The Trapped Girl (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 4)

by Robert Dugoni

  “What kind of person was she?” Tracy asked.

  “Andrea was quiet, but not necessarily shy. People thought she was shy because she read a lot. That was my first impression too.”

  “What did she read?” Tracy asked.

  “Novels,” Berg said. “She had paperbacks stacked all over her desk, novels on her phone and her Kindle. She read all the time, but when you got to know her you realized she wasn’t shy. She just preferred not to be the center of attention. She liked to stay on the periphery. Does that make sense?”

  “Can you give me an example?” Tracy said.

  Berg gave the question some thought. “We had a function at the company—a birthday party for someone. I caught Andrea sitting back and taking everything in, you know? If you didn’t know her, you might get the impression she was disinterested, but if you watched her closely, you’d see these little grins, or frowns, maybe a subtle eye roll. It was never blatant or disrespectful, just enough that I knew she was paying attention.”

  “Was she intelligent?” Tracy asked.

  “Very,” Berg said, nodding.

  “You sound certain of that.”

  “For someone without any college education she was extremely quick to pick things up. She wasn’t a normal assistant. I’d give her some fairly complex tasks and she’d get the work done in no time flat. I think she was just one of those people who was inherently very smart, very gifted. Maybe from all the reading she did. You never had to instruct her twice. I was encouraging her to go to college or to get her insurance license.”

  They approached a second drawbridge. Out on the water, speedboats zipped by with young men and women in bathing suits.

  “Did you know her husband, Graham?” Kins asked.

  Berg looked back over her shoulder. “A little. I was inadvertently to blame for that.”

  “How so?” Kins said.

  “Like I said, Andrea was an introvert. She really just preferred to go home and read after work. It became my mission to find her a social life. We had a function downtown and I sort of forced Andrea to attend. That’s where she met Graham. Anyway, next thing I knew she’s getting married.”

  “How long after they met?” Tracy asked.

  Berg blew out a breath. “It was fast, I’ll tell you that. Maybe a month or two. I’m not really sure.”

  “Did Andrea seem happy?”

  “Hard to tell with Andrea—she kept everything so close to the vest, but I thought so.”

  “We understand she grew up in Southern California. Do you know if she still has family down there?” Kins asked.

  “An aunt, I believe, though I don’t think they’re close.”

  “Did you subsequently get to know Graham?” Kins asked.

  “Not real well,” Berg said. “For the most part Andrea kept her work life and personal life separate.”

  Tracy deduced from the tone of Berg’s response that she had not been a fan of Graham Strickland, but was being diplomatic. “But you had occasion to meet him?”

  “Just a couple of times. He came to a few functions and every so often he’d come in and pick up Andrea from work.”

  “What was he like?” Kins said.

  Berg smiled but it looked like more of a wince, as if she were in pain. She looked like someone who had an opinion but didn’t want to offer it.

  “We understand you didn’t know him well,” Tracy said. “We’re just looking for your general impression of him.”

  “Honestly? I didn’t care for him.” She again hesitated. “He was just one of those guys who tried too hard. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Tried too hard to be liked?” Kins said.

  Berg again looked back over her shoulder but this time she paused midstep and stopped. “Yes. That’s a very good way to put it.”

  “What did he do?” Kins asked.

  “It was just everything—the way he dressed, his hair, the beard. It was all . . . affected, like he was trying to display a certain image. And the Porsche.” She smiled and shook her head at the thought of it. “A red Carrera Porsche. It was all just sort of obnoxious. And I don’t think he was any rocket scientist.”

  “Why not?” Tracy asked.

  “Just little things Andrea said—like the marijuana dispensary. Andrea tried to tell him she didn’t think it was a good business idea, but she said Graham had done all the research and told her it was going to be a gold mine.”

  Tracy wiped a bead of perspiration trickling down the side of her face. She could feel sweat between her shoulder blades from the sun, which was at their backs. “Did Andrea ever say she and Graham were having marital troubles?”

  Berg became contemplative. “Andrea and I went to lunch after she came back to work for me, after the business failed. She said Graham was cheating on her.”

  “Did she say with who?” Tracy asked.

  “She didn’t know, but apparently it wasn’t the first time. He’d cheated with someone he used to work with.”

  “How’d she find out? Did she say?” Tracy asked.

  “When the business started to fail, she paid closer attention to the expenses and found credit card charges for hotels and restaurants in Seattle. He’d said they were related to work, but she called the businesses. They weren’t.”

  “So she was resourceful,” Kins said.

  “When she had to be,” Berg said.

  “What else did she tell you at that lunch?” Tracy asked.

  Berg shook her head. “In hindsight, I wish I had done something more.”

  “About what?”

  “Andrea said that despite the marital problems, Graham wanted to climb Mount Rainier.”

  “He wanted to climb it?” Kins asked.

  “That’s what she said. She told me that Graham said it would help if they had a hobby, something they could do together. Then she said he also mentioned taking out a life insurance policy, but only on her.”

  “Only her?” Tracy asked, giving Kins a sidelong glance.

  “I know. I thought it sounded odd at the time, but Andrea said they couldn’t afford the premiums on both, and Graham reasoned that if anything happened to him she could live off her trust. You know about her trust, right?”

