In the Clearing (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 3)

by Robert Dugoni

  Wright held up a photograph as if admiring a work of art. “These are some of the best tire impressions I’ve seen captured by a camera.”

  “Why do you think that is?”

  “I’d venture to guess it’s because the ground was moist when the tracks were made, probably from a light rain. If it rains too hard, it can turn everything into slop. If the ground is too hard, you don’t get a good impression. The conditions when these were taken were perfect.” Wright handed Tracy three pictures marked forty-six to forty-eight. “These are almost as good as if someone made a cast of the tire tread.”

  Tracy knew that was a good sign. “Can you identify the type of tire from the tracks?”

  “Someone could. I don’t have that database, but the crime lab does,” Wright said. She drank what was left of her coffee and set her hands on the table. “Okay. Was there something in particular you wanted to know?”

  Tracy looked at the different piles, but she didn’t pick them up for fear of disrupting Wright’s carefully arranged system. “There were a few pictures of a white truck . . .”

  “I saw those.” Wright reached for a stack and thumbed through the photos. “Here they are.” She laid three out on the table facing Tracy.

  “Any thoughts whether that could that be the truck that left the tire track?”

  “I thought that might be the reason these were mixed in here.” Wright leaned on her forearms and used the eraser end of a pencil as a pointer. “He didn’t capture the tread, but he got the side of the tire. Someone in the lab could blow up the negative and see if you can read the tire make and model. If so, they can pull up the tire on the computer and compare it to the tread in these photographs.”

  Tracy would have Michael Melton do just that. She set aside the photographs of Tommy Moore’s truck. “I know you don’t have a lot of time; can you walk me through your opinions and conclusions?”

  Wright sat back on her barstool and took a second to reorganize the photographs. “Your deputy was following tire tracks that entered and exited the same path. The tire treads go in both directions.”

  “That would make sense.”

  “What he also may have suspected was that the truck was following someone. I can tell you the truck was chasing that person, but the deputy may or may not have figured that much out.”

  Tracy looked up from the document as Wright removed another rubber band from a stack of photos and began placing those on the table. She again used the eraser as a pointer. “Do you see those? Those are shoe impressions made by someone moving quickly.”

  “Running?”

  “Running is subjective. What you consider running I might consider a jog. What I can tell you is that the average woman’s walking stride length is about twenty-six to twenty-seven inches. The average stride length of a woman running can be anywhere from fifty-eight to eighty inches depending on her height, the terrain, and whether the person is a distance runner or a sprinter. I was able to take two measurements and extrapolate out the distance. This person’s stride length was between sixty-two and seventy-three inches. The difference is probably because of the terrain more than anything.”

  “And if it was night, would that play a factor?”

  “Definitely. She would have had to pick her path more carefully, but I can tell you she wasn’t too uncertain. She was, for the most part, booking it, which is another indication she was being chased.”

  “You keep saying ‘she.’ You believe it was a woman?”

  “A woman or a small man.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “Well, the imprint was made by someone wearing a heel, and . . .” Wright took back the stack, flipped through it until finding what she was looking for, and handed a photograph to Tracy.

  “This imprint is the equivalent of a woman’s size-seven shoe, and the thickness of the heel and the shape of the sole indicate that it wasn’t a boot but more like the type of shoe someone who worked on her feet all day would wear. I had the computer spit out a few examples of shoes worn back in 1976.”

  Wright fumbled through a stack of papers and handed Tracy a few loose pages. Tracy knew from prior cases that Wright had access to a computerized “shoe bank” at the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab, which contained literally thousands of different shoe treads. The operator entered the shoe impression pattern, and the computer searched for matches. The shoes Wright had printed out as potential matches were the durable type Tracy could see a waitress wearing.

  “That takes us to this open space,” Wright said. “And that’s where the scenario gets truly frightening.”

  Wright handed Tracy another stack of photographs, but Tracy had to set it down and wipe her palms on her jeans. As in the kitchen the night before, the thought of what had happened to Kimi was causing a visceral reaction. Tracy felt light-headed and hot.

  “You okay?” Wright asked.

  Tracy took a moment. “Give me a second.” She went to the counter and asked for a glass of ice water. Seeing the photographs of the ground chewed up, while knowing from her discussion with Kelly Rosa what had likely transpired there, had cast everything in a different light. After a few sips of water, she felt the dizziness pass.

  Back at the table she said, “Sorry. Something about this case is hitting home.”

  “No apologies necessary,” Wright said. She set out several photographs and again used the pencil eraser as she explained. “To make that significant of a depression, the vehicle had to have been traveling at a very high rate of speed when it landed.”

  “Landed?”

  “The vehicle that hit here came down at an angle,” Wright said, confirming Rosa’s opinion that Kimi had suffered “crush” injuries. “Given the direction of the tire tracks, we can assume the truck crested the hill.” Wright thumbed through the photos and set out another photograph. “Here. This is what I was looking for.” The photograph appeared to have been taken from the clearing looking up the sloped hillside. “I think, from this, that your deputy made the same assumption—that the vehicle crested that hill, went airborne where the tracks stop, and crashed down bumper-first right there, making that deep depression.”

