“Various channels,” Vanpelt said.
“What can I do for you, Ms. Vanpelt?”
She said the name loud enough to get Kins’s attention across the bull pen. Kins picked up his phone without even bothering to acknowledge her. They had a system in place.
“I’m hoping to get a comment for a story I’m working on.”
“What’s your story about?” Tracy mentally flipped through her case files. Only the Nicole Hansen investigation came to mind, and she had nothing new to discuss.
“Actually, it’s about you.”
Tracy leaned back in her chair. “And what makes me suddenly so interesting?” she asked.
“I understand your sister was murdered twenty years ago and that her remains were recently found. I was hoping you would be willing to discuss it?”
The question gave Tracy pause. She sensed more at play. “Who did you hear this from?”
“I have an assistant who goes through the court files,” Vanpelt said, dismissing the question with a bullshit answer—but one intended to let Tracy know that Vanpelt knew about Dan’s motion for post-conviction relief. “Would now be a good time to talk?”
“I don’t think that story has much public appeal.” Her second line began to buzz. She looked over at Kins, who held the receiver in his hand, but now she was curious as to what Vanpelt knew. “What’s the premise?”
“I think that’s pretty self-evident, don’t you?”
“Enlighten me.”
“A Seattle homicide detective who spends her days putting murderers behind bars seeks to free the man convicted of murdering her sister.”
Kins gave her a “what’s up?” shrug.
Tracy raised a finger. “Is that part of the court files?”
“I’m an investigative reporter, detective.”
“Who’s your source?”
“My sources are confidential,” Vanpelt said.
“You like to keep certain information private.”
“That’s right.”
“So you know how I feel. It’s a private matter. I intend to keep it private.”
“I’m going to report the story, detective. It would be better to have your side of the story when I do.”
“Better for me or better for you?”
“Is that a ‘no comment’?”
“I said it’s a private matter, and I intend to keep it private.”
“Can I quote you?”
“It’s what I said.”
“I understand the attorney, Dan O’Leary, was a childhood friend of yours. Care to comment on that?”
Calloway. Except the Sheriff would not have called Vanpelt. He would have called Nolasco, Tracy’s superior. Rumors swirled that Nolasco was one of the men doing the hokey-pokey with Vanpelt and providing her with information. “Cedar Grove is a small town. I knew a lot of people growing up there.”
“Did you know Daniel O’Leary?”
“There’s only one middle school and one high school.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“You’re an investigative reporter; I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
“Did you recently accompany Mr. O’Leary to meet with Edmund House at the Walla Walla State Penitentiary? I’ve obtained a copy of Mr. House’s visitor list for the month. Your name appears just above Mr. O’Leary’s name.”
“Then print that.”
“So you won’t comment?”
“As I said, this is a private matter unrelated to my job. Speaking of which, my other line is ringing.” Tracy hung up the phone and swore under her breath.
“What did she want?” Kins asked.
Tracy looked across the bull pen. “To stick her nose up my ass.”
“Vanpelt?” Faz slid his chair back from his desk. “That’s her specialty.”
“She says she’s doing a story about Sarah, but she’s more focused—” She decided not to finish her thought.
Kins said, “Don’t sweat it too much. You know Vanpelt, the facts don’t interest her.”
“She’ll get bored and go make up another story,” Faz said.
Tracy wished it was that easy. She knew Vanpelt hadn’t found the story on her own. It had to have come from Calloway, and that meant Calloway was talking to Nolasco, who didn’t need much to make Tracy’s life miserable.
It also wasn’t the first time Calloway had threatened to get Tracy fired from her job.
The students in the front of the classroom flinched and leaned back when the spark shot a crackling white bolt across the gap between the two spheres. Tracy cranked the handle of the electrostatic generator, increasing the speed of the two rotating metal discs that caused the bolt to continue firing. “Lightning, ladies and gentlemen, is one of nature’s most dramatic illustrations of the energy form scientists like James Wimshurst and Benjamin Franklin sought to harness,” she said.
“Wasn’t he the dude who flew the kite in a storm?”
Tracy smiled. “Yes, Steven, he is the dude who flew the kite in a storm. What he and those other ‘dudes’ were trying to determine was whether energy could be converted into electricity. Can someone point to hard evidence that they succeeded?”
“The lightbulb,” Nicole said.
Tracy released the handle. The spark died. Her freshmen sat in pairs at tables equipped with a sink, Bunsen burner, and microscope each. Tracy turned on a water faucet at a front table. “It helps if you think of electricity as a fluid capable of flowing through objects. When an electric current flows we call that what, Enrique?”
“A current,” he said, generating laughs.
“I meant, when an electric current can flow through a substance we call that substance . . . ?”
“A conductor.”
“Can you provide me with an example of a conductor, Enrique?”
“People.”
The students again laughed.
“No joke,” Enrique said. “My uncle was working a construction job in the rain, and he cut through an electrical line and nearly killed himself, except another guy yanked him off the saw.”
Tracy paced the front of the room. “All right, let’s discuss that scenario. When Enrique’s uncle cut through the electrical line, what happened to the flow of electricity?”
