What She Found (Tracy Crosswhite #9)(5)

“It is,” Tracy said.

“It sounds like you’ve had your hands full, and you’ve only been in your new post a short time. Congratulations, by the way, on the Medal of Valor. That’s your third, isn’t it?”

“It is.” Tracy smiled, curious. “I don’t recall the press release stating it was my third medal though.”

“It didn’t. And I haven’t been stalking you.” Childress’s smile looked uncomfortable. “But I have done some research. Old habit.

Goes with the job.”

“What job is that?”

“I’m a reporter for the Seattle Times. I cover mostly city government out of the metro desk, but I’m familiar with some of your cases and your successes from past articles.”

Tracy put her hand on the binder. “I think I read that your mother was also a reporter. Am I right?”

“For the Post-Intelligencer. Back when Seattle was a two-newspaper town.”

The waitress called out Childress’s tea order, and Childress left her chair to retrieve her bowl. She returned, carefully carrying it.

“They don’t mess around here; do they?”

“No, they don’t,” Tracy said.

Childress took a sip and set it down on the saucer. Mint wafted up from the bowl.

“You followed in your mother’s footsteps?”

Childress looked away before reengaging Tracy. “I’m not the reporter she was, but . . .” She shrugged. “I figured it would give me access to information that might help me to find her. I know how that must sound—like I’m OCD and I’m chasing ghosts. I’m not. Not OCD

anyway. But I am chasing a ghost. It’s just, well . . .”

“You don’t have to explain,” Tracy said. She glanced down at the young woman’s hand and did not see a wedding ring on her finger.

“Thank you. I know your family lost your sister when she was eighteen,” Childress said. “And then you found her remains twenty years later, I believe, in the mountains above Cedar Grove. Several articles documented the story, and the trial of the man accused of killing her. Anyway, hope you’ll understand.”

Childress had done her homework, though no news story explained that Tracy had become a homicide detective for the same reason Childress had become a newspaper reporter—for access to information. Tracy had, for years, investigated her sister’s mysterious and sudden disappearance, and the search had become an obsession, one fueled by guilt. Tracy had lived alone in a Seattle studio apartment, forsaking serious relationships so she could return home after work each night and study boxes of materials she had accumulated on her sister’s disappearance. She did this until one day she realized what she had become, what her life had become, and she feared she might lose her mind.

“I understand your mother has been missing a very long time,”

Tracy said. “I’m sorry.”

“I haven’t heard from the police in several years,” Childress said. “I spoke to an Art Nunzio about a year ago, but he said they didn’t have any new leads to pursue.”

Which meant Nunzio didn’t have DNA evidence to process. The decision to reopen an investigation was a simple analysis of effort versus likely outcome. In this case, Nunzio probably deduced the most likely outcome, without DNA evidence, didn’t warrant the effort he would have to expend.

“Maybe you can fill me in on some of the details. I’m betting you’ve spent a lot more time with the facts than I have.” Tracy flipped open a notepad.

“Sure.” Childress sat up. “My mother disappeared February 27, 1996. My father said she received a telephone call earlier that evening and told him she needed to meet this person, a source for a story she worked on.”

“Did this person have a name?”

“It was a confidential source.”

“What was the story she was working on?” Tracy asked.

Childress smiled. “That’s one of the sixty-four-thousand-dollar questions. I’ve spoken with my mother’s editor at the P-I back then, Bill Jorgensen. He didn’t know for certain because he said my mother held her stories close to the vest. She often didn’t even tell him what she was working on.”

“She kept the stories from her editor?”

“My mother . . . what I can piece together . . . Well, she was different.”

“How so?”

“She likely had Asperger’s, though that word is no longer PC

because it was said to be the name of a Nazi who espoused eugenics and murdering people considered low functioning. Now my mother would be considered autistic. My grandmother told me this.

She said my mom was often disorganized, forgetful, and had difficulty in social situations, but that she was also brilliant when singularly focused. She heavily sourced her investigative pieces, but she didn’t always tell her editors the details of the story she worked on, or when they’d get it. Jorgensen said they gave up trying to set deadlines because she never met them.”

Tracy made a note to check the Internet and determine if Lisa Childress’s quirks, as Anita had described them, comported with someone with autism and what that meant. “No one had any idea what she was working on?”

“I think I do,” Childress said. The young woman reached down and pulled four manila files from her briefcase and stacked them on the table. “These are files I’ve put together from my mother’s notebooks, and from conversations I’ve had with other reporters and photographers my mother worked with during that time.”