The Trapped Girl (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 4)

by Robert Dugoni

  “My wife did and said a lot of crazy things, including faking her own death. She wasn’t exactly acting rationally.”

  It was a good argument, one that Strickland and his attorney would hit hard if they ever had to argue that his wife had set it up to look like Strickland had intended to kill her.

  “So you weren’t having an affair?” Tracy asked.

  “I’ve already talked about this with the other detective,” he said. “And as my attorney advised you the other day, we’re not going back over old ground.”

  Another bolt of lightning sparked in the cloud layer just over the bridge. “When’s the last time you saw Devin Chambers?” Tracy asked.

  This time the thunder exploded overhead, strong enough to rattle the restaurant windows. Strickland shook his head as if he were completely disinterested. “I don’t know, months.”

  “You haven’t seen her since your wife’s disappearance?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t seek her out to ask if she knew anything about it?”

  “No, because as I’ve already explained, at the time I believed my wife had died in an accident. So what exactly was I going to ask Devin Chambers?”

  “Whether or not she knew about the insurance policy your wife took out naming you a beneficiary? Or why your wife would have consulted a divorce lawyer or told her boss you were cheating on her again?” Kins said.

  “It was an incredibly stressful time for me, Detectives. I believed my wife had died. Then I’m suddenly being questioned like I’m a suspect in her death.”

  “You did have an affair though,” Kins said. “You admitted that.”

  “It was a mistake, okay? I’ve been over this. I’d been seeing the person before I met Andrea. I should have ended it. I didn’t. And as you said, it isn’t illegal.”

  The first drops of rain splattered the concrete patio and the canvas umbrella. Strickland acted like he didn’t notice.

  “Any idea where we might find Devin Chambers?” Tracy asked.

  “I assume you would find her either at work or at her home.”

  Tracy watched Strickland’s face for any sign he knew Chambers had fled, but his expression remained completely placid, and his eyes never shifted from hers.

  “Are you aware that Devin Chambers told her boss and some of the tenants in her apartment building that she was moving back home to New Jersey?”

  “Obviously not,” he said. “Or I would have told you that in response to your last question.” He turned his head and looked to the interior of the restaurant, presumably searching for his lunch date.

  Water trickled over the sides of the umbrella. Kins had to move his chair closer to the table to keep from getting wet. “She never told you that?” he said.

  “I told you, I haven’t seen or spoken to Devin Chambers in months. We seem to be going in circles.” Strickland uncrossed his legs and looked again to the lobby.

  “This is the first you heard of it?” Tracy asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ever heard the name Lynn Hoff?” Kins asked.

  “The first time I heard that name was when my attorney called and told me you found Andrea’s body, and that she had been using that name.”

  “You’d never heard that name before?”

  “No.”

  “Any idea how your wife obtained her fake identity?”

  “None whatsoever, but then it appears my wife was full of surprises, doesn’t it?”

  “Did you hire a private investigator to look for Lynn Hoff?” Kins asked.

  “Why would I hire a private investigator to look for someone I didn’t know?”

  “Because you thought someone named Lynn Hoff stole your wife’s money,” Kins said.

  Strickland scoffed. “Why would I have thought that?”

  “Because your wife had close to half a million dollars that appears to have just disappeared,” Kins said. “Or didn’t that concern you?”

  “As I said, I had other concerns at the time, Detective.”

  “So you didn’t even try to find the money?” Kins didn’t bother to hide his skepticism.

  “No, I didn’t. Why, have you found it?”

  “And you have no idea who might have taken it?” Kins asked.

  “None.”

  An Asian woman approached their table. At least six feet tall, she was all legs in tight-fitting blue jeans, high heels, and a sheer blouse that looked to be buttoned at her navel. She gave them an uncertain smile.

  Strickland quickly pushed back his chair, intercepting her. “Would you give us a minute?”

  He stepped away from the table, water dripping from the umbrella onto his back as he did, and guided the woman inside the restaurant, though not so far that Tracy could not see them.

