A cold trail, p.5
A Cold Trail, page 5
part #7 of Tracy Crosswhite Series
He shook his head. “It’s not the same thing, Tracy.”
“This was once my home too, Dan. And I hope someday it can mean something to Daniella. Something good and positive. Not the shit I had to live with. We’ve talked about Daniella knowing where her parents grew up. Is this what you want her to know? A city that cheats people out of businesses? A city where people die, and no one gives a damn to do anything about it? Do you want her to spend time here if there’s someone out there killing people? Don’t say I’m not thinking about our daughter, Dan. Don’t you dare throw that in my face.”
“Now you haven’t answered my question.”
“Do not cross-examine me,” she said. “I am not on your witness chair.”
“What’s your answer?”
“I said, don’t.”
Dan nodded. “I thought so. You don’t want my opinion. You want my approval.” He shook his head. “Sorry, Tracy, but not this time. This time you have to make this decision on your own.”
CHAPTER 5
Later that evening, Tracy pushed open the front door and let in a shower of snow on a gust of wind. She stepped inside carrying a storage box. Therese stood from her wooden stool—she was painting a landscape of the backyard—and helped close the door. Dan was working in his office, and the chill in the house from their disagreement was almost as cold as the temperature outside.
“Thanks,” Tracy said. She set the box on the throw rug and kicked off her Sorels, which she hadn’t laced for what she had thought would be a quick trip to the garage.
Outside, the wind howled, a ghostly wail that sounded like a freight train bearing down on the house. “It’s really blowing, isn’t it?” Therese asked.
Tracy pushed her shoes beneath the coatrack. “And the temperature is dropping.”
She pulled tight her long down jacket and shuffled in her socks to the fireplace, standing with her back to the bright-red flames flickering behind the insert’s glass window. Warm air blew out from the vent, heating the back of her legs.
“That is much better,” Tracy said.
“The blower came on while you were in the garage,” Therese said. “It’s cracking warm in here now. I thought for a minute I was going to have to go out there to rescue you. You said you’d only be a minute. You’re lucky you didn’t freeze your knockers off. Then how would we have fed Daniella?”
Up until Therese’s final sentence, Tracy wasn’t sure she had knockers. Her chill passed, and she removed her coat and hung it on the coatrack. She knew exactly where to find the box she’d retrieved from the garage. What she hadn’t considered was that movers had buried the box behind furniture from their home in Redmond.
Therese returned to the wooden stool Dan had found for her and picked up a palette on which she’d mixed tubes of different-colored paint. “It’s really beautiful,” she said, looking out the window before adding another stroke to the canvas. “We don’t see snow often in Dublin. It reminds me of Christmas.”
“It’s beautiful when you’re indoors,” Tracy said. “It’s a pain in the butt if you need to go outside for any reason, or to get anywhere.”
As if to emphasize the point, the wind rattled the windows, a low rumble. Tree branches clicked and knocked together, causing dry snow to fall and catch on the wind gust—a temporary whiteout.
“I hope you don’t mind me painting,” Therese said, noticing Tracy’s gaze on the canvas. “I’m using acrylic paint so there’s no smell. I didn’t want Daniella around paint fumes.”
Tracy had indeed been staring at the canvas, and now saw, though it remained somewhat ethereal, the gazebo in the center of the snow-covered landscape. She stepped closer. “How long have you painted?”
“I started in Ireland when I was just a kid. My father painted. He taught me to just paint what I see.”
“It’s really good. Do you have others?”
“Here? You’d think I was shirking my responsibilities.”
Tracy smiled. “I meant do you have photographs of your other paintings?”
Therese set down her brush and pulled up her phone. She scrolled through her pictures and showed Tracy some of her paintings.
“These are really beautiful. Have you ever shown them?”
“I’m showing them to you now.”
“I mean have you ever shown them in public, for sale?”
“Get out,” Therese said, smiling but shaking her head uncertainly. “You’re joking.”
“I’m serious. I’d buy one.”
