The Trapped Girl (Tracy Crosswhite #4)(49)

“So what was your first thought when you heard Andrea had disappeared from Mount Rainier?” Kins asked.

Berg hesitated. The baby fussed and she took a moment to soothe her daughter, inserting a pacifier in the baby’s mouth. When they started walking again she said, “I guess I was skeptical.”

“Skeptical that it was an accident?” Kins asked.

She nodded. “Let me put it this way: I wasn’t surprised Graham was a suspect, and I wouldn’t have been shocked if they’d concluded he killed Andrea. I told the other detective the same thing.”

“Stan Fields?” Tracy asked.

“I don’t remember his name. He had a gray ponytail. I told him it all just seemed too convenient. Then there was something Andrea told me about her parents’ trust—she said Graham wanted to use the money to help set up the dispensary rather than take out a business loan, but Andrea wouldn’t let him and there were restrictions on the trust that prevented it.”

“Did she say it was causing strain in their marriage?” Tracy asked.

“It was pretty clear that was the case.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“Yes.”

“She told you she didn’t want to give him the money?” Kins asked, sounding out of breath.

Berg nodded. “She said Graham got upset about it and that he had forged her name on personal guarantees. She feared he’d put the trust at risk. But what really should have set off my radar was something Andrea said when I asked whether Graham had access to the trust.”

“What did she say?” Tracy asked.

“She said, ‘Not while I’m still alive.’” Berg shook her head at the memory. “She laughed, but it had a sad quality to it, you know? I felt sad for her, sad that she would say such a thing.”

They crossed beneath another bridge. “When was the last time you saw or spoke to Andrea?” Tracy said.

“It was that week she left to climb.”

“What was her mood like?”

Berg said, “It wasn’t always easy to tell with Andrea. I mean, she was pretty even-keeled. I think she’d experienced a lot of sorrow in her life at a young age and it had made her, I don’t know, maybe more measured about life, like maybe she didn’t expect much.”

“Jaded,” Kins said.

“That’s as good a word as any,” Berg said, glancing back at him. “Even when she married Graham I didn’t get a sense she was elated about it, just more sort of like, this was how it was.”

“Did Andrea have any girlfriends—people she hung out with, maybe went out with after work?”

“The only person I can really think of is Devin Chambers. She worked in the office for one of my partners, and she and Andrea seemed close. Other than that, not really.”

“Does Devin Chambers still work at your company?”

“No, she left right about the time Andrea died—or when we all thought Andrea had died—the first time.”

“Did she leave because of that?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t talk to me about it. She told my partner she was moving back east somewhere. I think she had family.”

Tracy looked to Kins, who shook his head to indicate he had no further questions.

“Thank you again for your time,” Tracy said. “We’ll let you and your daughter finish your run.” She handed Berg a business card. “If you think of anything else, don’t hesitate to call.”

As Tracy and Kins walked along the waterfront, back in the direction of the sculptures, Tracy said, “Does it strike you as odd that a woman who believed her husband was cheating on her for at least the second time in a year would agree to climb Mount Rainier with him?”

“Even more so if she was talking to a divorce attorney,” Kins said. “Sounds to me like she was planning on walking off and starting over.”

Tracy stopped. “Maybe it’s like Berg said. Maybe there was more to Andrea Strickland than initial impressions.”

“Sounds like it,” Kins said, “though I’m not certain what that means, yet.”

“What if this wasn’t just about disappearing and starting over?”

“You think it was her way of getting even? She set him up to make it look like he wanted to kill her?” Kins said.

“Berg said Andrea believed he was cheating on her and it wasn’t the first time.”

“So our theory is what? The husband realizes she’d set him up, hunts her down, and kills her to get even.”

“Not just to get even. To get what he was after in the first place.”

“The money,” Kins said.

“She’s already dead,” Tracy said. “He figures that if he finds her, he finds the money. Since she’s already dead, no one is the wiser. He just needs a way to dispose of the body so she’ll never be found.”

“Okay, but how do we prove it?” Kins said.

“I think we need to find Devin Chambers. If Andrea was going to confide in anyone, it sounds like it would have been her.”

“You think that’s why Chambers left town, that maybe she was the person who helped her?”

“Ranger Hicks is convinced Andrea Strickland didn’t get off the mountain alone,” Tracy said.