  “You think he’ll bolt?” Kins asked, watching Strickland.

  “Could,” Tracy said.

  “He’s lying.”

  “About something,” Tracy agreed. “About what, I don’t know yet.”

  After a minute, the woman departed. Strickland rejoined them, ducking beneath the dripping umbrella. He sat back, sipping a glass of water.

  “We don’t care who you were sleeping with, Mr. Strickland,” Kins said. “That’s none of our business.”

  “What is your business here?”

  “Finding Devin Chambers,” Tracy said.

  “Did something happen to Devin Chambers?” he asked. “I thought you said she left the state.”

  “That’s what she told people,” Tracy said. “According to a sister, that’s not the case.”

  “And you think I had something to do with her disappearance?”

  “Do you know if Devin Chambers and your wife ever discussed your personal affairs?” Tracy asked.

  “I can’t imagine what they discussed.”

  “Do you know if Devin Chambers was aware of your wife’s money?”

  “I doubt it. I didn’t even know about it.”

  “When did you find out?”

  “Andrea mentioned it when we went to obtain a bank loan for the new business.”

  “Did you ask your wife why she hadn’t told you before then?” Tracy asked.

  “Of course.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said her parents left it for her in trust and she’d only recently gained control of the money.”

  “Did you ask her to use the money?”

  “No.”

  “No?” Kins said.

  “No,” Strickland said, shaking his head. “She said the money couldn’t be used to start a business and I respected that.”

  “It didn’t upset you?” Kins said.

  Strickland shrugged. “Maybe a little at first, but we discussed it and I understood where she was coming from.”

  “And you have no idea what happened to your wife’s money?” Kins asked, clearly pushing Strickland.

  “I’ve told you, no. If she’s still alive, I presume she has it, wherever she is. If she’s not, then someone stole it. May I ask you a question, Detectives?”

  “Sure,” Tracy said.

  “Have you made any progress on identifying the woman in the crab pot?”

  “We’re working on it,” Tracy said.

  The old adage “When it rains, it pours” proved accurate. The summer storm did not blow through. It brought a steady rain, and a drop in the temperature. With no umbrellas, Tracy and Kins made a mad dash to the car, but were still dripping wet by the time they climbed inside.

  “He’s a piece of work, isn’t he?” Kins started the car and turned on the heater.

  Tracy diverted the vents, which were spewing cold air. “If he did kill them, he won’t be easy to convict; both murders were well thought out. We got lucky when Schill got tangled with the crab pot.” Tracy checked her watch. “What time are we meeting your Portland detective?”

  “Three,” Kins said. “Let me call him and see if we’re still on schedule or if he can move it up a bit.”

 
; “I’ll call Faz.”

  Faz advised Tracy that he’d spoken to the FBI about the status of their forensic examination of the skip tracer’s computer. So far, it appeared the skip tracer’s client had logged on to a server in a public location, and the FBI was optimistic they’d at least be able to narrow that location. “Del and I are about to go out to the apartments and marinas with Chambers’s photograph. We’ll also stop by Dr. Wu’s.”

  Kins’s conversation with the Portland detective was considerably shorter. When he hung up, he swore. “Is nothing in this case simple?”

  “What happened?” Tracy asked, disconnecting her call with Faz.

  “They got a shooting over at one of the college campuses. My guy’s out the rest of the day.”

  “Can someone else handle the warrant?”

  Kins shook his head. “You know how it is. The earliest he can do it is tomorrow morning.”

  The strain of long days and interrupted sleep had caught up to Tracy. Her clothing was wet and uncomfortable and she felt frustrated. “Well, no sense driving back to Seattle just to turn around and come back down,” she said. “I guess we’re going to have to get a hotel.”

  “I just love wearing day-old underwear,” Kins said.

