A Steep Price (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 6)

by Robert Dugoni

“No, it was seconds.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then she went into the apartment Lopez had come out of. There was a woman inside, sitting on the floor pressed against the wall. She was shielding a small child. Both were screaming.”

  “What was the woman screaming?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, you know, she was crying.”

  “You couldn’t hear her because of the ringing in your ears?”

  “Gonzalez asked her something in Spanish and she responded in Spanish.”

  “What do you weigh?”

  Faz paused again. “Is that relevant?”

  Pinnacle stared at him. “I don’t know.”

  “I’m about two hundred and seventy pounds.”

  Pinnacle wrote the number on his pad of paper. Then he sat back. “When Gonzalez went into the apartment, what did you do?”

  “I looked at the suspect to ensure he was dead. And I looked for a gun.”

  “Was he dead?”

  “Very.”

  “Did you find a gun?”

  “I didn’t see one. I saw a phone near his right hand. I thought maybe he’d fallen on the gun.”

  “Did you look beneath him?”

  “Not then.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I cuffed Lopez, then went into the apartment with Gonzalez and helped clear the rooms.”

  “What was Gonzalez doing?”

  “Like I said, there was a woman and a child in the apartment, huddled in the corner. They were crying, hysterical. Gonzalez was speaking to them in Spanish.”

  “You couldn’t understand her?”

  “No. But I’m pretty sure she was asking the name of the man in the hallway.”

  “And what did the woman tell Detective Gonzalez?”

  “She said it was Eduardo Lopez.”

  “Detective Fazzio, did you ever find a gun?”

  “I did not.”

  “What about inside the apartment? Did you find a gun inside that apartment?”

  “The apartment that the woman and child were in? No. We didn’t have a search warrant for that apartment, so we only conducted a visual search of the vicinity for our safety.”

  “And you didn’t go into the suspect’s apartment?”

  “No. We waited for CSI.”

  “The death of Monique Rodgers . . . that’s your only open case, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You and Detective Castigliano have solved every homicide in your careers. Is that also correct?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And Lopez was your only lead in the Rodgers case, am I right about that also?”

  “To this point, yes.”

  “Anything else you’d like to add?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll shut off the tape.”

  Pinnacle did so. Then he looked across the table. “Thank you, Detective. We’re done here.”

  Faz gathered his phone. He wanted to believe Pinnacle, but he knew from experience that this wasn’t the end of the matter. Not by a long shot.

  CHAPTER 29

  Tracy and Kins’s conversation with Bellevue Police Department Captain Ray Giacomoto was professional and direct. Giacomoto wanted to know what Tracy and Kins were doing “on this side of the lake” and why they hadn’t called his department.

  “The victim was a Seattle resident and the missing persons report was filed with Seattle PD,” Tracy said. “We didn’t come here thinking we’d stumble on a body. We were tracking her cell phone. When we found the victim, I thought it best to get the site processed before any further time elapsed and possible evidence disappeared.”

  Giacomoto grinned. “We’re fully equipped to process a crime scene, Detective. I think you know that.”

  “Absolutely,” Tracy said.

  “So what was the rush? Did you know the victim?”

  “Only what I’ve learned through interviews of her roommate and her family. We’ve been investigating the victim’s disappearance for a few days now.”

  “The body wasn’t going anywhere fast,” Giacomoto said again.

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Which would put it in Bellevue jurisdiction.”

  “Maybe, but I had no way of knowing, and we still don’t know definitively that the victim was killed here. There’re no footprints around the hole. So the initial opinion of the tracker is she was killed elsewhere and the body dumped here.” Tracy didn’t say that the initial opinion was Kavita Mukherjee was killed elsewhere in the park. “It has also been a long time since we’ve had any rain,” Tracy said. “And the newsmen were forecasting that thunderstorm. So, as I said, I thought it best to get the site processed before any footprints or other possible evidence might have washed away.”

