“Is it Veronica?” Lawrence asked Kins.
“We think so,” he said.
“I’m going to need you to positively identify her,” Funk said.
Shirley asked Kins, “Did you find her?”
“We did,” Kins said.
“What happened to her?” Lawrence asked. Tracy detected a Texas accent, a subtle twang—and an underlying tone of anger or irritation.
“We’ll have time for that later,” Kins said.
Funk gave the Berkmans his rehearsed spiel about the shock of seeing a loved one and the possibility they could feel faint. He explained that Veronica was in the processing room, her body covered with a sheet. “I’ll wait until you say you’re ready. It will only be the face.”
When the Berkmans nodded their understanding, Funk led them into the room. Tracy and Kins kept back a respectful distance. No amount of soft lighting or interior decorating could camouflage the cold and harsh reality of the stainless steel tables and sinks. The polished linoleum floors reflected the overhead fluorescent lights, creating a kind of mirage that could be momentarily disorienting.
Funk’s staff had placed Veronica’s body on the table farthest from the door. Even with Veronica beneath a sheet, Tracy could tell her muscles had relaxed sufficiently for Funk to straighten her limbs, and she was glad Shirley wouldn’t have to see her daughter’s body twisted and contorted.
Shirley Berkman stepped to the edge of the table with her arms crossed, hugging herself. Lawrence kept an arm around her shoulders. Funk stood on the opposite side, hand on the sheet. When Shirley gave a subtle nod, Funk lowered the sheet. Shirley’s hand shot to her mouth, and silent tears leaked from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks, but she did not turn away or collapse. She did not cry out, disbelieving. Shirley had a look of tortured resignation, and Tracy could not help but think she had envisioned this moment, or one like it.
“That’s Veronica,” Lawrence said, brow furrowed, eyes dry.
Funk began to replace the sheet, but Shirley reached out and Funk stepped back. Shirley shrugged Lawrence’s arm from her shoulder and leaned close to her daughter.
“Shirls,” Lawrence said.
His wife ignored him. She gently caressed Veronica’s forehead and cheeks and lightly stroked her hair. Shirley Berkman looked wistful, as if reliving memories she and her daughter once shared, and now her own regrets. The tableau hit Tracy like a blow to the chest and she felt herself flush. She was having difficulty swallowing. Her eyes watered. It was a moment neither she nor her parents had ever shared with Sarah, a moment to say good-bye. Tracy blamed herself for that. She blamed herself for not being with Sarah when she’d been abducted. And now she found herself feeling guilty for not having captured the Cowboy before he’d had the chance to kill again, inflicting pain and grief on another family. Kins noticed her becoming emotional and gave her a reproachful look. Tracy willed herself to regain her composure.
Shirley kissed her daughter’s cheek a final time, wiped her tears, and stepped back. Funk replaced the sheet.
“What happens now?” Lawrence asked.
“There’ll be an autopsy,” Funk said.
“Why?” he said. “What’s the point?”
“We need to understand why she’s dead,” Funk said.
“It’s important to determine the cause of death, time of death, and whether there is any forensic evidence we are unable to see but that may have contributed to her death,” Kins said.
“Or that may lead us to the person who did this,” Tracy said.
“It’s that asshole boyfriend of hers,” Lawrence said, pupils small and fixed on Tracy. “He got her into that crap, that lifestyle. Hell, just go arrest him. What’s that piece of shit’s name?”
“Taggart. Bradley Taggart,” Shirley said, sounding tired. She dabbed at the corner of her eyes with a tissue.
“He was sleeping with her when she was fifteen, but you people never did anything about that. He used to beat her up too,” Lawrence said. “There’s your suspect. Go talk to him.”
“We intend to,” Tracy said. She took a step to get out of Lawrence’s line of fire. “Mrs. Berkman, are you aware of your daughter seeing anyone other than Mr. Taggart? Did she ever talk to you about anyone?”
Shirley shook her head. “We didn’t communicate too often.”
“The boyfriend kept her from us,” Lawrence said. “We couldn’t even call.”
