changed the channel from a college football game to the news. “Evan, bring in the salt and pepper, and some of that steak sauce while you’re at it.”
Evan walked in with a limp and a swollen lip. The bruises on his arms were a sickly yellow and deep purple. He carried his own plate and handed Franklin the salt and pepper.
“Did you hear me say ‘steak sauce’?”
Evan gave him a puzzled look.
“Go get the damn steak sauce.”
Evan did, and Franklin applied the sauce liberally to his steak and to his baked potato. Evan cleared a space on the sofa by shoving everything to the side and set his plate down on a stack of books atop the coffee table. Franklin shook his head. If there was a shortcut to doing work, Evan would find it. He was lazy, in addition to being stupid. A bad combination.
“Move the damn books so you don’t knock them over,” Franklin said. “And didn’t I ask you to clean up around here?”
“I like the books stacked. It makes my mouth closer to my plate.”
“Move the books and get after this mess when you finish up dinner.”
Evan cut into his steak and spoke while chewing his food. “What happened to football?”
“It’s over. I want to watch the news.”
Evan frowned. “Same news every night. I like football. You don’t know who’s going to win. I like the Seahawks.”
“Keep quiet. I’m watching the news because I want to find out if there’s anything on that girl in the park. I got to do everything around here—think for the three of us. So shut your trap for five minutes.” He pointed the remote at the television and tried to increase the volume. Nothing happened. “You change the batteries in this remote?”
Evan gave him a blank stare.
“Get your ass up and get me two double-A batteries. I just bought a pack the other day. They’re in the drawer to the right of the stove.”
Evan set down his fork and knife and limped into the kitchen.
“Turn up the TV volume while you’re up.” Evan did. “And bring me another beer too,” Franklin shouted over his shoulder.
Franklin watched the news while eating his steak, which he charred top and bottom but left blood raw inside. He could hear Evan rummaging in kitchen drawers and predicted what was to come next.
“I don’t see no batteries.”
“Your right is the hand you throw a baseball with.”
“I know my . . .”
The rummaging stopped. Then it started again. The dumbshit had been looking in the wrong drawer.
“Here they are.”
Franklin groaned. Taking care of Evan, and Carrol for that matter, was a lot of work, but he’d promised his daddy he’d look after the both of them, though their daddy had done little of it himself while alive. When he hadn’t been at work, he’d either be down in the cellar or up at the cabin. And he hadn’t given Franklin much choice in the matter, not after Franklin discovered what was in the cellar. Not like he could just sell the house and move on.
Evan called out from the kitchen. “You want a Bud or a Bud Light?”
“What did I say? Did I say Bud Light? That’s Carrol’s piss water. I don’t drink that shit. Just bring me a Bud.”
“They ain’t cold.”
Franklin was ready to explode. “I put two in the freezer so they’d . . .” Franklin swallowed the rest of the sentence when the picture of the young girl appeared on the television.
Evan walked back into the room. “I took the second one out so it don’t explode—”
“Shh.” Franklin stared at the television. “Turn up the volume.”
“I got the batteries.”
“Quit running your mouth and turn up the volume.” A name appeared under the photograph. Stephanie Cole. “Shit,” Franklin said under his breath. He put down his fork and knife.
The news report didn’t provide a lot of particulars or details, but it didn’t need to. One thing was clear. The police were looking for Cole. The newscaster said she had last been seen leaving work in Fremont Wednesday afternoon, and that her usual routine was to jog around Green Lake or Woodland Park. There was no mention of North Park. One good thing. The newscaster also reported on Cole’s car, a blue Prius with a California license plate and, as the plate number flashed on the screen, a number for a dedicated police tip line followed. The newscaster ended with a plea that anyone with any information should call that number.
Franklin closed his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair. His stomach gripped and his ulcer burned. The doctor said the ulcer was from stress. No shit, Sherlock. You try living here and have no stress. “‘Nobody’s going to look for her.’ Isn’t that what you said, little brother?”
Evan paled. “I didn’t know, Franklin.”
