What She Found (Tracy Crosswhite #9)(53)

Davis pulled into a parking lot off the Centre City Parkway, a main thoroughfare, and parked in a spot bearing his name and position as fire chief. They approached a cream-and-salmon-colored stone building. It looked more like a symphony hall with two-story columns atop steps framing a glass entrance. Davis explained that the building housed both the Escondido Police Department, which consisted of roughly 170 sworn officers, and the fire department’s administrative offices.

“It looks brand new.” Tracy slipped on sunglasses, a rare need in Seattle in April.

“It’s a decade old now, but we like it,” Davis said.

Davis escorted Tracy through security to elevators that led to a second-floor receptionist. She put them in a conference room, offered them coffee or tea, which they both declined, and told them Police Chief Rafael Beltrán would be with them momentarily. As Davis poured two glasses of water, Tracy walked to the conference room windows and looked out at a city park. More palm trees stretched above other foliage. Behind the greenery, the rattlesnake-colored hills and the tile roofs reflected the glow of the afternoon sun.

Beltrán entered the conference room with general greetings and shut the door behind him. Unlike Davis, he wasn’t smiling. He looked skeptical, as if reserving judgment. Tracy didn’t blame him. Beltrán had a barrel chest, thick limbs, and short gray hair. On the drive from the airport, Davis told Tracy Beltrán had, as a young man, played major league baseball in Mexico before immigrating to the United States, where he’d become a police officer and a scratch golfer.

Davis made introductions and Beltrán invited them to take seats at the table. “I thought I’d give us a few moments to chat before Melissa arrives,” Beltrán said, and Tracy heard a trace of his Spanish accent. “You can imagine this is a call we never thought we’d receive.”

“Detective Crosswhite is confused, Rafa,” Davis said. “The person she’s looking for grew up in the Northwest and definitely did not have an Irish accent.”

Beltrán looked from Davis to Tracy.

“Everything else seems to fit the timeline when Lisa Childress went missing, and the photograph is spot on,” Tracy said. “If it isn’t her, it’s her doppelganger.”

“I take it you’ve brought photographs of Lisa Childress,” Beltrán said.

Tracy removed the file from her briefcase and set the photographs on the tabletop along with the forensic artist’s drawings of what Childress would likely look like at fifty-five years of age.

Beltrán picked up the photographs and Davis moved behind him. The two men studied them. Davis smiled. “Sure looks like Melissa,” he said.

“If it isn’t her, it’s like you said. It’s her twin,” Beltrán said.

“Perhaps you can tell me what you know about Childs, how she came to Escondido,” Tracy said.

“I wasn’t here back then, but I know the story, and I pulled her file while I was waiting,” Beltrán said. “Twenty-four years ago, I believe it was February or March, a security guard at the local mall found a woman wandering around as the stores were closing. He said she looked confused, and he offered assistance. The woman said she was lost. He asked her name, and she said she didn’t know.

He asked for ID, and she said she didn’t have any.”

Seattle police had found Lisa Childress’s bag with her wallet and all her identification in her car.

“All she had was a copy of a book, and if you’ve read the classics, you’ll think this really odd. I sure did. She had a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo.”

Tracy did indeed know the story of Edmond Dantès, falsely accused of treason by his erstwhile but envious friend and sentenced to prison. While in solitary confinement, Dantès communicated with the prisoner in the cell next door and learned of an immense, hidden treasure. A daring escape, a fortune found, and Dantès returned as the count of Monte Cristo to exact revenge on all those who betrayed him.

“She also had a car key, a torn Greyhound bus receipt, and cash.”

Tracy thought of the garage just a few blocks from the Greyhound bus terminal in Seattle and the fact that Childress had withdrawn a hundred dollars from her account that evening.

“The guard and Childs tried every car in the parking lot, but the key didn’t fit,” Beltrán said. “He eventually brought her to the police station, which was at a different location back then, and the police ultimately took her to Palomar Medical Center, which had a behavioral center. She stayed there while they tried to determine who she was and where she’d come from. I’m not sure where the switch was missed, like I said, I wasn’t here then, but the police never got a hit.”

“Do you know to whom they sent her photograph?”

“My understanding is the police agencies in California, as well as to the FBI and Interpol because Childs spoke with an Irish accent.”

“But not outside of California?”

“I don’t believe so. No.”

“Did she speak Gaelic?”

“I don’t know the answer to that question. According to what I read in the file, they did say the accent was thick. Nobody said it wasn’t legitimate. The file also indicates the police searched flights from Ireland to Southern California for a woman flying alone and between the ages of twenty and thirty-five, but they never found a match.”