Close to Home (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 5) Page 3

  “I’m assuming no ID?” Tracy asked.

  Jensen gestured with his chin to a group of men and women standing on the street corner. “No, but one of the witnesses said the victim’s name is D’Andre Miller.”

  “Did he witness the actual accident?” Tracy asked.

  Jensen shook his head. “No. He was walking up South Henderson and heard a thud. You know how that is.”

  Tracy did. The vast majority of witnesses to a car accident were not helpful. They often wanted to be, but it was more the norm that they didn’t see the actual crash. They’d only heard it and saw the aftermath. The mind filled in the blanks, which were often inconsistent with the physical evidence, making the witness more damaging than helpful, if the matter went to trial.

  Jensen pointed to another man on the street corner. “That man was driving home and stopped when he saw the patrol cars. He said the kid played basketball at the community center tonight and was hurrying to get home.” Jensen pointed down the street. “He said the victim cuts over the Chief Sealth Trail.”

  “That’s the opposite direction,” Kins said, meaning opposite to where the body lay.

  “I know,” Jensen said. “If he came up the sidewalk to the intersection, he had to have been hit at a high rate of speed.”

  “Parents know yet?” Tracy asked.

  “Not from us. Someone here, though, probably.”

  Tracy looked up at the array of dangling traffic lights and black wires strung between the telephone poles. The lights on Renton Avenue changed from green to red. “Any problem with the lights?”

  “None that I’ve detected,” Jensen said. “But we’ll get it confirmed.” He noticed Tracy looking south, at the significant hill coming down Renton Avenue before the street flattened at the intersection. “And no, we didn’t find any skid marks,” he said.

  “So the driver didn’t try to stop?” Tracy said.

  “No evidence of it,” Jensen said. “My guess, this was either a wrap or a forward projection.”

  Tracy knew a wrap was when the victim hit the car and wrapped around the hood. A forward projection was exactly what it sounded like.

  “Given the distance of the body from the intersection, I’d say it’s likely there was some damage to the front of the car,” Jensen said. “We’ll work to get the word out.”

  “What about cameras?” Faz considered the businesses on the four corners. An auto body shop had black gates over the windows and the door, as did the ground-floor windows of a three-story apartment building on the southeast corner. On one of the other two corners stood a mustard-colored commercial building with a dry cleaner. Across from it was a restaurant with a faded red awning. Weeds growing in the street-front windows indicated the restaurant had been out of business for some time.

  “Don’t know yet,” Jensen said.

  Williams removed his hands from his pockets. “Let’s get going. Del, Faz, find out if the tenants in the apartments saw anything or if the auto body business uses any cameras that picked up anything.”

  As Del and Faz departed, a female officer approached the group. “Detectives? Sorry to interrupt, but I think we found something.”

  The group followed her up the street to about ten feet from the intersection. “We didn’t initially see it because it’s clear,” the officer explained. She directed the beam of her flashlight to the ground, to a triangular piece of glass. To Tracy, it looked like the kind that covered a headlight.

  “Good find,” Jensen said. “Now all we need is the car to match it.”

  Tires screeched on the pavement, drawing everyone’s attention. A white, older-model Honda had come to an abrupt stop in the intersection. The driver’s door pushed open, and an African American woman jumped out from behind the wheel. Frantic, she left the engine running, the lights on, and the door open. “My son,” she said to no one and everyone. “Where’s my son?”

  Patrol officers moved quickly to restrain her, but she slapped at their hands. “I want to see my son. Where’s D’Andre?”

  The people on the street corners started to voice their agitation. The man Jensen had noted earlier stepped into the street. The mother turned to him. “Terry, where is he? Where’s D’Andre?”

  Crying, Terry pointed down the street to the white sheet.

  The mother put a hand to her mouth, but otherwise stopped moving. She melted, knees buckling and body collapsing onto the pavement, where she moaned and wailed. Tracy made her way to the woman. The man stood over her, seemingly uncertain about what to do. Tracy knelt and the woman raised her eyes. Tracy saw the same overwhelming grief she’d seen in her father’s and mother’s faces the night Sarah went missing.