Therese gave her a stare—as if disbelieving. After a beat, she said, “I’d be too afraid to show them. What if nobody came?”
“Then you’d be no worse off than you are now.”
“I’d be humiliated.”
“Yes, but if no one came, no one would know.”
Therese smiled. “That’s one way to think about it.”
Tracy looked down the hall. “Is Dan still in his office?”
“Mr. O’Leary is giving Daniella a bottle. I think you better pump. We’ve only one bottle left for the night.”
“I’ll do it before I go to bed,” Tracy said.
She picked up the storage box, set it on the coffee table, and removed the lid, putting it aside. She’d kept several boxes of mementos from her years growing up—mostly the family photo albums and cards she’d received on birthdays and holidays. But what she’d really been after were the sweaters, mittens, scarves, and hats her mother had knit for her and Sarah. She’d always envisioned that someday her children and her nieces would wear them, but things had not worked out as she’d imagined. Not exactly. She did have Daniella now though, and the sweaters were a link to a grandmother her daughter would never know. They were also wool, which meant they were warm, perfect for the snow.
For years she’d kept the boxes in a cramped closet in her Seattle apartment, then in an unused room in the house she’d rented in West Seattle. The Redmond farmhouse had no storage space and barely enough room for her and Dan’s necessities. She and Dan had brought the boxes to Cedar Grove and stored them on a shelf in the detached garage.
“Are those for Daniella?” Therese looked over Tracy’s shoulder as she removed sealed plastic bags with the clothes.
“My mother knit them for me and my sister starting when we were infants.”
“Get out,” Therese said, sitting on a corner of the coffee table and picking up one of the bags. “You’re serious?”
“My mother was a knitter.” Tracy shrugged. “She knit all the time.”
“A damn good one by the looks of it,” Therese said. “They’re gorgeous.” The nanny held up a baggie with a white-and-yellow knit beanie with images of ducks. “Can I take it out?”
“Sure.”
Therese did, twirling the beanie on her finger. “Daniella will be styling in these. You’re lucky you kept them. I’m the oldest of seven. By the time my brother wore the hand-me-downs, they had to be thrown out, sometimes long before then.”
Tracy had stored the sweaters in airtight bags to keep them safe from moths and mold. On more than one occasion, she’d thought of donating them to a shelter for abused women and their children. Better to put them to good use than keep them in a box.
“I wasn’t sure I’d ever have a use for them.”
Tracy worked her way through the box, showing each creation to Therese. The young woman reminded Tracy a bit of Sarah, who would perpetually be eighteen in Tracy’s mind. It wasn’t the years. It was Therese’s unbridled enthusiasm for even the small things she came across. Sarah had been much the same way. Their mother called Sarah a Mexican jumping bean because she was constantly on the go.
Beneath the layers of knitted garments Tracy found a family photo album and flipped through the pages.
“Is that your sister?” Therese slid from the table onto the sofa beside Tracy. The picture was of Sarah in her cowboy action regalia—her well-worn cowboy hat, chaps, a plaid shirt, and a red neckerchief. Her leather holsters held her single-action revolvers snug against her hips. Sarah had posed for the picture, as if she were about to draw her pistols, and looking cocksure she’d beat whoever challenged her. By her teens, Sarah had established herself as one of the best shooters in the state of Washington.
“She was a pistol, my sister,” Tracy said. “Everyone in Cedar Grove said that about her. She was the best shot in the county because she was cocky.”
“She looks it. Is that you?” Therese pointed to a picture of Tracy inside the lobby of Hutchins’ Theater, her hair in pigtails, her teeth in braces. The awkward years. On one side of her stood Dan, on the other, Sunnie Anderson—now Sunnie Witherspoon. Sarah and several other friends stood behind them, Sarah with a look of disgust. She was not happy Sunnie had taken what Sarah considered her rightful place beside Tracy.
“Do you recognize the guy with the crew cut and glasses?”
Therese bent down to look more closely. “No way. That is not Mr. O’Leary.” She started to laugh and angled the album to better catch the light. “It looks nothing like him.”
