One Last Kill (Tracy Crosswhite), page 23
“It seems like it is something worth exploring,” Edwards agreed. He turned his gaze to Nolasco. “Why, if I might ask, didn’t you explore this pattern back when you had the task force? Seems like it might have been significant.”
Indeed, Tracy thought, but either Moss Gunderson had buried the information, or he’d pursued it and Edwards had threatened to bury him.
“That’s something else we’re looking into,” Nolasco said.
“Seems like shoddy police work if you ask me, Captain. You ran that task force; didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“Then let me ask you both this question. Are you intimating Dwight McDonnel was not the Route 99 Killer, after your superiors held a press conference Friday with families of the victims stating the killings had been resolved?”
Nolasco looked to be chewing his bottom lip.
“That’s where it gets interesting, Mayor.” Tracy stepped in to deflect the blows the mayor was delivering and start delivering some of their own. Good cop. Bad cop. She had no problem being the bad cop in this instance. “You see, Dwight McDonnel’s DNA is a certain match for DNA found at one of the Route 99 killings.”
“Again, I recall that information from the press conference. But if it’s a certain match, then why are you here interrupting my evening with my grandchildren?”
“Are you familiar with ‘fragmented DNA,’ sir?” Tracy asked.
“I’m not.”
“With the advances in technology, forensic scientists are able to analyze smaller and smaller DNA samples, and to differentiate between mixed DNA, such as in the case of a gang rape.”
“Okay.”
“Mr. McDonnel’s DNA was fragmented DNA. The crime lab detected his DNA had mixed with the DNA of a second person.”
Edwards sipped his drink, then shook his head as if to say, And . . .
“And we’ve been able to identify this second person. That is, the second DNA found is a partial match to a relative of the killer.”
“A partial match. How can you have a partial match?”
“The advances in the forensic DNA include advances in the use of certain software to identify DNA that, although not a direct match to the crime scene DNA, is a genetic match, a family member. A brother, for instance. We had the crime lab run the DNA using this software, and we got a hit for a person whose DNA was in the CODIS system. Someone arrested many years ago for driving under the influence, and who provided a blood sample.”
Edwards looked between Nolasco and Tracy. Tracy did not notice any change in his appearance or demeanor. He didn’t pale. He didn’t look nervous. His hands didn’t flinch and weren’t clutching the table. When she didn’t continue, Edwards said, “Who is this person?”
“The hit was to DNA provided thirty years ago by your son, Jonathan Michael Edwards.”
Now Edwards paled. Whatever he might have anticipated, even prepared for, it was not this.
“The crime lab is certain the DNA obtained from the victim at the Route 99 serial killing is a half brother of Jonathan Michael Edwards, which, to an investigator, makes the fact that each of these five women also worked in your administration much more than a coincidence. An investigator has to assume the killer chose these women for a reason related to their positions. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Edwards was too well heeled to cave. He sipped his drink to buy time and gather himself, but he was no longer a young man, or even middle-aged. He was old, and old men couldn’t hide certain things they once could. Time could be cruel in this regard, like tremors in the hand or the voice, or the way the Adam’s apple got in the way of swallowing.
“What exactly are you implying, Detective Crosswhite?”
“I’m not implying anything. It’s science, sir,” she said, stealing a line from Mike Melton. “I’m asking you directly why the DNA would indicate Jonathan has a half brother when every news article I’ve read about you and your family indicates you have just one son and two daughters.”
Edwards put down his glass. “I . . .” He cleared his throat. “I don’t know, Detective. Clearly there has been a mistake.”
“No mistake. The crime lab confirmed it. ‘Science doesn’t lie,’” she said, stealing another Melton line. “A blood relative. A half brother.”
“But the people interpreting the results could be mistaken.”
“Mayor Edwards, it is late, and it looks like your wife could use your help with your grandchildren, so I’m going to cut to the chase here and ask you to do the right thing. The moral thing. The ethical thing. I know you have another son. I want to know his name and the name of his mother. And before you tell me you don’t know what I am talking about, let me make this perfectly clear. We are here because we are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that you didn’t know of the connection of the other four women to your administration when these killings occurred. But you know now. If you tell us what we want to know, we will do everything we can to keep your name out of the newspaper. But if you refuse, then all bets are off, and we will tell the media everything and let the public come to their own conclusion.”
Edwards smiled, not as if amused but as if rising to Tracy’s challenge. He kept his voice soft. “Are you threatening me, Detective?”
“Call it whatever you want.”
“How dare you. How dare you come to my house and in the presence of my wife make such an accusation.”
“You invited us in. You said it was your civic duty to help public servants. And your wife is not here. More important, you didn’t answer my question. Let me ask it again, and this time let me preface it by saying fourteen women are dead, Mr. Edwards, and it is possible more could die because, as you confirmed, you created many of those special assistant positions. We would like to prevent that. We’d like to catch this person before he kills again, and we believe you can identify him. Now, having said that, I ask again, are you aware of another son with any other woman?”
