In Her Tracks (Tracy Crosswhite #8)(29)

“I don’t. I assume Bobby, but I don’t know for certain.”

Tracy could only imagine the preconceptions the officers had about Jewel Chin, and what Bobby had said to his patrol sergeant to get patrol cars to the house.

“Sounds like your perception of the wife wasn’t good when you got to the house.”

“Not sure I had a perception, but I guess you could say I’d heard enough to not know what to expect.”

The waitress brought their food. Kins shook hot sauce and ketchup on the omelet and the hash browns.

“And was the wife at home?” Tracy asked, breaking off and eating a piece of her Danish.

“She was,” Miller said. “With the boyfriend.”

“Tell me about what happened when you arrived.” Tracy knew that reports were the bane of every officer’s existence, and for that reason, most officers kept them brief and to the point. They also didn’t want to offer too much for a potential defense attorney to use. Miller’s report was no exception. Tracy wanted to know his impressions, not just the facts about what had transpired.

“I think ‘odd’ is the word I used to describe it in my report.”

“Odd how?”

“I mean, I was younger then—not even married—and I don’t have kids, but . . .”

“But . . . ?” Tracy asked, setting down her mug. The neighbor, Evelyn Robertson, had also ended her comments with a “but.”

“You have kids?” Miller asked Tracy.

“A daughter.”

Miller looked to Kins. Kins laughed. “Shit, I got three boys.”

“Wouldn’t you think that the mother’s first reaction to a police officer showing up at her door to tell her that her daughter is missing would be to ask about the daughter?”

The question gave Tracy pause. It would be Tracy’s first question. “I would.”

“I was fretting the whole drive over there about what I was going to say, hoping I wasn’t the first one to arrive and have to tell her. Then when I get there and I tell her, she starts going off on Bobby, saying this was all ‘bullshit,’ that Chin took the girl, that she’d had a restraining order against him. I was like, whoa! Where the eff was this coming from?”

“Did she eventually get around to asking about her daughter?”

“Later, when the detectives showed up. While I was there, alone, she just kept swearing and telling me to radio in that Bobby took the girl and to have him arrested. The boyfriend was on me also.”

“How long was it before the detectives showed up?”

“A lifetime—felt like it anyway.”

“Tell me about the boyfriend.”

Miller smiled. “A bodybuilder type with the spray-on tan and the big biceps and teeny waist. Steroids for sure. Sorry. It’s an old prejudice.”

“What did he have to say?”

“For the most part he couldn’t get a word in edgewise because the wife was ranting. No one could. She was going on about how we needed to arrest Bobby and throw his ass in jail, and about how he beat the shit out of her and all he got was probation, how we were all just protecting one of our own.”

“Were you?”

“Not me. I had nothing to do with that arrest, and when I heard about it, I didn’t condone what Bobby had done. My dad taught me better. You don’t put your hands on a woman. Ever. That night, I was just doing my job. I didn’t know the details about what had happened except the girl had gone missing in a corn maze.”

“Did you get the impression his wife knew where the daughter was?”

“The other cold case detective . . . What was his name?”

“Art Nunzio.”

“Right. He asked me the same thing once. And I think I told him I don’t know what I was thinking, if I even had an impression other than Why the hell is she going on about Bobby and not asking about her daughter? Like I wrote in my report, it was odd.”

The detectives had said much the same thing. They said Jewel’s ranting continued even after they told her that Bobby had called in Elle as missing and prohibited anyone from leaving the corn maze parking area. Witnesses had described him as “distraught.” Jewel Chin dismissed it as an act. She’d said Bobby put on “an act for the police” and the police had bought it.

Kins slid from the booth and headed to the bathroom.

Miller continued. “When the detectives got there and asked her about her evening . . . you know, where she and the boyfriend had been, she got even more upset and started dropping more F-bombs and saying she wasn’t saying another word until she spoke to her lawyer. Then she clammed up. Didn’t say a word except that Bobby was responsible. She basically provided no help. Never did, either, from what I recall.”

The detectives who initially handled the case had also noted that Jewel Chin seemed more concerned with her personal liability. After first going to the press to pin the daughter’s disappearance on Bobby, Jewel went to a hotel room to avoid the media. She later refused to answer the detectives’ questions. In his final report, the investigating detective speculated that Jewel, the boyfriend, or somebody they knew—or paid—took the child, probably to inflict pain on Bobby Chin. Little evidence supported the theory.

“What were your impressions?” Tracy said. “What didn’t you put in your report but thought?”