by Gregg Olsen
“I thought I saw you on the video cam.” It was David, emerging from the front door. Emily wanted to die just then. “So now you’re a stalker, huh, Em?”
She’d been caught. There was no way out of it. No way out of her stupidity for driving by. She wondered if she’d been like one of those criminals who wanted to get caught, for some repressed reason.
“I just wanted to see where our daughter’s education fund ended up,” she said, feeling bitterness take over embarrassment.
“I see.” David’s eyes were cold, unfeeling. He stood on the other side of the wrought iron gate with his arms folded. “Maybe you’d like to come inside and see what you’re missing?”
The things she hated about him started flooding back. “I’m not missing anything.”
“Really? Then why’d you come?”
“Curiosity. I wanted to see what misplaced values and too much money gets these days.”
“Maybe you should just move on, Emily.”
“Oh, I have, David. I have.”
She got into her car, pressed the accelerator and drove off to see Chris at his condo in Seattle. She’d called him earlier in the day to say she might come by, but she didn’t know when. After playing stalker on her ex—and having her case crumble—she could use the love of the man she adored.
Chris swung open the door to his twentieth-floor unit and without missing a beat, put his arms around Emily. The look on his face was surprise.
“Why didn’t you buzz me?” he asked.
Emily managed a smile, though not a convincing one. “A woman downstairs let me in. I must look like I live here.”
Chris hugged her again. “You look upset. What is it?”
“What isn’t it? My case is imploding. My life is a mess.”
He led her to the living room where the windows framed a magnificent view of a ferry pulling in to the pier.
“Maybe I can help with both.”
“Maybe,” she said, stopping herself as her gaze landed on the coffee table. Fanned out on the table were five business cards from various real estate agents.
He followed her eyes to the business cards.
“Yup, I’ve listed the place.”
“I see that.”
“I had some brokers come over, you know, give me the song and dance about how much dough they can bring in versus the other guy. I just did the listing agreement about an hour ago.”
“I don’t know what to say or what it means for us, Chris.”
“There’s time to figure that out. The market’s slow.” He laughed and stretched out his long legs. He wore dark-washed blue jeans and a light gray sweater.
Emily put her hand on his knee and looked into his blue eyes.
“All right.”
They curled up on the couch for an hour, discussing the case. How Tricia Wilson had lied about her abuse, and about the ramifications the disclosure might have on the case.
“You still have the computer evidence? You still have his aberrant behavior, right? His affair with his office girl?”
Emily nodded. “Right. We still have all that. But I’m not sure it’s enough. There’s not a single bit of physical evidence to tie him to the crime.”
“I get that,” he said. “Let’s dig a little deeper over dinner.”
“Can’t do it,” she said. “And you know I want to. I have to get back to Cherrystone.”
“Please call me,” was the message that Fatima Hussein left on Emily’s voice mail. The woman’s tone was polite, but with an unmistakable sense of urgency. Emily pulled over to the side of the road. Listening to voice mail while driving was one thing, but making a call and focusing on a conversation involved too much distraction on a snowy highway. The call must have come when she was going over the mountain pass—a location where she never seemed to get cellular reception.
Emily searched her memory. She didn’t know anyone by that name.
“Is this Fatima Hussein? This is Sheriff Kenyon returning your call.”
“Yes. Thank you very kindly for answering my call I made to you. Please hold for one moment while I forward my other calls.”
By the time Fatima came back on the phone, Emily had made the connection. “You’re with Evergreen Marketing, aren’t you?”
“Yes, we met in the lobby. I was doing phone training, practicing my American accent with people as they call in.”
“I remember you,” Emily said as cars whizzed by one after another, kicking slushy snow in her direction. “How can I help you?”
“I am U.S. citizen. I wanted you to know that.”
“OK, that’s wonderful,” Emily said, unsure how to respond.
“That’s why I am phone calling you. It is about our civic duty.”
“What do you have to tell me, Fatima? Is it about Tricia Wilson?”
“Yes. You are correct. I want you to know that something has been going on with her. We all have noticed it here.”
“I don’t see how I can help you with a work performance issue.”
“No that. It is about her new car and her clothes.”
“What do you mean, Fatima?”
“She bought a new Lexus and she’s wearing new garments every day. She is not even close to a top performer. We don’t understand how she could afford all of that.”
Emily remembered how impeccably coiffed and attired Tricia had been when she came to Cherrystone, and again, at the offices of Evergreen Marketing. She was the very picture of success, one of those women in magazine ads or on TV.
“I thought she was an executive there,” Emily said. “She just seemed so in charge, so professional.”
“Oh, not at all. She’s one of our phoners.”
“Phoners?” The term puzzled her.
“She does outreach calls. Surveys, things of that kind of nature.”
“I see.”
“I thought that you should know. I do not want to be involved. But it was my duty to tell you.”
Emily thanked the woman. Civic duty was one thing, of course. But the call smacked a little of getting even. Or maybe even housecleaning.
Tricia Wilson, you’ve just been outsourced, Emily thought, pulling back on to the highway.
