Her Final Breath (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 2)

by Robert Dugoni

  She shook her head. “Because it may not have exonerated him.”

  “How could it not exonerate him?”

  She handed Dan the HITS form. “The detective who filled this out checked the box indicating that Beth Stinson was sexually assaulted, which is probably why the case didn’t come up when I first ran the profile. None of the Cowboy’s three victims were sexually assaulted, which is unusual in these cases.” She handed Dan the medical examiner’s report for Beth Stinson. He squinted to read it without his glasses. “I’ll give you the highlights,” Tracy said. “They swabbed her body cavities for semen and didn’t find anything.”

  “Condom?”

  “Swabs were also clean for lubricants and spermicide.”

  Dan sat back. Tracy knew what he was thinking even before he said it. “You know what’s going to happen if you pursue this? The media is going to crucify you. They’ll say you’re trying to free another murderer.”

  “I know. And Nolasco would never allow it,” she said.

  “What’s he got to do with it?”

  “He and his partner were the investigating detectives.”

  Dan set down the report. “Which is why you have the file here at home and not at work.”

  “Faz once told me that Nolasco and Hattie liked to flaunt their perfect case record,” Tracy said, “but word around the unit was they didn’t always do everything exactly by the book.”

  “All the more reason he won’t want you looking into this.”

  “But what if I’m right, Dan? What if Gerhardt is innocent and the guy who killed Beth Stinson is still out there killing?”

  After a moment of silence, Dan asked, “What would you need to know? What would you do?”

  “Talk to the witness and clarify what she saw and didn’t see. Ask her why she was so certain it was Gerhardt. Talk to the other witnesses in the file. There’s no indication Nolasco or Hattie ever followed up with them.”

  “Because they had their guy?”

  “That’s my assumption. Ultimately, I’d want to get the DNA tested. Though I’m not sure how I could do it with Nolasco watching and waiting for me to screw up.”

  “What if I did it?”

  She smiled. “I can’t ask you to do that, Dan. You have your own career. This is my job.”

  “My client just received a seven-figure settlement, and I pocketed thirty-three percent. I can find time. Let me sniff around the edges. I’ll talk to this eyewitness and probe a little bit. Whatever I learn, I’ll let you know.”

  “Ordinarily, I’d say no,” Tracy said, and a part of her was thinking just that. Tell him no. Don’t drag him into your professional life. That was a recipe certain to kill a relationship. Still, the sky outside the sliding glass doors had begun to lighten on a new day, and the only thing Tracy could think about was her cell phone buzzing and a call saying they’d found another body.

  CHAPTER 27

  The following morning, Tracy and Kins watched Bradley Taggart from behind the one-way glass. In a red King County Jail jumpsuit, he looked like a rooster, with his head swiveling from side to side and his knees bouncing uncontrollably.

  “Coming down from something,” Kins said. “Meth?”

  “That’d be my guess,” Tracy said.

  “You really did a number on him,” Kins said, smiling. Taggart had raccoon eyes, and his nose was swollen and bent slightly to the left, with a small cut across the bridge. “How do you want to play it?”

  “He’s been around,” Tracy said. “He knows we aren’t going to be able to hold him on a failure to appear. If we don’t find anything in the apartment, he walks.”

  With an affidavit from Kins, Cerrabone had obtained a search warrant of Veronica Watson’s apartment and car. Faz and Del were coordinating the search with a CSI team.

  “I think Keen’s got him pegged,” Tracy said, referring to Taggart’s probation officer. “I think he’ll puff up his chest and act like a tough guy, but he’s just a punk. He’s not going to be too happy with me. Why don’t you take a crack at him?”

  Taggart started spewing threats the instant Tracy pulled open the door to the interrogation room. He lifted up off his chair, but the chain from his handcuffs to the eyehook in the floor kept him from standing. “I’m going to sue this entire department for harassment and police brutality.”

  Tracy moved to one of the two chairs on the opposite side of the metal table as Kins forced Taggart back onto his seat with a firm grip on his shoulder. “My partner wanted to remove your handcuffs, but I told her not to. I told her I was afraid you’d do something stupid again and then she’d have to kick your ass a second time.”