  Giacomoto didn’t look fully convinced, but for the moment he seemed content to let her do her job. “We’re going to want copies of all the reports,” he said.

  “Not a problem,” Tracy said.

  “As for jurisdiction, I suspect that’s a decision higher up both our chains of command; until then, I’m happy to sit back and let you run this show.”

  They turned to the sound of someone approaching. Kelly Rosa had climbed out of the hole. She looked very much like an archaeologist on a dig, with dirt clinging to the cuffs of her blue jeans just above sturdy boots, and along the brim of a Mariners baseball cap. Rosa flipped off her headlamp so she didn’t blind them and pulled down a mask that had been covering her nose and mouth. She then removed latex gloves and wiped dirt from the tail of her shirt. Her gait was awkward from rubber kneepads.

  “That’s a new look for you,” Kins said, pointing to the pads.

  “Saw them at Costco,” she said. “They’re for tile workers. The knees aren’t as young as they used to be.”

  “I thought you were trying out to be a catcher,” Kins said.

  “Yeah, well the Mariners could use somebody who can actually hit,” she said. Then, after a pause, she said, “I can tell you it wasn’t a robbery, or if it was, it was perpetrated by the stupidest robbers on the planet.” Barely five feet tall, Rosa had a seven-foot personality. “She has twelve dollars in her pocket along with a Washington State driver’s license and a credit card, a gold chain around her neck, and a gold bracelet on her wrist.”

  “So no robbery and the killer wasn’t trying to conceal her identity,” Kins said.

  “Except for the fact that the killer dumped her in a hole in the ground covered by brush,” Giacomoto said.

  “Nobody likes a showoff,” Kins said.

  “You said ‘dumped.’ So this wasn’t an accident?” Tracy said.

  “No,” Rosa said. “I don’t believe it was.”

  “What do you believe it was?” Giacomoto asked.

  Rosa raised an arm and imitated blows to the skull as she said, “She died from blunt-force trauma—several blows to the side of her head. I’d say two, maybe three. We won’t know the number without some close-up photography of the injury. She was struck on the right side by something irregular shaped, a rock most likely. I’d have some of these uniforms searching the park for a rock with blood on it.”

  “Could be like finding a needle in a haystack,” Kins said. “A five-hundred-acre haystack.”

  “Or the killer could have just dropped it and it’s still around here,” Rosa said.

  “You’re certain the killer used a rock?” Giacomoto said.

  “Not until we do some work under the microscope, but I’d say it’s a strong probability.”

  “So she was killed here in the park?” Giacomoto asked.

  “Not for me to say,” Rosa said, and Tracy sensed the medical examiner was cutting her some slack. “I can say she wasn’t killed in or near the hole, but as to where . . .” She shrugged.

  “I’ll get some of my uniforms to do a search of the park,” Giacomoto said to Tracy. “Have you had someone go over the trails yet?”

  Tracy nodded. “It’s being done, b
ut I always appreciate another set of eyes.”

  Giacomoto handed Rosa a card. “I’d like a copy of your report when it’s ready,” he said before departing.

  Rosa’s statement made Kaylee Wright’s hypothesis—that Mukherjee had been carried to the hole and dumped—one step closer to a theory.

  “What else?” Tracy asked.

  “There’s little blood in the hole. If she fell and hit her head, she would have bled out and I’d expect a lot more. Livor mortis is consistent with the position of the body in the hole,” Rosa said, “but that’s probably because she was killed and quickly moved.” Rosa was referencing the purplish discoloration that, in death, settled in areas of the body closest to the ground. “When was she last seen alive?”

  “Monday evening,” Tracy said. “Early, around six o’clock.”

  Rosa turned back toward the hole, talking as if to herself. “No rigor mortis, so she’s been dead at least twelve hours, but probably longer than that. She has abdominal discoloration and some bloating indicating at least thirty-six to forty-eight hours, as well as the preliminary indications of marbling of the skin.”

