Close to Home (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 5)

by Robert Dugoni

  “But I’ve only found a few instances in which the person was charged,” McDaniel added. “None went to trial. They all pled.”

  “What kind of sentences did they get?”

  “Two to four years and three to five thousand dollars.”

  “That’s not very much for taking a life.”

  “I agree, but it’s better than what it was, and there are other factors at play here.”

  “Such as?” Del asked.

  Cerrabone’s desk phone rang and he reached to answer it. After listening for a bit he said, “What kind of motion? That’s ridiculous. Yeah, tell the judge I’m on my way down.” He hung up, stood, and unrolled his shirtsleeves to button his cuffs. “I have to go argue a disqualification motion of one of the jurors. Feel free to stay here and use my office.”

  “Do you drink coffee?” McDaniel said to Del as Cerrabone grabbed his jacket.

  “Too much,” Del said.

  Tracy stepped into the conference room on the seventh floor of the Police Headquarters building after just a few hours of sleep. Kins and Faz already sat at the table, talking about NBA games.

  “Where’s Del?” she asked Faz.

  Faz sipped from a large mug of coffee embossed on one side with “Italians Make the Best Lovers” . . . and on the other side with . . . “Of Food!” The bittersweet aroma made Tracy’s mouth water, though she knew she’d be in for a day of heartburn if she drank a cup on an empty stomach. “He had a meeting this morning and said to start without him.”

  “How’s he doing, really?” Tracy pulled out a chair on the opposite side of the table and sat. Outside the tall, thin windows, rain fell on the concrete patio.

  “He’s all right.” Faz shrugged. “He’s pissed, you know? He wants somebody’s ass.”

  “Enough to do something stupid?” Tracy asked.

  “I’ll keep an eye on him,” Faz said, the New Jersey accent thickening. “He’ll be all right.”

  “He shouldn’t be working his niece’s case,” Tracy said.

  Faz shrugged. “Everyone in the department is up to their eyeballs, and Del’s trying to do right by his sister, you know? The husband hasn’t been around in years. Don’t worry, I’ll watch him.”

  Kins turned to Tracy. “Is Joe coming in?”

  “He called and said he was up late and early and is working to get something for us by this morning.”

  “Weren’t we all.” Faz flexed his shoulders and popped his neck. The long night and early morning showed in his bloodshot eyes.

  Tracy felt like somebody had punched her in the back of the head. She hadn’t slept much. “Anything turn up when you and Del canvassed the buildings?”

  Faz shook his head. “Nobody saw or heard nothing. I’ll get something written up for the file.”

  “It confirms what Jensen said,” Kins offered, “that the driver of the car didn’t brake.”

  Their captain, Johnny Nolasco, stepped into the room. Tracy had not been expecting him. They coexisted as well as a stick building and a tornado. “Heard you had a hit and run last night?”

  “Twelve-year-old kid,” Faz said.

  “Fatality?”

  “Unfortunately,” Tracy said.

  Nolasco said, “I’m going to push to have TCI handle it.”

  “It’s a homicide,” she said. “Billy says the brass is pushing for us to handle it, or to at least work with TCI.”

  “I’m well aware of that, but that multiple homicide last week is heating up and they need help with the interviews. This is a hit and run with a fatality,” Nolasco said, “which is what TCI does.”

  “What if it was a homicide?”

  “Then we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.”

  Jensen stepped to the doorway. Nolasco gave him a glance, turned, and departed down the hall. Jensen peeled off the strap of a computer bag slung over his shoulder and set the bag on a chair. “Sorry I’m late, but I was running down something I think you’ll find useful.”

  Jensen looked decidedly different without the knit ski cap and bulky jacket. He had a full head of red hair and a stocky build. This morning he wore jeans, low-cut hiking shoes, polo shirt, and down jacket, which he quickly discarded over an empty chair.

  “You get any sleep?” Kins asked.

  Jensen removed the laptop from his bag and flipped it open, waiting for it to power up. “Yeah, I’m good. Adrenaline is pumping.”