  “She didn’t kick my ass.” Taggart looked to Tracy. “It was a cheap shot. My attorney’s going to carve you up on the stand.”

  Kins leaned closer. “Is this the same attorney who couldn’t get a possession charge dismissed? How do you think he’s going to do with a felony warrant for you not showing for a hearing, a violation of your parole, and assault on a police officer? Get comfortable, Bradley. You’re going to be sitting in a cell for a while. Maybe you should use that time to find yourself a better attorney.”

  “I told you the hearing was a misunderstanding. My lawyer will get that sorted out, and I’ll make bail in an hour.”

  “No bail for murder,” Kins said.

  Taggart scoffed. “That’s a joke.”

  “Is it?” Kins said. “Veronica is dead. She lived with you. We have witnesses who say you were working her. We have a neighbor who says you two were yelling and screaming at all hours of the day and night, that you used to knock her around. And the dancers at the Pink Palace say they saw you in the club Sunday night talking to her. We have sworn statements. You know what impresses a judge? Sworn statements. More than one. So maybe you should shut your mouth and stop talking stupid.”

  Taggart dropped his gaze to a corner of the room. He looked like a kid pouting.

  “Why were you at the Pink Palace on Sunday night?” Kins said.

  Taggart reengaged. “Here’s what I’ll tell you. I want a lawyer.”

  “Okay.” Kins stood and opened the door, speaking to the two corrections officers waiting in the hall. “Take him back. Place him on a seventy-two-hour hold while I go talk to the prosecutor about filing a murder charge.”

  Taggart had raised his chin in defiance, another tough-guy pose, but Tracy could see the uncertainty in his eyes even before he spoke. “Fine. I’ll talk to him. I’m not talking to you.”

  “Lucky you,” Tracy said to Kins, who remained in the doorway.

  “Here’s the deal, Bradley. Procedure requires two detectives in the room. So if she isn’t here, I’m not here, and you go back to your cell and wait for your arraignment.” Kins paused. “What’s it going to be?”

  Taggart stewed, eyes shut as if fighting a headache. His knees pistoned beneath the table.

  “Got things to do, Bradley. You agree to talk to us or not?”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine what?”

  “Fine, I’ll talk to you.”

  “You’re waiving your right to a lawyer?”

  “Whatever.”

  “No, not ‘whatever.’ You need to say it. I don’t want some lawyer saying we took advantage of you.”

  “Fine. I agree to talk to you without a lawyer.”

  Kins retook his seat next to Tracy. “Then let’s start with why you were at the Pink Palace on Sunday night.”

  “I needed money. So what? It’s open to the public.”

  “How long did you stay?”

  “Five minutes. Not even that. V said she wouldn’t have any money until she tipped out, so I left.”

  “Where’d you go when you left?” Kins said.

  “Around.”

  “No place in particular?”

  “No.”

  “So no one can confirm they saw you?” Kins said. He looked to Tracy and said, “No alibi.”

  “When did you expect Veronica home?” Tr
acy asked.

  Taggart scowled. “I said I’m not talking to you.” He addressed Kins. “I didn’t.”

  “You had no expectation she was coming home?” Kins asked.

  “I didn’t keep tabs on her.”

  “Because you knew she had dates after her shift. You get a piece of that action?”

  “We lived together.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I wasn’t paying the rent myself.”

  “Did you ever arrange any dates for Veronica?” Kins asked.

  Taggart was shaking his head before Kins finished his question. “No need. She did fine by herself, except when she put on the weight.”

  “You have any idea who Veronica met Sunday night?”

  “Nope. Like I said, I don’t keep tabs on her.”

  “Did she have any regulars?” Kins asked.

  “A few.” Taggart looked at Tracy. “She gave a hell of a blow job. I’m going to miss that the most.”

