What She Found (Tracy Crosswhite #9)(3)
She considered the disaster Tracy called an office. “Looks like my office some days.” Weber laughed. “Would it be better if I came back?”
Black binders, one for each cold case, littered Tracy’s desk, the carpeted floor, and the two utilitarian chairs. Stray papers, yellow legal pads, and a coffee mug embossed with “World’s Best Mom”
teetered atop the binders stacked on her desk. Tracy had either pulled the binders from the shelves or had them retrieved from storage each time Kelly Rosa, King County’s forensic medical examiner, confirmed another victim’s identity.
The office was a perk that came with being the one detective in the Cold Case Unit, a position Tracy had reluctantly taken when her captain moved her following her return from an extended maternity leave that became a PTSD leave. Prior to the reassignment, Tracy had sat for a decade at a cubicle in the Violent Crimes Section’s A Team. While she missed the camaraderie with Kins, Del, and Faz, closing an office door to focus or to take a private call was a luxury.
Her goal was to get home and spend more time with Daniella and Dan. That had been one of the benefits her predecessor, Art Nunzio, pitched her—more family time.
Hopefully, but not yet. And definitely not now.
When the chief of police asked if you had a minute, the question was rhetorical.
“Come on in.”
“It looks like you just got in.” Weber motioned down the hallway.
“Do you want to grab a cup of coffee?”
“I’m good. I had a cup on the drive,” Tracy said. “Another and I won’t be able to sit still.”
“I hear you,” Weber said.
In all the years Tracy had worked for Chief of Police Sandy Clarridge, he had never come to her cubicle, or any detective’s cubicle, as far as Tracy knew. He’d always summoned the officer to his inner sanctum on the eighth floor, which made Weber a breath of fresh air inside Police Headquarters. According to the press release announcing her as chief of police, Weber was born and raised in Seattle to hardworking parents and had excelled in school. Her mother, a court reporter, wanted Weber to become a doctor, but Weber chose to become a Seattle police officer like her father. She had entered the Academy upon graduation from the University of Washington and, after working patrol, excelled in different departments over twenty-five years. The brass quickly saw her political potential as an African American woman with an exceptional record, and groomed her. She served as a lieutenant, captain, assistant chief, deputy chief, and, when Clarridge resigned following the city council’s support of protestors seeking to defund the police department, chief of police.
Weber’s professional accomplishments were all the more impressive because those inside Police Headquarters understood she and her two siblings had spent much of their adult life helping their mother care for their father, who had intervened in a store robbery and caught a bullet in the back, paralyzing him from the waist down. Upon her divorce, and after her three children moved out of the house, Weber had her parents move in so she could better care for them as they aged.
Tracy moved black binders from one of the two chairs and Weber took a seat.
“Heard it was another busy morning,” Weber said.
Tracy stepped over still more binders and settled into her chair.
“Unfortunately,” she said. On the drive into the office, Tracy had received an unexpected call from Rosa, who had discovered the remains of another victim buried beneath the body they had been exhuming near the cabin in Curry Canyon. “Rosa thinks that’s the last one though. The last body. Thank God.”
“Thank God.” Weber crossed herself with burgundy-colored fingernails, half an inch long. Tracy’s fingernails were a disaster on the level of her office—the product of neglect that would take more time and energy to repair than Tracy presently had.
“That makes seven; doesn’t it?” Weber asked, a subtle indication she had paid close attention to the investigation. The seven bodies unearthed in the canyon, and the seven found beneath the home in North Seattle, brought the total number of recovered victims to fourteen. With each solved case came positive publicity the department sorely needed to combat the city council’s threats to defund. Weber had used Tracy’s success to promote the Seattle Police Department’s dogged determination to never give up on any victim, which of course required sufficient funding.
“Honestly, I lost track. But Rosa is providing me what she can in terms of possible DNA evidence, dental impressions, hair samples. If these two women were reported missing and we have a file, we’ll ID
them both.” And Tracy would make the sad drive to deliver the heart-wrenching news to two more families. “I’m very much the bearer of both good and bad news.”
Weber shifted gears. “I don’t have to tell you this is great work, Tracy, and it comes at a time when we can really use it. So, I come with a proposition.”
“What’s that?” Tracy asked.
“I’d like to invite several of the families to Police Headquarters for a press conference, with you and Rosa and Rosa’s team. I’m hoping you can help us identify those families who would . . .” She paused to choose her words.
“Make the best impression?” Tracy asked, not really comfortable with the publicity. This was not something to celebrate.
“The public needs to see the value in what we do. I’m hoping you can identify those cases that will make an emotional mark. The mayor also thinks it will offset the city council’s pandering to protestors who continue to show up at council hearings.”