In the Clearing (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 3)

by Robert Dugoni

  “Definitely a body,” the first responder said.

  The shouts and squeals of children drew Tracy’s attention to the bay window. Dan cradled the football, dodging a pack of kids in hot pursuit. It didn’t resemble any football game Tracy had ever witnessed, but they all looked and sounded like they were having a good time.

  “If this is too close to home, Tracy, you can just tell me to stop.”

  Tracy shook her head. “It’s fine,” she said. Like Kimi, Sarah had been about to start college when she disappeared. Tracy had become a homicide detective out of a strong desire to determine what had happened to her sister, and to help other young women like her.

  “The pathologist who did the autopsy and the prosecutor concluded it was a suicide,” Jenny said. “They said Kimi Kanasket jumped from a bridge into the White Salmon River and drowned. The rapids knocked her around pretty good on the rocks. She had broken bones, and bruises on her arms and chest. She might have flowed all the way to the Columbia, but her clothing got hung up on the branch of a submerged tree. The current wedged her body beneath it.”

  “And the theory was she did it because of the ex-boyfriend?”

  “Tommy Moore. He’d come into the diner that night with another girl.”

  “What did he have to say about it?”

  “According to my dad’s report, Moore confirmed that he took another girl into the diner where Kimi worked, but he said he quickly left, took the girl home, and went to his apartment.”

  “His date confirm that?”

  “Pretty much. Her statement’s in the file too. She said Moore got upset because Kimi ‘dissed him,’ and he drove her home.”

  “Dissed him how?”

  “Apparently, she acted like she didn’t care.”

  “Anyone vouch for whether Moore went to his apartment?”

  “My dad took a drive out there. Moore’s roommate said he’d come home but that he took off again when the brother’s posse showed up armed and asking questions.”

  “Roommate know where Moore went?”

  “No.”

  Tracy flipped through the file. “You think there’s more to it?”

  “I think my father believed there was more to it.”

  “Where’d you find this file?” Tracy asked.

  “Right here, in my father’s desk.”

  “Where are the closed files usually kept?”

  “A file this old would have been moved to the off-site storage unit. But this was never a cold case.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “After I found it, I checked our computer records at the office. There is no record that a Kimi Kanasket file was ever sent to storage. The records at the office indicate it was destroyed.”

  “Destroyed when?”

  “No date provided.”

  “By who?”

  “Doesn’t say.”

  “What’s the policy on destroying old files?”

  “Now? Now we keep closed homicide files for as long as eighty years, or until the detective who worked the case says it can be destroyed.”

  SPD had a similar policy. “Did you check with the detective who worked this case to see if he authorized it?”

  “He’s long gone. He died in the nineties.”

  Tracy pointed to the file on the desk. “So then, either that file is the official file or a personal file your father kept.”

  “That was my conclusion. And if it’s the official file, then my father either checked it out and indicated it had been destroyed, or the last person who looked for it concluded it had been destroyed because it was missing.”

  “Either way, your father took it.”

  “There are some notes in the file indicating he was looking into things from time to time. I think this case weighed on him.”

  Tracy flipped deeper into the file contents, the pages two-hole-punched and held by a clasp at the top. “Witness statements, the coroner’s report, photographs, sketches.” She let the contents fall back to the first page. “Looks like a complete file.”

  “Appears to be.”

  “You get a chance to look at it?”

  “Some.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I was born shortly after Kimi disappeared,” Jenny said. “We didn’t live in Stoneridge then. We moved there when my dad became sheriff. I don’t recall my father ever really talking about it. Yet, I knew about Kimi Kanasket. Everyone did. I can remember people saying things like ‘Don’t walk the road alone late at night. You’ll end up like Kimi Kanasket.’”

  “You want me to take a look?”

  “Forensics are better now, and it just feels like the cancer robbed my dad of the chance to finish this. I feel like I owe it to him to at least take a closer look, but I’m his daughter. I’m not sure I can be objective. I’m also an elected official, and I may have to reopen the file. If that’s the case, I’d like an independent assessment to justify my decision. If there’s nothing to it, so be it. If there is . . .” Jenny shrugged.

  Another squeal, but this one sounded more urgent. When they looked out the window, they saw Trey on the ground crying, Neil trying to console him.

  “Is he hurt?”

  “That’s his ‘We lost’ cry,” Jenny said. “He’s competitive, like his father.”

  “And his mother,” Tracy said.

  Jenny smiled. “I get it from my father.”

  “So do I,” Tracy said, picking up the file.

  CHAPTER 5

  Emily Rodriguez, fifty-seven, lived one house to the north of Tim and Angela Collins’s home. The first thing Kins noticed when he and Faz entered her home was the large picture window that faced Greenwood Avenue.

  “Thank you for speaking to us again,” Kins said. Faz and Del had interviewed the woman the night before.

  Rodriguez looked uncomfortable. “It’s so sad,” she said. “So sad.”

  “Did you know the family?”

