Skye Cree 03: The Bones Will Tell

by Vickie McKeehan

  “There’s no way it could’ve played out that way, Skye. It’s a coincidence, nothing more. Travis must’ve touched the woman’s scarf at some point.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  “What about Daniel’s fingerprints. Were they found on anything else with the remains? That might indicate more than the DNA on the scarf. Since he went through a detailed background check in order to get the civilian contractor’s job, his fingerprints have to be a matter of old military records.”

  Her brow creased into fine lines. “But that would mean Daniel might’ve had something to do with her death. Harry didn’t say a word about anything else in the evidence box pointing to Daniel as her killer. It was the DNA on the scarf he assumed matched Daniel’s.”

  “Like you said earlier, I’m grasping at straws. Nothing makes any sense.”

  “Unless it’s as you said, a coincidence. One thing I’m sure of is that Daniel did not kill Ellen. He was a kind man, Josh, a truly lovely soul who thought of other people before he ever did himself. I can’t imagine the man I knew and loved taking anyone’s life.” Her shoulders dropped. “I’m suddenly tired of talking about all this. I’m exhausted and ready for bed.”

  “Not going out tonight?”

  “Are you kidding? I doubt I’d do anyone much good. My brain refuses to engage. My body refuses to cooperate. Besides, I’m ready for that makeup sex now along with a good night’s sleep thrown in.”

  “Good thing I can take care of both,” he vowed, as he pulled her along back to the house.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The next morning as Travis cracked eggs into a bowl for scrambling he was still trying to figure out how his DNA got on that damn scarf. He’d spent the better part of the night brooding about it but all his theories had giant holes in them. Nothing made any sense.

  Skye wandered into the room, looking for coffee. He watched his daughter fill up a generous mug and then lean back on the counter to enjoy that first taste.

  “Good morning,” she finally uttered.

  “Feel better than you did yesterday?”

  “I do. Good night’s sleep, fresh air, what could be better?” She looked at him over the rim of her coffee. “Something’s on your mind.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” Travis began. “About one of the times Ellen came to the shop.”

  “Okay.”

  “One of those times, she and Jodie came back from lunch and Ellen’s car wouldn’t start. Jodie and I had to give her a ride home. That means Ellen was in my car for almost an hour. There was traffic on the 5 that day. It took some time to get her back to the base. I could have… I don’t know, touched her scarf or handed it off to her maybe. There has to be a logical explanation how my DNA got on part of her clothing.”

  “But you can’t think of even one. Was she wearing a scarf on one of the days she came into the shop?” She noted the disbelieving look on his face. “Okay, it’s been far too long for that kind of memory to stick,” Skye answered for him.

  Travis sent her a grateful look. “Hell if I remember what the woman was wearing. I barely remember what she looked like. But I can tell you this. She was driving, a sporty little Honda Prelude that shouldn’t have had mechanical problems that day. It couldn’t have had more than a year’s worth of wear and tear on it, if that.”

  “What was wrong with her car?”

  “Someone had tampered with her distributor cap. As I recall, she later had to have it towed back to the dealership.”

  “Interesting. Maybe someone was stalking her. I keep coming back to the ex.”

  “Isn’t it always the husband or boyfriend, ex or otherwise?”

  “Generally speaking,” Josh said from the doorway. “We’ve kicked this around quite a bit.” Josh nodded at Travis. “How long after you saw her that day, did she go missing?”

  “Good question,” Travis said in response, rubbing the back of his neck. “Maybe a week. But that’s a guess on my part.”

  “Could be the boyfriend, who wasn’t Daniel, followed Ellen to Jodie’s shop that day thinking she was seeing you, too. Wanted to get a good look at you,” Josh suggested.

  “Daniel and Travis did look alike. But these questions just tell me I need to find Ellen’s sister, approach her about this ex, or not so ex, and see if she remembers his name, what he looks like.”

