In Her Tracks (Tracy Crosswhite #8)(99)
Rick Cerrabone told Tracy and Kins that Carrol’s court-appointed defense attorney was inquiring about a plea deal, one that would keep Carrol locked up for decades, possibly for the remainder of his life. Tracy felt relief. A plea deal would not require Lindsay Sheppard to testify in court about what had happened in that home.
Lindsay and Tracy had met on several more occasions, usually with Aileen present to provide moral support. Each meeting, Lindsay provided further details about what she knew of the other women Ed Sprague buried in the basement of his home and around the cabin, which wasn’t a lot. It was mostly perfunctory. With Ed Sprague dead and Brian Bibby’s suicide, there was no one to prosecute. No one to convict. No one to bring to justice for the women’s families. There was no evidence to prove Lorraine Bibby knew more than she claimed, and Tracy doubted she had known much anyway. She believed the old woman’s only real crime was a failure to look too deeply into the tortured and horrific things she undoubtedly speculated her husband had participated in. She’d live in her own hell for the remainder of her life because of it.
But closure was important to the families, Tracy knew, and she’d bring it to those she could.
Tracy asked Lindsay during one of her interviews if telling her story was too difficult. With Ed Sprague and Brian Bibby both dead, there wasn’t a real need. Lindsay gave the question a lot of thought before she said that talking about what had happened to her had been “cathartic” for both her and her sister. “I finally have the chance to tell my story to someone, instead of hiding it.”
The two sisters were seeing a psychologist, to learn how to better deal with their anger and pain.
They’d also told their husbands. But Lindsay said she’d never tell her daughter, that she’d never burden her with that knowledge. She had not been conceived in love, but she’d been born and raised in love. That was enough.
During one of the interviews, Lindsay asked what would become of Evan, if he, too, would go to jail. Tracy told Lindsay that Cole told her and the prosecutor that Evan had never harmed her, never touched her or the other two girls, and how Evan had likely saved her life that evening in the ravine. They had no evidence of any other crime.
“Where will he go?” Lindsay asked.
“He’ll be placed in a state institution,” Tracy said.
Lindsay cringed.
“It’s not like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” she said. “They’re more regulated. Evan will be allowed to work and learn to do things he never had the chance to do before.”
Lindsay smiled, though with tears in her eyes. “Can I visit him?”
“Of course,” Tracy said. “Whenever you’re ready.”
An hour and a half into their drive, Tracy pulled up to the one-story modular home with the brown picket fence on the corner lot in Union Gap.
As Evan and Tracy stepped from the car, the front door to the house opened. Lindsay came down the walk. The rest of her family, her husband, daughter, son, sister, brother-in-law, and their children and grandparents, remained in the threshold, watching.
Evan studied her, but only for a moment. Then he smiled. “Hi, Lindsay,” he said, as if he had just seen her moments ago, not years.
“Hi, Evan,” she said.
“I brought board games,” he said.
Lindsay nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I can see that. Do you want to play?”
CHAPTER 44
Tracy kept a scheduled Monday morning visit with Lisa Walsh. It was a chance to check in, to reset, and to get prepared for what lay ahead that week. She’d come to enjoy the sessions, though the subject matter was, at times, difficult. She was working through it.
She’d decided not to retake her position on the A Team. Not yet. Before she’d turned it down, she’d spoken to Chief Marcella Weber and told her she wanted to work cold cases for a while, and she’d like a greater commitment on the department’s part, another dedicated detective to help ease the load, and a directive to make the cases a priority when Tracy sought the crime lab’s help.
Weber was receptive to each of her suggestions.
She asked for one more concession. “I want to keep working a few active cases, if the A Team needs my help. And if I burn out working cold cases, I want the chance to return to the A Team, if I can be accommodated without it impacting anyone else.”
Weber, a tough African American woman who had come from Baltimore, nodded. “The detectives sure want you.”
“I know,” she said.
But now, so did the families of the other cold case victims. After word spread that Tracy had solved two cold cases, with more being solved in Seattle and Curry Canyon, the phone in her office had been ringing off the hook. Family members of other victims pleaded with her to look at their file next. It had been heart-wrenching.
After her visit to Walsh, Tracy returned to Police Headquarters, grabbed a cup of herbal tea, and made her way to her office. It was a mess, binders all over the place. Whenever Kelly Rosa identified another victim, Tracy spoke to the family, then closed the file. It was an elaborate process, but she wanted a hand in it. She didn’t want those families to simply receive a phone call. She delivered the news in person if she could. If the family was out of state, she made the telephone call herself, and she helped each make arrangements to have the body properly buried. Advocates from Victim Support Services also helped the families, and they ensured each was treated with dignity and respect.