In Her Tracks (Tracy Crosswhite #8)(87)

“You’ve hunted before?” Kins asked.

Carrol nodded. “Our f . . . f . . . father taught us to hunt.”

“Where?”

“All over.”

“But you don’t recall where exactly they went hunting?”

Carrol shook his head.

“Where are those weapons, Carrol? Are they here in the house?”

“No,” Carrol said, shaking his head. “We . . . we . . . we . . .”

“We what?” Kins said. “Where are the weapons?”

Carrol shook his head. “I . . . I . . . I . . . don’t know.”

Carrol was lying. Unlike Franklin, Carrol had no poker face, and his stuttering increased exponentially with the rapid beat of his knees, so severely that Kins almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

At present, Carrol was not saying a thing.

Dale Pinkney, CSI’s detective sergeant, and his team, found the house filled with newspaper and magazine stacks going back decades, making it difficult to get down the hallways. He said they could be searching the house for days.

Kins found a locked door on the second level and asked Carrol for the key. The brother said the room had belonged to his parents, and only Franklin had the key. Kins had the lock removed, uncertain what he might find inside, hoping to find Stephanie Cole.

The bedroom was surprisingly well kept, neat, if not clean. A half-inch-thick coat of dust had settled on the bed frame, dresser, and ornate mirror frame. The closet remained packed with clothes, also covered in dust. Men’s and women’s shoes lined the floor. It was like some macabre shrine.

He did not find Stephanie Cole, or any evidence she’d been kept there.

Kins returned downstairs and sat in a cushioned chair across from Carrol. He placed his phone on the table between them and pressed “Record.” He’d already read Carrol his Miranda rights. “You don’t know where your brothers are, Carrol?” Kins asked again.

Carrol shook his head, then lowered his gaze. His knees pounded like engine pistons. Through his stuttering, he eventually repeated what he’d already said. “They went hunting in Eastern Washington.”

“Why didn’t you go?”

“I . . . I . . . I had to work. I . . . I . . . I . . . had too many sick days.”

“Is that because you called in sick Sunday and Monday?” Kins asked.

Carrol didn’t answer.

“Franklin said you were working. Your boss says you called in sick. Why is that?”

Carrol didn’t answer.

“We’re going to find your brothers, Carrol. You might as well tell us where they are.”

“I . . . I . . . I don’t know,” he said, working hard to get the words out.

“Tell me what you know about Stephanie Cole.”

The knees continued to fire. “I don’t know anything.”

“Carrol, I’m trying to help you. We have DNA from the Budweiser bottles you and your brother drank at the bar on Aurora.”

“Then you know we didn’t do it.”

“Didn’t do what?” Kins asked.

“Nothing,” Carrol said under his breath.

“Take that girl from the park? We know you didn’t take that girl from the park.”

“We were at work.”

“We checked that also. But we compared the DNA on the Budweiser bottles to the DNA on a cigarette butt we found behind a log in the ravine. And guess what we learned?”

Carrol shook his head. “We didn’t do it.”

“The two people who drank from the bottles are related to each other, and to the person who smoked that cigarette. They’re siblings. Brothers.”

Carrol looked so pale he was almost white.

“We know Evan waited behind the log for Stephanie Cole, and we know he took her. Did you or Franklin move the car to protect Evan?”

“I went fishing,” Carrol said, rushing to get the words out. “I went f . . . f . . . f . . . fly fishing for steelhead on the North F . . . F . . . F . . . Fork of the Stillaguamish.”

“Who’d you go with?” Kins asked.

He shook his head, almost gagging to get the words out. “No one. I went alone. I didn’t see no one.”

“Why did your brother tell us you were sick?”

Sprague looked like a man drowning. Kins waited. He had time. CSI would be all day, likely more than one. “’Cause I didn’t tell him. I . . . I . . . I told him I was sick.”

“Why?”

“Because F . . . F . . . F . . . Franklin gets angry. He . . . he . . . he’d say he’s the one always doing the work around here . . . a . . . a . . . and buying all the groceries.”

“Are you afraid of Franklin?”

“No.”

“But you didn’t tell him?”

Carrol lowered his head like a schoolboy caught in a lie. He looked like he was tied in knots. “I . . . I . . . I . . . don’t know.”

“Here’s what I’m going to prove, Carrol. I’m going to prove that after Evan took Stephanie Cole, he brought her here, to this home. We’ll find DNA for sure. You, or Franklin, moved her car and parked it at the Ravenna parking lot. We have an investigative team going over her car. They’re going to find fingerprints and hair, and with the science we now have available to us, we’re going to match that DNA to you or to Franklin. It’s just a matter of time, Carrol. I know you think you’re helping your brothers. Everyone wants to help his family. It’s noble, Carrol. But there’s a young girl missing, and it’s my job to find her. She has a family also—one that is very worried about her.” Kins paused to let that sink in.