The only boy in the group of five girls, Dan had not yet gone through puberty. He was smaller than everyone except for Sarah, and he still had much of his baby fat.
“What are you two laughing at?” Dan walked into the room behind them.
“Your picture,” Therese said. “You look like a nerd.”
Therese held up the photo album so Dan could see the pictures. “Did Tracy tell you she was stalking me back then? I couldn’t go anywhere without her following me.”
“Get out,” Therese said. “You’re joshing me.”
“It’s true,” Dan said. “I was quite the ladies’ man. Check out those Clark Kent specs.” Another wind gust blew against the house, drawing Dan’s attention. “I’m glad we took down those trees along the side of the house last summer. These Northwest storms can be powerful.” He turned to Tracy. “I’m going to read in bed. You coming soon?”
Dan had a principle he kept to even on nights like this one, in which they’d had a disagreement. He never went to bed angry.
She looked at her watch. “In a bit,” she said. “I want to get out these sweaters and hats for Daniella.”
“And don’t forget you still have to pump,” Therese said.
“And that.”
Dan kissed Tracy atop the head. “Don’t stay up late reminiscing,” he said. “Night, Therese.”
Therese checked her wristwatch. “Morning comes early around here,” she said, standing. “I better clean these brushes and get ready for Lily White’s party myself, as my mother used to say.”
Tracy smiled. “Lily White’s party? What does that mean?”
“It means I better get ready for bed.”
“Is it Irish?”
“I don’t know. Just something she used to say that stuck in my mind.” She looked at the box filled with memories. “A bit like what’s in that box.” She grabbed her paintbrushes and departed down the hall, toward her room at the back of the house.
Tracy continued to rummage through the box. Near the bottom she found several flowered notebooks—her and Sarah’s diaries. Tracy had kept diaries in her teens, hiding them to prevent Sarah from reading her teenage musings. No secret had been safe with her sister around. Sarah had always called Tracy’s scribbles dumb, and given Sarah’s inability to sit still, Tracy had no idea Sarah had also kept diaries until she’d cleaned out the family home after her mother passed. She was more than a little surprised. Sarah had apparently started her diary the year Tracy had left for college—or maybe because Tracy had left. When Tracy found them in a closet, it had been like finding razor blades. The first entry was Sarah’s scribblings about how much she missed her sister, how everything had changed when Tracy left, and how nothing would ever again be the same. Looking back, Tracy wondered if Sarah had been clinically depressed, and scribbling in the diary was a form of therapy her father had prescribed. Typical doctor. He could diagnose everyone else’s ailments but his own. Depression is what had led him to take his own life.
Each page Tracy had read had inflicted another painful cut, until it was simply too much to read them anymore. She’d put the diaries in the box, for what future purpose she didn’t know. That thought caused her to pause. Huh, she wondered.
She took out the short stack, flipping each cover open, and setting them aside until she found the diary for 1992–1993, the year Sarah graduated from Cedar Grove High School.
Heather Johansen’s body had been discovered by Vern Downie’s hounds in February 1993, four months before graduation, and six months before Sarah had disappeared along the same stretch of the county road. Tracy opened the book, recalling that Sarah’s entries seemed sporadic and disjointed, some written in black, others in blue and red, even one in purple. Sometimes she scribbled down thoughts, often just fragments or a piece of bad poetry. In others she drew pictures—trees, a road seemingly to nowhere, the moon on a cloudy night, what looked like a self-portrait. Rarely did she offer any deep insight into her feelings. Tracy thought the entries typified a young girl—likely one who, if she were a teenager today, would be diagnosed with ADD rather than described as a Mexican jumping bean.
Tracy flipped through the pages, glancing at, but not really reading the details, not certain, even now, about this invasion of her sister’s privacy. In one passage Sarah admitted to being nervous about leaving Cedar Grove to attend college, leaving her home, her family, her friends. Tracy had never known Sarah to be nervous about anything. It’s what had made her such a good shooter. She’d been daring and bold, often to the point of recklessness.
Tracy skimmed the passages.
