The Trapped Girl (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 4)

by Robert Dugoni

  Near three in the afternoon, they reached Independence. Tracy briefly scanned the town for hotels as they drove through the surface streets, in case they had to spend the night. They turned west on Onion Valley Road, a winding ascent into the foothills that, because of the curves, seemed longer than the posted five miles.

  As they approached a stand of trees, Orr said, “Slow down. Turn here.” They left the asphalt for a dirt road, continuing through the trees and hugging a teal-blue mountain stream. After a hundred yards, Orr directed Tracy to a small area cleared of trees where an old Jeep Willys sat. “Park here. The cabin is just up the path.”

  Tracy parked beside the Jeep, amazed from its appearance that the car still ran. Fields, following, parked next to her.

  “Does she have any weapons?” Tracy asked.

  Orr shrugged. “My father has a shotgun. He used it to kill snakes.”

  “Where is it located?”

  “In the closet in the bedroom. I don’t think it’s been fired in years.”

  “Any other weapons? A handgun?”

  “No,” Orr said. She let out a painful sigh. “Can I talk to her first and try to explain? She’s not going to understand.”

  Not knowing the layout of the cabin, and given that there was at least one weapon inside the building, Tracy couldn’t allow that to happen. “I’m sorry, I can’t do that. But once we get inside and I secure things, I’ll give you time to speak to her.”

  They pushed out of the car. The air had become muggy and thick. Billowing white clouds gathered in the distance over the many mountain peaks surrounding the valley. An oval-shaped lenticular cloud hovered like a UFO. Tracy’s father had taught her to read the weather so she would not get caught unprepared. She knew lenticular clouds formed when hot air rose and collided with cooler air. On a mountain, such as Rainier, the clouds could be harbingers of the kind of storms that could kill.

  Orr led Tracy and Fields along a dirt path lined with river stones and railroad ties, the only sound the trickling of the stream and the buzz of unseen insects. Another ten yards and Tracy saw a wooden walk, a bridge over a stream leading to a cabin nestled among the pines. Forest-green with a red door, the cabin sat on a foundation of river stones, with a chimney made of the same rocks protruding above the roof. At first glance, the cabin looked like something out of a fairy tale where a gnome or elf might live. It made Tracy think of the Alki Point Lighthouse, and Dan’s desire that Tracy have a fairy-tale wedding. It also made her think the cabin was a perfect place for someone whom the world had crapped on to run and hide.

  After crossing the bridge, they stepped down to dirt, then climbed two steps to a small porch. The clunk of their shoes echoed on the wood. Orr knocked on the door. She looked like she’d aged during the drive, like someone about to commit an unspeakable betrayal. Noise inside the cabin indicated someone moving about. Instinctively, Tracy reached across her body and gripped the butt of her gun. Orr didn’t wait for the door to open. She pushed it in and called out, “Andrea?”

  Andrea Strickland had been smiling when Orr opened the door. That smile fell quickly, and her expression changed from bewilderment to the purest expression of pain and resignation.

  “I’m sorry,” Penny Orr said.

  So was Tracy. She now understood what Orr had been alluding to, why Andrea Strickland had been so desperate to get away.

  The inside of the small cabin looked like an independent bookstore that had outgrown its space. Stacks of books cluttered the furniture, the kitchen table, and the bench seat beneath leaded-glass windows that distorted the view outside. They filled crates in the corners of the room, and overflowed bookshelves. Tracy saw hardbacks and paperbacks of every genre, novels and nonfiction, autobiographies.

  Tracy asked Andrea Strickland and Penny Orr to sit on a two-cushion couch while she went to the bedroom closet to secure an old, 12-gauge, Crack Barrel Shotgun, the kind her father had used in shooting competitions. The gun was not loaded, and it didn’t look as though it had been fired anytime recently, though it was kept in good condition. She also took a box of shells from the closet shelf. She handed the shotgun and shells to Fields, who set the shells on the mantel and leaned the barrel against the river-rock fireplace hearth. Tracy moved a stack of books from the window seat and sat directly across from the two women. The two-room cabin consisted of the living room and a kitchen area with a tiny wood-burning stove and a refrigerator. In the back, the bedroom was not much bigger than the queen-size wrought-iron bed. In the living room, two wooden posts extended from beneath the floor to wood ceiling trusses, and the room retained the smell of burned wood from the blackened fireplace.