PART THREE
Jenna
Chapter Fifty
Cherrystone
Camille Hazelton didn’t like what she was hearing one bit. She leaned close to Emily Kenyon and jabbed a finger at her. Tricia Wilson was a liar. Close, but it didn’t touch. They met in Hazelton’s office and associates and clerks who probably already knew the score scuttled by, hoping for a glimpse of some fireworks between Cherrystone’s most powerful women.
“This is a huge mess, damn it, Emily.”
“You don’t have to tell me. And you don’t have to poke me to get me to listen. I get it.”
“I’m sorry. But these walls are cheaper than justice these days and I don’t want to raise my voice. But this probably means we have to drop the charges. You know that, don’t you?”
“Can’t you give me a little time?”
“For what? To dredge up another winner like Tricia Wilson? We should have vetted her from the onset.” Camille caught herself, she’d used the word we. She knew that the error in judgment was shared. “Cary McConnell is going to have a field day with this.”
“She was sworn in. She’s perjured herself in that depo. I’m going to make sure she goes to jail for that. It’s the least I can do. Honestly, paybacks are hell and I intend to make sure Miss Patty or Tricia or whatever her name is understands that.”
“Look, Camille, I think I can do something here. Something’s not right and I’d like a chance to repair it.”
“Oh my God, Emily, are you looking for redemption? Hasn’t the meter on that one run out by now?”
It was a cheap shot at things long since past. It was meant to sting and Camille Hazelton hated herself for saying it. She liked Emily very much, but she’d been pressed to her wit’s end. She could read the headlines the next da
y. The thought of them made her blood boil.
Car Dealer Released From Trumped-Up Charges
Camille sat down at her desk and Emily slumped in the chair across from her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, doing her best to cool off. “I didn’t mean that.”
“I know,” Emily said, wondering if the thought of the little girl who had died because of a mistake she had made so many years ago as a Seattle cop was always on the back of everyone’s minds. The wound that would never heal. Did they see her at the mall and think to themselves, “Oh yeah, that’s the woman who let Kristi Cooper die in that underground dungeon.” Did the woman who always chatted so amiably when she had her hair cut say to the other women when she left the room, “Oh that’s her. That’s the one I’ve been telling you about. The one who let that kid starve to death.”
“Really I am. It’s just this case. I know you do good work. We’re going to be crucified by McConnell and Crawford. You know how much I’d hate to be tarred and feathered.”
“From a woman with some experience there, let me tell you it’s no picnic.”
Emily managed a smile, a gesture that meant a call for a truce. “We’re on the same side, Camille. Give me twenty-four hours before we go to McConnell and the judge.”
Camille looked at her watch, an expensive Cartier that she surely didn’t buy at Rondo’s Fine Jewelry in town. “I’ll time you.”
“Thanks. I think.”
“I was kidding. Let’s see what you can come up with by the end of the day. Go bust some heads, shake some trees, do whatever it is that you gun-toting sheriffs do.”
“Are you asking me to shoot Cary McConnell?”
A look of horror came over Camille Hazelton. “God no, Emily! No such thing!”
“Just kidding,” she said. It was a gotcha that felt only a little bit good. She still had no plan. No hope for one. She thought of the one person she could call.
Chris Collier was eating a can of tortilla soup that he’d microwaved in a measuring cup because all the other vessels that could hold soup were dirty. He wasn’t a slob, he was just the kind of guy that liked to run a full load of dishes. And that meant about once a week. Cooking for Emily was one thing. Cooking for himself? A chore. When the phone rang, he set down his spoon and answered.
“Hi, baby,” he said, seeing it was from her. His mood lightened. “Miss me already?”
“You know I do. But it’s more than missing you right now. I need you, Chris. The Crawford case is crumbling. Can you come over to Cherrystone?”
He didn’t ask why. There was no need to. “Of course. I’ll leave in fifteen minutes. I have to put some food out for the cat.”
“You have a cat?”
“Sure.” A kind of mischievous look came to his face. “And you thought you knew everything there was about me.”
“I guess I did.”
“Actually, I’m feeding the neighbor’s.”
That was more like it. She hung up feeling a sense of relief. Not because the man liked cats—always a good sign in her book—but because whenever she needed him, Chris Collier had always been there for her.
He never, ever wavered.
Emily pulled all the Crawford files and carried them to her car.
“Need some help, Sheriff?” It was Jason.
“No, I can manage.”
“I heard about Ms. Wilson,” he said.
If Jason had heard, it wasn’t from her. The word was getting around fast. Too fast. The minute Cary McConnell got wind of it, he’d be in front of the judge in the same breath.
“Let’s keep a lid on it, please, Jason.” Her tone was more scolding than she meant it to be.
Jason looked hurt. “I’m not stupid, Sheriff,” he said turning on his heels and leaving her to deal with the big box of files.
Emily called out after him, but he either pretended not to hear or the sound of traffic drowned out her call. She felt about two inches tall, and ashamed that she’d treated him with such a dressing-down. It was uncalled for. With all that was happening—in her life, in Jenna’s life—upsetting Jason Howard was the last thing she needed.
As Jenna would say whenever something had gone awry with the sorority job, “My life sucks royally right now.”
Like daughter, like mother.