Edwards stared, his eyes once again the piercing blue that had cut through his political opponents like a sharp knife. “Detective Crosswhite, I think you’ve let all those medals you’ve won go to your head. I think you have forgotten your place.”
“I know my place very well, sir. I am a servant for the people of King County, Washington, tasked with solving fourteen murders and maybe saving lives in the process. I think it is you who’ve forgotten your place. Or maybe you never knew it.”
Edwards’s gaze turned ugly, as did the tone of his voice. “I will destroy you, Detective. You will be out on the street before you get back to your car.”
“That’s your prerogative, Mr. Edwards. But as I made clear to you, I will go to a prosecutor, and he will go to a judge, and we will seek a warrant to get your DNA to confirm the forensic lab’s findings.”
“You think you will get that subpoena? Have at it.”
“And I am duty bound, sir, to let the people of the State of Washington know a serial killer might still be out there killing, and to protect the public by letting the other women who worked as special assistants in your administration know their lives might be in danger. And when we’re asked why we no longer believe Dwight McDonnel was the Route 99 Killer, we’ll have to explain, as I just explained to you, what the fragmented DNA proved.”
Edwards smiled the same wicked smile his grandson had given him, a man used to getting his way, who believed he would again. “Try me, Detective.”
Tracy stood. “I intend to.”
“That is what you don’t understand, Detective.”
“What’s that?”
“People like you will never be in a position to make that choice. The decision will be made so far over your head you couldn’t see it from the top rung of a ladder. All that will come from your climb is a long, painful fall that will end your career.”
“My father used to say something similar about people who exalted themselves,” Tracy said. “He used to say the view from the top is never as enlightening as the view at the bottom, but those people arrive in both places, nonetheless.”
Tracy and Nolasco showed themselves out, climbing outdoor steps along the side of the house to the driveway. When they reached the top, Nolasco was huffing and puffing.
“I got to hand it to you, Crosswhite. You got guts. I’ll give you that. But he’s going to get you fired. Maybe both of us.”
“I’m not going to get fired and neither are you. If I get fired no one can stop me from going to the press with the connection between Edwards, the five women, and his son. He doesn’t want that. We have a volatile truce, just like the truce between me and Weber. They want to get rid of me, but they can’t. Their hands are too dirty, and I know now where they buried some of the bodies.”
Nolasco laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Tracy asked.
“There was a time you could have said the same about me.”
“Not anymore, Captain?” she asked.
Nolasco shook his head, smiling. “You’re entertaining, Crosswhite. The way I figure it, as long as you’re around, they’ll beat on you and leave me be.”
“Very chivalrous of you, Captain.”
“Chivalry no longer exists. The woke crowd considers it sexist. It’s all about survival of the fittest now. The better question is where do we go from here?”
“Where we should have gone in the first place.”
“Where is that?”
“I’ll tell you in the morning in Weber’s office.”
Nolasco didn’t even question her prediction. He also knew Weber’s office to be a certainty.
CHAPTER 29
Tracy didn’t bother to go back into the office, and Nolasco took his cue from her and also went home. Before they split, he surprised her. “You want to get a drink? Talk over our investigative strategy other than rushing forward into a chipping machine.”
Tracy almost laughed, but she knew Nolasco was serious. She also knew it was more their circumstance than any real connection between the two of them. They were both under siege, like two infantry soldiers in a foxhole during a prolonged fight. They could either dislike one another or direct their dislike to a mutual enemy and hope for strength in numbers. Whether that endured if they survived the foxhole remained to be seen.
“I’m going to get home to Dan and my little girl,” Tracy said.
Nolasco started off, then turned back. “Crosswhite?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for having my back with Edwards.”
“Not a problem, Captain.”
“I still think you might have got us both fired, but . . .”
“We’re not fired,” she said.
“You’re lucky to have a family to go home to.”
“I know,” she said. “Have a good night, Captain.”
“Sounds like something said just before the Titanic hit the iceberg.”
Twenty minutes later, on her drive across the 520 bridge to the east side of Lake Washington, Tracy’s phone rang. She’d been in a daze. She’d been thinking that going to Mayor Edwards had been like a confessional. They had done what they could to get Edwards to confess his sins, but he had refused and maybe chose the fires of hell just to save his mortal reputation. The phone ringing had been like an alarm.
She recognized the number for headquarters. Weber for certain. Edwards had made good on his threat. She sent the call to her voice mail. Weber could wait. Minutes later the phone rang again. Caller ID indicated the King County Medical Examiner’s Office. Tracy answered it.
“Tracy, it’s Stuart Funk.”
“What did you learn?” she asked without preamble.
“Not a copycat. The cut is too precise, likely made with the same type of blade as the others.”
Tracy didn’t know what to say, though she had expected the information. It was hard to believe, all these years later, the killer wasn’t in prison for another crime. He wasn’t dead, and the investigation into his thirteen cold case victims had awakened his desire to kill, to renew his attempt to deliver whatever the message she now knew for certain was intended for Mayor Edwards.
“You still there?” Funk asked.