  “Andrea inherited her love of reading from my mother,” Orr said with a sad smile. She gripped Andrea’s hand. “Grandma would come here and read three books in a day. She wore out the library in Independence, but she didn’t like having to return the books, so she bought crates at used bookstores and brought them up here.”

  Andrea Strickland did not raise her gaze from the bearskin rug on the wood-plank floor.

  “It looks like a wide variety,” Tracy said. “Do you have a favorite genre?”

  Strickland glanced at Tracy, then back at the floor. “No,” she said softly.

  “How far along are you?” Tracy asked. She’d noticed the telltale bump beneath Andrea’s stretch pants.

  Andrea lifted her head again. “Just a little more than six months now.”

  “And your husband doesn’t know.”

  Andrea shook her head. “No.”

  Andrea Strickland was not crazy or vindictive. She had, however, been desperate to get away from an abusive husband intent on killing her, and, unknowingly, her unborn child.

  “Andrea, your aunt didn’t want to tell us where you were. I found the birth certificate for Lynn Hoff. I figured it out,” Tracy said.

  Strickland nodded. Orr squeezed her niece’s hand.

  “I think you can imagine we have some questions, Andrea, about what happened. Will you speak to me?”

  “Does she need a lawyer?” Orr asked.

  That was always the $64,000 question for the witness and the police officer. Strickland was not in police custody so her right to an attorney under the Fifth Amendment had not been triggered. She had also not been charged with a crime, which meant her Sixth Amendment right had also not been triggered. Given the location of the cabin and the condition of the Jeep, Tracy now had serious doubts Strickland could have killed Devin Chambers or Megan Chen. She’d faked her own death, but to do so was neither a federal nor a state crime. She had not illegally recovered any insurance proceeds, nor was she seeking to avoid paying state or federal taxes. She’d used a fake identification to open bank accounts, but not to commit forgery or fraud, since the money belonged to her. As for defaulting on the bank loans and the lease, her husband had admitted to forging her name on the personal guarantees. Whether her separate property was susceptible to those creditors remained a civil, not a criminal, issue.

  In other words, Tracy had no basis to arrest her.

  The ugly issue of jurisdiction had also resurfaced again. Tracy and Fields had crossed state lines to speak to a witness, who had led them to another witness. Without a court order, they did not have authority to arrest Andrea Strickland or to extradite her back to either Oregon or Washington, even if they decided they had a basis to do so.

  Andrea Strickland had run because she was pregnant, her husband had planned to kill her, and she’d decided she could not risk him killing her baby, or raising a child with such a man. Inside, Tracy was applauding her decision.

  “At the moment we just want to talk,” Tracy said. “If you prefer to have an attorney present, I’ll honor that request. It’s up to you.”

  Orr looked to her niece, who glanced up but gave no indication of her desire. Orr reconsidered Tracy. “Can we have a minute?”

  “Sure,” Tracy said.

  Tracy nodded to Fields and the two of them stepped outside. Fields imm
ediately reached for his pack of cigarettes and lighter, lighting up and blowing smoke into the air. In such a pristine location, it seemed a fundamental violation of the beauty of nature.

  “What do you think?” Fields asked. “Personally, I think she’s nuts. The aunt might be too.”

  Tracy bit her tongue. Fields was so predictable. “I think she’s a young woman who the world shit on who didn’t want the same thing for her child.”

  “You’re a bleeding heart, Crosswhite.” He took a drag and blew smoke into the sky. “What do we do if she won’t talk? If we leave, she could run again. She’s got all that money hidden someplace, and the aunt had her bags packed and ready to go. I’m not buying the trip-to-Florida story.”

  “We don’t have any basis to arrest her.”

  “What are you talking about? At a minimum, she’s a suspect in Devin Chambers’s death. She had a clear motive, two actually—the money, and the fact that Chambers was sleeping with her husband.”