  “I’m sorry,” Tracy whispered, thinking again of what Del had said in the restaurant.

  No parent should have to bury their child.

  The two dogs had not burst from the bedroom barking when Tracy entered the front door. Apparently they’d become accustomed to her working the night shift. She put her shoes on the bench seat, hung her jacket on one of the hooks, and made her way into the kitchen.

  Dan had remodeled the inside of the single-story stone-and-mortar cottage, opening the floor plan and refinishing dark oak floors that contained all the nicks and scars one expected in a farmhouse. The ceiling was pitched, with large wooden crossbeams, and a stone fireplace dominated the living area. Dan had found a company to build an insert with a blower so that a fire could heat the entire house for hours. A red leather couch, love seat, and area rugs delineated a living room, while an antique oak table and chairs defined the dining area. In the far corner, a comfortable chair and lamp provided a place to read. At the back of the building, a single bedroom barely fit their queen-size bed. The kitchen, adjacent to it, didn’t have room for a dishwasher, or more than two people at the same time.

  Tracy pulled a glass from a kitchen cabinet and filled it at the sink while staring out the back window, thinking again of the mother in the street, and of her own mother. A full moon shimmered over the horse pasture, painting the grass a sorrowful, pale blue. The world was weeping tonight.

  Dan had bought the five-acre farm and cottage because he liked how isolated it felt, much like his home in Cedar Grove, but Tracy had lived for years in downtown Seattle, and then in a West Seattle neighborhood. It was taking her longer to get used to how remote and quiet the farm could be, especially on nights like this, when she wanted a distraction, anything to divert her mind from the image of the white sheet and the grief-stricken mother who would never completely heal.

  Sherlock padded out from the bedroom, followed by Tracy’s cat, Roger. Tracy shut off the water, which had overflowed the rim of her glass. Roger popped up onto the kitchen counter, pacing and emitting a low mew. It had taken months, but Dan’s two dogs, Rex and Sherlock, 140-pound Rhodesian mastiffs, seemed finally uninterested in the cat.

  “You didn’t have to get up,” Tracy whispered to Sherlock, the more chivalrous of the two dogs. Sherlock gave her an inquisitive look. “Yeah, I know what you want.” She opened a cabinet and fetched him a dog biscuit. He didn’t immediately take it, looking up at her with mournful eyes, as if he could sense her pain. “It’s okay,” she said. “Go ahead.” Gently, he mouthed the biscuit. She kissed his head. “Don’t tell your brother.”

  She stepped lightly into the bedroom and undressed in the dark, slipping on a nightshirt and sliding beneath the comforter. She nuzzled into the pocket of warmth created by Dan’s smoldering body.

  “Hey,” Dan said, his voice groggy with sleep. He wrapped his arms around her. “You’re late. I tried to wait up.”

  She could still smell mint toothpaste on his breath. In the dark, Rex gave a high-pitched yawn, as if to tell them both to keep quiet. Roger jumped onto the bed, purring.

  “Sorry to wake you,” she said. He’d been busy at his law office in downtown Redmond, his reputation and caseload having followed him from Cedar Grove. With Tracy working the night shift, they didn’t see each other much in d
aylight. “We got another homicide.”

  “I figured as much. Bad?”

  She thought again of the body beneath the white sheet. Just a boy. A child. “Hit and run,” she said. “Twelve-year-old boy.”

  He kissed the top of her head and gently caressed her hair. “You okay?”

  In all the years that she’d gone home to an empty apartment, she’d always told herself she was okay, even when she hadn’t been. She didn’t have much choice. There wasn’t anyone to comfort her, and so she’d never learned how to be comforted. She was trying.

  “Not great,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.” He squeezed her tight. She felt his breath on her hair and the gentle rise and fall of his chest. “You want to talk about it?”

  She smiled. She’d be talking about it for many days. She’d be thinking about it for years. But tonight, Dan was tired. She was too. “Go to sleep.”

  “What time is your doctor’s appointment tomorrow?”