  “Put some of that in my coffee,” Faz said.

  Jensen pulled out several sheets of paper and handed them to Tracy, then looked at his watch. “We might make morning roll call.”

  “Should we call the sergeant?” Tracy asked.

  “Take a peek.”

  She read the paper. “Subaru Outback?” She looked to Jensen. “You got the make and model of the car? Already? Was there a video?”

  “There’s a video, but too far away to be definitive.”

  “So how do we know it’s a Subaru?” Kins asked.

  “I took that car part found in the street to the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab first thing this morning. They provided me with a serial number and determined it had come off a Subaru. My buddy owns Walker’s Renton Subaru,” Jensen said. “So I drove the part over to him and, based on the number, he says it came off a headlamp on the passenger side of a 2003 Subaru Outback. Black.”

  Tracy quickly looked at her wristwatch, then looked across the table. “Faz—”

  “I’m on it.” Faz pushed back his chair, the sheet of paper in one hand and his coffee mug in the other. If they could get the information to the sergeant on the morning roll call, they could get the word out to the patrol officers on First Watch to keep their eyes open for the car. Faz would then get the information distributed through all the other law enforcement agencies throughout the state, including the highway patrol, as well as distributing it to car repair companies.

  “You said something about video?” Tracy asked Jensen as Faz departed.

  “There’s a traffic camera down the street. It isn’t great, but knowing the type of car and approximate time of the accident, we were able to fast-forward through the tape looking for it.” He tapped the laptop keyboard and spoke to Kins. “You might want to come around to this side of the table.”

  Kins joined them, peering over Jensen’s shoulder.

  “There’s a traffic camera for the bus line on top of the light pole on South Henderson, about a hundred yards west of the intersection. It’s a good camera, but the distance and the lighting . . . The video isn’t the best. And the car was traveling south to north so there’s no chance to get a license plate.” Jensen tapped the keys. In seconds they were watching a grainy, slightly yellowed, black-and-white video. “The lights distort the coloring,” he said. He tapped a few more keys, speeding up the film while checking notes on a sheet of paper. He pointed with his finger. “Right here, if you look closely, you’ll see someone coming up the sidewalk on the left-hand side of the street.”

  Tracy could barely make out a slightly lighter image. “Hard to tell.”

  “It’s consistent with the time the witness said D’Andre Miller left the community center. And he appears to be running. Now watch, right here.” Jensen tapped keys to slow the video. “The car enters the frame here, at the top of the slope in the street. The image gets a little better as it approaches the intersection.”

  Tracy watched a dark-colored car drive down the hill and blow through the intersection without slowing. “The stucco building on the corner blocks the view of the kid stepping from the curb.”

  “Like I said, it’s not great, but the timing, the car, and the image of the kid coming up the street all confirm what the car part tells us—that the kid was hit by a dark-colored Subaru.”

  “Can you enhance the image any more?” Tracy asked.

  “Not without making it grainier. You’re not going to get a license plate unless we can find other cameras down the line that picked the car up.”

  Tracy straightened.
“You have someone working on that? Maybe we get lucky and get a plate, or at least a partial.”

  “We’re on it,” Jensen said. He smiled at Tracy. “I told you this was more interesting than your run-of-the-mill homicides.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Leaving the King County Courthouse, Celia McDaniel had been a woman on a mission. Del just tried to keep up. She’d walked past a Starbucks and a Seattle’s Best Coffee, continuing without hesitation until she came to Top Pot Doughnuts on Fifth Avenue, a couple blocks north of the courthouse. As she opened the door, she told Del, “I don’t do coffee unless donuts are along for the ride.”

  Inside, the smell of fresh-brewed coffee and fresh-baked donuts was both intoxicating and torturous. The last thing Del needed was a donut; he’d had his annual physical the day before and his blood pressure was up—no surprise, given the last few weeks, but his doctor had also been riding him about his weight.