  They ate lunch and checked into adjacent rooms in a Marriott Courtyard at the end of the waterfront. Tracy made some phone calls and answered e-mails while watching the storm out her hotel window, the sky now a roiling sea of angry dark clouds and the rain coming in sheets. She checked in with Dan and told him she would not be home, then called into the office. Faz and Del had returned to Police Headquarters after canvassing the marinas and the apartments with a photograph of Devin Chambers.

  “Nobody recalls seeing her,” Faz said. “Only positive identification was by Dr. Wu, which didn’t exactly come as a surprise.”

  “Did your uncle talk to Chambers’s sister?”

  “He got to her this afternoon. He said it went okay as far as those things go. Said the sister took it stoically and thanked him.”

  “Any parents?” Tracy asked.

  “Deceased.”

  “Any other siblings?”

  “Apparently not. What did the hubby have to say?” Faz asked.

  “He don’t know nothing from nothing,” she said, using a Faz colloquialism.

  “You get the search warrant?”

  “No. They got a homicide over at one of the colleges, so Kins’s guy is out until tomorrow morning.”

  Someone knocked on her door. The clock on the nightstand read five thirty. She and Kins had agreed to meet at six. “Somebody’s at the door. I’ll call you later,” she said to Faz and hung up.

  Kins stood in the hallway looking frustrated. “We’re not going to get our warrant,” he said.

  CHAPTER 28

  The jurisdiction cluster had become a whole lot more entangled. Portland Police were exercising control over Strickland’s Pearl District loft, and rightfully so. It was now a crime scene, an apparent homicide.

  A large contingent of police and emergency vehicles—fire department response units, blue-and-white patrol cars, unmarked police vehicles, a CSI van, and the Portland Medical Examiner’s van cluttered the street in front of the three-story brick building. As was always the case, this much excitement was just too much for the local population to ignore. With the storm having passed and the sun again beaming, a crowd had gathered behind sawhorses that closed street access. Uniformed officers directed traffic to detours. Kins slowed as he approached and lowered his window, showing the officer his badge.

  “Seattle?” the officer asked.

  “We have an interest in another case up north.”

  “Wherever you can find a place to park.” The officer moved one of the sawhorses so Kins could drive through.

  Kins parked behind an unmarked Ford in the middle of the narrow street. Around them stood three- and four-story brick buildings that looked to have been originally built for industrial purposes, then renovated, earthquake proofed, and no doubt inspected ad nauseam for compliance with building codes before being turned into mixed-use structures. The area reminded Tracy of Pioneer Square in Seattle. After an urban renewal in the 1960s, Pioneer Square had become home to art galleries, Internet companies, cafés, sports bars, and nightclubs.

  The ground floor of the Pearl District buildings housed retail businesses—cafés, restaurants, and what looked like high-end clothing and home-decorating stores. The upper floors, judging from what Tracy could see in the windows facing the street, were residential. Metal additions protruded from the roofs, likely multimillion-dollar penthouse condominiums.

  “Busy area,” she said, looking around the street. “A lot of people around.”

  The responding officers had set up a second perimeter at a wrought-iron gate between two concrete pillars. The walkway led to a side entrance to the building.

  “I’m looking for Detective Zhu,” Kins said, again flashing his shield and ID.

  “Third floor,” the officer said.

  “What unit?” Kins asked.

  “Only one unit per floor. It’s a loft.”

  At the end of the sloped concrete walk, they came to a glass-door entrance beneath a forest-green awning bearing the building’s address and a symbol, what looked like an ampersand. Inside the lobby, with its wood-plank floors and leather furniture, they walked across to an old-fashioned cage elevator and wide staircase.

  “Let’s take the stairs,” Kins said. “Those things give me the heebie-jeebies.”

  “What about your hip?”

  “I’d rather be in pain than die if that thing falls.”

  “God, you’re paranoid.”

  “I like to think of it as pragmatic.”

