Her Final Breath (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 2)

by Robert Dugoni

  Tracy punched in numbers on her cell. When dispatch answered, she provided her name, badge number, and location, then asked for backup and a team from the CSI Unit.

  Disconnecting, she continued to assess her situation. She didn’t like being out in the open. Her truck was parked just to the left of the gate. If she could get to it, she could drive back to the entrance of the shooting range to wait for backup.

  Tracy shuffled forward, Glock raised. She avoided the noose and stepped through the gate, keeping her back pressed to the fence. Gravel crunched under her boots as she worked her way from the hood down the side of her truck to the driver’s door. She retrieved her car key, dropped her gaze to fit the teeth into the lock, and turned the key. The door lock popped. She didn’t rush, waiting a beat before pulling the door open. About to get in, she noticed something protruding from the back of the truck bed and realized it was the corner of the spring-loaded window to the truck canopy.

  She slid to the rear bumper, paused, then spun and swept the bed. Empty. She spun again and swept the area behind her but saw only the outlines of telephone poles shrouded in fog.

  She lowered the canopy window and turned the handle, hearing it latch.

  As she made her way back to the truck cab, the dogs in the kennel began to bark again.

  CHAPTER 2

  Tracy drove back to the street in front of the alley leading to the Seattle Police Athletic Association. She didn’t have to wait long for a patrol unit to arrive. She instructed the uniformed officer to string yellow-and-black crime scene tape across the entrance to the alley. Shortly thereafter, she was glad she had. The news vans and reporters arrived, followed by her sergeant, Billy Williams.

  “Thought you called it in on your cell,” Williams said, eyeing the media.

  “I did,” Tracy said.

  Using a cell phone should have skirted the media, but SPD had long been a sieve. The brass liked to cull favors with reporters by feeding them information, and it was suspected among the detectives in the Violent Crimes Section that they had a leak. Tracy also remained relevant news after what had happened in Cedar Grove.

  Williams adjusted a black knit driving cap that had become a fixture since he’d conceded the inevitable and shaved his head. He said the cap provided warmth in the fall and winter and protected his scalp from the sun during the summer. Tracy suspected Billy just liked the look. He’d also grown a pencil-thin mustache and soul patch, which made him look a lot like the actor Samuel L. Jackson.

  Kinsington Rowe, Tracy’s partner, arrived ten minutes later. Kins got out of an older-model BMW, slipping into a leather car coat. “Sorry,” he said. “We were at Shannah’s parents’ for dinner. What do we got?”

  “I’ll show you,” Tracy said. Kins climbed in the truck cab with her. Billy followed in his Jeep.

  “You all right?” Kins asked.

  “Me?”

  “You seem a little freaked.”

  “I’m fine.” Wanting to change the topic, she said, “Shannah’s parents?”

  Kins made a face. “We’re trying to have Sunday night dinners together to see if it helps. I got caught in a discussion with her father on gun control.”

  “How’d that go?”

  “About as you’d expect.”

  Tracy swung the truck wide and parked well clear of the entrance to the range. She turned on the wipers to clear the mist from the windshield. The truck’s headlights spotlighted the hangman’s noose.

  “What do you make of it?” Kins asked.

  “Not sure. Someone put it up right after the lights went out.”

  “He wanted you to find it.”

  “Appears that way.”

  “Got to be.”

  They got out of the cab and approached the spot where Williams now stood. “Looks like the same rope,” Kins said. “Same color. Can’t see the knot.”

  Nicole Hansen hadn’t just been strangled. She’d been hog-tied, with an elaborate system intended to torture the victim. If Hansen straightened her legs, it pulled the rope and tightened the noose. Eventually, she tired trying to hold the pose and strangled herself. Tracy and Kins had treated it as a homicide, though they didn’t immediately rule out the possibility that Hansen had died during a sex act gone horribly wrong. Hard as it was for some to imagine a woman agreeing to such torture, Tracy had seen worse when she’d been assigned to the Sexual Assault Unit. When Hansen’s toxicology report revealed Rohypnol, a well-known date rape drug, they scratched that theory.

