One Last Kill (Tracy Crosswhite), page 19
“Who found the woman, Faz?”
“A granddaughter has been living with her while working the summer for a company downtown. She got home late Monday from a weekend event and found the grandmother lying on the floor in the living room,” he said.
“Kid is pretty shaken up. Her mother and father came quickly. They’re all out back,” Del said.
“You get in contact with Nolasco?” Tracy asked.
“He’s on his way,” Faz said. “Said there had to be some kind of mistake.”
“What do you think?”
Faz nodded over his shoulder to the front door. “Take a look for yourself.”
Del handed Tracy N-DEX gloves and booties from his go bag, and she slipped them on. They stepped inside the home. A living room was to the right of a staircase ascending to the upper floor. The woman lay on an oval-shaped throw rug near a couch and a coffee table that faced a flat-screen television in the corner of the room. The ME’s office was preparing to transport the body downtown. Stuart Funk had come personally.
“Hey, Stuart,” Tracy said softly.
“Tracy,” Funk said. He looked like he’d just gotten out of bed. Then again, he always looked like he’d just gotten out of bed.
“What can you tell me?”
“Same mark on the left shoulder just above the shoulder blade,” Funk said in a voice barely above a whisper. “Looks like angel’s wings.”
“Any chance this is a copycat?”
Funk shrugged. “I’ll need to look microscopically when we transport the body downtown, but my initial impression is it’s the same guy. The cut is precise, a sharp blade, minimal tearing of the skin. Again, let me look at it microscopically and compare it with the others.”
“Mind if I have a look?”
Funk spoke to the medical attendants, and they carefully turned the woman over to reveal her bloodied shoulder. Funk was right. It looked just like the ME’s photographs of the other thirteen victims.
Tracy returned to Faz and Del, and they stepped outside onto the porch.
“What do you know about the woman?” she asked.
“Not much yet,” Faz said.
“What the hell is going on, Tracy?” Del asked.
“What’s her name?” Tracy asked.
“Bonnie Parker,” Del said.
Tracy couldn’t recall if she’d read the name in Lisa Childress’s article in the investigative file. “Did she work for the City of Seattle?”
“She was retired is all we know at this point,” Del said.
“Before she retired.”
“Don’t know,” Faz said. “The son is out back consoling his daughter. We can ask him.”
Tracy turned to go back inside but noticed an approaching pool car. Its front wheels bounced over the curb onto the sidewalk and came to a stop on grass near a small maple tree. Johnny Nolasco pushed from the car and hurried up the concrete walk and steps, his eyes wide and in search of answers.
“Angel’s wings carved in her left shoulder,” Faz said before Nolasco got a word out.
Nolasco swore under his breath. His body sagged as if he’d been handed a huge anvil. In a sense, he had been. He exhaled a frustrated sigh.
“Funk is in there now, but he got a good look, and I asked to see it,” Tracy said. “Wings are of the same design and cut with a sharp blade and with precision. Funk says he’ll know more when he can view it microscopically.”
“Not likely a copycat?” Nolasco said.
“Not unless we have a leak we don’t know about,” Tracy said. “As far as I know, the only persons outside of the task force who knew about the angel’s wings were Lisa and Anita Childress.”
Nolasco swore again. “This can’t be. It can’t be the same guy.”
Tracy remained silent.
Nolasco exhaled his frustration. “I guess you called this one. This guy took the reopening of these cases as a challenge and came out of hiding.”
“The timing certainly implies he saw the press conference and is letting us know we didn’t get him. And this time, it does seem personal.”
“The DNA was conclusive,” Nolasco said, his voice a controlled fury. “Conclusive. Melton confirmed it. McDonnel is our guy.”
“The DNA was mixed. The second source was not identified, not in the CODIS—”
“I know that,” Nolasco snapped. He took another deep breath. “What then? This guy just happened to have sex with the same woman on the same night as McDonnel, a suspect in our investigation?”
“I think he did,” Tracy said. “But it didn’t just happen. The odds it was happenstance would be astronomical. Which only leaves the alternative. He did it purposefully.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe to throw the task force off his scent,” Tracy said. “But to do what he did, he had to know McDonnel was a suspect.”
“The task force had a leak,” Faz said.
“So do we,” Tracy said.
Nolasco followed her gaze to Greg Bartholomew, who waited on the sidewalk across the street.
“That’s all we need right now is that arsonist,” Faz said.
“If he sees the two of you, he’ll know what this is about,” Faz said.
“We’ll have a wildfire on our hands,” Del said.
“He sees us,” Tracy said. “We’re the reason he’s here. Captain, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“Can it wait?”
“No. It could be directly relevant.”
“I’ll go talk to the family,” Del said, and he stepped inside the home again.
Tracy told Nolasco and Faz about the tip line disk mailed to her attention, which Augustus Cesare authenticated as the disk he had given to Moss Gunderson. She told them about the connection she found between the killer’s final four victims having worked as special assistants in Mayor Edwards’s administration. She told them about her conversation with Gunderson in which he all but admitted he had not questioned then mayor Edwards about the connection.