“Still here. You let Nolasco know?”
“About to call him now.”
“Thanks, Stuart.”
She disconnected and thought about the latest victim, and possibly others to come. She couldn’t allow that.
Minutes later she parked on the gravel drive, stepped from the car, and went inside, dropping her work cell phone and keys into the basket. Therese’s high-pitched voice came from the backyard. Tracy followed it outside. Therese had Daniella in a blow-up pool on the lawn, though the pool contained just a couple inches of water. Therese had staked a large umbrella in the ground and positioned the pool beneath the shade. Daniella wore her blue bathing suit, her diaper filled with water. Dan had said she looked like a big blueberry. She had a floppy sun hat strapped beneath her chin as she slapped at the water and giggled, Therese encouraging her.
When she caught sight of Tracy, Daniella crawled to the edge of the pool, calling to her.
Tracy knelt and splashed the water in the pool. “Are you swimming, angel? Are you swimming?”
“She loves it,” Therese said. “I can’t get her out. She’s been in here for an hour.”
Tracy played with some of the toys in the pool with Daniella. Then she asked, “Dan’s not home yet?”
“Called a couple of minutes ago. Just picking up a few things from the store. Says he wants to barbecue tonight and eat on the veranda.”
Tracy looked at the outdoor gazebo. “Veranda, huh? Is that what he’s calling it now?”
“Apparently.”
“I’m hoping I can convince him to go for a run. I need to burn off some energy and frustration.”
“Not a good day?”
Tracy thought of Bonnie Parker and of the granddaughter who had found her. She thought again that she could not allow it to happen to another woman and her family.
“No,” she said. “Not a good day.”
“Go for your run,” Therese said. “You’ll feel better. I can play with Little Miss Sunshine here.”
Tracy went upstairs to get changed. Dan came home and, after a minute or two, came up the stairs. Tracy was stretching at the foot of their bed. “What’s this I hear about a run?”
“You up for it?”
“I am.”
Ten minutes later they reached the foothills on a slow jog. Dan was breathing hard, trying to catch his wind. “No matter how many times I do this, it never gets easier.”
“It’s not supposed to be easy, that’s why it’s good for you,” Tracy said.
“You’re a ball of sunshine. Is that dark cloud over your head related to the call from Faz this morning?”
Tracy told him about Bonnie Parker and the angel’s wings. She told him Stuart Funk confirmed what she already knew. The Route 99 Killer was back in business.
Dan stopped running. “Wait. I thought he was the guy who hung himself.”
“So did we.” She explained to Dan what Melton had told them about the fragmented DNA and how he had matched that DNA to a sample in the CODIS system.
“You’re shitting me? The mayor’s son?”
“It’s a partial match, meaning the DNA from the crime scene is a relative of the mayor’s son. A half brother. Edwards has only one son and two daughters with his wife.”
She told Dan about the connection of the last five victims to Edwards’s administration and how she believed Moss Gunderson had ignored the information when the connection was made years ago. Then she told him about her and Nolasco’s conversation with Edwards, how they had given him the chance to do the right thing.
Dan shook his head before jogging again, this time faster paced. “What are you going to do?”
“I thought about it on the drive home. I’m going to warn the women who worked for Edwards who are still alive and still live in the area. I don’t have a choice. I’m just not sure how to get a list of those women from back then.”
“It would be in the city archives,” Dan said. “Take it from someone who has sued the city on multiple occasions and fought over documents. The archives will have their employment records, including their Social Security numbers. They’re computerized now. You get the names you can, then find the women.”
“That might take too long, Dan. I’m thinking I need to reach a larger audience more quickly.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“Anita Childress,” Tracy said. “I let her know the connection so she can get an article in the paper.”
“That will create a shitstorm.”
“I won’t mention yet what the DNA revealed. We just warn other women who worked as special assistants that there is a connection.”
“The brass will know you leaked the information,” Dan said.
“What are they going to do, fire me for trying to save lives? They’re stuck. Besides, Anita won’t reveal her source, and she has her mother’s files. She could say she figured out the connection on her own.”
“Maybe the woman who had the kid will come forward.”
Tracy stopped running. “What?” Dan said.
“Lisa Childress’s investigative file includes notes about a ‘credible source’ being ‘pissed off’ and ‘willing to talk.’ Do you think she could have made the connection and found the woman?”
“Based on what you told me about the files she was working on, I’d say it’s a possibility. But Childress doesn’t remember anything. She can’t help you.”
“Maybe she already has.”
When they arrived home, Dan went upstairs to shower and said he’d get dinner started. Tracy turned on her work cell phone again and went into the home office. She quickly checked her messages and found a stink email from Weber, which she ignored. She called Johnny Nolasco, but the call went immediately to his voice mail. He, too, had turned off his phone.
She sat and used a towel to wipe at perspiration from her run. Maybe it was better Nolasco didn’t know what she was about to do. If anyone was going to take the hit, better her than Nolasco, after what he’d already been through. Better he knew nothing about her decision.