Going to Oregon for Black Powder Championship this W/E. Wash. Wild Bunch Championship next W/E. Training hard w/ Dad. Tracy has too much work. Up to me to uphold family name. HAHA! Dad says Oregon has good shooters. Some guy named Jim Fick is best. I don’t know, but kind of digging his cowboy name: “Cool Hand.” Dad says he shoots a classic .32 Winchester and a Colt 45. Well, Cool Hand, you are about to get your ASS KICKED! ’cause The Kid is coming home with the medal!
Tracy smiled at her sister’s unbridled brashness. Tracy’s cowboy name had been “Crossdraw,” a play on her name and, like her father, her use of a cross-draw holster.
Tracy flipped the page, skimming entries, each word another prick drawing blood. She searched the dates and found an entry dated November 1992. Initials caught her attention.
Just heard about HJ and FA breaking up and FA apparently being a massive dickhead to her.
HJ was Heather Johansen and FA was Finlay Armstrong. Tracy continued to read.
Heard he won’t stop calling her and that he waits for her after school and calls her “Slut” and “Bitch.” I’d shoot his ass!
Tracy focused on her sister’s description of Finlay Armstrong’s actions, of the intensity of his words. Heather Johansen and Sarah hadn’t been close, at least not to Tracy’s knowledge, so the fact that Sarah was writing about it in her diary was an indication it had been news at school.
Tracy flipped the diary page. Her eyes stopped again, this time on a December entry when she saw the same initials.
Apparently Chief Roy talked to FA. D/K what Roy said, but he must have scared the shit out of Finlay! ’cause he’s dropped out of school. Heard he’s taking classes at community college.
She flipped ahead several pages and came to the day they found Heather Johansen’s body. Sarah’s writing was stilted and disjointed. The blue ink looked to have smeared.
They found Heather. Found her body. She’s dead. Police aren’t saying anything and everyone around town is just real quiet. They sent us home from school. I asked my Dad if the police were talking to FA ’cause of him stalking HJ. He told me not to rush to judgment! But who else could it be? Has to be FA . . . Right? Has to be!
The windows rattled, causing Tracy to startle. She looked around the room and wished they’d put up curtains or blinds to at least cover the windows looking into the backyard. Dan said there was no need, that the trees provided a natural curtain. Heavy snowflakes drifted from the sky, reflecting iridescent glimpses of moonlight. Tracy almost closed the diary, then flipped the page and skimmed the next two entries.
Rumor going around school—good old CG High. Nothing is private—that HJ was pregnant when she was killed!
Tracy sat up, quickly skimming over the rest of the passage.
Heard she missed her period and peed on one of those sticks. Didn’t tell anyone, not even Kimberly. Parents are Super Religious!!
Tracy looked at the flames behind the glass in the fireplace, wondering if Roy Calloway knew of the rumors, and whether the medical examiner had checked. Her eyes shifted back to the entry.
Parents are Super Religious!!
CHAPTER 6
The following morning, Dan and Tracy awoke early. Dan took the dogs for a long run, then barricaded himself in his home office. Tracy fed and dressed Daniella and spent time with her daughter until Therese came on duty at 9:00 a.m. That was the difference between Tracy’s and Dan’s jobs. Dan wasn’t being asked to sacrifice his career to become a father. He wasn’t being asked to spend the day at home, not working. Tracy didn’t regret becoming a mother, not for a moment. Giving birth to Daniella was the single greatest moment in her life. But she wanted to decide for herself what her future would hold. She’d worked hard to become a detective. She’d put up with her captain’s—Johnny Nolasco’s—sexist comments and attempts to force her to quit. She’d forged a path for other women detectives in the Violent Crimes Section by being the first woman and a damn good detective—instinctual and willing to work her ass off. So she didn’t want Dan, or anyone else, telling her to walk away, and she didn’t want her decision to be because she felt guilty leaving her daughter home, or because she had nothing in common with the twentysomethings in the PEPS group she’d attended. She wanted to make her decision on her own terms and for her own reasons.