Franklin stood. His thighs toppled the dinner tray and his plate of food onto the throw rug. “‘Nobody is going to look for her.’ Isn’t that what you said?”
“But—”
“No buts, Evan. I told you not to do it. You just screwed all of us, all the work I put in.”
“They didn’t say they knowed nothing.”
“They’re not going to give details of their investigation over the television. The police never say what they know and don’t know. The point is, they’re looking for her hard, and now, so is everybody else. How hard you think it’s going to be to find a car with California license plates?”
Franklin ran his hand over the stubble on his chin, thinking about what to do. He’d had Carrol deal with the car, but who knew what type of job the lazy shit had done. Maybe this would blow over, like the others. Maybe this girl wasn’t worth finding neither. Maybe the police would make a run at it, then give up. He doubted it. This one was different. This wasn’t no prostitute. This was a damn cheerleader. They’d keep looking, and that meant Franklin needed to do something now.
He looked at his food strewn on the carpet and took Evan’s plate. “That’s yours,” he said, pointing to the carpet.
Evan didn’t protest. He held out the bottle of beer. “You still want your beer?”
Franklin reached for his beer. When Evan stepped forward to hand it to him, Franklin slapped him hard across the mouth, knocking him to the ground.
CHAPTER 13
Tracy had spent a quiet night at home with Dan and Daniella. It had rained hard, and they’d lit a fire in the family room and read books until the workweek caught up to her and she fell asleep on the couch. Not that her slumber lasted long. During an investigation, her subconscious often worked a case after she’d gone to bed, then when she woke up. This morning her thoughts had prevented her from going back to bed after feeding Daniella.
Tracy unlocked the door to the Cold Case office and moved quickly to her desk. When she took the cold case position, she thought she had worked her last weekend, but here she was, again. She and Kins had agreed to meet later that morning.
She found the summary of cases Art Nunzio had put together, the files he’d been working. She’d awoken that morning thinking of Stephanie Cole, which triggered a recollection of the Cowboy—the serial killer who had tied up and murdered female prostitutes working the motels on Aurora Avenue in North Seattle. Tracy had put the Cowboy in prison, but foremost on her mind, what had triggered the recollection, was something she had read in Nunzio’s summary of the cases he’d worked.
She ran her finger along the typed words, flipped the page, and ran her finger down the second page. She stopped and read the summary more closely. Angel Jackson, age thirty-two, disappeared from Aurora Avenue, a known prostitution area. Tracy continued down the page past several additional summaries. Three months after Jackson’s disappearance, Donna Jones, age twenty-nine, vanished from roughly the same area. Jones was a known heroin user with multiple arrests for prostitution, narcotics, and, in one instance, for stabbing a john in the leg.
The same detectives who had worked Elle Chin’s file also worked the missing prostitutes. When the detectives left the department, all three files were transferred to the Cold Case Unit.
Tracy left her office and made her way to the stairwell leading down to the room just off the sixth-floor landing, what was now a storage room, but what had once been the room for the Cowboy task force. The metal staircase thrummed as she descended. She pulled open the door and flipped on the light. Case files rested on high-density movable racks several rows deep. Tracy walked to the back of the room and retrieved the map she’d mounted on the wall that she and her team had used to mark the locations of each Cowboy killing. She hurried back to her office and removed Nunzio’s now empty corkboard and taped the map to the office wall.
She wrote “AJ” on a sticky note and placed it on the map where Angel Jackson had last been seen. She marked a second note “DJ” for Donna Jones and put it on the map to mark her last-known whereabouts. Both were within a block of each other on Aurora Avenue North, or State Route 99, which ran north to south and was a straight shot to Green Lake and Woodland Park, the two places where Stephanie Cole routinely ran. She put a third sticky note with “SC” in that area, since they didn’t know specifically where Cole had gone missing.
The facts of the two cold cases were certainly different than the information Tracy and Kins had so far uncovered regarding Stephanie Cole’s disappearance, which wasn’t much, but the location and the circumstances certainly were of interest. Women seemingly abducted without witnesses. No bodies found. No video, no DNA, no blood or other evidence of substance to follow up on. Through the years, Seattle had more than its fair share of serial killers, which was likely why the two prostitute cases had been assigned to the same detective team.