“Any former boyfriends who might have had an ax to grind?” Kins asked.
“She was fifteen when she moved in with him,” Lawrence said. “She didn’t have any boyfriends.”
“Any enemies you’re aware of?” Tracy persisted. “Did she ever mention anyone following her, harassing her at work?”
“No,” Shirley said. “No one.” Her chest shuddered, but she controlled it. “Veronica was a good girl. She was in a bad situation, but she wasn’t a bad person.”
“I’m sure she wasn’t,” Tracy said.
“Where did you find her?”
“A motel room on Aurora Avenue,” Tracy said.
Tears streamed down Shirley Berkman’s cheeks, leaving trails in her makeup. When Lawrence went to comfort her, she stepped away and hurried from the room, leaving him alone and looking uncertain. He hesitated. Then he lowered his eyes and stepped out, cowboy boots clicking on the linoleum.
CHAPTER 19
The cool air off Elliott Bay felt refreshing, and Tracy sucked it in, still feeling flushed as she and Kins crossed Jefferson Street to their car.
Kins opened the driver’s side door but did not get in. “What was that all about in there?”
“Was I wrong to leave, Kins?”
“Don’t do that to yourself.”
“Maybe I should have stayed. Maybe if I had, we would have caught this guy by now.”
“This isn’t your fault. Don’t make it personal. Nolasco chose to send Hansen to cold cases. He took it from us to make you look bad. You had to go to Cedar Grove, and there’s not a single cop on this entire force who wouldn’t have done exactly what you did. You had every right to find out what happened to your sister.”
She nodded, but Kins’s reassurance didn’t take away the pain she’d felt watching Shirley Berkman’s final moments with her daughter, or the harsh reality that while an arrest of the Cowboy might bring the families of his victims justice, it would never bring them closure.
Tracy knew that firsthand.
The Washington State Patrol Crime Lab was located in a block-long squat cement structure in Seattle’s SoDo neighborhood, an industrial area south of downtown. As Tracy and Kins maneuvered through the halls and neared Michael Melton’s office, they heard the soothing melody of Melton’s guitar and equally soothing voice.
“‘Country Roads,’” Kins said.
Melton had his office door open but didn’t flinch or miss a chord when Tracy and Kins reached the threshold. He ended the song with an impressive guitar riff. “How’s my favorite detective?” Melton said.
“I know you’re not talking to me,” Kins said.
Tracy forced a smile. “Getting ready for your next gig?”
Melton sang in a country-western band called the Fourensics with three other crime lab scientists. They played local bars, small gigs, and at an annual fund-raiser for victims of crime. Melton told Tracy playing guitar and singing kept him sane in an insane world. He looked like a lumberjack, with a mane of graying hair tied in a ponytail, a bushy beard, and a flannel shirt rolled up to reveal forearms that looked like he’d grown up splitting cords of wood.
“Nothing on the calendar,” he said. “But you know me. If there’s beer, I’ll be near.”
Melton hung the guitar on a prong protruding from the wall amid an eclectic collection of odd mementos from the various cases he had worked—baseball bats, ball-peen hammers, knives, guns, even a slingshot.
“Might be a while though; we’re so backed up here my eyes are brown.”
Melton handed them his reports on
the rope found at the shooting range and the rope used to strangle Veronica Watson. “Which do you want first?”
“How about the shooting range,” Kins said.
“Generic three-strand. Polypropylene with a right twist.”
“So same type of rope as the ropes used to strangle Hansen and Schreiber,” Kins said.
“Same type.”
“Can you tell if it came from the same length of rope?”
“Not definitively. The ends were too frayed.”
“If you had to guess?”
“I’d say no.”
“What about a manufacturer?”
“Too common. You can buy it pretty much anywhere.”
“And the knot?” Tracy asked.
“Different. Definitely different from Hansen or Schreiber. Not nearly as intricate.” Melton handed them photos.
“What do you make of it?” Tracy asked.
“Thankfully, that’s not my job.”
“What about the person who tied it, right- or left-handed?”
