My Sister's Grave (Tracy Crosswhite, #1)(40)

“You have questions for me, Dan, here I am. I haven’t hid a single day my thirty-five years on the job. Somebody has questions for me, I’m happy to answer them.”

“I’m sure you would,” Dan said. “But I have to do it in a court of law, after you’re sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

Calloway took another bite of his apple, taking a moment to chew before saying, “I did that once, Dan. Are you saying I lied?”

“That isn’t for me to decide; that’s for a judge.”

“Judge already did that too. You’re rehashing old business.”

“Maybe. We’ll see what the Court of Appeals has to say.”

“What did she tell you, Dan?” Calloway paused and gave him a sardonic grin. “She tell you that no one asked Hagen the news show he was watching or that Sarah had different earrings?”

“I’m not going to discuss this with you, Sheriff.”

“Hey, I know she’s a friend, Dan, but she’s been on this crusade for twenty years. She tried to use me and now she’s using you. She’s obsessed, Dan. It killed her father and drove her mother crazy and now she’s sucking you into her fantasy. Don’t you think it’s time to put it to bed?”

Dan paused. When Tracy had first come to him, that had been exactly what he’d thought, that she was a sister unable to get past her guilt and grief, obsessed with trying to find answers to questions that had already been answered. But then he’d looked at the file and her reasoning had seemed just like the Tracy he’d always known, the leader of their little band of friends—practical, dogged, and logical. “You’d have to ask her that. I represent Edmund House.”

Calloway held out the apple core. “Then maybe you could throw this out for me, since you’re apparently adept at handling garbage.”

Unruffled, Dan took the core. So far he’d found Calloway’s attempts to intimidate him to be more pathetic than threatening. He tossed the core into a pail behind the desk on the first attempt. “I think what you’re going to learn, Sheriff, is I’m adept at my job. You might want to remember that.”

Calloway fit his hat onto his head. “I got a call from one of your neighbors. He says your dogs have been barking something fierce during the day, sometimes late at night. We do have an ordinance in town about dogs disturbing the peace. First offense is a fine. Second offense, we take the dogs.”

Dan felt his anger build and fought to control it. Threaten him? Fine. Don’t threaten innocent animals. “Really? You can’t do any better than that?”

“Don’t try me, Dan.”

“I’m not going to try you, Sheriff, but if the Court of Appeals grants my petition, I am going to seriously cross-examine you.”





[page]CHAPTER 29





Tracy typed up the details of a recent witness interview regarding the Nicole Hansen case file. A month had passed since they’d discovered the young woman’s body in the motel on Aurora Avenue, and pressure was building to find the young stripper’s killer. The SPD had not had an unsolved homicide since Johnny Nolasco had become Chief of Investigations, something Nolasco was proud of and quick to point out. And Nolasco didn’t need any additional reason to bust Tracy’s chops. They had a turbulent history dating back to Tracy’s time at the police academy, where Nolasco, one of her instructors, had demonstrated a simulated pat-down by grabbing her breast. Tracy had responded by breaking his nose and kneeing him in the nuts. She’d then further bruised his ego by breaking his long-standing shooting-range record.

Any thought that Nolasco had mellowed with age had vanished when Tracy had become Seattle’s first female homicide detective. Nolasco, who’d risen to Chief of Investigations, had assigned her to work with his former partner, a racist chauvinist named Floyd Hattie. Hattie had made a stink about it and promptly dubbed her “Dickless Tracy.” Tracy later learned that Hattie had already put in for retirement, meaning Nolasco had made the assignment just to embarrass her.

If nothing else, the Hansen investigation was keeping her busy and distracted. Dan said the State had sixty days to respond to Edmund House’s Petition for Post-Conviction Relief, and he expected Vance Clark to take every one of those days. Tracy told herself she’d already waited twenty years, she could wait two more months, but now each day seemed like an eternity.

She answered her desk phone, noting it was an outside line.

“Detective Crosswhite, this is Maria Vanpelt from KRIX Channel 8.”

Tracy immediately regretted answering. The Homicide Unit maintained a civil relationship with police beat reporters, but Vanpelt—whom they referred to as “Manpelt” for her proclivity to be seen draped on the arms of some of Seattle’s more prominent men—was the exception.

Early in Tracy’s career, Vanpelt had sought an interview for a story about discrimination against female officers in the Seattle Police Department. Tracy had declined. When Tracy had made Homicide, Vanpelt had requested another interview, ostensibly to profile Tracy as Seattle’s first female homicide detective. Not wanting to draw any additional attention to herself, and now educated by others that hatchet jobs, not human-interest pieces, were Vanpelt’s specialty, Tracy had again declined.