  “Not really. I’d wave in passing, say hello, that sort of thing.”

  Kins nodded, letting the woman catch her breath. “Ever hear any arguing, yelling, anything to indicate they were having problems?”

  “No.”

  “Any neighbors ever indicate they’d heard there were problems in the home?”

  “I don’t talk much with my neighbors. I’m not unfriendly or anything, I just don’t know them very well. A lot of people I knew have moved. But I never heard anything.”

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “Me? Thirty years.”

  “Do you know when the Collinses moved in?”

  “About five years ago, I’d say.”

  “What about the son? Did you ever speak with him?”

  Rodriguez shook her head. “Again, maybe in passing, but nothing I can recall. I’d see him getting on and off the bus in the morning.” She pointed out the window. “He waited right there at that bus stop.”

  Kins stepped to the window. “I noticed in your witness statement you said you thought you heard a car backfire and looked out the window. I’m assuming it was this window?”

  “That’s right. It was a bang, the way an engine will sometimes do that.”

  “And you said that when you looked out the window, you saw a city bus?”

  Rodriguez joined Kins and Faz at the window. “At that bus stop. Route Five.”

  Kins smiled. “You’re familiar with it.”

  “I rode that bus downtown and back for more than twenty years.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I was a paralegal at a law firm.”

  “Do you recall what time it was when you heard the bang?”

  “I didn’t look at my watch or anything,” she said.

  In her witness statement, Rodriguez didn’t provide an exact time, but Kins hoped he could narrow it down using the city bus schedule, which he’d checked on the Metro Transit website that morning. “According to the schedule, that bus makes a stop at that location at 5:18 and then again at 5:34.”
Angela Collins had called 911 at 5:39, so he guessed Rodriguez heard the shot at 5:34.

  “That’s right. I would catch the 4:35 at Third and Pine downtown, and it would drop me here at 5:18.”

  “Do you know if the bus you saw was the 5:18 or the 5:34?”

  “I’m not sure. This was pretty upsetting.” Rodriguez massaged her temple.

  “Take your time,” Kins said.

  She closed her eyes, grimacing. Kins looked to Faz, who frowned and shrugged. He’d gotten the same answer.

  “I’m sorry,” Rodriguez said. “I don’t . . .” She opened her eyes.

  “What were you doing before you heard the noise?” Kins said, trying to ground Rodriguez in a task that might refresh her recollection.

  “I was . . .” She looked to the window, then turned to a flat-screen in the corner of the room. “I was watching TV.”

  “Do you recall what you were watching?”

  “KIRO 7,” she said.

  “Local news.”

  “That’s right.” Kins could almost see the wheels starting to spin in her head. “I watch it from five to five thirty, then switch to World News Tonight on ABC. I was watching a story about housing prices rising on the Eastside. The noise startled me, and I went to the window to see what it was.”

  “So that was during the local news, right?” Kins said. “Does that help you with respect to when you heard the shot?”

  Rodriguez paused. “It does. It had to be the 5:18 bus.” She nodded. “It had to be. Didn’t it?”

  Yes, it did, Kins thought.

  And that raised a whole different set of questions.

  The call came in to the Justice Center as Kins and Faz were leaving Emily Rodriguez’s home, and the operator diverted it to Kins’s cell. When Kins disconnected and told Faz that Atticus Berkshire wanted to bring Angela Collins in to give a statement, Faz summed up his disbelief.

  “Right, and I’m going on a diet.”

  But an hour later, Berkshire did indeed come in with Collins.

  They were all seated at a round table in the soft interrogation room, Faz overwhelming his plastic chair, forearms folded across his chest and resting on his stomach. Angela Collins sat beside her father. She’d dressed in yoga pants and a loose-fitting sweatshirt. The bruising on the side of her face had become a mottled purple, yellow, and black.

  “As I indicated, Detectives,” Berkshire said, “Angela is prepared to tell you what happened that night. You may ask her questions, but I may instruct her not to answer a question if I believe the question is inappropriate, and I may terminate this interview at any time.” He, too, was dressed casually, in a checked button-down, glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. “Are those ground rules acceptable?”

  Kins was in no real position to negotiate, but he also wasn’t about to accept Berkshire’s terms on video. He was still trying to figure out why Berkshire would allow his daughter to give a statement. He and Kins had speculated that whatever Angela Collins had to say, it would have been carefully rehearsed, and intended to further her anticipated self-defense argument.

  “You’re willing to talk to us today with your lawyer present?” Kins asked Angela Collins.

  She nodded.

  “You have to answer audibly,” Berkshire said.

  “Yes,” she said, touching her lip as if it hurt to talk.

  “And you understand that this conversation is being videotaped and recorded?” Kins asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And, again, you agree to us recording what is said?”

  “Yes.”

  Kins was being cautious, even more surprised Berkshire would allow them to record the interview.

  “All right,” Kins said. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  Angela Collins took a deep breath, grimaced, and exhaled. “Tim came to the house to pick up Connor. He was upset.”