She put the car in gear and went home, thinking that nothing else could happen to make the day any worse.
Chapter Fifty-one
Emily Kenyon couldn’t sleep. Something is so wrong about this Crawford case. It was more than Tricia Wilson, too. She was dog tired, but rest eluded her. She’d tried, of course, but her thoughts kept returning to the blue sleeping bag—Mandy’s down-filled body bag. She got dressed, clipped her hair back, and took a Diet Coke from the refrigerator. She cleared a space and sat down at the kitchen island and reread Jason’s reports. Nothing remarkable.
She pored over the photos taken by the forensic team when it had been examined at the lab in Spokane. She reread Jason’s reports. Her eyes landed once more on the five-inch square hole in the fabric. She wished right then that her eyesight was better, that the hour wasn’t so late, or that she had a photographer’s loupe. Something was percolating in her mind, but she couldn’t quite grasp it.
She looked at the kitchen clock and sighed. It was after 4:00 A.M.—that time of day when it was too late to go to bed and too early to go to work. Emily decided to go take another look at the sleeping bag. Photographs and a report—no matter how finely detailed—weren’t working.
The evidence vault for all of the sheriff’s cases was the size of a walk-in closet—and quite frankly, didn’t need to be much larger. Cherrystone, thankfully, was that kind of place. Emily pulled the clipboard from behind the counter and signed her name and Crawford’s case number. She searched her key ring. She seldom needed the vault’s key, because there was always someone on duty—even with a tightening budget. Evidence was serious business, of course. She flipped on the light. Inside, six black metal Gorilla racks purchased at the Spokane Costco held the bits and pieces of criminal cases still in work. When cases were adjudicated, key materials were dispatched to a secure storage vault in an undisclosed location managed by the state of Washington.
The sleeping bag was cataloged with a code, but there was no reason for Emily to locate it by an accession number. Among the file boxes, it stood out because it was kept in a clear plastic bag. It looked like a puffy blue pillow.
Emily put on a fresh pair of latex gloves and initialed the tag on the plastic bag. When she opened it, it released a musty odor that reminded her of a wet dog, or maybe a men’s locker room. Not overwhelming, but a heavy presence, nonetheless. That was at the first whiff, but by the second or third she’d wished she’d dipped her nose into Vicks, as the smell of Mandy’s corpse filled the room. Emily brushed it off and unfurled the bag on a table in the center of the small room. Next, she pulled on the reflective metal shade of a gooseneck lamp clipped to the edge of the table.
The deep blue sleeping bag lay there, doused in the light, like a moonlit ocean.
“Now,” she said to herself, “let’s see what that hole is really telling us.”
She pointed the light onto a spot near the top of the bag. The five-inch square void winked at her. She bent down closer. The edge of the fabric was fringed from the stress of being in the water, being moved and jostled as Mandy’s body began to bloat when the icy depths of the pond began to warm. She noticed that the fringe of the unraveling nylon fabric was slightly uneven in several places.
She looked up as if to speak to someone, though no one was there.
The fabric hadn’t been torn. It had been cut. Most likely with scissors, maybe the blade of a razor.
Emily looked at the top edge of the bag and followed the lines of the machine stitching. It was clear that there was a start and stop to the seam. It wasn’t one continuous line of thread.
She dialed Chris’s number and he answered.
“Early for you, isn’t it?�
� after hearing her voice.
“Chris, I know it’s early,” she said, knowing he wouldn’t mind as he went running along the Seattle waterfront at 6 A.M. every morning anyway. “I’ve been down here looking at the Crawford evidence.”
“Either you’ve got insomnia or you’re overly dedicated.”
“Somewhere between the two, if you must label me. Anyway, I’m not sure what it means, but I was looking at the sleeping bag. Remember the tear on the bag?”
“Sure. I guess so.”
“It isn’t a tear. It’s a cut. Someone cut out a window of fabric.”
“I guess I’m not following, Em.”
“When you rip nylon, it is a clean tear between the threads. There’s some jaggedness here. It’s subtle, but unmistakable.”
“OK. So what you’re saying is someone cut that hole in the sleeping bag and they did it on purpose.”
“Right,” she said, “I’ll bet the killer cut the hole to remove something that pointed to him as the owner of the bag.”
“OK. So the person had their name written on the bag.”
“I doubt that,” she said. “This fabric’s too dark for someone to ink a name and address. Even the fattest Sharpie would get lost on it. And really, why would you put your name there anyway? When the bag is rolled up you couldn’t see the name and address.”
“Again, I’m not following you. Sorry, babe.”
Emily exhaled. “No worries. You haven’t seen what I’ve just seen and you’ve never sewed a stitch in your life. I have. I made most of Jenna’s Halloween costumes.” The mention of it brought a warm smile to her face. “Anyway,” she said, returning her thoughts back to Mandy and the sleeping bag, “it looks to me like the top edge was re-sewn.”
“What does that mean?”
“Not sure,” she said. “You driving or flying over?”
“I’ll be there for dinner. I’m driving.”
They exchanged their “I love yous” and Emily snapped her phone shut and signed out of the evidence room. Despite the lack of sleep, she felt energized. Why re-sew the top end of the bag?