  “Why would the ground be so torn up?”

  “I would surmise from the circumstances—the driver going at a high rate of speed and not expecting to suddenly be airborne—that his instinct was to take his foot off the accelerator and jam on the brake. When the truck landed, it would have bounced and fishtailed. If he was experienced with off-road driving, he would have hit the gas, causing the back tires to tear up the ground in a counterclockwise direction, which is what we have here.”

  Tracy’s heart hammered in her chest. “You said this was ‘truly frightening.’ Why?”

  Wright set down the photographs and took a moment to pick through a stack and lay out a few others. “Because there was someone on the ground.”

  “Where?” Tracy’s mouth and lips were dry. She took another sip of water. “I mean, how can you tell?”

  Wright handed Tracy another photograph. “The impact when the car landed obscured some of the impressions, but not completely.” Wright pointed with the eraser. “Do you see these three depressions where the grass blades are lying flat, all in the same direction?”

  “Not really.”

  Wright flipped through the other photographs and handed Tracy a second one along with a small magnifying glass for Tracy to use. “This one is a little better. Here. You see where the grass is lying flat?”

  Tracy could. “Yeah, I see.”

  “Your deputy, without training, never would have recognized these. In fact, I’m amazed he was able to capture them with his camera. He likely wouldn’t have, except he was so thorough. He might have thought they were shoe impressions. It was overkill, really, but it was also fortuitous. I’ve seen this a hundred times. Those are impressions made by someone’s head, shoulder, and hip.”

  “Someone lying on her side?”

  “Yes. And judging from the deep impressi
on made where the vehicle landed, it struck her just below her hip.”

  Again, Wright’s analysis was in keeping with Rosa’s opinion that Kimi Kanasket’s pelvis had been fractured.

  Wright collected those photographs and began setting out rows of other photographs. “Your guy also captured a lot of shoeprints. I’d say these were made by at least three people and as many as five.”

  Tracy felt suddenly numb. “More than one?”

  “Oh, definitely more than one,” Wright said. She leaned over and pointed to the first photograph in the top row. “These are Converse, which was a popular brand for boys during that time period. Size twelves.”

  “So we’re probably talking about a young man as opposed to a boy,” she said.

  “Yes.” She handed Tracy a second photograph of a shoe impression. “These are also Converse, also size twelves, but the impression is deeper than the other impression. I can’t say with any certainty, but the depth of the impression could mean these were made by someone heavier.”

  “But again, a young man.”

  Wright handed Tracy a third photograph. “Also Converse, but these are smaller. Size nine to ten.”

  “So a second, and possibly a third person,” Tracy said.

  Wright shuffled through the photographs and set another on the table. “Puma,” she said. “Also popular at that time with kids, also size ten.”

  “So that’s definitely three and maybe four,” Tracy said.

  Wright handed Tracy another photograph, but this one captured a pattern much different from that of the Converse or the Puma—inverted Vs above three rows of multiple slash marks, with the second row slanted in the opposite direction from the first and third rows. It looked like a row of backslashes between two rows of forward slashes on a computer keyboard.

  ^^^^^^^^^^^

  \\\\\\

  /////////////

  \\\\\\

  “Also size twelve,” Wright said.

  “Doesn’t look like an athletic shoe,” Tracy said.

  “It isn’t. It’s from a rubber boot,” Wright said. “I did a little research. The pattern is distinct for boots made by the United States Rubber Company. They were popular in the 1970s and highly sought after because they were rubber, which meant waterproof, but also because they were lined with fur, which meant they were warm. They were originally made for soldiers in World War II and became popular with hunters, but the plant closed when rubber was needed for more pressing war purposes.” Wright handed Tracy another photograph. “Something else.”

  Tracy held it up to the light. “What is it?”

  “I had to look at it under a microscope,” Wright said. She handed Tracy the magnifying glass. “It’s chewed-up tobacco leaves. I’m totaling hypothesizing now, but if someone was chewing tobacco in a car that went airborne like it appears it did and slammed back down . . .”

  “They would have swallowed the tobacco and threw it back up,” Tracy said.

  “Or spit it out involuntarily,” Wright said. She laid out the photographs of the shoe impressions on the table, recreating the clearing. “Now, what do you notice about the shoe impressions?”

  “They’re all over the place,” Tracy said. “They’re facing in every direction.”

  “Some are smudged. Some are elongated,” Wright said. “There’s no pattern to them. They were clearly not moving with any deliberate intent.”

  “They were panicked, worked up,” Tracy said.

  “Scared. Confused.” Wright said. She handed Tracy photographs numbered forty-nine to fifty-three, which captured impressions made by the boots.

  Tracy brought the photographs closer. “These impressions look to be around the area you said the body was on the ground.”

  “Not just around it. Under it.”

  Tracy looked to Wright for clarification. “Under it?”

  “The person wearing those boots picked the body up,” Wright said, confirming Rosa’s opinion—Kimi Kanasket had been moved after sustaining her injuries.

  “You see that rounded impression in the mud?” Wright said.

  “Yeah.”

