The Trapped Girl (Tracy Crosswhite #4)(78)

“She thinks the husband is going to kill her,” Faz said. “Got to be.”

Tracy nodded. “Maybe. But remember, Andrea Strickland told her boss she thought her husband was having another affair. What if the person he was having the affair with was Devin Chambers?”

“I thought they were friends,” Kins said.

“Exactly. What if Andrea Strickland found out her best friend is sleeping with her husband? The counselor I spoke with said Andrea could become vindictive, maybe even violent. What if the victim isn’t the victim at all? What if the victim is the killer?”

Again, they all sat pondering the ramifications of what Tracy was telling them.

“We don’t have the case no more,” Faz finally said.

“And if I go to Fields, especially without something more, he’ll just run to his boss and say I stole his toys from the sandbox again,” Tracy said.

“So we need to be sure,” Kins said.

“Funk took DNA from the corpse and Melton ran it through CODIS,” Tracy said, referring to Mike Melton, head of the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab. The prior night, she’d thought through how they could be certain.

“So they have the profile in their system,” Faz said.

“And Strickland has an aunt in San Bernardino,” Tracy said.

“And Chambers has a sister somewhere in New Jersey,” Faz said, sitting up and getting animated. “Shit, we could do this. Would Melton run the DNA?”

“If we can get DNA from the aunt and the sister, we can send it to a private testing lab,” Tracy said.

“I got an uncle served on the force back in Trenton for forty-five years,” Faz said. “I can ask him for a favor.”

“And I have a relationship with the aunt,” Tracy said.

“Yeah, but you’d still have to get Mike to release the victim’s profile to the private lab,” Del said.

Tracy shook her head. “No, I just need Mike to send me the profile. I can send it to the lab.”

“But what then?” Kins asked. “Say we get the tests and they prove it’s not Strickland and it is Chambers. Then what? Where do we go from there?”

“If we get the test and prove it isn’t Strickland and it is Chambers, I go to Martinez and Nolasco and tell them.”

“No offense, but that didn’t work too well for you last time, Professor,” Faz said, using Tracy’s nickname.

“If the woman in the pot turns out to not be Andrea Strickland, this case is going to generate even more media attention than it already has. It will become a national story. I don’t think the brass is going to risk the publicity they could cultivate from a national story about dedicated police detectives doing their jobs to solve a horrific crime, just to make an example of us,” Tracy said.

“Especially if we’re right,” Kins said. “They’d have a public relations nightmare.”

“Besides,” Tracy said, not able to fully suppress a smile as she looked at each of them. “If the woman in the pot is not Andrea Strickland, then Pierce County no longer has jurisdiction.”

Kins sat back, slowly shaking his head and chuckling. Faz and Del caught on. Soon they were all laughing.

“You’re unbelievable, you know that?” Kins said. “When did you figure that out?”

“Last night.”

Faz raised his glass of port. “Are we going to do this?”

Del raised his glass. “Hell, yeah, I’m in.”

“Me too,” Kins said, his glass joining the other two. “If there’s positive publicity to be had, yours truly can use it.”

Tracy looked at them but did not raise her glass. She did not want them in trouble for something she had done. “Faz, you’re close to retirement. Del, you have alimony, and Kins, you have three boys.”

“You said we were family,” Faz said. “This is what family does. We do dumbass shit, but we do it together.”





CHAPTER 25


Securing the DNA samples had not been as simple as Tracy would have otherwise predicted. When Tracy called Penny Orr the following day, Saturday, the woman had responded to Tracy’s name with caution.

Tracy had given considerable thought to her approach before calling. You didn’t just tell a relative over the phone that the niece she thought had died—not once, but twice—might still be alive. You never gave them that kind of hope until you were certain. Tracy had hoped for twenty years, against all reason and odds, that they’d find Sarah alive someday. Even after she’d become a homicide detective and knew that the chances of Sarah being alive were infinitesimally small, she clung to the thought that her sister would beat the odds—so much so that when they did find Sarah’s remains, it had devastated her.

She told Penny Orr they wanted to get a positive identification through a DNA confirmation and explained they could do so through Orr.

To her surprise, Orr expressed reluctance. “What would I have to do?”

“It’s completely noninvasive,” Tracy said, thinking perhaps Orr was under the impression she’d have to give bone marrow, or blood. “I’ll overnight you a DNA kit. The instructions are self-explanatory. I’ll also provide you with a return shipping label so you can send it straight back to me.” That label would have the personal PO box to which Tracy had all of her mail sent.