  Tracy almost laughed. “Motive maybe, but not opportunity—not if she’s been living out here the whole time.”

  “Who knows whether that’s true or not? She could have driven up to Washington, killed Chambers, and driven back.”

  “Driven in what? That Jeep isn’t licensed and doesn’t look like it would make fifty miles.”

  “She could’ve rented a car. She could have driven the aunt’s car.”

  “How did she find Chambers?”

  “She hired the PI. She drives down into Independence, sets up a guerilla account, gets on public Wi-Fi, and makes inquiries. You said there was a lag time in between her e-mails to the PI and the investigator’s responses. This could be why. She was living out here, off the grid. She had to go into town to get Wi-Fi.”

  “Does she look to you like she wants to run anywhere?” Tracy said. “This is heaven for her. No one bothers her. She doesn’t have to deal with a world that has treated her like a doormat. She has her books to read. Mountains to hike. Why would she want to go anyplace else?”

  “Because she’s got a kid on the way,” Fields said. “What, is she going to give birth in a cabin?”

  It wasn’t a bad point.

  “I’m sure Independence has a hospital,” Tracy said. “We don’t have enough to arrest her.”

  Fields blew more smoke out the side of his mouth. “Yeah, well, if Strickland decides she’s not talking to us, I’m going to arrest her.”

  “For what?” Tracy said, becoming irritated. “You have a missing persons case. Far as I can tell, you found her. There’s no crime in anything that we know that she’s done. Your case is closed. Devin Chambers is my case, and I can’t arrest Andrea Strickland without an arrest warrant, even if I believed I had sufficient cause.”

  Footsteps sounded, someone approaching the door. Penny Orr stepped out onto the porch. “Andrea said she has something to tell you.”

  Tracy stepped past Fields and followed Orr inside.

  Andrea remained seated on the couch, but she no longer looked sullen. She looked shocked and saddened. Before Tracy could say a word, Andrea said, “I killed Devin.”

  Tracy’s heart felt like it had leapt into her throat. She glanced quickly at Fields, uncertain what to say, or even if she could get the words out.

  “So you killed her?” Fields said.

  Tracy snapped back to reality. “Don’t answer that. Don’t say another word.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Strickland said. “I just wanted to punish them for what they did to me.”

  “What did I say?” Fields said to Tracy. He removed handcuffs from the back of his belt.

  “Andrea, I’m cautioning you not to say another word.” She turned to Fields and raised a hand. Fields stopped. Tracy nodded for him to step back outside.

  On the porch, Fields wore a shit-eating I-told-you-so grin. “You see, Crosswhite, you just never know with people.”

  “Nothing she says is admissible.”

  “The hell it ain’t.”

  “We haven’t read her her Miranda rights.”

  “So I’ll read them and ask again.”

  “Just hang on a second, okay? I’m going to drive down into Independence where I can get cell phone reception and make some calls to get some advice. I’ll find the local sheriff and ask him to take her into custody until I can get an arrest warrant that includes extradition back to Washington State. You don’t need to handcuff her. Where is she going to run? Just read her her Miranda rights and make sure she acknowledges them, but do not interview her. This is my case. Are we good?”

  “Yeah, we’re good,” Fields said, smiling. “Like I’ve been saying, this ain’t my first rodeo.”

  “Keys,” she said.

  Fields tossed her the car keys. Tracy left quickly, crossing the wooden bridge and heading down the dirt path to the rental. She backed the car out and punched the accelerator, leaving a cloud of dirt and dust. She turned onto the paved road and drove down the hill with her cell phone in hand, alternately checking for reception and trying to keep the car on the road. Halfway down the mountain her phone had two bars. She’d missed three phone calls in five minutes, all from SPD. She also had one text message, from Faz.

  Alternately shifting her gaze from the winding road to her phone, she read the text.

  Call me ASAP. Development in Strickland. Important.

  She pulled onto the shoulder and dialed the number. It seemed to take forever for the call to connect.

  Faz spoke before she could say hello. “Professor, where the . . . you been? I’ve been . . . hold of you.”