  “So door number one, it’s the same guy who killed Nicole Hansen,” Kins said. “Door number two, it’s somebody angry about the Hansen investigation being sent to cold cases who wants to make a point.”

  “Could be a copycat,” Billy said.

  “Door number three,” Kins said.

  During the Hansen investigation, Maria Vanpelt, a local television reporter, had leaked an expert’s opinion that the rope used to strangle Hansen was polypropylene with a Z twist. SPD had loudly protested to the station manager, who’d apologized profusely and said it would never happen again. No one at SPD was holding their breath.

  “Whatever the choice,” Billy said, “he left it where you couldn’t miss it. It means he followed you. I’m going to have a detail keep an eye on you.”

  “I don’t need a babysitter, Billy.”

  “Just until we figure out what this guy intended.”

  “I’ll put a hole in him before he can get within ten feet of me,” Tracy said.

  “One problem,” Kins said. “You don’t have a clue who he is.”

  CHAPTER 3

  A patrol car from the Southwest Precinct parked at the curb in front of Tracy’s house in West Seattle’s Admiral District as she pulled into the driveway. She gave the officer a wave and drove into a garage far too neat and organized. Furniture and cardboard boxes containing most of her belongings from her Capitol Hill apartment remained neatly stacked on the other half of the two-car space. She’d rented the house fully furnished from an FBI agent who’d moved with his wife to Hawaii but didn’t want to sell until certain they’d enjoy living in paradise.

  Tracy stepped through the door leading into a small hall off the kitchen, retrieved an open bottle of chardonnay from the refrigerator, and poured herself a glass. Roger, her black tabby, trotted into the room and jumped onto the counter, pacing and mewing. It wasn’t love. He wanted to be fed. She had an automatic dispenser for his dry food, but she’d spoiled him by giving him canned food at night. By the time she’d returned home from the shooting range, it was well past the appointed dinner hour. “Typical man,” she said, scratching Roger’s head and stroking his back. “Now you expect it every night.”

  She pulled a can of food from the cupboard and dumped it in a bowl. She stood reconsidering her evening, until the intercom buzzed. She crossed the living room with Roger at her heels and pressed the button to activate the intercom at the gate to the nine-foot wrought-iron fence surrounding the front courtyard.

  “It’s me,” Dan said.

  Tracy pushed a second button to free the gate’s lock, and picked up Roger. He’d become an escape artist, and at this late hour he was also potentially a coyote’s meal. She pulled open the front door and gave an “it’s okay” wave to the patrol officer as Dan held the gate open for Rex and Sherlock. The dogs, both from a Rhodesian-mastiff mix, weighed more than 280 pounds combined. They shoved through, separated at the fountain in the center of the patio, and converged on Tracy. Wanting nothing to do with them, Roger wriggled free and rushed back inside, likely to high ground. Tracy grabbed the dogs about their snouts and rubbed their fur. “How are my guys, huh? How are my boys?”

  Dan set down an overnight bag on the marble entry. “Why is there an officer sitting in a police car outside your front door?”

  “I told you, you don’t have to ring the buzzer,” she said. “You can use the code.” The lock on the gate and the front door each had a keypad activated by a four-digit code. Though Tracy and Dan had
been dating seriously for three months, Dan had never let himself in, nor had he given her a key to his home in Cedar Grove.

  She closed the door. The dogs raced in search of Roger, who stood atop a bookcase, back arched, hissing.

  “What’s going on?” Dan said.

  She held up her glass as she made her way to the kitchen. “You want one?”

  “Sure, but I better let them out first.” Cedar Grove, the small town where Dan and Tracy were raised and where Dan had recently moved back, was an hour and a half to the north.