  “Even if you could find her, Harry says her family still lives in the Los Angeles area. With things the way they are around here, we can’t go down there to talk to her in person,” Josh pointed out. “It isn’t practical right now for either one of us to leave.”

  “I agree we have way too much going on to take a road trip. And Leo’s too busy for a thorough search on the Internet. That’s why I’ll take care of finding Ellen’s sister myself.”

  “I can spare Leo, Skye. It isn’t that. You have access to any of my staff you think will help. But I still believe our best lead is the Judy Howe composite.”

  “I haven’t forgotten. I’m not without computer skills when it comes to doing searches, locating what I need, especially finding out last known addresses and phone numbers on someone. That’s fairly simple stuff.”

  Having said that though it turned out Harry had an old address for the Schreiber family. It took her most of the morning to locate the right relative, one who fit the age for Ellen’s sister. She got comfortable in Travis’s study, dialed the six-two-six area code for Pasadena and waited.

  She introduced herself when someone picked up. “Hi, my name’s Skye Cree. Are you Tracy Schreiber?”

  “I go by my married name now, Tracy Sands, even though I’ve been divorced for five years. Why?”

  “I tracked you down through an alumni association from your high school. I was wondering by any chance if you might be the sister or a relative of a murder victim we had some time back here in the Seattle area by the name of Ellen Schreiber.”

  Skye heard an intake of breath on the other end of the phone and the woman began to sob. “I’m sorry. I take it you knew Ellen?”

  “She was my sister. One of the sweetest girls you’d ever want to be around. No one in the family could believe it when Ellen wanted to join the army. She was the least likely person to follow rules and regulations back then. But she changed after basic training, got into the rhythm of the service. We supported her decision, of course. We had no way of knowing she’d end up murdered. She was only twenty-five. They’ve never even found who did it. Is this about her cold case?”

  “It is, yes. What can you tell me about the men she dated? Do you remember any names? Anything at all about them might help?”

  “Oh my God, you think it might’ve been someone she knew? That’s horrible.”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  “Well, let’s see. Once Ellen got to Tacoma, she had quite a social life. I mean, she always loved music and used to go out to clubs and concerts all the time. She did have one steady guy who seemed to always pop up or hang around whenever I talked to her. They’d break up and then get back together.”

  “On-again, off-again?”

  “Oh definitely. They spent quite a bit of time apart. His name was odd-sounding, something that always made me think of those Birkenstock shoes. Then there was another guy who was really nice to her. His first name was Daniel. I don’t remember his last name though. That doesn’t help you much, does it?”

  It was never her intent to discourage a victim’s family, so she replied with an upbeat tone in her voice without being specific. “You know, it’s always the little things that help a case turn the corner. We’re hoping anything you remember might make it pop.”

  “For the last ten years or so I believed Ellen might have been killed by that Ridgway guy. You know? But when they arrested him and the story made the news, I called the Seattle PD for details. The detective couldn’t give me much hope on that score though. So we’ve waited for the last two decades for any word, anything at all. My mother died four years ago without knowing what hap
pened to her youngest girl. My father died last year. They were both brokenhearted at losing Ellen.”

  When Skye ended the call she was more determined than ever. Maybe back in the nineties they didn’t have a clue who had killed Ellen, but now she would do her damnedest to find the woman’s killer. She would do it to clear any suspicion from Daniel and to give Ellen and her family some long overdue answers.

  Chapter Eighteen

  At an upscale bar near Pike Place Market he nursed his glass of Johnny Walker Red sitting at a table in the back. The pub was dim and noisy but it made for an almost perfect perch to watch Selma Tolliver meet up with her friends from work.

  Her little outing gave him opportunity. He couldn’t very well approach her as long as she was with her friends. That would leave an impression, an imprint. Someone could remember the man she’d talked to at the bar. No, this way, there would be nothing to tie him to Selma.