  She’d forgotten about Dr. Kramer at the fertility clinic. “Two.”

  “I can rearrange things and meet you there.”

  “It’s just to get the test results,” she said. “We can make a decision about what to do after we know.”

  Dan adopted a staccato, military cadence. “Well, for my part, I continue to remain fully available for the task at hand. And let me assure you that neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night shall keep me from my appointed task.”

  “We’re making a baby,” she whispered. “Not delivering the mail.”

  Dan had no worries. He’d already been tested, after having his vasectomy from his first marriage reversed. He’d walked into their Redmond home loudly proclaiming that he was “locked and loaded and shooting live ammo!”

  In other words, whatever their problem, it wasn’t him. So while a part of Tracy would have liked having Dan go to the doctor with her, another part didn’t want him present, didn’t want him to hear what she already suspected to be the test results. The problem, whatever it might be, was her.

  Dan released her and rolled onto his side. Within less than a minute, she could hear his peaceful breathing. She thought again of Shaniqua Miller, about the way she had crumbled in the street, her son’s death consuming her. She thought too of Del’s sister, Maggie, and how she must have felt when she’d walked into her daughter’s bedroom and found her child dead. She thought of her own mother’s complete and inconsolable agony, like a deep cut that would never heal.

  It made her think again of her desire to have a child, and she wondered if, maybe, not getting pregnant was a blessing, instead of a curse.

  CHAPTER 4

  Early Tuesday morning, before the wheels of justice had started to spit out civil decisions and criminal punishments, Delmo Castigliano walked the hallways of the King County Courthouse. The well-lit marble floors still emitted the faint odor of lemon from the janitor’s mop, but they did not yet teem with lawyers, courthouse personnel, or the citizens who had business within the courtrooms.

  Del found courthouses fascinating representations of a city and its population. Within its rooms people recited wedding vows, wills were probated after lives lived, and titles changed hands on land and on buildings. Fortunes were made and lost in civil suits. Lives were condemned in capital murder cases. Families were irrevocably altered. The building held so much joy and so much sorrow.

  And now Del had business in it.

  He’d lost his niece. His sister had lost her child. No arguments could be made or appeals filed to alter that fact. Man could not change what had occurred. Allie was not coming back.

  But he could bring those responsible to justice. Yes, he would.

  He’d called in a favor, unbeknownst to his captain, Johnny Nolasco, who had reluctantly given Faz the green light to find the dealer who’d sold Del’s niece the drugs. Del had agreed to take a backseat in that investigation, but he would not take a backseat when it came to finding closure for his sister. That was family business. That was Del’s business.

  He stepped from the hallway into the King County prosecutor’s office and advised the receptionist he had an appointment to see Rick Cerrabone.

  “He’s in trial,” the receptionist said.

  “He’s expecting me.”

  Moments after a phone call, Cerrabone appeared in an interior doorway and motioned for Del to follow him. Faz had once pointed out that the senior King County prosecutor, with dark bags beneath his eyes and a hound dog’s jowls, was a dead ringer for Joe Torre, the former Yankees manager. The description had become fixed in Del’s head.

  Del followed Cerrabone down a narrow hall into his cramped office. Every inch of space on his desk and floor was occupied by binders and stacks of paper. Cerrabone was Prosecuting Attorney Kevin Dunleavy’s right-hand man and handled most of the first-degree murder cases, including the death penalty cases, and he was in the grips of another one.

  “Sorry about the mess. We’re in the middle of the Westerberg trial.” Cerrabone closed the door, making the office feel even smaller. Del detected coffee and saw a mug on Cerrabone’s desk.

  “I heard. I hope this isn’t an inconvenience,” Del said.

  Cerrabone waved away the comment. “The judge gave us the morning off; one of the jurors called in to say her nanny was running late.” He sat in an ergonomic chair behind his desk—his back gimpy. Del sat in one of two cushioned chairs. The only indication Cerrabone had a personal life was a five-by-eight framed picture of his wife, also a prosecutor, though she used her maiden name. When you sent murderers to prison, you guarded your privacy. The prints on the wall were standard black-and-gray photographs of Seattle throughout the decades.

