In Her Tracks (Tracy Crosswhite #8)(14)

Tracy parked beneath autumn leaves clinging to the spindly branches of small trees in parking lot planters. She loved the fall in Seattle. Parts of it, anyway. She loved the colors, which reminded her of her childhood in Cedar Grove. As the years passed, though, the falls seemed to get shorter, the colors faded more quickly, and the dark days of winter descended more rapidly. Now, the sun set at four thirty in the afternoon and didn’t rise until seven thirty in the morning, if it rose at all. Pewter-gray clouds hung over the city, at times an oppressive curtain. Kids would be trick-or-treating in the dark, though hopefully not the rain. She and Dan had discussed taking Daniella to the closest neighborhood for her first Halloween. Tracy knew taking a ten-month-old out for candy was ridiculous, but she also wanted her daughter to experience the holidays, the way she had.

As she approached the one-story office park, a glass door opened and a young man stepped out dressed in a warehouse uniform—black shirt, blue pants, and a matching jacket. “Are you Detective Crosswhite?” he asked as Tracy neared.

Tracy extended her hand. “I assume you’re James Ingram?”

“Yes,” he said. Ingram looked and sounded nervous, though he was putting up a pretty good front. Five years ago, Ingram had been a seventeen-year-old working a seasonal job at the corn maze. Now twenty-two, he had an AA degree from Bellevue College and worked a warehouse job for Amazon. “I thought we could talk next door. It’s a coffee shop.”

“That’s fine,” Tracy said. “Lead the way.”

Ingram pulled open the door and sat at a table near the windows. Java House clearly catered to the office-park employees, with minimum window signage. In addition to serving coffee and tea, a glass case displayed juices, muffins, cookies, and prepackaged sandwiches.

“Can I get you anything?” Tracy asked.

Ingram shook his head. “We have coffee and stuff at the warehouse.”

Tracy hadn’t eaten since having a protein shake that morning. She ordered a black tea and a whole-wheat muffin, bringing both to the table. As she set down her cup, the table wobbled, tea spilling from the brim. Ingram, a veteran customer, folded a napkin and slipped it under one of the four legs to steady the table.

“Thanks for talking to me,” Tracy said. “Are you under any time constraint?”

“I get off at five.”

Tracy had made her intentions known in their telephone conversation, but she liked to look witnesses in the eye and hear the tone of their voices when they spoke. She had a notebook full of questions, not all for Ingram.

“You saw the little girl with her father that night, correct?” Tracy asked.

“That’s right.”

“Tell me what you remember.”

“Has there been some kind of break in the case or something?” Ingram asked. He looked sheepish. “I told the other two detectives everything I could remember about that night. I was questioned about it several times.”

“I understand. But those detectives have retired, so the case is now mine.”

“But that was five years ago,” Ingram said. “I’m not sure what more I can remember.”

“I’m just taking a fresh look at the evidence,” Tracy said. “And trying to determine if maybe there was something that somebody might have missed.”

“Okay.” Ingram shrugged, not sounding convinced or enthusiastic. “I guess the first time I saw them I was working the food tent. He came in pretty late; we were shutting things down.”

Ingram told her about Bobby Chin ordering corn dogs and seeing Chin later at the corn maze entrance. “I told them it was too late, that we stopped selling tickets at nine twenty because it took about forty minutes to get through the maze.”

“But you sold the father tickets anyway?”

“I told him no, but he was like, ‘Hey, I only get my daughter once a week, and I promised her I’d take her to the corn maze.’ He was pretty adamant, so I said, ‘Fine. But be done by ten ’cause the lights shut off.’”

“He knew the lights went off at ten.”

Ingram shrugged. “I told him.”

Tracy had found that interesting when reading the file, that and the fact that Chin said his daughter slipped away when he closed his eyes to play hide-and-seek. She thought the lights going out to be convenient, and a father agreeing to play hide-and-seek with a five-year-old little girl irresponsible.

“How did the father seem to you?”

Ingram shrugged. “Like he was in kind of a hurry. And he really wanted to do the maze.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He just seemed like he was on edge.”

“Nervous? Anxious?” Tracy asked.

“No. I wouldn’t say that. More like it was a really big deal that he take his daughter through the maze.”

Tracy wondered if that was because Chin knew someone was to meet him and Elle in the maze.

“I don’t know,” Ingram continued. “I mean, I don’t have any kids or anything, but she was like four or something. How big a deal could it have been to her? Don’t kids that age get excited about candy and stuff? I thought it was more important for him than her.”

Interesting. “You thought maybe he had another agenda?”

“A what?”

“Another reason to get into the maze.”