“It flowed into his body,” Enrique said.
“Which would be evidence the human body is, in fact, a conductor. But if that is the case, why didn’t the coworker get shocked when he touched Enrique’s uncle?”
When no student responded, Tracy reached below her desk and retrieved a nine-volt battery and a lightbulb in a bulb holder. Two lengths of copper wire extended from the battery, and a third wire extended from the bulb holder. The opposite ends were alligator clips. Tracy attached the alligator clips to a piece of rubber tubing. “Why didn’t the bulb light?”
No one answered.
“What if the worker who touched Enrique’s uncle was wearing rubber gloves? What could we conclude?”
“Rubber isn’t a conductor,” Enrique said.
“That’s right, rubber is not a conductor. So the power from the battery will not flow through the rubber tubing.” Tracy attached the clips to a large nail. The bulb lit. “Nails,” Tracy said, “are made up mostly of iron. So what can we conclude about iron?”
“Conductor,” the class said in unison.
The bell rang. Tracy raised her voice over the obnoxious clang and the scraping of barstool legs on linoleum. “Your homework is on the board. We will continue our discussion of electricity on Wednesday.”
Back at her desk, Tracy began to put away the demonstration, preparing for her next period. The volume of noise from the hallways increased, which meant someone had opened the door to her classroom. “If you have questions, please see me during my regular office hours; you’ll find them posted on my door along with a sign-up sheet.”
“This won’t take long.”
Tracy turned toward the voice. “I’m preparing for a class.”
Roy Calloway let the door shut behind him. “You want to tell me what it is you think you’re doing?”
“I just did.”
Calloway approached her table. “Questioning the integrity of a witness who had the courage to come forward and do his civic duty?”
Hagen had called Calloway, which Tracy had thought likely when he’d shut the door in her face that Saturday. “I didn’t question his integrity. Did he tell you I questioned his integrity?”
“You did everything but call him a liar.” Calloway leaned his palms flat on her table. “You want to tell me what you think you’re trying to accomplish?”
“I just asked him the news program he was watching.”
“That is not your place, Tracy. The trial is over. The time for asking questions is done.”
“Not all the questions got asked.”
“Not all the questions needed to be asked.”
“Or answered?”
Calloway pointed a finger at her, the way he used to when she was young. “Leave it alone. Okay? Let it be. I know you also drove to Silver Springs and have been talking to bartenders.”
“Why didn’t you, Roy? Why didn’t you check to make sure House wasn’t telling the truth?”
“I didn’t need to check to know he was lying.”
“How, Roy? How did you know?”
“Fifteen years of police work, that’s how. So we’re clear, I don’t want to hear about you ordering any more transcripts or harassing witnesses. I do, and I’ll have a talk with Jerry and tell him how one of his teachers isn’t committed to teaching, that she’d rather play junior detective. Do you understand?”
Jerry Butterman was Cedar Grove High’s principal. Tracy fumed at the fact that Calloway would threaten her this way. At the same time, she wanted to laugh. He had no idea the threat was hollow, no idea that Tracy did not intend to play “junior detective.” She’d decided to jump in with both feet. At the end of the school year, she’d leave Cedar Grove and move to Seattle to join the police academy. “Do you know why I became a chemistry teacher, Roy?”
“Why?”
“It’s because I could never just accept the way things were. I needed to know why they were that way. It used to drive my parents crazy, me always asking ‘why.’ ”
“House is in prison. That’s all you need to know.”
“I tell my students it’s not the result that’s important. It’s the evidence. If the evidence is circumspect, so is the result.”
“And if you want to continue teaching your students, I’d suggest you take my advice and focus on being a teacher.”
“That’s the thing, Roy. I’ve already made that decision too.” The bell rang and the door to the classroom was pulled open. Tracy’s fourth-period students hesitated at the sight of Cedar Grove’s sheriff standing in their classroom. “Come on in,” Tracy said, stepping out from behind her table. “Take your seats. Chief Calloway was just leaving.”
CHAPTER 30
Late in the afternoon, Tracy and Kins returned from Kent. They’d interviewed an accountant whose fingerprint had matched a latent print that CSI had recently pulled from the motel room where Nicole Hansen had suffocated. “Did he confess?” Faz asked.
“Praise the Lord and hallelujah,” Kins said. “He’s a regular Bible-toting, psalm-spewing churchgoer who just happens to also have a proclivity for young prostitutes. He also has a rock-solid alibi for the night Hansen strangled herself.”
“So why the print?” Faz asked.
“He’d been in that room the week before with a different young lady.”
Tracy dumped her purse inside her cabinet. “You should have seen the look on his face when I said we’d need to talk to his wife to confirm he was really asleep beside her the night Hansen died.”
“Looked like he’d seen the Lord himself,” Kins said.
“That’s our job,” Faz said. “Solving murders and helping people find religion.”
“Praise the Lord.” Kins waved his hands over his head.