  “I’m sorry about your niece, Del.”

  “Thanks,” Del said, for what seemed the thousandth time. “Thanks for coming to the service.”

  “You look tired. You getting any sleep?”

  “We had a hit-and-run fatality last night. A twelve-year-old boy.”

  “I heard,” Cerrabone said. “It may end up on my desk.”

  The comment caught Del by surprise. Cerrabone usually only handled the MDOP cases, an acronym for the Most Dangerous Offender Program. “Why?”

  “Same reason you’re involved. The brass is worried about the public’s perception.”

  Del sighed. “Well, I appreciate your help on this matter,” he said, feeling guilty for having called Cerrabone for a favor, given how busy the prosecutor was.

  Again, Cerrabone dismissed it. “It’s not a problem, but I did ask an associate to run down the research and handle this while I’m in trial.” Cerrabone sifted through the stacks of papers on his desk, found the memorandum he was looking for, and handed it to Del. “Are you all right with that?”

  “Yeah, fine,” Del said.

  Cerrabone picked up his desk phone, hit a button, and said, “Can you come in?”

  A minute later, an attractive black woman opened the door as she knocked. “Come on in.” Cerrabone introduced them. “Celia McDaniel. Del Castigliano. Del’s the person I asked you to do that overdose research for.”

  McDaniel closed the door and crossed to Del, who’d stood to greet her. “The detective,” she said, her arm extended.

  Del shook her hand, a firm grip. He’d never met Celia McDaniel and estimated her to be between thirty-five and forty. She adjusted a navy-blue jacket over a cream blouse. A clip held long light-brown braids in place. He detected little, if any, makeup.

  “You’re new,” Del said.

  She sat in the chair beside him. “Hardly.” She smiled. “I’m new here.”

  “Celia worked drug cases in Georgia,” Cerrabone said. “She moved here just about six months ago and has been with us for two months.”

  “Long way to come,” Del said.

  “I was looking for a change of scenery.”

  “I think you got it. Wet and wetter.”

  “I like the rain,” she said.

  Cerrabone said, “I thought it might be faster to
have you tell Del your findings, in case he has questions.”

  “Sure.” McDaniel angled to face Del, crossing her legs. “First, I’m sorry about your niece.”

  “Thanks,” Del said. One thousand and one.

  “As I understand the facts, she . . . or a boyfriend, purchased heroin in the evening and she was dead the following morning.”

  “That’s what we believe. My sister hasn’t been in any shape to be of much help, but from what I do know, Allie suffocated on her vomit.” The final words caught in Del’s throat. He cleared it.

  “So we can most likely prove that the heroin she used that night is the heroin that killed her?” McDaniel asked gently.

  “Absolutely. She’d been clean for more than two months,” Del said, recovering. “We sent her to a rehab facility in Yakima.”

  “That’s not unusual,” McDaniel said, almost to herself. “If we can identify the person and prove he supplied the heroin that led to your niece’s death, we can charge him . . . or whoever the dealer is, with a controlled substance homicide under RCW 69.50.401.”

  “Homicide?” Del glanced at Cerrabone.

  “That’s correct,” McDaniel said.

  “What if he only delivered the heroin? What if he didn’t manufacture it?” Del asked.

  “The statute is relatively new and broad in its reach. It makes it unlawful for any person to manufacture, deliver, or possess with intent to manufacture or deliver a controlled substance.”

  Del wasn’t familiar with the statute, but liked what he was hearing. “What’s the punishment?”

  “It’s a Class B felony. If convicted, a person can get up to ten years, a maximum fine of twenty-five thousand dollars, or some combination of the two, if the crime involved less than two kilograms, which I’m assuming to be the case.”

  Ten years. Del was skeptical. “When’s the last time somebody was convicted under that statute?”

  “The penalty is being used more often with the recent proliferation of heroin and meth,” Cerrabone said, viewing Del over the top of bifocals, a legal pleading in his hands.