Melton shook his head. “Too rudimentary to draw any conclusions.”
“So no skill required,” Tracy said.
“No skill required,” Melton agreed.
Tracy addressed Kins. “Maybe on purpose, to throw us off?”
“Maybe. What about Veronica Watson?” Kins asked Melton.
“Also generic three-strand polypropylene with a right twist. If I had to give an opinion, I’d say it comes from the same length of rope as Schreiber’s, but again, that’s an educated guess. The knot, however, is identical to Nicole Hansen’s and to Angela Schreiber’s.”
“No question?” Tracy asked.
“None.”
“So left-handed,” Kins said.
“Definitely,” Melton said.
“How long before we get the DNA analysis?” Tracy asked.
“At least twenty-four hours, and that’s with me making it a priority.”
Tracy sighed. “So tell me, how’re we going to get this guy, Mike?”
“Again, thankfully, not in my job description. Hopefully he makes a mistake. They all do. Just a matter of when.”
CHAPTER 20
Billy Williams called to give them a heads-up—Maria Vanpelt had filed a special news report confirming that Seattle officially had another serial killer, nicknamed the Cowboy, and that SPD was forming a task force to catch him.
“Nice of her to let us know,” Tracy said, unable to hide the disgust in her voice.
“The brass is convening,” Billy said. “All the big boys are going to be there, and your presence has been requested.”
“Does request mean we can say no?” Kins asked.
“No,” Billy said.
At the Justice Center, Tracy and Kins made a beeline for the kitchen, having not eaten since breakfast. Kins slid two bucks into the community fund and grabbed a bag of Doritos and a bag of Famous Amos cookies. “You want the high fat content or the high fat content?”
“You know me better than to ask.” Tracy grabbed the cookies. “Chocolate.”
They made their way to the eighth floor and stepped into a bland conference room with walls unadorned by paintings or photographs. Nolasco sat at the far end of the table, his back to tinted windows. He glanced up from a document and peered at them over reading glasses. With his mud-brown hair parted in the middle and a bushy mustache trimmed just below the corners of his mouth, the joke among the women on the force was that Nolasco looked like an aging 1970s porn star. Beside him sat Bennett Lee, a public information officer for SPD; Billy Williams; and Andrew Laub, their lieutenant.
Lee slid two sheets of paper across the table as Kins and Tracy rolled out chairs. “What’s this?” Tracy asked.
“Clarridge wants to make a statement,” Nolasco said, referring to Chief Sandy Clarridge. Nolasco removed his glasses, twirling them by a stem. “The mayor’s going to be with him. Neither is happy with the latest news reports.”
“Which are what?” Tracy asked, sitting.
“That we have another serial killer . . . and skepticism about whether we are competent to catch him.”
“Manpelt?” Tracy said, using the nickname the detectives had bestowed on Maria Vanpelt.
“That’s irrelevant,” Nolasco said.
“Not exactly the fountain of truth.” Tracy popped a cookie into her mouth.
“She’d turn a convention of Buddhists into a clandestine terrorist gathering,” Kins said.
“Either of you want to explain that to the Chief?” Nolasco said.
“Is that why we’re here?” Tracy asked.
“You’re here because I want to know where we’re at with the latest murder and how it ties in with the other two,” Nolasco said. “And give me the Reader’s Digest version. I don’t have much time.”
“Same type of rope as the rope used to kill Hansen and Schreiber,” Tracy said. “Can’t tell if it comes from the same coil, but no doubt about the knot. Same guy tied it. Likely left-handed. Room was straightened. Bed made. Clothes folded. Don’t know about DNA yet; can’t get fingerprints off a rope, but Melton says they lifted enough prints from the motel room to start a small village. It’s going to take time.”
“So we have a serial killer,” Nolasco said.
“We already had a serial killer.”
“Maybe we should focus on the statement,” Lee said, lifting a sheet of paper from the table, “since we’re pressed for time.”
Whoever had written the statement described the three murders vaguely, omitting any reference to a noose or rope. “This won’t pacify the media,” Tracy said.
