In the Clearing (Tracy Crosswhite #3)(58)

“He was a sheriff’s deputy,” Tracy said, “but he was a newbie, just on the job. Why do you say I wouldn’t be sitting here?”

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.