  As they approached the staircase, Tracy noted three steps leading down to an exterior door. She took them and pushed on the door, which sprang open and led into a parking lot at the back of the building. She exited the building and let the door close behind her. When she tried the handle she found the door locked and noticed, on the wall beside it, a keyless pad. She considered the light stanchions and corners of the surrounding buildings, but did not see any surveillance cameras. Retrofitted metal decks anchored by extension arms and large bolts protruded from the second and third stories and likely obstructed the tenants’ views of the parking lot, and anyone approaching the ground-level door.

  Kins opened the door for her from the inside and they made their way up the staircase to the third-floor landing. They encountered the final perimeter, an officer with a clipboard and sign-in log just outside the loft door. Kins signed for both of them and again asked for Zhu.

  “Hang on,” the officer said. He took a step inside the loft. “Detective Zhu? You got a couple of visitors.”

  Tracy contemplated the door to the loft. Larger than a standard door, it looked solid, with metal rivets. She again noted a keyless lock pad. Neither the door nor the doorjamb evidenced any sign of a forced entry.

  An Asian man with young features stepped into the hall. Kins and Jonathan Zhu shook hands and Kins introduced Tracy.

  “Well, this is one way to search an apartment,” Zhu said. “What time did you talk to this guy today?”

  “Right around noon,” Kins said.

  “Where’d you meet him?”

  “We interrupted him at some place called the Third Degree.”

  “Three Degrees?” Zhu said. “Down on the water?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one,” Kins said. “He was meeting someone for lunch.”

  “A woman?”

  “Yeah,” Kins said.

  “Did she show?”

  “Briefly,” Kins said.

  “You get a good look at her?”

  “Hard to miss. Tall, Asian, good-looking.”

  “Come on in.” Zhu led them inside the loft.

  The interior consisted of an open floor plan interrupted only by thick, hand-hewn wooden beams extending to triangular trusses that supported a twenty-foot ceiling. To the left of
the entry, Tracy noticed a bench where people could sit and remove their shoes. Above it hung coats and jackets from metal hooks. One coat looked like the coat worn by the Asian woman at the restaurant. Tracy and Kins followed Zhu into a living area of leather couches, a glass coffee table, and a flat-screen TV. The early-evening sunlight streamed into the room through arched windows. In the far corner was a kitchen. Metal steps led up to the second-story landing. They ascended. Partitions shielded their view as they approached a room where most of the activity was centered. Stepping around the partition, Tracy encountered a team of people from the medical examiner’s office hovering over and working around a blood-soaked bed, the white sheets and bedding stained a deep crimson red.

  “Is she the woman you saw him with this afternoon?” Zhu asked.

  They stepped from the loft back into the hall. Streaks of light through one of the arched windows cut slash marks across the floor. The noises of the Pearl District filtered up from the street—cars and the sounds of a city. The scene inside the loft was gruesome—a young woman lay facedown on the bed, sheet lowered to reveal her bare shoulders and back, dark hair and blood forming a halo around her head.

  “Who is she?” Tracy asked.

  “According to her driver’s license she’s Megan Chen,” Zhu said. “Twenty-four years old, shares an apartment in inner Northeast Portland with two roommates.”

  “Who found her? Who called it in?” Kins asked.

  “Cleaning lady,” Zhu said. “She’s pretty shaken up. We have one of our female detectives talking with her at the station.”

  “Any estimate on the time of death?” Tracy asked.

  “ME says a couple hours at most.”

  Sufficient time for Strickland to leave the restaurant and get home, Tracy thought. “They find a weapon?”

  Zhu nodded. “9mm.”

  Likely the same-caliber weapon used to kill Devin Chambers.

  Kins shifted his feet, the way he did when he was upset, or frustrated. “Any word on Strickland’s whereabouts?”

  “We sent a couple of detectives over to the law firm where he works. His assistant said he had a three o’clock appointment this afternoon but didn’t show.”

  “That was with me,” Tracy said. “I called yesterday to find out if he was around so we wouldn’t make an unnecessary trip.”