  Del purchased a coffee, black, and refrained from a donut. McDaniel ordered a latte and two donuts, an old-fashioned and a glazed. They sat at a table away from others, McDaniel on the bench seat, Del in a chair across the table. She cradled the coffee cup between her hands like it was a fire in a snowstorm. “I hate the cold,” she said. “Thankfully, at least, you all don’t get snow here.”

  “We might this year,” Del said. “Usually it’s December and January. I don’t remember a March this cold.”

  “I was trying to be optimistic.” McDaniel smiled, which seemed to come easily to her. She had a positive energy about her that he surmised was good with juries. Del envied her. He hadn’t really smiled since the morning his sister called to tell him Allie was dead. “You sure you don’t want a donut?” she asked.

  “My doctor already thinks I’m a few donuts over my playing weight.” Del had removed his raincoat and draped it across the back of an adjacent chair.

  “No cream or sugar either,” McDaniel said, nodding at Del’s coffee. “You’re a man without vices.”

  “My bathroom scale would tend to disagree with you.”

  “Well, you’re looking at one of mine. I can’t survive without my donuts. It’s the only way I can drink coffee.”

  “Why don’t you give up coffee?”

  “And forego my donuts?”

  “Sounds like circular reasoning.”

  “It’s called rationalizing.”

  “You eat like this every morning?”

  “God, no.” She gave him a sheepish smile. “A couple times a week.”

  “How do you maintain your . . . ?” Del stopped and sipped his coffee.

  “My figure?”

  “I didn’t say it,” Del said, raising a hand. “OPA is in my cubicle enough as it is.”

  “You say inappropriate things often?” McDaniel asked.

  “I’m closing in on fifty; I am an inappropriate thing.”

  “To answer your question—and thank you very much—I’m as obsessive about exercise as I am about donuts.”

  “I wish exercise went with my love of lasagna.”

  “I do Pilates every weekday morning at five a.m. just so I can eat like this.” She dipped her donut and brought the end to her mouth.

  “I’m up at five every morning too,” Del said. “I go to the bathroom and go back to bed.”

  She laughed and quickly put her hand to her mouth, just below her nose. She looked for a moment like she might spit out her coffee. Then she waved at him and turned her head, using a napkin to wipe her mouth. After a moment she said, “Give me some warning next time.”

  Del liked her. She seemed real, without pretenses. He’d also noticed that her left hand was not sporting a ring. He sat back. His legs felt heavy and his body weary from the lack of sleep, but the anxiety he’d felt the past week had evaporated.

  “Can I ask you something?” he said.

  “Sure,” McDaniel said.

  “In the office, you said what happened to my niece wasn’t an unusual situation. What did you mean by that?”

  McDaniel set down her coffee and wiped the tips of her fingers on a napkin. “You said she’d been in recovery just before her overdose?”

  “She’d come home one day and told my sister she was done, that she wanted to quit. She said she was tired of the drugs and what they were doing to her. My sister called me, and I pulled some strings and got her into a rehab facility over in Eastern Washington. She’d been clean nearly three months. She attended NA meetings and was seeing a counselor; I got her a job at a Starbucks and she seemed to be really turning a corner—we all thought so. This hit us out of the blue.” Feeling emotional, Del stopped.

  McDaniel set down her coffee. “When a heroin addict falls out of recovery, they’ll often go back to using the same amount of heroin . . . or the same strength of heroin they were using before they quit. Their bodies aren’t prepared for the dosage and, unfortunately, they’ll unintentionally overdose.”

  “Cerrabone said you worked narcotics in Georgia.”

  “I was prosecuting drug offenders. More recently, I was working on legislation to secure judicial alternatives for addicts.”

  “What brought you out here?”

  McDaniel shifted her eyes to the glass walls that looked out on to the sidewalk. “I needed a change of scenery after my divorce.”

  “I needed a different planet after mine.”

  “That bad?”

  “Not good.”

  “Do you have kids?” Celia asked.

  “Thankfully, no. You?”

