In Her Tracks (Tracy Crosswhite #8)(12)

“Did he ever tell you that he blamed you, or that you were at fault?”

“Not in so many words, no. But . . .”

“Could he have treated you differently because he was grieving the loss of his child?”

Tracy took a moment. “Maybe.”

“Not everyone can be saved, Tracy.”

“I know.”

“And you can’t save everyone.”

“I know.”

“You can understand why Dan is concerned about what effect not solving cases, through no fault of your own, will have on you, can’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you concerned?”

She gave the question some thought. Then she said, “I don’t know.”

“I think that’s the question you have to answer. When you do, remember this: You’re human, Tracy, which means you’re not perfect. You’re going to fail, through no fault of your own. That’s part of being human, being imperfect. The question is, can you live with being imperfect? Can you live with failure?”





CHAPTER 7

Tracy left Lisa Walsh’s office with much to think about. Her father would have said she was stuck between a rock and a hard place; she didn’t want to take the cold case job just to spite Nolasco, but she also didn’t want to refuse the job and play into his hands, without recourse, except perhaps to retire. Tracy knew that whatever she decided, it shouldn’t be to appease anyone but herself.

She needed to make an intelligent decision, and she needed a quiet place to make that decision. She didn’t feel right about using what used to be her desk, even with Maria Fernandez sitting alongside a prosecutor in a King County courtroom. It would be awkward to sit in the A Team’s bull pen, and it would likely make Faz and Del and Kins uncomfortable; she knew they felt bad about what was happening, though they had no control over it. She didn’t want to make them feel worse by sitting at her old desk—like a wad of gum they couldn’t get off the bottom of their shoes.

The door to Nunzio’s office was closed but not locked. Tracy stepped inside and shut the door behind her. The room looked smaller without Nunzio at the desk, and the magnitude of the many binders, and the cold cases they held, loomed much more oppressively.

Nunzio had cleaned everything, a good-bye present, she supposed, for whoever was going to take his position. Tracy ran her finger over the desktop and didn’t find a speck of dust. The computer monitor was dark. A mouse and a keyboard awaited use. A single door key rested on the desk pad beside sheets of paper stapled at the top—the list of the active files Nunzio had been working on and said he’d summarized for whoever took his place.

Tracy saw her name and picked up an unstapled sheet of paper. Nunzio had typed her a note.

Tracy:

If you are reading this, it means, well, that I am officially retired. Wow. You’re the first person I’ve said those words to, and I’m not really sure how I feel. I guess it hasn’t truly hit me yet.

If you’re not reading this, then . . . well, I’m still retired, but now I feel like a jackass.

Tracy smiled.

But I’ll be honest, I typed this note because it made it a little easier to walk out that door believing that I was leaving these files in good hands. Competent hands. Your hands.

I know your success rate in Violent Crimes is one hundred percent, and that says a lot about you and about your commitment to your cases and to the victims and their families. In my humble opinion, that’s what separates good detectives, like you and, formerly, me, from the ones just playing out their hand. You give a shit. Something to be said for that. Sure, it can make investigations more painful, like when we only confirm a family’s worst nightmare, but that’s what makes us human too. We care. It’s one of the reasons I decided to step down. I stopped caring as I once had.

So . . . no pressure. Ha! Ha!

Seriously. You do what’s best for you. Nobody walks in your moccasins but you . . . or whatever the saying. I know now that life’s too short to do anything less.

Okay. There’s a round of golf with my name on it.

And as of five o’clock today, every day is now Saturday.

I hope I don’t regret this. You know the saying, right? It’s easier to live with failure than with regret.

Art

P.S. At least try out the chair. It’s supposed to be ergonomic, so your ass doesn’t fall asleep sitting in it. If you decline, just drop off the key with the captain.

Tracy laughed to herself. She should have just come to work and read Nunzio’s note rather than going to see Lisa Walsh.

It’s easier to live with failure than with regret.

She looked up at the binders. They didn’t seem as intimidating as just a moment ago. She rolled back the chair and sat, getting a feel for the place. It was nice to have privacy.

Maybe she couldn’t save them all.

Maybe she couldn’t find justice for them all, or for their families.

But maybe she could find justice for one. And wasn’t that better than not even trying?

She could live with failure. She couldn’t live with regret.

Start with one, Nunzio’s voice spoke in her head. Just start with one.

She flipped over the note and glanced at Nunzio’s case summaries, uncertain what she was looking for but diving in anyway. She opened desk drawers and found an assortment of colored highlighters. She took Nunzio’s advice and looked for sexual assault cases, cases that could have DNA evidence to be processed. She highlighted those in yellow. More-recent cases she highlighted in blue. She pulled cases off the shelves that had caught her attention on Nunzio’s summary and went through half a dozen. Her attention was drawn to one case in particular—the abduction of a five-year-old girl, Elle Chin, from a corn maze the night before Halloween. The timing seemed prophetic. Nearly five years to the day. She remembered the case, though she hadn’t worked it. It had involved an officer in the North Precinct.