  She heard him descend the staircase to the lower level, the dogs’ paws thundering after him. The house was built on piers. The top story, at street level, consisted of a kitchen, open dining room/living room area, and a master bedroom and bath. It was twice the square footage of Tracy’s apartment on Capitol Hill. She never used the lower floor—a family room with a fully stocked bar, L-shaped leather couch, projection television, two bedrooms, and another bathroom. She kept the door at the bottom of the staircase deadbolted. The only time it was opened was when Dan took Rex and Sherlock down to conduct their business in the tiny backyard.

  Tracy stepped onto the deck off the dining room. The fog hovered gray and somber over Elliott Bay, obscuring much of the Seattle skyline. On clear nights she had a spectacular panoramic view of the lights in the buildings of downtown Seattle shimmering off the bay’s blackened surface, the water taxis skidding like water bugs from Pier 50 to West Seattle, and the illuminated ferries making their way from Colman Dock to Bainbridge Island and Bremerton. The view, and the security, had been what convinced Tracy to rent the home.

  Below her, Rex and Sherlock burst out the back door, triggering the motion detector on the floodlights Dan had installed during his last visit. Their bodies cast elongated shadows as they sniffed along the edges of the small patch of lawn abutting a hillside that descended another two hundred feet to Harbor Way, the road along Elliott Bay.

  After they’d finished, Dan called to them and they followed him inside. When Dan joined Tracy on the deck, he was slightly out of breath. “The lights are working,” he said, accepting his glass of wine.

  “I saw.”

  “Okay, so quit stalling and tell me what happened. Why is there a police car parked outside?”

  Tracy told him about the noose.

  Dan set his glass down on the table. “And you think it could be the same guy who killed the dancer?”

  “I don’t know. It could just be a copycat. It could be someone upset about the investigation being sent to cold cases.”

  “What are the chances it could be a copycat?”

  “Greater since Maria Vanpelt reported that Hansen was strangled with a noose and disclosed the type of rope.”

  “Well, I agree with your sergeant. Whoever it is, the guy followed you. And people don’t ordinarily follow cops. This isn’t somebody to be taken lightly.”

  “I know that,” she said. “It’s why I asked you to come down.”

  Dan looked momentarily stunned, likely because Tracy wasn’t one to often admit feeling vulnerable. The realization that someone had followed her had made her think again of two similar occasions in Cedar Grove. The first time was at the veterinary clinic when Rex got shot. She’d thought someone was watching her from a car. Unfortunately, because of heavy snow she’d been unable to determine the make of car or see anyone inside, so she’d dismissed it. She didn’t dismiss it when she saw a car parked outside her motel room late at night with its windshield cleared, though it was snowing heavily. But by the time she’d gone back into the room and retrieved her gun, the car was gone.

  “Okay,” Dan said finally. “Well, I’m glad you did.”

  She stepped to him and pressed her face to his chest. His cashmere sweater felt soft and warm against her cheek. He embraced her and kissed the top of her head. She heard the low moan of a foghorn, and thought again of the noose.

  CHAPTER 4

  He had time to kill.

  He shifted his chair—the cheap variety found in banquet halls—so he had a better view of the television mounted to the ceiling in the corner of the room. It was a dinosaur, with a built-in VCR and DVD player. He’d been about to start the videocassette but had become intrigued when the newscaster issued a tease just before going to commercial, a trick that really annoyed him. Apparently, there was breaking news involving a Seattle homicide detective, but first, he’d have to suffer through an inane commercial for Cialis, watching an older man and woman dive into a lake and emerge in a loving embrace.

  “Are you watching this crap?” he asked the woman. “They’re actors. You know they’re actors, right? They pay these people money to announce to the world they can’t get it up or they have hemorrhoids.” He shook his head. “What some people won’t do for a buck, huh?”

  The woman mumbled an inaudible response, which was fine, because mercifully, the commercial had ended and the news was starting. “Shh,” he said.

