The Trapped Girl (Tracy Crosswhite #4)(2)
He tied off the rope and carefully slid across the bench seat. The davit pole lowered another six inches. Reaching carefully for the rope, afraid he might tip the boat over, he grabbed it and dragged the pot close enough to reach the cage, holding it close. With his free hand, he retrieved the flashlight and directed the beam over the contents.
The pot looked full, but with what?
He saw seaweed and starfish, but also a few crabs scurrying about, feeding.
Then he saw the hand.
CHAPTER 2
Tracy Crosswhite parked her Ford F-150 facing north on Beach Drive SW, pulled her blonde hair into a ponytail, and quickly wrapped it in a hair tie. She didn’t wear a ponytail often anymore. At forty-three, she didn’t want to come off as one of those women still trying to look a perky twenty-three, but at this hour of the morning, she didn’t feel perky and didn’t much care what she looked like. She hadn’t showered, and she hadn’t bothered to put on any makeup.
She opened the notepad app on her cell phone and scrolled to just below her first entry. She’d dictated the time she’d received the call from Billy Williams, her detective sergeant at the Seattle Police Department’s Violent Crimes Section. She hit the microphone button and said, “Time: 5:45 a.m. Parked on Beach Drive SW near Cormorant Cove.”
Williams had called roughly twenty minutes earlier. Dispatch had received a 911 call about a body in Puget Sound, and the skull of death hung from Tracy’s cubicle—literally a fake skull the detectives hung on the cubicle of the homicide team on call, in this case, Tracy and her partner, Kinsington Rowe.
Williams had said he was still gathering facts, but someone had reported finding the body near Cormorant Cove, which was just a few miles from Tracy’s rented home in West Seattle’s Admiral District. She’d beat everyone to the scene except the responding officers. Their patrol cars sat parked across the street facing the opposite direction.
Tracy stepped down from the truck’s cab. A slice of the fading moon in a pale-blue sky grinned at her. The temperature, already pleasant, meant another day of unpleasant heat. With six days above ninety degrees, this June was shaping up to be the hottest on record.
Tracy dictated another note. “Weather is clear, no appreciable wind.” She checked the weather app on her phone and said, “Fifty-three degrees in West Seattle.”
A Saturday morning, the beaches and elevated sidewalk would soon be teeming with dog walkers, joggers, and families out for a stroll. Encountering a dead body on the beach would put a real damper on the start to their weekend.
She grabbed her SPD ball cap, threaded her ponytail through the gap for adjusting the size, and tugged the bill low on her forehead. Next came the 50-SPF sunscreen, which she rubbed on her arms, neck, chest, and face. She’d had a scare two months earlier when her doctor noticed a discoloration near her collarbone during a routine exam. A subsequent trip to the dermatologist revealed skin damage, but no cancer. The joys of getting older—crow’s-feet, belly fat, and applying sunscreen before going outside.
She jaywalked to the three black-and-whites—two sedans and an SUV—parked in front of the Harbor West apartment complex. Built on pilings and piers pounded deep into the mud, the complex extended out over the Sound and gave new meaning to the term “living on the water.” No thanks. One sizable earthquake could snap one of those wood beams. Then again, her home was perched on a two-hundred-foot hillside. When you chose view over practicalities, you picked your poison, though this view was spectacular. Vashon and Bainbridge Islands, and the much smaller Blake Island, created the picturesque backdrop that warranted the exorbitant rents and condominium prices along Beach Drive SW.
Three uniformed officers on a footpath watched Tracy’s approach from behind black-and-yellow crime scene tape. Tracy didn’t bother showing them her shield. Even without the branding on her windbreaker and ball cap, after more than twenty years, she knew she’d acquired a cop’s self-assured gait and demeanor.
“Tracy,” a female officer said.
She also remained Seattle’s only female homicide detective, and she’d recently received her second Medal of Valor for a high-profile investigation and capture of a serial killer known as “the Cowboy.” Frankly, she could have done without the attention. She and her partner, Kins, had heard the whispers around Police Headquarters about how they always seemed to be the team on call when the department got a “whodunit.” The insinuation that their captain, Johnny Nolasco, was feeding them cases was more than absurd. Tracy and Nolasco got along worse than those women on the Housewives of Wherever television shows.
“Katie,” Tracy said.
Katie Pryor worked out of the Southwest Precinct. She was one of many officers Tracy had trained to shoot to pass her qualifying exam.
“How are you?” Pryor asked.
“I could use more sleep,” Tracy said. Instinctively, she was already considering the area as a whole. She noted beach logs leading to the water, and a young man standing beside a beached aluminum fishing boat. A taut rope extended eight to ten feet off the back of the boat, then plunged into the blue-gray water. Tracy questioned why a beached boat would need an anchor.
“I take it that’s the guy who reported finding the body?”
Pryor looked over her shoulder. “His name’s Kurt Schill.”
Tracy shifted her gaze up and down the rocky beach, which was strewn with bleached-white logs. “So where is it?”