  “We do,” Tracy said.

  “It struck me as odd at the time, you know, but you don’t think about these types of things.”

  “So what was your first thought when you heard Andrea had disappeared from Mount Rainier?” Kins asked.

  Berg hesitated. The baby fussed and she took a moment to soothe her daughter, inserting a pacifier in the baby’s mouth. When they started walking again she said, “I guess I was skeptical.”

  “Skeptical that it was an accident?” Kins asked.

  She nodded. “Let me put it this way: I wasn’t surprised Graham was a suspect, and I wouldn’t have been shocked if they’d concluded he killed Andrea. I told the other detective the same thing.”

  “Stan Fields?” Tracy asked.

  “I don’t remember his name. He had a gray ponytail. I told him it all just seemed too convenient. Then there was something Andrea told me about her parents’ trust—she said Graham wanted to use the money to help set up the dispensary rather than take out a business loan, but Andrea wouldn’t let him and there were restrictions on the trust that prevented it.”

  “Did she say it was causing strain in their marriage?” Tracy asked.

  “It was pretty clear that was the case.”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “Yes.”

  “She told you she didn’t want to give him the money?” Kins asked, sounding out of breath.

  Berg nodded. “She said Graham got upset about it and that he had forged her name on personal guarantees. She feared he’d put the trust at risk. But what really should have set off my radar was something Andrea said when I asked whether Graham had access to the trust.”

  “What did she say?” Tracy asked.

  “She said, ‘Not while I’m still alive.’” Berg
shook her head at the memory. “She laughed, but it had a sad quality to it, you know? I felt sad for her, sad that she would say such a thing.”

  They crossed beneath another bridge. “When was the last time you saw or spoke to Andrea?” Tracy said.

  “It was that week she left to climb.”

  “What was her mood like?”

  Berg said, “It wasn’t always easy to tell with Andrea. I mean, she was pretty even-keeled. I think she’d experienced a lot of sorrow in her life at a young age and it had made her, I don’t know, maybe more measured about life, like maybe she didn’t expect much.”

  “Jaded,” Kins said.

  “That’s as good a word as any,” Berg said, glancing back at him. “Even when she married Graham I didn’t get a sense she was elated about it, just more sort of like, this was how it was.”

  “Did Andrea have any girlfriends—people she hung out with, maybe went out with after work?”

  “The only person I can really think of is Devin Chambers. She worked in the office for one of my partners, and she and Andrea seemed close. Other than that, not really.”

  “Does Devin Chambers still work at your company?”

  “No, she left right about the time Andrea died—or when we all thought Andrea had died—the first time.”

  “Did she leave because of that?”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t talk to me about it. She told my partner she was moving back east somewhere. I think she had family.”

  Tracy looked to Kins, who shook his head to indicate he had no further questions.

  “Thank you again for your time,” Tracy said. “We’ll let you and your daughter finish your run.” She handed Berg a business card. “If you think of anything else, don’t hesitate to call.”

  As Tracy and Kins walked along the waterfront, back in the direction of the sculptures, Tracy said, “Does it strike you as odd that a woman who believed her husband was cheating on her for at least the second time in a year would agree to climb Mount Rainier with him?”

  “Even more so if she was talking to a divorce attorney,” Kins said. “Sounds to me like she was planning on walking off and starting over.”

  Tracy stopped. “Maybe it’s like Berg said. Maybe there was more to Andrea Strickland than initial impressions.”

  “Sounds like it,” Kins said, “though I’m not certain what that means, yet.”

  “What if this wasn’t just about disappearing and starting over?”

  “You think it was her way of getting even? She set him up to make it look like he wanted to kill her?” Kins said.

  “Berg said Andrea believed he was cheating on her and it wasn’t the first time.”

  “So our theory is what? The husband realizes she’d set him up, hunts her down, and kills her to get even.”

  “Not just to get even. To get what he was after in the first place.”

  “The money,” Kins said.

  “She’s already dead,” Tracy said. “He figures that if he finds her, he finds the money. Since she’s already dead, no one is the wiser. He just needs a way to dispose of the body so she’ll never be found.”

  “Okay, but how do we prove it?” Kins said.

  “I think we need to find Devin Chambers. If Andrea was going to confide in anyone, it sounds like it would have been her.”

  “You think that’s why Chambers left town, that maybe she was the person who helped her?”

  “Ranger Hicks is convinced Andrea Strickland didn’t get off the mountain alone,” Tracy said.

  “Then I’d also like to talk to the aunt,” Kins said. “Being dead has to get lonely, and it sounds like she was her only family.”

  Tracy called Stan Fields on the drive back to Police Headquarters to discuss Devin Chambers. She put him on speakerphone.

  “Did you know she’s left town?” Tracy asked.

  “No, but no crime in that. Why, you think they could have been dykes or something?”

  Tracy rolled her eyes while Kins stifled a laugh. “No, but it’s possible if Andrea confided in her that they remained in touch.”

  “She told me she didn’t know much of anything.”

  “Did you ever come across any evidence the husband was having another affair?”