“You thinking of a career change?” Billy Williams stood just outside their bull pen. Williams had been promoted to Detective Sergeant of the A Team when Andrew Laub had made Lieutenant. “Because if you are, let me tell you as someone raised Baptist in the south, you’re going to need to be a lot more convincing than that to get people to open up their wallets.”
“We were just talking about another witness in the Hansen case,” Kins said.
“Anything we can work with?”
“Wasn’t there that night. Doesn’t know Hansen. Feels awful and will go forth and sin no more.”
“Praise the Lord,” Faz said.
Williams looked to Tracy. “Got a minute?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
He turned and nodded over his shoulder for her to follow him.
“Ooh, the Professor is in trouble,” Faz said.
Tracy gave them a shrug, made a face, and followed Williams to the soft interrogation room around the corner and down the hall. Williams closed the door behind her.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Your phone’s going to ring. The brass have been meeting.”
“What about?”
“Are you helping some lawyer get the guy who killed your sister a new trial?”
She and Williams had a good relationship. As a black man, Williams could relate to the subtle and not-so-subtle discrimination Tracy had encountered as a woman in a predominantly male occupation. “It’s complicated, Billy.”
“No shit. So it’s true?”
“It’s also personal.”
“The brass are concerned about how it reflects on the department.”
“By ‘brass,’ do you mean Nolasco?”
“He’s in on it.”
“What a surprise. Vanpelt called me this morning to advise that she’s doing a story on the same subject and asking me to comment. She seemed to have a lot of details for someone who ordinarily doesn’t concern herself with facts.”
“Look, I’m not going there.”
“I’m not asking you to. I’m just telling you that Nolasco’s not concerned about how it reflects on the department; he sees it as another opportunity to bust my ass. So if I tell him ‘fuck how it reflects on the department,’ I’d appreciate a little support. Unless he’s got a problem with how I’m doing my job, this isn’t his problem or his business.”
“Don’t shoot the messenger, Tracy.”
She took a moment to check her temper. “Sorry, Billy. I just don’t need this right now.”
“Where’s the information coming from?”
“I got a hunch it’s a sheriff in Cedar Grove who’s had a twenty-year hard-on for me and doesn’t want me anywhere near this.”
“Well, whoever he is, he seems intent on making this difficult for you. Manpelt loves the personal shit.”
“I appreciate the heads-up, Billy. Sorry I snapped.”
“What’s the word on the Hansen case?”
“We’re coming up empty.”
“That’s a problem.”
“I know.”
Williams pulled open the door. “Promise me you’ll play nice.”
“You know me.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.”
The phone on her desk did indeed ring, and later that afternoon Tracy was last to enter the conference room she’d been summoned to. The very fact that she’d been invited to the gathering was unusual. Normally Williams would simply inform her of any decisions made by upper management. She figured Nolasco wanted her there to call her out in front of Williams and Laub and otherwise run around the room pissing on chairs.
Nolasco stood on one side of the table with Bennett Lee from the Public Information Office. Lee wouldn’t be present unless Nolasco was expecting Tracy to approve a statement for the media. She was going to disappoint him. It certainly wasn’t the first time she had over the years and likely would not be the last. She stepped to the side of the table with Williams and
Laub.
“Detective Crosswhite, thanks for joining us,” Nolasco said. “Do you know why you’re here?”
“Can’t say I do.” She played the game because she did not want to reveal that Williams had tipped her off. They all took their seats. Lee had a notepad on the table, pen in hand.
“We got a call from a reporter requesting a comment for a story she’s working on,” Nolasco said.
“Did you give Vanpelt my direct line?”
“Excuse me?”
“Vanpelt called my direct line. Is she the reporter requesting a comment?”
Nolasco’s jaw stiffened. “Ms. Vanpelt is under the impression you are assisting an attorney trying to obtain a new trial for a convicted killer.”
“Yeah, that’s what she said.”
“Can you enlighten us?” Now in his late fifties, Nolasco remained lean and in good physical condition. He parted his hair down the middle. A few years back he’d started dying it an odd shade of brown, almost like rust, which stood out even more because it was a different color from the natural shade of his wedge-shaped mustache. Tracy thought he looked like an aging porn star.
“It isn’t complicated. Even a hack like Vanpelt has the basic facts correct.”
“What facts are those?” Nolasco asked.
“You already know them,” she said. Nolasco had been one of the initial screeners of Tracy’s application for admittance into the Academy. He’d also been present at her oral board exams when the board had asked about her sister’s disappearance. Tracy had been forthright in her application and that interview.
“Not everyone here does.”
She fought not to let him get under her skin and turned to face Laub and Williams. “Twenty years ago my sister was murdered. They never found her body. Edmund House was convicted on circumstantial evidence. Last month they found my sister’s remains. The forensics at the grave site conflict with evidence offered at House’s trial.” She avoided specifics, not wanting Nolasco to share any information with Calloway or Vanpelt. “His attorney has used that conflict to file a motion for post-conviction relief.” She returned her focus to Nolasco. “So, are we finished here?”
“Do you know the lawyer?” Nolasco asked.
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