  “I’m out of cell range. You’re breaking up.”

  “Professor?”

  “Faz?” The phone beeped. The call had failed. “Damn.”

  She gave a fleeting thought to hitting redial, then decided to get farther down the mountain. She pulled back onto the pavement and navigated the turns. Her phone rang in her hand. She hit the “Speaker” button. “Faz?”

  “Yeah. Can you hear me?”

  “You’re still breaking up.”

  “We got . . . back.”

  “Say that again,” she said.

  “We got the computer . . . back.”

  “You got the computer forensics back? Faz? What did it say?”

  “Professor?”

  “Faz, can you hear me?”

  “You’re really hard to . . . trace the guerilla e-mail account and . . . Wi-Fi address. The e-mail . . . generated from a public address . . . a restaurant . . .”

  “I missed it, Faz. Say it again.”

  “A public address . . . Tacoma . . . Viola.”

  The car drifted to the right, onto the dirt shoulder. Tracy hit the brakes, spraying dust and gravel, corrected, crossed the centerline, corrected a second time, and pulled to the shoulder and stopped. She sat stunned.

  Fields.

  Fields had been looking for Devin Chambers. My God.

  “Professor?”

  The phone. “Faz? Faz?”

  He didn’t answer. “Faz? Faz, I don’t know if you can hear me. I’m in a small town in the Sierra Nevada Mountains called Seven Pines. Seven Pines. The closest town is Independence. Faz? Shit. Faz, call the sheriff. Tell him I’m in need of immediate assistance. Faz?” She had no way of knowing if the call was still transmitting, but at least it had not yet died. “Tell him it’s the green cabin with the red door. First right turn off the paved road. Tell him to . . .”

  The line went dead.

  CHAPTER 34

  Tracy debated driving down the hill, into Independence, where there was reception, but that would take time and she’d left Fields alone with Strickland and Orr. Her stomach churning, she turned the car around and headed back up the mountain. It made sense now, at least some of it. Fields had presumed Andrea Strickland was dead. He would have known about the money from his investigation and believed Graham Strickland killed his wife for that money. When the money disappeared, Fields would have gone looking for Strickland and for Andrea Strickl
and’s only friend and learned that Devin Chambers had left Portland the same time Strickland disappeared, along with the money. Maybe Fields had withheld other evidence, evidence that convinced him Devin Chambers had taken the money, that she and Graham Strickland had had an affair. Tracy didn’t know for sure. What she did know was that to a bad cop, this was like the drug money Fields had spent a decade chasing in Arizona. It was free money. Strickland was presumed dead. Her husband was going to jail. If he could find Devin Chambers, he could find the money, half a million in cash for the taking.

  Fields couldn’t use police resources to find Chambers, but he didn’t have to. He’d spent a decade pursuing drug dealers, living off the grid in the Arizona desert, and finding their well-hidden money. He knew how they laundered money and he knew how to get it. The money was right there. All he had to do was kill Devin Chambers and tell everyone she had absconded with it, and disappeared to points unknown. That’s why he’d stuffed her body in a crab pot, seemingly never to be found. Tracy thought again of her conversation with Kins while sitting in the processing room at the Medical Examiner’s office waiting for the autopsy. Kins had said a body in a crab pot was a first for King County, but it wasn’t a first. Pierce County had prosecuted a prior crab pot case, just two years earlier.

  Fields.

  If she was right, he was more than just a bad cop. He was a killer. He’d killed Chambers, and he would have gotten away with it, a seemingly perfect plan, until Kurt Schill’s one-in-a-million snag pulled up the wrong pot. That brought in another police agency, an agency that was going to dig into the matter. That’s why Fields had fought so hard to keep jurisdiction. He didn’t want anyone else poking around in his weeds. Once Schill found the pot, Fields needed to make Graham Strickland look like a cold-blooded killer, or at least direct the attention back to him. As the investigating detective into Andrea Strickland’s disappearance, Fields had been to the Pearl Street loft, even searched it. He would have known the details on the security at the building, including the keypad in the elevator and on the front door.