In Her Tracks (Tracy Crosswhite #8)(17)
Reading the file made Tracy think of that line in Parenthood—a movie she and Dan had watched prior to Daniella’s birth. Keanu Reeves played a son-in-law and said something to the effect that you needed a license to buy a dog or to drive a car, even to catch a fish, but they let any asshole be a father . . . or a mother for that matter.
Too true.
“Knock. Knock.”
Tracy looked up. Kinsington Rowe, her former partner on the A Team, stood in the doorway.
Kins flashed a cautious smile. “Came by earlier to see if you wanted to get a cup of coffee.”
Tracy knew Kins’s unspoken intent. He wanted to talk about Fernandez.
“Don’t worry about it, Kins,” she said. She had expressed doubt to Kins when he told her Nolasco said Fernandez’s promotion was temporary, but she didn’t want to get sideways with Kins by throwing an I told you so in his face.
Kins stepped into the office holding a folded sheet of paper. He wore a collared shirt beneath a brown V-neck sweater, jeans, and tennis shoes. His eyes scanned the daunting shelves of black binders. “You’re going to take the position?”
“I don’t really have much choice,” she said, unable to entirely mask the bite in her tone.
Kins winced. “Look, Tracy—”
“Forget it, Kins. Seriously, this might give me more flexibility to spend time at home.” As she spoke, she had another thought. “How’d you know I took the position?”
“Well, you’re sitting at the desk, and . . .” Kins handed her the folded sheet of paper.
“What is it?”
“It went up on the website about an hour ago and, I assume, was sent to the news media.”
Tracy felt her pulse race as she read.
Update: Decorated Detective Will Lead Seattle’s Cold Case Unit
Written by Public Affairs on November 1, 2019, 11:22 a.m.
11/1: Decorated Violent Crimes detective Tracy Crosswhite will lead the Seattle Police Department’s Cold Case Unit, renewing the department’s commitment to resolving past crimes and bringing justice to victims and their families. “The assignment of Detective Crosswhite reiterates the department’s dedication to resolving crimes, no matter how old, and putting the perpetrators behind bars,” new police chief Marcella Weber said. Crosswhite is a two-time recipient of the Seattle Police Department’s Medal of Valor, its highest honor, for her investigative work. Last year the Cold Case Unit resolved twenty cold cases, Weber said, which she attributed to both improved and evolving forensics and devoted investigative work by Violent Crimes detective Arthur Nunzio.
The language of the news release had Nolasco’s hands all over it. He’d released Nunzio’s statistics as a benchmark, something he could and would use to evaluate Tracy’s performance, which was unreasonable since the large majority of the cases Nunzio resolved were due to the evolution in DNA analysis, and there was no guarantee that evolution would continue or provide a new tool Tracy could use to solve other cold cases.
She also knew other detectives wouldn’t want to hear her plight. Back between the rock and the hard place. She shrugged. “My bed. I’ll lie in it.”
“Don’t get too comfortable. I could use your help.”
“On what?”
“Katie Pryor called.” Pryor had been a patrol officer Tracy mentored and helped to get a position in the Missing Persons Unit, so Pryor could better schedule time with her family. “A young woman is missing. The mother filed a missing person report and—”
“Why isn’t Katie handling it if it’s a missing person?”
“She said she has a hunch, given the circumstances, that this isn’t going to turn out well.”
Katie’s hunches were usually accurate. “Why? What do we know?”
“I talked to the mother this morning. The roommate called her and said the young woman”—he looked at a notepad—“Stephanie Cole, hadn’t come home for two days, which isn’t like her. Apparently Cole just moved here from LA. With Fernandez in trial, and Del and Faz up to their eyeballs with that bar shooting in Pioneer Square, I was hoping you had time to give me a hand.” Kins flashed the charming smile that must have been a killer with the girls in college.
“You run this by Nolasco?”
“Nope. But I did run it by Billy,” he said, meaning Billy Williams, the Violent Crimes Section’s detective sergeant.
“And Billy was good with it?”
“Billy said bringing you in sounded like the prudent thing to do, given that we’re shorthanded.” Again, Kins smiled. Billy and Tracy were close. As a black man, Billy well understood discrimination, both overt and subtle.
“Is this a pity case, Kins?”
“I don’t know. Are you taking pity on me? You are, after all, the twice-decorated detective in this room. It would be a real honor to work a case with you.”
“You’re a jackass,” she said, and grabbed her purse.
CHAPTER 10
As Kins drove the pool car from the secure lot, he gave Tracy the Reader’s Digest version of the case.
“High risk?” Tracy asked as she looked through the notes of the mother’s statement. She wanted to know if Stephanie Cole was a prostitute, or an addict, or simply one of the homeless said to be moving to or being bused to Seattle by other states to take advantage of its homeless resources.