In Her Tracks (Tracy Crosswhite #8)(37)
CHAPTER 17
Sunday morning, Tracy found the CSI van parked at the trailhead. Yellow-and-black crime scene tape strung between the trees blocked access. Kins stood near the wooden sign talking to Pinkney and a handful of CSI detectives dressed in blue N-DEX gloves, black BDU pants, and jackets with “Police” on the front and “Crime Scene Investigator” on the back. Cadaver dogs and their handlers from the King County Sheriff’s Office lingered on the periphery. So much for subtlety. At least in the ravine no one could see them, but already people looked out windows, and a few neighbors had ventured onto the sidewalk, talking with a uniformed officer, no doubt asking if the flurry of activity related to the girl they had been asked about door-to-door.
“My thought is we start at the bottom and work our way back up the trail to the road,” Kins said when Tracy stepped up.
Tracy agreed and Kins gave Pinkney and the other CSI detectives a rundown of the terrain before leading them down the path to the trail’s end. The temperature in Tracy’s Subaru that morning was forty-eight degrees, but down in the ravine, where the trees and foliage blocked the sunlight, it felt colder. Tracy slipped on a knit hat and gloves.
As the dogs worked, Tracy updated Kins on what she’d learned speaking to Search and Rescue. “The detective sergeant confirmed that, given the amount of time that has passed since Cole was last seen, and the fact that it’s rained hard, it’s unlikely the dogs could pick up a scent to follow.”
“What about Kaylee?” Kins asked, referring to the King County tracker.
“She got back from a conference in California last night. I told her to sleep in and give CSI a head start. She said she’d be here by noon.”
For the next several hours, the dogs searched for any scent of a cadaver. Tracy hoped she was wrong.
Not long after starting, Pinkney approached with clear, sealed bags. “We’ve found blood. Mammalian.”
“You’re sure?” Kins said.
“I ran a Kastle-Meyer test,” Pinkney said. “It’s blood. We’ll run a precipitin test in the van and see if it’s animal or human,” he said. “But if I was a betting man, I’d bet human.”
“Why?” Tracy asked, knowing there was more to Pinkney’s willingness to bet.
“Because we also found these.”
Inside the first of several clear evidence bags was a white, wireless earbud, the kind Brian Bibby recalled seeing Cole wearing on the trail. Coupling it with the blood, Tracy felt sick. In the other bags, CSI had collected cigarette butts. One looked recent, unsoiled. The others looked to be older, more weathered from the elements.
“Where did you find the earbud?”
Pinkney turned and led them to several red flags. “Near where we found the blood.”
“And where did you find this one?” Tracy asked, holding up the bag with the butt that appeared the most recent.
Pinkney pointed behind them, to the dead end. “Just up that hill, beside a tree stump.” Tracy could see red evidence flags protruding above the stump and foliage. “The earbud we found down here, in the bushes, near where we found the blood.” Another evidence flag protruded from the shrubbery. “We’re searching for the second one.”
Tracy turned to Kins. The cigarette butt was in an unusual location, not on the trail or flicked from the trail into the bushes. More likely it had been left by a person waiting behind the stump, a perfect place to hide and watch the trail.
Tracy looked over her shoulder at the trail and imagined Cole running down the path, coming to the dead end, perhaps stopping to search for where the path continued, or to find another path. Not seeing one, she would have turned her back to the hillside to face the daunting and long ascent back up the trail. It would have been the perfect time for someone behind the stump to strike. It also explained the location of the blood, and the vegetation looked to have sustained damage. Tracy crouched and saw dark spots on the leaves of a low-growing bush.
“How long before Kaylee gets here?” Kins asked, looking at his watch.
“I’ll call and find out her ETA.”
Tracy stood and pulled out her cell phone. As she called, she looked around the area for disturbed soil, though the dogs had been through the ravine and didn’t scent on a buried body. Not yet.
Tracy and Kins would call Cole’s family and determine her blood type. If it matched the blood found on the bushes, they’d run it for DNA and compare it with DNA obtained from something in Cole’s apartment—a toothbrush or strand of hair. They asked Pinkney to instruct his detectives not to further disturb the location behind the stump or the bloodied bushes until Kaylee Wright had a chance to review the scene.
Wright would be able to tell them what had happened, whether the body had been dragged off, and in which direction.
The dogs made their way up the trail toward the trailhead. They would now go over each of the greenbelt’s ten acres. They did not scent buried remains in the ravine. Good news. Maybe. But a long way from Cole being alive.
Wright arrived at the site just after the noon hour. She came down the trail in jeans, hiking boots, and a warm jacket with her head down, scanning one side of the trail to the other.
Like Tracy, Wright was tall—five foot eleven. Dark hair extended to her shoulders from beneath a navy-blue skullcap. A former volleyball player at the U, she had studied criminal sciences, joined the Seattle Police Department, and eventually became a CSI detective. She and Tracy first met at the Park 90/5 complex. Tracy went on to become Seattle’s first female Violent Crimes detective. Wright became King County’s first certified tracker, often referred to as a sign-cutter.