What She Found (Tracy Crosswhite #9)(95)

“Seems you have,” Dan said. “Isn’t that what tonight was all about?”

“They got their money, and they won’t spend a day in jail.”

“Where Rick Tombs has gone is a lot worse.”

“I suppose,” she said.

“It’s like Lisa Childress said, you can’t worry about the past. You have to focus on the future.”

Tracy sighed. “Tougher when your job is in the past.”

“Thought you didn’t care,” Dan said, but he was smiling. Dan knew her too well. “You’ll win your hearing on your suspension,” he said.

“Probably. I hope Del wins also.”

“That’s a tougher call,” Dan said. “He shouldn’t be punished if the people responsible aren’t, but life isn’t always fair.”

“No, it isn’t,” Tracy agreed.

“How would you feel about going back to work? Are you worried about blowback?”

She gave his question some thought. “There will be some from the brass, no doubt. I don’t think there will be much from the rank and file. What happened was well before their time. We didn’t rat out good cops. We ratted out bad cops, and bad cops make us all look bad. They taint our image. Coming forward was a step in the right direction. A step to hopefully prevent it from ever happening again.

But I guess Del and I will both find out soon enough. One thing’s for certain. Neither of us is going to run and hide.”

They drove in silence to the end of the bridge. Tracy reached for her cell phone. “I haven’t checked my messages; have you checked yours? I hope Therese wasn’t trying to get ahold of us.”

“I’m sure everything is fine. I didn’t receive any text messages.”

Tracy had missed a call, but it wasn’t from Therese. It was from a 206 area code, which was Seattle. The caller had left a voice mail.

She hit “Play” and the voice came through the SUV’s speaker.

“Detective Crosswhite.” A man’s voice. “You’re good to your word. I’m impressed. But you won’t get them all, you’ll miss one.

Give me a call when you get a chance. This is Henderson Jones, by the way.”

“What was that all about?” Dan said.

“I don’t know.” Tracy checked her watch. It was only eight thirty.

She didn’t want to wait to find out what Henderson Jones had meant.

She pressed the number and returned the call.

A man’s voice answered, but he sounded younger than the voice on the message. “Hello?”

“May I speak to Mr. Jones?”

“Can I tell him what this is about?”

“This is Detective Tracy Crosswhite. I’m returning his call.”

“This is his phone. He went to the kitchen for a minute. This is his son, Deiondre. We met at the house. You kept your word, Detective. My father and I were just talking about it. He’s impressed.

So am I.”

“He indicated he has some information for me.”

“Hang on a minute.” Deiondre called to his father. A moment later Henderson Jones greeted her.

“You kept your word,” he said.

“Not sure how far that will get us.”

“The walls are starting to come down, Detective. They’ll crumble. They always do. Someone will panic, start to talk.”

She didn’t want to tell him they didn’t have a lot of leverage to make that happen. A member of the task force might step forward to relieve a guilty conscience, though that hadn’t happened in twenty-five years, so maybe she was dreaming. “You said something about my missing one. What did you mean?”

“Come by the house tomorrow. My son is going to be smoking ribs, and my other kids and grandchildren and some friends will be here also. I’d like you to meet them.”

“I don’t want to intrude on your family time.”

“You will want to. I promise. Are you married?”

“I am.”

“Kids?”

“A little girl.”

“I don’t want to intrude on your family time either, so bring them.

Four o’clock. And bring an appetite. Deiondre’s ribs are the best in Seattle.”

“We’ll see you then.” Tracy disconnected.

Dan looked over at her. “Sounds like you have an ally.”

“Yeah, but what did he mean, I’m going to miss one?”

“Who cares? The best smoked ribs in Seattle? Count me in.”

“Seriously, what has he got going on?”

“Sounds like you’re in the circle of trust,” Dan said, stealing a Robert De Niro line from the movie Meet the Fockers.

Tracy rolled her eyes. “Let’s hope the information he has is worth me packing on a few pounds.”

“Hell, for the best ribs in Seattle, it will be worth it.”





C H A P T E R 3 8

Sunday, Dan and Tracy arrived at Henderson Jones’s home. On a beautiful afternoon, people walked dogs, pushed children in baby strollers, and played on the grass and asphalt courts of Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary. The same men Tracy encountered on her first visit lounged in chairs on the lawn of the house adjacent to Jones’s home. Tracy got out of the passenger seat, opened the back door, and retrieved a bowl of coleslaw, handing it to Dan. The coleslaw was her mother’s recipe. No sugar and two teaspoons of Dijon mustard to add spice. Nobody made coleslaw like her mother, who told Tracy to never show up to a dinner invitation empty-handed.