  “And this one here, where you can see only the inverted Vs and the first row of slash marks?”

  “Okay.”

  “The distance between the two is just eighteen to nineteen inches. The rounded impression is the impression made by someone dropping to a knee. The second is the ball of that person’s foot. Now, you see these shoe impressions that are twisted and staggered?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Those were likely made when the person stood, but he was bearing the weight of someone else, maybe staggering to adjust the weight and regain his balance,” Wright said. “People don’t realize how heavy a person is when they’re deadweight. Even a hundred pounds is difficult to lift.”

  “A hundred and twenty-five,” Tracy said.

  Wright looked up from the photographs. Then she straightened.

  “A seventeen-year-old girl,” Tracy said. “She was five seven and a hundred and twenty-five pounds, and she was a runner, and she had the rest of her life ahead of her.”

  Wright took a moment. She spoke softly. “What did they do to her?”

  “I’m not fully certain yet,” Tracy said. “And I’m starting to wonder, whoever it was, whether they had any idea what they actually did.”

  The likelihood that four, and maybe five, young men, had been in the clearing the night Kimi Kanasket died changed things in Tracy’s mind. It could still have been Tommy Moore, except that would have meant that Moore would have had to have enlisted the help of others quickly, possibly too quickly for the timeline Buzz Almond’s investigation revealed. If you believe Moore and his roommate were telling the truth, after leaving the diner, Moore drove his date home, then drove back to his apartment. He couldn’t have enlisted his roommate’s help because the roommate had spoken with both Élan and his posse and to Buzz Almond that night.

  As for Élan, he was out that night and already had a group of young men with him, but those young men had arrived to help Earl Kanasket, and it was difficult to consider a scenario where they suddenly turned and went after Kimi, though it could have been an accident.

  What had first come to mind when Wright said at least four young men had been present were the newspaper articles on the high school football championship, and that made Tracy think that maybe Buzz Almond hadn’t included them in the file just to help witnesses recall that weekend.

  Tracy had punched in the number on her cell phone before she finished crossing the parking lot back to her truck. Sam Goldman’s home phone rang six times, and Tracy thought it would go to voice mail, but he answered in the middle of the seventh ring. “Sam, it’s Detective Crosswhite from Seattle.”

  “How are the bad guys, hero?”

  Tracy climbed into the truck cab and shut the door. “Still bad. Sam, I’m sorry, but I have a few more questions for you.”

  “Fire away. If I can answer them, I’m happy to help.”

  Tracy heard Adele in the background. “Who is it, Sam?”

  “It’s the detective from Seattle,” he said before quickly reengaging Tracy. “What can I help you with?”

  “The Four Ironmen,” she said, fumbling in her briefcase to grab her notepad and flipping back through her notes. “Reynolds, Devoe, Coe, and . . .”

  “Gallentine.”

  “Right. What can you tell me about them, Sam?”

  “What is it you want to know?”

  “What kind of kids were they off the field?”

  Goldman paused, and Tracy heard Adele say, “They were full of themselves,” indicating that she was listening in on the conversation.

  “How so?” Tracy asked.

  “They weren’t bad kids,” Goldman said. “You know how it is. None of them came from much, and suddenly they were getting a lot of attention and seeing their names in the paper every week. Adults would stop them in the street to congratulate them and want to talk all about the upc
oming game. It went to their heads a bit.”

  “They ever get in any trouble?”

  “If they did, friend, I never heard about it.”

  “You sound uncertain.”

  “Rumors. Nothing I could ever print.”

  Tracy watched Kaylee Wright leave the coffee shop and head to her SUV. Tracy gave her a wave. “Sometimes there’s truth in a rumor,” she said.

  “And lawsuits,” Goldman said with a burst of a laugh. “I’m like Joe Friday. I print just the facts.”

  Tracy decided to push it. “Who might have sued?”

  “Like I said, kids start reading their names in the paper, getting slaps on the back—sometimes they think they can do no wrong. High school stuff, you know?”

  “Drinking? Smoking pot?”

  “Here’s the thing. Little Timmy gets caught with a beer, the police drive him home, and nobody cares. One of the Ironmen gets caught, and the police still drive him home, but everyone in town knows, and now they’re worried he’s going to get kicked off the team and their undefeated season is going to go up in smoke.”

  “Right, but you had your finger on the pulse. Any truth to those rumors?”

  Goldman sighed. Then he said, “Not a lot to do in a small town.”

  “Any of them have any romantic involvement with Kimi Kanasket that you’re aware of?”

  Goldman paused, and Tracy knew he was connecting the dots between her questions. “If there was, I wouldn’t have known about it.”

  “You never heard anything like that?”

  “Nothing of the sort.”

  “Any connection at all you can think of?”

  Again there was a lengthy pause. “Coe and Gallentine ran track. That’s the only thing I can think of.”

  “What can you tell me about Arthur Coe?”

  “Archie Coe,” Goldman corrected. “Nice kid. He was probably the least heralded of the four. He joined the Army after high school, but he washed out, came home with a medical discharge.”

  “Do you know what for?”

  “Officially, he hurt his back.”