  “The employer mentioned that. She said the wife was convinced he was cheating on her, but she didn’t have any details. I spoke to the associate at the law firm he’d been hammering and it wasn’t her; she said the first time had been a mistake, that she didn’t know he’d gotten married, and she was married and had moved on. Hadn’t seen or talked to him in months.”

  “Okay, so you haven’t followed up with Devin Chambers?”

  “Like I said, I had no reason to. She had receipts indicating she was out of town when they climbed. You have something different?”

  “I don’t know,” Tracy said.

  “It’s your rodeo, Detective. Have at her if you think there’s something there.”

  Tracy hung up. “I really don’t like that guy.”

  “He’s a cowboy,” Kins said, smiling.

  “He’s a jackass.” Tracy let a few miles pass, thinking again of Brenda Berg and her baby. Kins had three boys. “You glad you had kids, Kins?”

  Kins looked over at her. “It got to you, didn’t it? I figured it did.”

  “What?” she said, sounding defensive.

  “Berg and you are about the same age and have a lot of similarities.”

  “We don’t have that many similarities.”

  “Oh no?”

  “So are you glad?” she asked.

  Kins gave it some thought. “Not when they crash the car, or tell me the night before that they have a report due.” He smiled. “But the other ninety-nine percent of the time? Yeah. I’m glad. Does Dan want to have kids?”

  “I’m forty-three,” she said, wondering if she’d waited beyond her window.

  “I know a woman who was forty-two when she had her first. She has two now.”

  “They’re healthy?”

  “From what I know. Have you talked to Dan about it?”

  “Yeah, a little bit. But a part of me wonders if his willingness is just because I’m asking. Neither of us is young.”

  Kins frowned. “People make a big deal about having kids when they’re young. Let me tell you, that’s not always a good thing. I have a lot more patience now than I did when I was twenty-five, and patience is a big part of being a parent.”

  “I used to think I’d have kids in my twenties. Now I look back and think I was still a kid in my twenties. At least until my sister died. Things changed after that. It wouldn’t have been fair to have kids then. I was too busy trying to find out what had happened to her.” She looked at Kins, who, other than Dan, was her closest friend. “So you don’t think I’d be too old, huh? You don’t think I’d show up at grammar school and have people thinking I was the grandma?”

  “So what if they did?”

  “I’d be over sixty before he or she turned twenty.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not looking forward to having an empty nest in my midforties either. I don’t know what the hell Shanna and I are going to do. My kids are the best part of my life.”

  “I hope you didn’t tell Shanna that.”

  “Hey, I’m old. I’m not stupid. Okay, here’s what I think—call it Kins 101. When we didn’t have kids, we adapted, right? When we had kids, we adapted. When the kids are grown and out of the house, we’ll adapt again. Age doesn’t play into any of that. If you love Dan, and you want kids, I say go for it. You’d be better parents than ninety-nine percent of the knuckleheads out there.”

  Tracy smiled.

  “Grandma,” Kins said.

  “You’re such an ass,” Tracy said, laughing.

  Tracy watched Faz spike his fork in the Tupperware bowl on his desk and struggle out of his desk chair as soon as he spotted her and Kins returning. Ordinarily, Faz was like a dog with a bone when it came to Vera’s leftovers. He did not forsake them with
out good reason. It meant he had something of interest to tell them.

  “You speak to the bank?” she said over the sound of indeterminable voices from the other three bull pens. She set her purse on her chair, smelling the garlic from Vera’s cooking, knowing the smell would linger all day.

  “Lynn Hoff told the branch manager she worked for an outdoor apparel company and would be making regular cash deposits,” Faz said. “She also opened a personal account and deposited over $500,000. Said it was an injury settlement. For the next several weeks she made daily deposits into and withdrawals out of the business account that correspond with the withdrawals from her personal account.”

  Kins smiled at Tracy. “Looks like we found her trust funds.”

  “She was washing them,” Faz said. “Probably moving the money out of the country.”

  “I assume the hubby knew about the trust?” Del said from his cubicle. “Makes for a hell of a motive if he did.”

  “No doubt,” Kins said.

  “But that’s not the news,” Faz said, looking and sounding like a man with a secret. “The news is someone emptied the accounts first thing Monday morning—after Schill pulled her body up in the pot.”

  Kins glanced at Tracy before turning back to Faz. “How could someone even do that?”

  “You have to be physically present to open an account,” Faz explained. “Not to close it. Whoever did it, they did it online. But that means they had to know the bank, the names on the accounts, and the passwords.”

  Tracy looked to Kins. Everything was coming together, and it was all pointing to Graham Strickland. “The husband?”

  “Devin Chambers?” Kins said.

  “Who’s Devin Chambers?” Faz asked.

  “Andrea Strickland’s friend,” Tracy said. “We’re going to need to run her down.”

  “Can we find the money, where it went?” Kins asked.

  “I got the fraud unit looking into it,” Faz said, “but I’m betting the person immediately routed the money out of the country to a quaint little bank that doesn’t ask a lot of information.”

  “If the person knew what they were doing,” Tracy said, wondering how they could prove that person was Graham Strickland. Computer records? Phone records?