  “So, Monday night is a possibility,” Tracy said.

  “Definitely a possibility, but we’ll get it figured out and narrowed.”

  “For somebody to hit her multiple times in the head with a rock . . . ,” Kins said.

  “Yeah, I know where you’re going,” Rosa said. “These were significant blows too.”

  “Somebody angry,” Kins said.

  Rosa shrugged. “That’s for you guys to prove, but I can say the force of the blows are consistent with someone who meant to cause damage. We’re getting ready to move the body. Then the site is all yours.”

  “Any indication of sexual assault?” Tracy asked, mentally going through her checklist and ticking off boxes.

  “Won’t know for certain until we get her to the lab, but there’s no evidence of a struggle, no torn or ripped articles of clothing, no cuts or scratches, fingernails look clean, but again we’ll get that figured out.”

  “Wonder if you can take a little while putting together your report,” Tracy said.

  “I’m pretty busy,” Rosa said, smiling. “And I can be called away at a moment’s notice.” She winked and walked back to the grave.

  As Rosa departed, Tracy said to Kins, “Not a robbery and probably not a rape. Significant blows to the head.”

  “You said she had no boyfriend?”

  “Not that we know of, but she was on a date.”

  Tracy again turned to the sound of people approaching. This time a uniformed officer holding a clipboard led a woman in brown pants with multiple pockets, boots, and a black heavy-duty Carhartt jacket.

  “Detectives,” the officer said. “This is Margo Paige. She’s the park ranger in charge of this park.”

  Tracy extended a hand and introduced herself and Kins. “How long have you worked this park?” she asked.

  Paige’s gaze kept shifting past Tracy to the tent over the hole. She had a soft voice, though deeper than Tracy expected. “About three years now.”

  “So you’re fairly familiar with it.”

  “As much as one can be, yes.”

  “Come with me.” She led Paige down the path CSI had designated and stopped at the crime scene tape tied to the tent poles. “Are you familiar with that hole?”

  Paige looked confused. “Familiar as in what?”

  “Did you know it existed?” Tracy asked.

  “It wasn’t dug?” Paige asked.

  “Not recently,” Tracy said.

  Paige shook her head. “No, I didn’t know anything about it. If I had, I would have had it filled in.”

  “How prevalent are holes like this in this park?” Tracy asked.

  Paige looked to be giving the question some thought. “You have to remember this park is just about five hundred acres, Detective, with more than twenty-eight miles of trails, and houses bordering the perimeter, but to my knowledge I’d say that it is not prevalent. In fact, I’m not aware of any others.”

  “None?” Kins said.

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Any idea what it is? How it got here?” Tracy asked.

  Paige nodded. “Given its relative proximity to the houses that butt up against the park,” she said, pointing to lights on the back of the homes, “I’d guess it’s an old well, probably bootlegged years ago by someone long-since gone.”

  “Could it be anything else?”

  Paige shrugged. “It’s possible it also could be erosion from the ball root of a downed tree, exacerbated by the heavy rains we had this past winter. Storms can uproot trees, and rain will erode the soil beneath it and make the ground covering grow faster. How deep and wide is the hole?”

  “Six to eight feet deep. Four feet wide, roughly,” Tracy said.

  Paige shook her head. “No. No way. More likely it’s an old well.”

  “Have you had any incidents of people falling into an old well before?”

  “I haven’t, no. But I’m aware of an incident that happened about a decade ago, before I got here. As I understand it, a young woman was riding a horse through the park when the horse came out from under her. She said it was like the horse stepped on a trap door. The fall killed the horse. It might have killed the woman but she’d managed to jump off. There could be a report in storage. I can take a look for it tomorrow.”

  “So the odds that somebody might have just stumbled onto this hole by chance aren’t likely,” Kins said.