Someone knocked on her door. “What are you doing?” Kins asked.
Tracy explained her middle-of-the-night epiphany.
Kins didn’t look impressed. “I could have saved you the trouble. Patrol officers from the North Precinct found Cole’s car early this morning. CSI is heading out there.”
“Out where?”
“A parking lot in Ravenna.”
“Anyone report finding a body?”
“Nope. Just the car.”
Tracy placed the sticky note roughly in the area of Ravenna Park—north of the University District and the University of Washington, and less than two miles east of Green Lake—grabbed her purse and jacket, and hurried from the office.
As Kins drove the SPD pool car, Tracy called the Public Affairs Office and provided an updated news release on Cole’s Prius. She requested that anyone who might have seen Cole or her car in or near Ravenna Park phone the dedicated tip line. She then spoke with the weekend patrol sergeant, advised him of the change in the case, and asked that North Precinct patrol officers, armed with Cole’s photograph, canvass the homes near Ravenna Park and the park itself to determine if anyone recalled the young woman. After, she called Scott Barnes, waking him, and asked whether Cole ever ran in Ravenna Park. Barnes wasn’t certain but said he’d never heard her say that she had.
Tracy disconnected and turned to Kins. “Do we know if there are cameras in the Ravenna parking lot?”
“Not yet. What did Barnes say?”
“He didn’t know. He said Cole asked him about other places to run besides Green Lake and Woodland Park, but he isn’t one for exercise and told her to Google it. What about Cole’s cell phone? Did you hear from the carrier?”
After obtaining Cole’s cell number from the roommate, Kins had called the carrier, Verizon, told them they had exigent circumstances, and asked them to track the phone.
“Late yesterday. Verizon said the cell phone has been turned off since Wednesday night.”
“Turned off? How many kids her age ever turn off their cell phone?”
“None. Including my boys and all their friends.”
Tracy gave it further thought. “Cole would have listened to music while running, wouldn’t she?”
“Again, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t,” Kins said. “At least not her age.”
“Was Verizon able to track her phone before it was shut off?”
Kins nodded. “Wednesday afternoon it pinged in Green Lake and in Fremont, then again in the North Park neighborhood to the north. That’s where they lost the signal.”
“Green Lake is where she lives. Fremont is where she works. What was she doing in North Park?”
“Don’t know.”
“If the phone shut off there, that has to be where she went missing.”
“Then how did the car get to Ravenna?” Kins asked, the question rhetorical. “The trucking company sent over the video for Wednesday afternoon. Cole left the building alone, dressed in running clothes and carrying a gym bag. She drove from the lot at 3:56 p.m. No car appeared to follow her from the lot.”
“Which direction did she drive?”
“North out of the parking lot.”
“Not south?”
“No.”
“North Park is to the north.”
“I know. I’ve asked Anderson and Cooper to canvass the nearby businesses and streets for any private cameras or traffic cameras that might have caught the street and determine if her car shows up.”
Kins pulled into the lot at Ravenna Park and stopped beside the gray CSI van. Several detectives wearing gloves were going over a blue Prius with a California license plate, as well as the surrounding area. Tracy noted the car was parked in the slip closest to the park’s edge, farthest from the street. She looked about for a running trail, thinking that Cole, a young woman, would park as close to the trail as possible, wouldn’t she?
She and Kins greeted the CSI sergeant in charge, Dale Pinkney. Pinkney advised that a Seattle Parks and Recreation employee called in the car after finding it parked in the same spot for several days. He first recalled seeing the car Thursday and thought someone might be living in it, but he never saw anyone near it, and he finally decided to call it in. He had no knowledge the car had been on the evening news.
The car did not look to have been damaged, and there was nothing to visually indicate it was undrivable. Pinkney planned to go over the car in place, then tow it back to Park 90/5 for DNA and fingerprint testing and other forensic analysis.
