What She Found (Tracy Crosswhite #9)(13)

It didn’t sound like a lot of money, but Tracy imagined a hundred dollars went a lot further back then than it did today.

“What else?” Moss said. “We checked airlines, rental car counters. Didn’t find a thing.”

“Did they have ATMs in 1996?”

“They did, but ATM cameras didn’t come into existence until later that year, so again, no video.”

“Any indication of drug or alcohol abuse?”

“Husband said the wife had a glass of wine, and an occasional beer. Never knew his wife to use any drugs, except maybe the caffeine.”

“Any idea how the car got to the parking structure if she didn’t drive it there?”

“She could have driven there, I suppose, but my two cents? My two cents is the husband put the blood in the car, along with the wife’s bag, drove it to the garage wearing gloves, and left it with the keys inside. Probably to hide it, but also maybe to throw us off his scent, make us think his wife took a bus somewhere. The parking structure is just up the hill from the Greyhound station. Again, no security cameras on the streets, in the garage, or at the bus depot back then. So, no way to know for certain.”

“Anything else of interest?”

“Not that I can think of, but you’d have to check the evidence log. Like I said, standby detectives went through the car with tweezers.”

Tracy specifically thought about the bear spray Anita Childress said her father gave her mother when she went out late at night or early morning. That was unique enough to stand out . . . if the standby detectives found it. “What about close friends?”

“None to speak of.”

“None?”

“Husband, parents, editor, and work colleagues all said she was a loner. Colleagues liked her but said she was difficult to get to know, and mostly kept to herself. Rarely socialized with any of them outside the office.”

“The daughter said Childress was working on several stories that had the potential to piss off people.”

“The argument that she was meeting a confidential source,”

Moss said. “Like I said, her editors weren’t much help. We went to legal and eventually got the subject matter of stories Childress was likely pursuing, but not the names of any sources, confidential or otherwise.” Moss shrugged.

“Did you look into the stories?”

“To the extent we could and thought they had legs. I recall one made reference to mayoral corruption—big surprise.” Moss laughed.

“Mayor Edwards was so crooked he couldn’t put on a pair of straight-leg pants, but no one ever caught him—not the FBI or the Justice Department. Another story was allegedly the Route 99 Killer. Her editor thought it unlikely Childress would go undercover, but also said she was a weird duck, so . . .” Moss shrugged. “We never caught the Route 99 Killer, as you know, so we couldn’t determine if Childress was one of his victims.”

“So, you didn’t find anything to support that it could have been someone trying to keep her from writing a story?”

“We pulled the phone records from her home, couldn’t get her work calls. My recollection is we accounted for all the calls received and made but one received from a gas station pay phone the evening before she disappeared.”

“Someone setting up a meeting for that night?”

“Who knows? Nobody at the gas station recalled seeing anyone making a call, and once again . . .”

“No video back then,” Tracy said.

“Let me par this hole.”

Moss left the cart. Tracy wasn’t sure what to think. It certainly wasn’t uncommon for a detective to get a suspect in his or her head and miss other evidence, though it also sounded as if Moss hit legal roadblocks that slowed his investigation.

Moss got back in the cart, and they drove to the third tee, which was elevated high above the fairway. Tracy waited until Moss hit his drive, which hooked to the left and came to rest in the trees. The ball placement didn’t seem to faze him, though. When he got back in the cart he said, “Where were we? Oh yeah . . . A newspaper photographer said Childress received a threat from someone under the mayor’s thumb. I remember that.”

“Anything come of it?”

“Nah. The guy denied it—said he simply told Childress that if she was going to run any kind of investigative piece that put his company in a bad light, he’d like the opportunity to respond.”

“What about the neighbors? Anyone confirm they saw or heard a car start up early morning and drive off or maybe return midday?”

“We spoke to the neighbors, but none of them recalled anything like that.”

“And nobody saw the husband leave in his car that morning?”

“Somebody did, actually. Saw him leave just before lunch.”

“Where did he go?”

“Said he took his daughter to a park.”

“You were able to confirm that?”

Moss shrugged. “We found sand in his car.”

“Which he could have put in the car to make it look like he went to the park. You process it?”

Moss gave her a condescending grin. “It was sand.”

She probably deserved that. “Did any neighbors have any information about the Childresses’ relationship?” Tracy asked.