  “Hard to say. That horse and rider weren’t out looking for a hole. I guess, from my perspective, I’d be asking why, if someone did know of this hole, they didn’t tell anyone about it so we could have filled it in.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Faz pulled into his driveway exhausted, frustrated, and confused. Larry Pinnacle could tell him until the cows came home that he just wanted to get Faz’s story, but Faz knew when a detective was trying to poke holes in answers and hoping one of those holes might rip open wide enough to cast the whole story in doubt.

  The question was, Why?

  What Pinnacle had conducted, awkwardly perhaps, was an interrogation, and he’d hinted that Faz’s and Gonzalez’s stories were not aligning. Pinnacle seemed most interested in who had yelled Gun! On the drive home, Faz had gone over a potential scenario in which Gonzalez told Pinnacle that Faz had yelled Gun! He concluded there were three potential reasons she might have done so. Either, in the stress of the situation, Gonzalez misremembered what had happened. She was deliberately lying. Or Faz had yelled Gun!

  Faz dismissed option three based on the evidence. How could he have yelled when he had his back to the apartment door from which Lopez had emerged? He didn’t see Lopez, let alone conclude that Lopez had been holding a gun. That left options one and two. Gonzalez was either misremembering what had happened, or she was lying.

  It would have been easy to conclude Gonzalez was lying to protect her career, but Faz knew it was not that simple. SPD detectives had recently taken a simulated course in de-escalating high-stress scenarios as part of the Justice Department’s reforms to reduce the perceived use of violent force. Faz and Del had entered the mandatory training like teenagers being forced to learn a foreign language. They saw little point to it, particularly given their already extended time on the police force. They quickly changed their tune. The class revealed that high-stress encounters with an armed suspect significantly impacted an officer’s recollection, even an officer with experience. In fact, two officers working as partners could have drastically different recalls about what had happened, and often both were wrong. Seasoned officers recalled seeing guns where none existed, and mistook hands being raised in surrender for an act of aggression.

  Faz couldn’t help but wonder if Gonzalez’s memory had been similarly tainted.

  He looked up at his and Vera’s bedroom window on the second floor. He’d called Vera after the interview, but he hadn’t said anything of subst
ance. She didn’t need any more worry on her plate. He’d told her he was completing paperwork. He was about to tell Vera not to wait up, though she always did, but she’d beaten him to that punch.

  “I’m tired. It’s been a long couple of days. I’m going to go to bed.”

  Faz quietly entered through the back door and climbed the stairs to their bedroom. From the top step he could see her shape beneath the covers, illuminated in a shaft of blue-gray light from the window. The four windowpanes created a cross on the quilt, a peaceful tableau that reminded him of a Norman Rockwell painting, a seemingly perfect portrait of life, without a hint of its often harsh realities.

  As Faz stepped into the room, Vera stirred. “Vic?” She turned toward the door, her voice groggy from sleep.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Sorry to wake you.”

  “No, it’s okay. I was watching television. What time is it?”

  “It’s after midnight.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’ll tell you in the morning. Everything is fine. It’s all worked out.” He sat on the edge of the bed to untie his shoes.

  “You’re okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m good,” he said and thought of the hundreds of times Vera had asked him that question and how few times he’d asked her. “You doing okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Was it the person who put his hand on the Volkswagen?”

  Faz stood and put his shoes inside his closet. “Yeah. It was.”

  “What happened?”

  He undid his belt and slid off his slacks as he spoke. “We were knocking on the door of his last known address, and suddenly the door to an apartment behind me opened and the guy walked out. My partner shot him.”

  “Del?”

  He’d not told Vera that Del had thrown out his back. “No. Del was home with a bad back. It was a new detective.”

  “Did he kill him?”

  He hung the pants on a hook inside his closet door. “She. She killed him. More brass down there than in a marching band. You know how it is now—FIT got involved and I had to go into Park 95 and provide an interview.”

  “Are you on administrative leave?”

  He climbed into bed. “Yeah, but I’m sure it will only be a couple of days. They’ll make me see a shrink before I get cleared. It will be fine.”