What She Found (Tracy Crosswhite #9)(45)

Tracy waited in the conference room adjacent to the pressroom.

Chief Weber, Kelly Rosa, and several members of the forensic team were already present. Weber wanted a strong presence. Tracy stepped to the side to talk softly to Rosa while they waited. “I got an autopsy I’d like you to quietly consider. I need your assessment.”

“What about it in particular?”

“Cause of death.”

“Sure, send it over.”

“I’d like to keep this off the server. Can I send it to a personal account?” Rosa gave Tracy an inquisitive look, but she provided her personal email address.

At ten o’clock sharp, Bennett Lee, who ran the Press Information Office, pushed open the conference room door. “They’re ready for you.”

“How big a crowd?” Chief Weber asked.

“Packed house.” Lee looked at Tracy when he made the comment, not Weber. He’d privately told Tracy that she had become the department’s best press draw. Tracy didn’t consider the notoriety a positive. Nunzio had neglected to tell her that when you worked as a unit of one and had success, anonymity was not in the cards.

Chief Weber stepped to the podium in front of television cameras, reporters, and photographers. Tracy and the others filed in behind her, with the Seattle Police Department logo on the wall as a backdrop. Weber was all business as she moved through her reports on the findings in Curry Canyon, commended her detectives and her forensic team, expressed her condolences to the families, and reiterated the importance of bringing them closure. She told the assembled that the Seattle Police Department would never give up on a case, no matter how old, that the department would always remember they worked for the people of the state of Washington and would take that responsibility seriously. To that end, she introduced Tracy as “one of Seattle’s most decorated violent crime detectives,”

now devoted to resolving Seattle’s backlog of cold cases.

Tracy had attended enough press briefings to know the trick was to say as little as possible while looking completely transparent.

She provided those assembled with details about the final two victims, reiterated that she had notified the two families personally, noted their presence in the room, and said she gained her commitment from the strength and the faith shown by every one of the families of the victims. She concluded that the forensic team was satisfied no more bodies were buried in the canyon, and the file could be closed.

“I’ll turn the podium over to forensic anthropologist—”

Several reporters spoke up, but one voice resonated above the din. To Tracy, the nasal twang still grated like nails on a chalkboard.

“Is it true that after your success in Curry Canyon, you are looking into the disappearance of Seattle investigative reporter Lisa Childress?”

Maria Vanpelt’s question hit Tracy like a gut punch, and that feeling that she was being watched again washed over her. Vanpelt, the onetime girlfriend of Violent Crimes Section captain Johnny Nolasco, had been sidelined by Channel 8 when she improperly exposed the wrong man in a serial killer investigation on national television. Vanpelt blamed Tracy for the error, but the two hadn’t liked one another before that incident.

Tracy recovered quickly. “We don’t discuss active investigations.”

“So that investigation is again active?” Vanpelt said. “Is there a new development warranting the reactivation of a twenty-five-year-old disappearance?”

“Again, I can neither confirm nor deny that I am working any particular case.”

“The investigation of Childress’s disappearance focused on the husband, Larry Childress. Do you have new developments tying Larry Childress to his wife’s disappearance?”

“I won’t discuss any case, open or closed, until it is resolved.

Does anyone have any questions regarding Curry Canyon?”

Other reporters jumped in on topic. Tracy answered several questions, then turned the conference over to Kelly Rosa. She stepped to the back of the room, fuming.

Fifteen minutes later, when the conference ended, Tracy adjourned to the adjacent conference room. Weber dismissed the others but asked Tracy to remain. “I’d like a word.”

Weber dropped her public persona. “When I spoke to you earlier this morning you told me you were closing out the Curry Canyon matter and would decide other cases to pursue. Have you started another investigation?”

“It’s preliminary. The reporter’s daughter recently contacted me and asked me to take another look.”

“That’s a big case given the victim. Is there some new development warranting another look? New DNA evidence?”

“No. Nothing like that,” Tracy said. She almost brought up the can of bear spray found at the David Slocum crime scene, but given what had just transpired in the pressroom, and the mysterious email, she decided again to keep everything close to the vest. Someone had fed Vanpelt information, and that could only be a handful of people, not that Tracy considered Chief Weber one of them.

“How far have you gotten?”

“Not far. As I said, I just pulled the file.”

“And dumped speculation back in the husband’s lap without any new evidence to justify doing so. You heard Vanpelt. They will go after him.”

“I made his daughter aware of that possibility when I first spoke to her.”