“We’re not in the business of pacifying the media,” Nolasco said.
“They already know Hansen and Schreiber were strangled with a noose,” she said. “They’ll deduce Watson died the same way.”
“I want to keep the details vague,” Nolasco said.
“You’ve succeeded.”
“You got a problem with that?”
“I don’t, but Clarridge reads this and the media will think he’s holding back something important. They’ll ask for specifics he can’t answer, which will put him on the spot.” She shrugged. “Your call.”
Nolasco reconsidered the statement while rubbing his index finger over his mustache, a habit when he was stalling. After less than a minute, he set the statement down and pressed his fingertips together, forming a pyramid just beneath his lips. “What do you suggest?”
“There’s no reason to hide the fact that Watson was strangled or the type of rope,” Tracy said.
“I agree,” Kins said. “That ship has sailed, thanks to Manpelt.”
“But hold back any details about the knot, the method of strangulation, and the condition of the room,” Tracy said.
She took a moment to read the second paragraph, which stated that Clarridge would form a task force. “Are you handling the media, Bennett?”
“I am,” he said. He didn’t sound or look happy about it. Being the PIO in a serial killer investigation was like being a tightrope walker in a windstorm, a delicate balancing act, with each step another chance to make a fatal mistake. Release too much information and Lee would be educating not only the media, but also the killer. Too little information and the press would assume the task force was making no progress or withholding information. Tracy considered Lee a smart choice. He’d stick to an agreed-upon script, and he was good at keeping his facial features bland and his voice under control, revealing little beyond the prepared statement.
The final paragraph was the obligatory assurance to the general public that every available resource was being utilized in the investigation . . . including the local division of the FBI.
“What the hell,” Kins said. “Whose idea was it to bring in the Famous But Incompetent?”
Before anyone could answer, Clarridge entered the room with Stephen Martinez, the assistant chief of criminal investigations. Both wore the department’s standard French-blue short-sleeve shirts, Clarridge’s
with four collar stars and his gold “Chief” badge pinned to his left breast pocket. Clarridge always made a point of being in uniform when he stepped to the podium. It was his way of saying, “I’m still a cop”—though maybe not chief for too much longer. Rumor was the recently elected mayor, who had not appointed Clarridge, was losing patience.
After greetings, Clarridge said, “Is that the statement?”
Lee stood and handed copies to Clarridge and Martinez. Clarridge tapped the desk with his middle finger as he read. Tracy glanced at Kins, who sat stewing over Nolasco’s insertion of the FBI into their investigation.
When Clarridge set down the statement, Nolasco said, “Chief, it’s my suggestion that we not hide the fact that the killer uses a noose to strangle his victims. That cat is already out of the bag. If we withhold it, the media will pepper you for details we don’t want to provide at this time.”
Clarridge looked across the table at Tracy. “Detective Crosswhite, this is your investigation. Do you agree?”
“I think it’s a brilliant suggestion,” she said. Lee lowered his head but couldn’t suppress a smile. “I also wouldn’t use the words ‘stripper’ or ‘prostitute.’ The women were dancers. Better yet, call them victims.”
“Tell me about them.”
For the next twenty minutes, Clarridge listened intently, asked intelligent questions, and took notes on the back of the press release as Tracy provided details about the crime scenes, the forensic evidence, leads, and possible suspects. With the building mostly shut down for the night, the air in the room soon became warm and stale. Clarridge’s cheeks had flushed, in contrast to his pale Slavic complexion.
“So, little doubt we’re dealing with one man,” Clarridge said.
“Correct.”
“Someone who has a problem with dancers?”
“Maybe. They could simply be victims of opportunity. But yes, all three were dancers.”
“So who are we looking at? Employees? Customers?”
“Definitely,” Tracy said. “We’re running Triple I checks on the male employees and running down anyone with any priors,” she said. “But there are close to a hundred dancers working at the clubs, and there’s a website for customers to make online reservations with their favorites. The killer might not even be going to one of the clubs. He could be setting up his meetings with the dancers online.”
Her Final Breath (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 2) Page 9