  Instead of dwelling on the ‘how to’ of intercepting her, he’d have to play it by ear, play out the entire scene with aplomb and patience until he got what he wanted. He didn’t doubt for a second that by the end of the night Selma would be his.

  He wasn’t worried. The only thing he needed to get around was the pesky security cameras in the bar, in the parking lot and the one across the street. It reminded him how good he was at what he did. In twenty years he hadn’t been caught because he’d kept up with technology. He’d been willing to change his methods and he’d learned on the job and continued to evolve over time.

  When he heard Selma laugh he turned to stare. He doubted the prudish woman would go easy. Selma might be a little older than he was used to but age didn’t matter when abducting her would make another in-your-face statement.

  He wanted Skye Cree to remember without a doubt that he was around. He wanted her to know he was nipping at her heels.

  Selma relished these nights out on the town with her friends. As an accountant with one of Seattle’s best firms she sometimes put in a seventy-hour workweek, especially during tax season. With her head jammed with things like capital gains and deductions it was one reason why she and her associates tried to plan one of these happy hour gatherings at least once a month. Plus, since her ugly divorce three years earlier, Selma made a point to get out more to socialize. She had to. At forty-three, she wasn’t getting any younger.

  She made her way off the elevator and into the garage parking to where she’d left her silver Lexus. Her heels clacked all the way on the pavement making an echo sound. The dark lot had her considering the late hour. She reminded herself that Seattle was one of the safest cities in the country.

  Maybe she should have taken Tyler Elliott up on his offer to walk her to the car. The good-looking CPA had flirted with her all evening. But when he’d asked, she’d had to pee really bad. By the time she’d gone to the restroom and returned to the table, all her friends had left the bar, including the hunky Tyler.

  When her vehicle came into view, she let out a sigh of relief. Her car was one of several still sitting among a throng of late-night partiers. She got a kick out of being one of them. Even that small thing made her feel a bit more at ease.

  Pressing the remote on her key ring, she slid neatly into the driver’s seat. She made sure her doors were locked and started the engine.

  She headed toward the exit and her loft, a short eight blocks away. With her mind on Tyler Elliott, she drummed her fingers on the steering wheel to Blondie’s Heart of Glass. When she had to stop for the red light at the intersection of Valiant and Premier, she turned up the volume on the CD player. All at once, she heard the sound of a police siren, three short bursts coming from behind her. It made her look up into the rearview mirror but all she saw were a set of bright lights. Checking her side mirror, she saw the officer jump from his vehicle. It didn’t look like Seattle PD, but he tapped on her window anyway.

  Her first impulse was to keep it rolled up.

  “Have you been drinking?”

  That question and the badge he flashed ended any reservations. Selma hit the button to lower the glass—and saw the barrel of a gun leveled at her face.

  Chapter Nineteen

  By one-thirty, Skye was exhausted. She’d stuck Judy’s composite drawing under at least fifty noses without getting any reasonable results. Oh, there had been plenty of people who had insisted the sketch looked familiar. The boozehound trying to catch a nap on Howell was convinced it was the guy down the block panhandling, encroaching on his territory. The bartender at Magistrate’s believed it looked like the man behind the counter at the convenience store on Freemont. The streetwalker on Darrow felt like it resembled the cop who walked the beat between Fourth and Bell. But no lead panned out, nothing came of any of it.

  Her boots were beginning to pinch her heel. Her feet were starting to cramp. Her head ached from defeat. It wasn’t the first time in eight years that Skye had grown weary of the hunt. But it was the first time she felt like giving up.

  She turned to Josh. “Look, it’s the weekend. Let’s take some time and do something for us. We have the move coming up. I say we’re entitled to take a day or two off from this crazy pace we’re keeping.”

  Josh eyeballed the woman he loved. She’d been hinting at it for weeks. Dropping little nuggets that she’d grown fed up with the slow progress of the case. But this was the first indication she’d actually broken and given in, the first time she’d suggested they shirk patrols two nights in a row.