“Why would Moss not question him?” Nolasco said.
“I think it’s because either Edwards threatened to burn him or Moss anticipated getting burned. Edwards had moles everywhere. He likely knew who took the drug money.”
“When did you find out about the disk?”
“Just a few days ago.”
“You didn’t tell me? You let me make an ass of myself at that press conference.”
“I didn’t get the files until after the press conference.” Tracy wanted to say she had warned both Nolasco and Weber about the press conference being premature, but that wouldn’t help present matters. “What’s done is done. We need to find out if this woman ever held a special assistant position. And we need to determine the source of the leak.”
“You think it could be Moss?” Faz asked.
“The leak? Yeah. I do,” Tracy said. “For one thing he hates my guts, and this doesn’t paint any of us in a favorable light.”
Nolasco looked to Faz. “Anyone here who would know where the woman worked?”
“Like I mentioned, the son is out back consoling his daughter,” Faz said. “She found the grandmother.”
“Find out if his mother ever worked for the city, if she ever held one of those positions. What did you call them?” Nolasco said to Tracy.
“Special assistants,” Tracy said. Faz walked inside the house. “Captain,” Tracy said.
“I know we need to talk,” Nolasco said. “But not here. Follow me.”
Tracy descended the steps with Nolasco. As they did, Bartholomew called out, “Detective? Captain Nolasco? Can you comment on what has happened?”
Tracy and Nolasco ignored him.
“Is your presence here related to the Route 99 Killer? Did you make a mistake naming McDonnel?”
Tracy got into her car and followed Nolasco several blocks, coming to a church parking lot. He stopped and got out of the car. Tracy met him at the hood, which he leaned against before lighting and smoking a cigarette. She waited.
“I’m going to tell you something in confidence,” Nolasco said, puffing on his cigarette. When he held it, his hand shook. “The kind of confidence partners keep while working a case together. Can you commit to it?”
“Yeah, I can commit to it.”
“I have your word?”
Tracy was more than curious. “You have my word,” she said.
Nolasco blew out smoke and what sounded like a great deal of tension. “I was Lisa Childress’s source.”
Nolasco said it so quickly, Tracy almost didn’t have time to react. “You told her about the angel’s wings?”
“And the suspects the task force was pursuing.”
“Why?”
“Because we weren’t getting anywhere, and she was good. Odd, but very good at her job. I hoped that by giving her certain information, in confidence, she might uncover something we had not. I thought she might find something on one of the suspects we hadn’t, past training in a medical profession. Something.”
Tracy leaned back against the car’s hood.
“Then, when Childress disappeared, I thought maybe she’d done something stupid,” Nolasco continued. “Gone undercover. Met the killer. I didn’t know. She was just gone, so I thought the worst. Then they found her car and they found blood, but they didn’t find her. I didn’t know what had happened to her. Not until you found her.”
“You didn’t say anything to anyone?”
“What was I going to say? I had no idea whether her disappearance had to do with the Route 99 case.”
“But you suspected it. You thought it.”
“Her disappearance didn’t fit the pattern of the killings, Crosswhite. The killer left the bodies for us to find. He wanted us to find them. He marked them, for Christ’s sake.”
“You should have said something to someone.”
“Hindsight is twenty-twenty.”
“So is common decency.”
Nolasco looked away, a tacit admission he knew Tracy to be correct.
“You let Childress just disappear and didn’t tell anyone what might have happened to her.”
“Look,” he said, becoming angry. “I told you; her disappearance didn’t fit with the other killings, and then . . . the killings stopped. The killer stopped.”
“So you just stepped away.”
“I didn’t step away. I stayed involved in the investigation as to what happened to her. I learned about the Last Line, about the kickbacks and the payoffs. I tried to find out if her disappearance was somehow related.”
“Then you know about Edwards, about his taking a payoff as well.”
“Suspected. Never proven,” Nolasco said. “But what was I going to do about it? Who was I going to tell?”
“A prosecutor. Someone from the Justice Department,” Tracy said.
“I didn’t have any solid evidence to make a charge stick. Neither did you.”
They sat in silence. The air was humid, and Tracy perspired beneath her corduroy jacket. She hated to admit it, but Nolasco was right.
“Where do we go from here?” Nolasco finally said.
Tracy gave it thought. “Lisa Childress wasn’t investigating four separate stories. She believed they were all linked together. I’m sure of it. The Last Line. Corruption in Edwards’s administration. Councilman Rivers accused of having sex with underage teens just as his mayoral campaign was taking off. And the Route 99 Killer. Each of his last four—possibly now five—victims worked as a special assistant in Edwards’s administration. Childress might have been investigating Edwards for corruption, but she was also investigating his connection to those other three cases.”
“What are you saying? You think Edwards is our killer?”
“No. No, I don’t. I’m thinking about what Santos told us—”
“Santos—”
“Hang on and just listen. Santos said the killer was sending a message to someone. So, too, did Nabil Kotar.”
“The Cowboy?” Nolasco asked, his voice incredulous.