  Taggart was a dirtbag, but after twenty years of dealing with his type, Tracy knew the city had a way of eventually spitting out its trash on its own terms. She had little doubt she’d find out in later years that Taggart had died of an overdose or been stabbed or shot and left in an alley to die. Justice came in all different forms.

  “Did she ever tell you the names of any of those regulars?” Kins asked.

  “No. And she didn’t keep any little black book, if that’s your next question.”

  “How’d you know how much money she was making, that she wasn’t holding back on you?”

  Taggart chuckled. “’Cause she wasn’t stupid.”

  “Meaning what?” Tracy asked.

  “Meaning she knew better.”

  “You’d knock her around a bit,” Tracy said.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Dancers at the Pink Palace said you did. So did her mother and father,” Tracy said.

  Taggart scoffed and leaned forward, chin directed at Tracy. “Her stepfather going to be your big witness, is he? He was banging her when she was fifteen. That’s why she left. The guy is a shitbag.”

  “You were doing her when she was fifteen,” Kins said.

  “I’m not her stepfather.”

  “You talk to her again that night, after you left the Pink Palace?” Tracy asked.

  Taggart shook his head. “Nope.”

  “So when we check your cell phone records, we’re not going to find any voice mails or text messages,” Kins said.

  “What cell phone?”

  Kins took out the photographs of Nicole Hansen and Angela Schreiber and set them side by side on the table. “You know these women, Bradley?”

  Taggart nodded to Angela Schreiber. “I know her.” He looked again at Tracy and grinned, displaying the decaying teeth of a meth-head. “I think she gave me a lap dance one time.”

  “You ever meet her at a motel on Aurora?” Kins said.

  “Wouldn’t need to with V coming home every night, now would I?”

  “Thought you said you didn’t keep tabs on her.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Why’d you quit your job?” Kins asked.

  “The guy was an asshole.”

  “It’s a violation of your parole.”

  “I’m going to get another job.”

  “Any leads?”

  “I was just getting started when you violated my civil rights.”

  “Yeah? You thinking about becoming a bartender?” Kins asked.

  “So you didn’t see or hear from Veronica after you left the Pink Palace Sunday evening?” Tracy asked.

  “That’s what I said.”

  They went back over the same ground for another forty-five minutes to test Taggart’s story. After two hours, Kins said, “Last question, Bradley. You right- or left-handed?”

  “What the hell you want to know that for?”

  “For when you write out your statement—I need to know whether to get you a right-handed or left-handed pen.”

  Taggart looked momentarily stumped but said, “Right.”

  Kins and Tracy stood. “Okay. We’ll have the corrections officers escort you back to jail.”

  “What? Why?”

  “You got to take care of that outstanding warrant, Bradley.”

  “You said you didn’t care about that.”

  “We don’t,” Kins said. “But we’re not the prosecutor.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Back in the Bundy Room, Tracy hung up her desk phone and spoke to Kins. “Cerrabone says we don’t have enough to hold Taggart. He’ll be gone after the nine o’clock arraignments tomorrow morning.”

  “Well, we knew that was going to happen,” Kins said, reaching to answer his phone when it rang.

  Tracy approached Faz and Del. “Sorry to do this to you, but I’m going to need you to tail Taggart tomorrow morning after he’s released. Ask the jail to let us know when.”

  “I’ll bring my pee bottle,” Del said.

  Tracy considered her watch. “Why don’t you both get out of here, get home early? You might be looking at a couple long nights.”

  “This guy a vampire?” Faz asked.

  “Worse,” she said.

  Kins joined them. “That was Bennett. Called to give us a heads-up. Manpelt is fishing for a comment on a story running tonight.”

  “What’s the story?” Tracy asked.

  “She wouldn’t tell Bennett. She said she wanted to talk to you.”

  “I can only imagine.” She looked at her watch again. “Almost six. Guess we’ll find out.”

  The technician had wired a flat-screen television and set it up on an unused desk so they could follow the news. Kins picked up the remote and input Channel 8. Those still at the office—Tracy, Kins, Faz, and Del, and a couple of detectives they’d pulled from the Sexual Assault Unit—gathered close to the television. For a change, the Cowboy was not the lead story. Still, it didn’t take long to get to Vanpelt.