  “Tim was upset, or Connor was upset?” Kins was pretty sure she meant Tim, but he wanted to get her in the routine of answering his questions and prevent her from providing a soliloquy.

  “Tim was upset, but Connor was also upset.”

  “Why was Connor upset?”

  “He didn’t like going to his father’s apartment.”

  “Why not?”

  “Tim was hard on Connor. He was always on him about something.”

  Kins made a mental note to pursue that line of inquiry. Could the kid have snapped from persistent abuse? “What was your husband upset about when he came to the house?”

  “He was upset that my attorney had asked for an increase in support.” She slurred the last word and again paused to touch her lip. “He said he didn’t have any more money to give me. He said I was already taking more than seventy percent of what he was clearing after taxes. He accused me of hoarding money.”

  “According to the terms of a negotiated restraining order, your husband wasn’t supposed to go into the house,” Kins said, expecting Berkshire to object that Angela was there only to provide a statement. Berkshire, however, had his head down, taking notes on a pad.

  “That’s right.”

  “You let him in anyway?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Connor opened the door, and Tim forced his way in.”

  “Did Tim hit Connor?”

  “Yes, but not then.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Tim became verbally abusive. He said I was spending money on worthless things. That’s when he picked up the sculpture and began shaking it. He said it was a waste of money. I told him to put it down.”

  “Where was Connor when this was going on?”

  “I’d sent him to his room at the back of the house and told him to shut the door.”

  “Then what?”

  “The argument escalated. Tim got more and more worked up. I told him I was calling 911. That’s when he hit me with the sculpture.”

  She said it matter-of-factly, like someone reciting lines but showing no real emotion. “Where did he hit you?”

  Angela Collins touched the wound on the left side of her head.

  “How many times did he hit you with the sculpture?”

  “Just once. That’s all it took to knock me down.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “He kicked me in the stomach and started yelling at me.”

  “How many times did he kick you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then what?”

  “He dropped the sculpture and shouted for Connor that they were leaving, but Connor wouldn’t come out of his room. He’d locked himself in. Tim went back there and started pounding on the door, telling Connor if he didn’t open it, he’d break it down.”

  Kins was wondering how Collins could recollect such details if she’d been hit in the head hard enough to cause a wound that would require three stitches. “And Connor opened the door?” he asked.

  Angela Collins nodded. “Tim told him to get his stuff, that they were leaving, but by now Connor didn’t want to go with him. He told him no, and that’s when Tim hit him.”

  “You saw it?”

  “No, but I heard it. Tim has hit Connor before. He slapped him hard across the face. It sounded like a bullwhip.”

  Angela Collins started to shake, and Atticus Berkshire placed a comforting hand on her back. Kins slid a box of tissues closer, taking note of the lack of tears. Angela blew her nose, then sipped from a glass of water before continuing. “I’d gotten to my feet, and I got the gun from the box in the closet.”

  “You got the gun first, then went down the hall?”

  “That’s right. I just wanted to scare him, to make him leave us alone, but when I went down the hall I saw Tim grab Connor.”

  “Grabbed him where?”

  “He grabbed Connor by the shirt.”

  “Where was your son in the room?”

  “He’d retreated to the corner. His face was red where Tim had hit him. Connor resisted when Tim tried to get him to go with him.”

 
“How did he resist?”

  “I don’t know. He just did. And that’s when Tim raised his hand again . . . and I pulled the trigger and shot him.”

  Again, Kins noted the absence of tears. He’d had friends go through some brutal divorces, but he couldn’t imagine any of them having so little feeling for an ex-spouse that they couldn’t muster any tears—especially one they’d shot. He tried not to look at Berkshire as he asked his next question, certain it would draw an objection. “Your husband had his back to you?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Berkshire never looked up.

  “How far were you from him?”

  “Just a few feet.”

  “He didn’t turn around, didn’t hear you?”

  “She can’t speculate about what he heard,” Berkshire said, still without raising his head. He flipped his notepad to a clean page and resumed scribbling.

  “He gave no indication he heard you?” Kins asked.

  “I don’t think he expected that I would get up,” Collins said. “I don’t think he expected me to be there.”

  “He didn’t expect you to be behind him?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t recall him turning his head, shoulders, nothing?” According to the ME’s initial report, the trajectory of the bullet wound was consistent for someone with his back to the gun.

  “No.”

  “Did you say anything to him to try to get him to stop before shooting him?”

  She shook her head. “I was afraid he’d attack me and take the gun. That’s what they taught us in the class, that if you take the gun out you have to be prepared to use it, because if they get it they’ll use it on you.”

  “So you intended to shoot him?”

  This time Berkshire intervened. “That’s not what she said.”

  “I don’t know what I intended. It all happened so fast, and I was afraid for me and for Connor.”

  “What happened next?” Kins asked.

  “I told Connor to wait in the living room, and I called my father. And he told me—”