In Her Tracks (Tracy Crosswhite #8)(66)

Tracy clicked on the police report for Carrol Sprague and again got a hit. “Bingo,” she said again. Coincidence number three. Carrol had also been pinched for solicitation, also on Aurora Avenue, and not far from where the two prostitutes subsequently went missing.

She ran a report on Evan Sprague but did not get a hit.

Tracy’s police cell phone rang. Caller ID indicated Mike Melton at the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab.

“Had trouble tracking you down,” Melton said. “I’ve called your desk number so often it’s become a habit.”

“What do you have for me? I could use a little Oz magic.”

“A few of the cigarette butts were in too poor of a condition from the elements to pull DNA, but we did get DNA from three of them.”

“Which ones?” Tracy asked.

“We pulled DNA from the butt behind the log at the end of the trail, and two located near the start of the trail.”

Tracy clenched her fist. “Same DNA or different?” Tracy asked.

“Different. And, unfortunately, we ran all three through the FBI’s criminal database and we did not get a hit.”

“Did not?”

“Did not. Sorry.”

The criminal database only recorded DNA profiles for persons convicted of a felony. Washington State did not require the defendant to give a sample when convicted of a misdemeanor. That likely ruled out Franklin and Carrol Sprague’s DNA being in the database, their solicitation convictions being only misdemeanors.

Tracy had another thought. “If I could get you a DNA sample, you could compare it to the DNA from the cigarette butts and determine if it matched, couldn’t you?”

“You know we can.”

“And you could determine if the sample came from a relative?”

Seattle had recently been in the news for the trial of a man arrested after DNA found at a homicide was run through criminal databases and determined to be related to a convicted felon—a brother—whose DNA was stored in one of the databases. A similar case in California had also created significant controversy when a man was identified as the Golden State Killer—a former policeman who had raped and murdered multiple women—through the DNA provided by a distant relative to an ancestry database.

“Familial DNA? Yeah. You know we can do that too.”

“Thanks, Mike. I’ll be in touch.” Before she hung up, another thought came to her. “Mike?”

“Still here.”

“If anyone asks, tell them I asked you to run the DNA in two cold cases I’m working, Angel Jackson and Donna Jones.” She provided Melton with the case numbers.

“Let me write this down.” After doing so, Melton said, “Got it.”

“Thanks, Mike.”

“How’s that little girl?”

“Growing quickly.”

“You have no idea how fast the years go.”

Tracy disconnected and called Kins; she arranged to meet him at a Starbucks down the street. She didn’t want to talk over the phone or meet with him in the A Team’s bull pen.

When Kins arrived, Tracy told him the crime lab results, what her own research had revealed about Franklin and Carrol’s criminal records, and about the foster child, Lindsay Sheppard.

Kins’s brow furrowed. “Even if you find her, her DNA won’t help if she isn’t a blood relative.”

“I know that. I have another idea.”

“You want to share?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so. Just keep me in the loop.” Kins sounded deflated.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nolasco is pushing us to direct our attention to other cases.”

Tracy nodded. “I’ll forward Mike’s results and keep you in the loop.”

She looked at the clock on her phone. Three thirty. Franklin told them Carrol went to a bar after work. Tracy wasn’t sure if that had also been a lie, but there was only one way to find out.

And Carrol had not yet seen her.





CHAPTER 29

Tracy drove her pool car into the Home Depot parking lot and proceeded slowly up and down the aisles of parked cars, checking makes and models and license plates. Before leaving the office, she’d called the Department of Licensing and obtained a copy of Carrol Sprague’s driver’s license, with his photograph. He’d recently paid the license tab fee on a green 2017 Kia Rio. She found the car parked on the east side of the building near an exit for garden plants and supplies. She drove three aisles over, parked in a space where she could observe the car and the exit, and taped a blown-up copy of Sprague’s driver’s license photo to her dash.

Carrol Sprague was forty-seven years old, five feet eleven, and 230 pounds. He wore glasses and had thinning hair, just wisps atop his head. From his picture, he didn’t physically resemble Evan or Franklin Sprague. His hair and skin coloring were lighter than his brothers’. He wasn’t as tall, and was heavyset, but there was a similarity in their facial features.

Raindrops splattered the windshield and increased to a steady mist. Tracy intermittently turned on her Subaru’s windshield wipers to clear the glass while she waited. The drops looked to have ice. Snow was in the forecast.

At 4:40, Tracy sat up. A man had exited the garden center and was walking toward the Kia Rio. Darkness, and the rain, made it difficult to see any features, and the man wore a green-and-black Gore-Tex jacket with the hood protecting his head. He used a key fob that illuminated the Kia’s interior dome before he opened the door.