The Trapped Girl (Tracy Crosswhite #4)(26)
And for those first few months, Graham came home happy and our lovemaking sessions remained frequent and fierce, and I thought that maybe, just maybe, everything was going to be all right.
CHAPTER 9
Tracy scanned the significant number of web hits for Andrea Strickland on her iPad as Kins drove down the mountain. With a portion of Mount Rainier located in Pierce County, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department had asserted jurisdiction over the disappearance of Andrea Strickland. The case had generated a lot of publicity. The DA had been careful not to call Graham Strickland a suspect—but, of course, he was. He was the prime suspect. The infamous murder of a pregnant Laci Peterson in Modesto, California, had beaten that point home. The sad truth was that more people died at the hands of people they knew, and loved, than from some random killer.
Stan Fields, the detective from Pierce County’s Major Crimes Division, told Tracy over the phone he’d be “happy to speak with her.” She sensed that Fields, like Ranger Glenn Hicks, didn’t appreciate having the wool pulled over his eyes by Andrea Strickland, or by both her and her husband.
And Andrea Strickland had fooled them. She’d fooled everybody, at least for six weeks. Everybody but the person who’d eventually killed her.
Fields’s ego likely wouldn’t let him admit he’d been fooled. No detective liked to admit that, which was why, during what should have been a short telephone conversation to set up their meeting, Fields had felt compelled to add that he’d suspected things were “not as they’d seemed.”
When Tracy sensed the content of the Internet articles becoming redundant, she closed her iPad and wedged it in the space between her seat and the center console. She grabbed her plastic water bottle and took a sip, but the water had become lukewarm. Even in the air-conditioned car, she felt sticky from the heat.
“She was the perfect candidate to disappear,” she said, returning her water bottle to its designated holder. “Parents deceased. No siblings. No one to miss her.”
“Except, of course, the husband,” Kins said. He shifted in his seat, also looking uncomfortable, and no doubt wishing he could exchange his blue jeans for a pair of shorts like Ranger Hicks wore. Blue jeans were standard attire for Kins when not in court, and it seemed an odd choice. Four years of college football and a year in the NFL had left him with overdeveloped calves and thighs even a decade after he’d retired. “I’m assuming no kids?”
“Thankfully not,” Tracy said.
“Work colleagues?”
“She and her husband owned a marijuana dispensary in downtown Portland. It was just the two of them.”
Oregon had followed Washington and Colorado in legalizing marijuana, which had come as little surprise to anyone who knew the state’s politics. The populace was generally considered even more liberal than western Washington, which was saying a lot.
“Like I said, she wasn’t going to be missed.” Kins glanced in the rearview mirror, put on a blinker, and exited the highway. “What did they do before selling dope?”
“He’s an attorney. She worked at an insurance company in downtown Portland.”
That caused Kins to glance over at her. “Insurance?”
“I’ve got it on the list of questions to ask him about.”
“So neither of them was stupid.”
“Definitely not stupid,” Tracy agreed. She adjusted the vents on the dash so the cool air hit her neck and chest, and she fanned her shirt.
They drove through Tacoma’s mostly deserted surface streets, residents seeking refuge in air-conditioned offices and retail establishments.
“How far did Pierce County get in their investigation of the husband?” Kins asked.
“According to the detective, and the articles I’ve found, the DA named him as a person of interest but not a suspect,” Tracy said.
“So he was the suspect,” Kins said.
“Clearly.”
“But not charged?”
“Without the body they probably didn’t think they had sufficient evidence,” Tracy said. “Only two people know what happened on that mountain, and one was presumed dead. So everything’s circumstantial.”
“Hopefully, this guy Fields can shed some light on it.”
Stan Fields had suggested they meet at a restaurant on Pacific Avenue called Viola. The last time Tracy had visited Tacoma, a decade earlier, Pacific Avenue had been a haven for prostitutes and drug dealers, the buildings graffiti-tagged with gang symbols and the streets littered with trash. Downtown Tacoma had been undergoing a massive renovation by community activists and business leaders tired of the city being known as the blue-collar stepchild to Seattle—more for a blend of industrial stink referred to as “the aroma of Tacoma.” Pacific Avenue was clearly a part of that renovation. The two-and three-story stucco and brick industrial buildings had been renovated and freshly painted. Storefront advertising revealed professional businesses, retail stores, boutique shops, and restaurants.
Kins found a parking spot at a meter half a block from the restaurant. As they approached, Tracy noticed a man standing outside the restaurant, smoking in a patch of shade. He made eye contact, nodded, and blew out smoke. “You Crosswhite?” he said.
Stan Fields looked like a holdover from the seventies, with slate-gray hair pulled back in a short ponytail. A bushy mustache drooped below the corners of his mouth as if weighted by the heat. Fields wore a dark-blue polo shirt that bore the department’s emblem—the words “Pierce County Sheriff” stitched in gold over snow-covered Mount Rainier.