  “A new allegation of police brutality is facing the Seattle Police Department tonight,” the anchor said.

  “Here we go,” Faz said.

  “We go live to KRIX investigative reporter Maria Vanpelt, in Pioneer Square.”

  Vanpelt stood in the glow of the camera’s spotlight, dressed in a long camel-colored coat. “This bar in Pioneer Square is where an altercation took place early yesterday evening as homicide detectives sought to question the boyfriend of Veronica Watson, the third victim in the string of grisly murders of Seattle dancers. Witnesses say when the confrontation was over, the boyfriend was taken to Swedish Hospital with a broken nose and possible concussion before being transported to King County Jail. And they say a detective is responsible for beating up the man.

  “A Seattle Police spokesman would not say whether charges have been filed against Veronica Watson’s boyfriend and would give no other comment except to say that the Office of Professional Accountability is reviewing the incident. But the allegation comes at a bad time for the department—and for its embattled police chief, Sandy Clarridge, who has been trying to address a US Justice Department report criticizing the department for excessive use of force, along with a federal court judge’s admonishment of the department for failure to implement changes.”

  Vanpelt ended her report and tossed back to the studio.

  “Well, as Manpelt stories go, that wasn’t too bad,” Kins said.

  Faz said. “She might have even got a fact right.”

  “Shh,” Tracy said.

  The news anchor continued. “You may recall that KRIX Channel 8 teamed with the King County Sheriff’s Office in the hunt for the Green River Killer. Tonight I am pleased to report that Channel 8 is once again leading the effort to find—and stop—a serial killer. KRIX is offering a reward of one hundred thousand dollars for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the Cowboy, the person responsible for the recent murders of three Seattle dancers. The phone number for the Cowboy Task Force tip line is at the bott
om of your screen, and SPD is urging anyone with information to call that number.”

  “No, we’re not,” Faz said. “That’s the last Goddamned thing we want.”

  Tracy felt her stomach clench.

  Behind them, the phones on the desks started ringing.

  CHAPTER 29

  The tip line rang nonstop for nearly three hours. As she fielded her own calls, Tracy heard members of the task force struggling to move callers though their stories while trying to quickly determine if they had anything of value to offer. Most who called wanted to know how to collect the reward. One caller was certain the killer was a man who frequented a local tavern and had “a suspicious way about him.” Prostitutes called, convinced the killer was one of their johns. Ex-wives called to implicate ex-husbands. The task force took calls from snitches, neighbors, and people certain the killer was a work colleague. It seemed everyone was willing to rat out someone for the chance to win the serial-killer lottery. It was the task force’s worst nightmare; for each call, they had to complete a tip sheet, and they’d have to follow up on every one. It would keep them running around in circles for weeks.

  As the night wore on and the calls became less frequent, Faz took a call on his cell, then stood. “Be right back,” he said. Minutes later he returned with his wife, Vera, and their son, Antonio, who was nearly as big as Faz. Antonio carried a brown cardboard box, and whatever was inside quickly filled the room with the aroma of garlic, Italian spices, and melted cheese. Vera unloaded two large casserole dishes, paper plates, forks and knives, a salad, and several bottles of red wine on one of the desks.

  “If I couldn’t make it home for cannelloni, cannelloni was going to make it here,” Faz said. Tracy had never seen him look so happy. “Is she the best or what?” He reached to hug his wife, but Vera pulled away.

  “It’ll get cold,” she said.

  Del wasted no time ending his call. “Take it home or get a plate, Faz, before I trample you.” Had Del been on the Titanic and food on the lifeboats, women and children would have drowned.

  They took shifts answering the phones while the others ate. When the food was gone and the phone calls had become a trickle, Faz stood, Vera and Antonio at his side. “We Italians, when we eat, it’s tradition to salute the chef and to pay respects to the most important person in the room.” He looked to Vera. “So here’s to the best cook in Seattle.”