  “A son.” She paused, then said, “I was looking to do some advocacy and I’d read that King County has a heroin task force exploring ways to combat the rise in usage. I’m on that task force.”

  “I read about that,” Del said. He refrained from saying that he didn’t agree with it, not wanting to offend her.

  “The rise in heroin use has become epidemic pretty much all over the country,” she said. “And the number of accidental deaths from opioid overdoses now exceeds fatal car crashes.”

  Del shook his head. “Back in my day, only the real junkies did heroin.”

  “Things changed with the legalization of marijuana. The Mexican drug cartels saw their revenue stream fading, plowed their pot fields, and planted poppies. People didn’t think about that when they were lobbying to legalize marijuana. It never made the media.”

  “Increase the product and decrease the cost,” Del said. “Good old capitalism.”

  “Big-time,” she said. “You can get heroin now for less than a pack of cigarettes. It wasn’t just the legalization of marijuana. Researchers also trace the dramatic increase in addiction to a shift in health-care philosophy that started to emphasize treating a patient’s pain rather than treating the underlying ailments. That led to an increase in opioid use.”

  “I read about that too.”

  “Opioid use previously restricted to the treatment of things like cancer or physical trauma suddenly became widely available for more broadly defined problems, like chronic pain. Not surprisingly, the drug companies introduced and aggressively marketed certain opioids, like oxycodone.”

  “They had me on it when they operated on my shoulder,” Del said.

  “Addicts quickly figured out how to circumvent the time-release pain medication by crushing or dissolving the pill, then snorting or shooting it.”

  “So how did they get from that to heroin?”

  “Availability and cost. When the addiction problem came to light, state legislatures passed laws making it more difficult to get opioids prescribed, and the manufacturer reformulated oxycodone so it couldn’t be crushed or dissolved. It seemed like two good responses, but both ignored the fact that you had a lot of addicted people who could either no longer get the drug or no longer afford it. That just paved the way for the Mexican drug cartels.”

  “They moved to heroin and had a ready market.”

  “They flooded the market with cheap, affordable heroin, making it the most commonly used drug by eighteen- to twenty-ni
ne-year-olds. Not surprisingly, that demographic has had the largest increase in overdose deaths.”

  “So we put the dealers in jail and give them significant sentences like ten years,” Del said, thinking of the new law.

  “You put one in jail and you open a slot ten others will be waiting to fill.”

  “Not if we ramp up the punishment. Not if we start ensuring they get the full ten years. A lot of dealers would think twice.”

  She shook her head. “Dealers, maybe, but we can’t legislate habits that have formed over the last decade. If there are users, there will be suppliers, Del. An addict is an addict. Your niece was an addict. Criminalization only drives the addicts farther away from the people who love and can help them, to the people who will abuse them.”

  Del felt his anxiety returning. “Yeah, well, I’m not going after the users. I’m going after the dealers. I say increase the penalty for dealing from ten years to twenty-five years to life and we’ll get rid of the dealers.”

  “And put them where? Our jails are already overburdened. And what do you do with the addicts?”

  Del didn’t have an immediate answer.

  “You’re unfortunately seeing the problem from a side unfamiliar to you. And you’re upset and angry. You want someone to pay for the death of your niece.”

  “I can’t say you’re wrong.”

  “And that’s a common response. But the key now isn’t charging the criminals. It’s freeing the addicts of their addictions. We need more people like you, Del, who’ve seen the problem at its worst.”

  Del stifled a grin. “I hope you didn’t bring me here to pitch me.”

  “That’s not fair. I did the research and I provided you with the law. That’s what I was asked to do.”

  Del wasn’t in the mood to argue. He was too damn tired. He slid back his chair and stood. “You’re right. Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  “Look, I know what you’re going through.”

  Del raised a hand. “You know, I really wish people would stop saying that because, with all due respect, you don’t know what I’m going through. And you don’t know what my sister is going through. People say ‘I know.’ I used to say ‘I know.’ I used to tell people how sorry I was for their loss, but until you’ve been there . . . until you’ve been through it, you don’t know.”