  “You mean not go out tonight either?”

  “If we do go out, we go somewhere other than the streets. Let’s do something for ourselves for a change.”

  “Take the whole weekend off?”

  In the dim light from the street, she stopped walking to meet his eyes. “Why is that so difficult to understand? I’m saying as clearly as I can that I need some time off from this case, if for no other reason than to have time to think because it’s driving me nuts. We’re no closer to nabbing him than the day the box showed up.”

  “We are making progress, Skye. You have a piece of paper in your hand with a decent likeness of what he looks like.”

  “Fifteen years ago,” She pointed out. “From a woman who has been too afraid to leave her apartment all that time. For all we know he could have been in a car accident and had plastic surgery to change his appearance by now.”

  Josh rolled his eyes. “You’re reaching because you’re tired. I suggest we swing through the harbor area and call it a night. How does that sound? Then tomorrow we reassess taking two nights off.”

  He picked up her hand, placed a kiss on the palm. “Let me take you to dinner Saturday night. Someplace that has tablecloths and candlelight, somewhere we have to dress up to get in the door.”

  “It’ll be our date night.”

  They settled on that as they made their last pass of the night through the neighborhood. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, the two headed down the quiet streets to make their way back home.

  Their much-needed day off began by sleeping till almost noon. Wrapped in a sheath of soft blankets, they lay bundled basking in the late-morning hour.

  “It feels downright indulgent to wake up this late, rested and refreshed. Nine hours of uninterrupted sleep is what I call bliss.”

  “We haven’t done this since St. Kitts. I’m starving.” When she started to move out of bed, he snagged her hand. “But first, we should stay right where we are and make the most of the situation.” To prove it, he rolled on top of her.

  “So there’s a situation?” She asked with a lazy stretch of legs and arms while he made the point with his mouth.

  In between velvet kisses, she nibbled an earlobe, ran her lips along his throat. “Then you should definitely take advantage of me, maybe a couple of times, as long as you’re thorough. Are you thorough, Josh? Do you take care of the little details?”

  “I like to think so. But talk is cheap. How about I show you?” He cruised to a delectable part of her neck before running his tongue down
to the fleshy curve of a breast. Pulling, tugging, savoring the textures, he made his way down her long, lean torso.

  “I like being married. Who knew there would be so many perks?”

  That sentiment had him looking up into her shimmering eyes and grinning. “Yep, the benefits package is great.”

  Her laugh, rich and smooth, was playful in return. Because she could, she held onto his hips, bucked up, took him into her. “Yeah, I like the way the benefits package fits. It’s a real bonus.”

  That got him laughing as he shifted deeper, found a fluid tempo. Clinging to each other, that tempo quickened. The ultimate fall came in shattering feathers of glowing light around the fringes.

  Breathless, they lay bound, still linked as one. He trailed fingers through her loose hair. “I’m a lucky man.”

  She guffawed with laughter. “Damn straight you are, especially this morning. And I’m not about to let you forget it.”

  Later, Skye discovered they didn’t even have a box of cold cereal in the house. In fact, they were fortunate to have enough coffee beans for a full pot of brew.

  “Who runs out of Cheerios?” Josh wanted to know, his head stuck in the cupboards as he dug past four different kinds of cracker boxes, each containing no more than four crackers.

  “People hunting for a killer, people too busy to stop at the grocery store to pick up a carton of milk.” Studying the contents of the fridge, she ran through the inventory. “We have exactly four eggs and some frozen hash browns in the freezer. It’s either peanut butter on crackers or I throw together a scrambled mixture with potatoes. Your choice?”

  “At this point I’d settle for a stale piece of bread. We don’t even have an apple or a bottle of orange juice.”

  “I know. The pantry is down to the stash of stale crackers, a box of macaroni and a jar of olives. You could eat the olives with the eggs,” she suggested.