  A male anchor sat behind a studio desk, a graphic of a hangman’s noose over his right shoulder. “Breaking news tonight—a Seattle homicide detective makes a disturbing discovery at the police department’s shooting range,” he said. “KRIX investigative reporter Maria Vanpelt is live from the Seattle Police Athletic Association in Tukwila.”

  The blonde reporter stood in the glow of a camera’s spotlight, droplets shimmering on her purple-and-black Gore-Tex jacket. “CSI detectives rushed to the shooting range here earlier this evening,” she said.

  “They try to make everything so dramatic, don’t they?” the man said.

  The woman did not respond.

  “That was after a homicide detective shooting at the police combat range discovered a hangman’s noose.”

  The man sat up.

  “You might recall my exclusive report revealing that exotic dancer Nicole Hansen was strangled with a noose in a motel room on Aurora Avenue,” Vanpelt said. “Well, tonight we have learned that the homicide detective leading that investigation was the detective who found the noose at the shooting range.”

  The screen showed uniformed and plainclothes police officers, along with patrol cars and a CSI van. “The family of Nicole Hansen has been critical of the Seattle Police Department’s decision to send that murder investigation to the Cold Case Unit after only four weeks, a decision that also resulted in vocal protests by several women’s rights organizations. The police department is declining to comment on whether there is any connection between the Hansen case and the noose found this evening, but it certainly appears to have been intended as a pointed message.”

  The anchor shuffled papers on the desk. “Thank you, Maria. It is, of course, a story we at KRIX will continue to keep a close watch on.”

  “Not me.” The man picked up the remote, pointed it at the television, and pressed “Play.” The VCR clicked and whirred. The screen went black, then filled with static. A moment later, the music started and Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck danced out from behind a red velvet curtain dressed as vaudeville performers with straw hats and canes. The man sang with them, feeling the comforting warmth begin to radiate through his body.

  He had time to kill.

  He checked his watch. Not that much time. He struck a match, the flame flaring blue and yellow in the darkened room, and lit the tip of the cigarette until it glowed red. Like America’s former esteemed president Bill Clinton, he didn’t inhale. He expelled the smoke in the direction of the plastic “No Smoking” sign glued to the yellowed wallpaper outside the bathroom door.

  “Time for the show.” He leaned forward and pressed the glowing red tip to the sole of the woman’s foot.

  CHAPTER 5

  Tracy awoke at just after four in the morning, after what had been a fitful few hours of sleep. Not wanting to wake Dan, she slipped quietly out of bed. Rex and Sherlock sat up from their dog beds, watching her. She retrieved her cell phone and her Glock from atop the nightstand, grabbed her robe from the back of the door, and started out of the room. Rex l
owered back down, emitting a tired moan, but Sherlock stretched his legs and arched his back, then followed Tracy out of the room as if compelled by some sense of chivalry.

  Tracy shut the bedroom door and rubbed the bony knob of his head. “You’re a good dog, you know that?”

  In the kitchen she made tea and rewarded Sherlock with a synthetic dog bone. With Dan staying over regularly, she kept a bag in her pantry. Sherlock followed Tracy into the dining room and dropped at her feet when she sat at the table. Tracy continued to stroke his head and sip her tea, giving her body and mind time to wake. A foghorn moaned again, causing Sherlock’s ears to momentarily perk before he resumed chewing on his bone. Outside the sliding glass doors, the fog continued to obscure much of the view. Except for Sherlock’s gnawing, and the occasional creak and tick of the house, it was quiet.

  Tracy opened her laptop and hit the keyboard. The screen emitted a soft blue light. With a few keystrokes, she pulled up the website for the Washington State Office of the Attorney General, typed her username and password, and entered the Homicide Investigation Tracking System database. HITS contained information on more than 22,000 homicides and sexual assaults across Washington, Idaho, and Oregon. Detectives could use search words like “rope” and “noose” to search for cases similar to their own. Tracy had reduced the universe of cases to 2,240, then narrowed it to a much more manageable 43 cases when she restricted the search to victims who had not been sexually assaulted.