“I went to the Monroe maximum security facility and spoke to him, asked him about the killings, if they meant anything. He said much the same thing Santos said. He said the killer was sending someone a message by marking the victims. I think the person the killer intended to get the message was Edwards. I think the common thread is Edwards. Something Edwards did caused this man to murder the women who worked for him and leave them as bread crumbs for us to follow.”
“You mean me. Bread crumbs for me to follow.”
“Moss withheld the information. You couldn’t have followed,” she said.
Nolasco fumed. His nostrils flared. After several long seconds, he said, “Why not just tell us what Edwards did, whatever he did?”
“The killer is angry. He wants Edwards to pay. He wants Edwards to live with the knowledge that he’s the reason these women died.”
“You think Edwards knew about the connection and didn’t say anything?”
“He had to, Captain. He had to know.”
“But he didn’t say anything?” Nolasco repeated. Tracy, too, was finding that hard to accept. “Do you think the killer could be a woman? Jealous rage?” he asked.
“No. The prostitutes don’t fit.”
“Why not, if the killer used them to practice?”
“To overpower a person in that way . . . Seems it had to be a man, but okay, we don’t rule out a woman.”
Nolasco let out another sigh. “We can’t very well confront Edwards with what we have.”
“Why not?”
“It’s innuendo and speculation. The FBI and the Justice Department went after Edwards with everything they had, multiple times, and never got anything to stick. He insulated himself with dozens of layers, didn’t use email, and only used his phone sparingly. He generally did everything by a handshake. They couldn’t even prove he took kickbacks. What makes you think Edwards even knew the killer intended the killings as some type of message?”
Tracy’s cell phone rang. “Faz.” She put Faz on speakerphone.
“You’re right,” Faz said. “About the victim. According to the son, his mom worked for the City of Seattle as the director of the Department of Construction and Inspections. As soon as the office opens, I’ll make a call and find out if she also worked as one of Edwards’s special assistants. Son didn’t know.”
“Nobody is to talk to the press,” Nolasco said.
“Absolutely,” Faz said.
Tracy thanked him and disconnected the call. “So it isn’t four messages he’s sent,” Tracy said. “It’s five.”
CHAPTER 26
Tuesday, August 4, Present Day
Seattle, Washington
When Tracy arrived at Police Headquarters, it was like entering after the press conference to announce McDonnel was the Route 99 serial killer. Bad news spread as fast as good news, but like a serious case of the flu. The rumor spreading was the Queen Anne murder might be related to the Route 99 Killer. If so, Dwight McDonnel was not the killer. Like the flu, nobody would admit to having started the rumor, which caused everyone to be on edge and guarded.
The phones in Tracy’s office rang nonstop, but the only call she answered was the one she could not ignore. Weber summoned her and Nolasco to her office. She did not sound happy.
Everyone in the department, especially the brass who appeared at the recent press conference, was about to have egg all over their faces, and that included Weber and Nolasco. Tracy couldn’t help but think that had been the killer’s intent.
As Tracy and Nolasco took the interior stairwell to the eighth floor, Tracy said, “Faz called again. Bonnie Parker worked as a special assistant in Edwards’s administration.”
“Shit,” Nolasco said.
“We can’t tell Weber about Edwards. About the possible connection.”
“Why not?” Nolasco said, slightly winded as he shuffled up the steps.
“Because we have to assume Edwards is also holding the Last Line money over Weber’s head. Any suspicion we share with her is sure to be shared with Edwards. I want to interview him before he figures out what we know.”
Nolasco stopped his ascent, eyes wide in surprise. Footsteps descended from above, echoing. They waited until a detective passed them on the staircase and exited one floor below. “What do you mean Edwards is holding Last Line money over Weber’s head?” Nolasco said, a little too loud. “You’re saying she took dirty money too?”
Tracy spoke in a soft voice. “In my search to find Lisa Childress, I spoke to a man who used to deal drugs in Rainier Valley when Weber was a young girl living there. He said she knew the dealers. When the Last Line started pinching them, the dealers suspected someone with intimate knowledge of the valley was providing the task force with inside information about where drugs deals were being made.”
“Why would Weber do that?”
“It’s a long story, but her father worked in the department, and his partner set him up on a drug bust, accused him of taking some of the confiscated money before it was counted. It was bullshit, but Weber’s father took the fall and was discharged. He worked private security until he got a bullet in the back that left him paralyzed. Weber never forgot what happened to him. Taking kickbacks from the Last Line was her way of getting the money she believed the department owed her father.”
“You can confirm this?”
“Not in a court,” she said shaking her head. “If I could, Weber wouldn’t still be here. And Moss might be in jail, though the statute of limitations would protect him.”
“But you confronted her.”
“I did.”
“That’s how you got your job back, how Del was reinstated after Weber suspended you both.”
“That’s how.”
“Which means the allegation was accurate.”
Tracy nodded.
Nolasco squinted as if fighting an impending headache. “That’s why you went to the newspaper with those stories about corruption, because you didn’t have the evidence to take them down in court?”
Tracy explained how she had consulted Cerrabone, and he advised she didn’t have enough evidence to stick, and that the statute of limitations would protect them from criminal prosecution.
