The Trapped Girl (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 4)

by Robert Dugoni

  Nik shrugged. “Asked him to find someone named Lynn Hoff. Said he was a relative.”

  “So we don’t know if this person doing the asking was a man or a woman,” Del said.

  Nikolic shook his head. “No way to know.”

  “So how does the person on your end get information back to an e-mail address that gets deleted after an hour?” Del asked.

  “They set up a time to communicate. The client told my guy he’d send another e-mail in seventy-two hours, and if my guy had any information he could e-mail him back. Personally, I like to know who I’m dealing with and won’t work that way, but not everyone has my same high degree of integrity.” Nik smiled.

  “So what did your guy find?” Faz asked.

  “He ran the name through the usual channels and came up with the same Washington State driver’s license you found. He also ran a credit report and found the name associated with an apartment complex in Oklahoma, along with utility records and a request for installation of a phone in that name for that address.”

  “I’m assuming that was a false trail,” Faz said.

  “Turned out it was.”

  “So the person knew what they were doing?” Del asked.

  “Hell, you can read it in books now or watch YouTube,” Nikolic said. “Internet is going to put us all out of business eventually. Computers will take over the world. But yeah, the person had clearly done some research or knew what they were doing.”

  “The skip tracer gave the client this information?” Faz asked.

  “He did. The client then said the person might be using a second alias,” Nikolic said. He glanced down at his notes in a spiral notebook. “Devin Chambers. He told my guy he might want to start in Portland, Oregon.”

  “Devin Chambers?” Del said.

  “That’s the name the client gave him.”

  “Isn’t she Strickland’s friend?” Del said to Faz.

  “What did he find?” Faz asked Nik.

  “He ran the name through the system and came up with a driver’s license and an apartment in Portland. My guy takes a drive down to Portland and talks to the neighbors. She’d lived there, but the tenants said they hadn’t seen her in a few weeks. Two said she told them she was taking an extended trip out of the country.”

  “Did she keep the lease?” Faz asked.

  “It was month to month. When she didn’t pay, the landlord went through the channels and evicted her.”

  “What did the landlord do with all her possessions?”

  “Put everything in storage. She never came back for it.”

  “So she didn’t care about it?” Faz said.

  “Doesn’t appear she did.”

  Faz gave that some thought. He asked, “Did Chambers tell any of the tenants where she was going?”

  “One thought she said Europe, a long-overdue backpacking trip. She asked one of her neighbors to collect her mail while she was gone. Neighbor still had a big stack of it.”

  “She didn’t ask the neighbor to forward it?” Faz said.

  “Nope.”

  He looked to Del. “Sounds like she didn’t intend to come back, but she didn’t want it to look that way.”

  “Definitely,” Del said.

  Nikolic checked his notebook again. “The skip tracer tracked down a relative in New Jersey, a married sister—Allison McCabe.” He spelled the last name. “He called her, said he was the building manager, and told her he had Devin Chambers’s furniture, personal belongings, and a stack of mail but didn’t know where to forward it.”

  “What did the sister tell him?”

  Nikolic smiled. “She said she hadn’t had any contact with her sister in several years and didn’t know what to tell him. The sister didn’t want anything to do with her. He pressed her a bit and learned Devin Chambers has a fondness for prescription drugs and a related money-management problem. She’d apparently borrowed money from the sister in the past and never repaid it. The sister got tired of it and cut her off. According to my guy, a lot of the mail collected was from creditors and collection agencies, past due.”

  “Disappearing takes money,” Faz said.

  Del looked to Faz. “The trust fund.”

  “I’m thinking the same thing,” Faz said. “Just wondering if the skip tracer knew. If Chambers and Andrea were pals, maybe Andrea was helping her out.”

  Del shook his head. “Then why wouldn’t she just give her the money to pay her bills? That seems a lot simpler solution than both of them running.”

  “Except Andrea needed to get away,” Faz said. “Needed people to think she died.”

  “Sounds like Chambers had reason to disappear also,” Del said.

  “Maybe they worked out a deal.” Faz looked to Nikolic. “Your guy find anything else?”

  “He had a woman in his office call up Chambers’s last employer and ask for the person who did the payroll. She pretended to be Chambers and said she hadn’t received her final check and just wanted to confirm the forwarding address they had for her.”

  “Did they have one?” Faz asked.

  Nikolic nodded. “A drop box inside a Bartell’s drugstore in Renton, Washington, but the name on the box wasn’t Devin Chambers.” Another big smile. “It was Lynn Hoff.”

  “No shit,” Faz said.

  “No shit. So the skip tracer has the same woman call the pharmacy, pretend to be Lynn Hoff, and asks if they have her insurance information on her profile. The pharmacy technician rattles off the same PO box. The woman asks if her doctor had called in her most recent prescription and the tech says they have nothing since they filled a prescription for oxycodone a week earlier.”

  “Confirming Lynn Hoff was still in the area. And your guy passed all this on to the client with the guerilla e-mail account?” Faz asked.

  “He did.”

  “And if a person was so inclined, they could stake out that Bartell’s and hope Devin Chambers, or Andrea Strickland, walks in, follow her when she leaves, and find out where she’s staying.”

  Nikolic sat back, sipping his drink. “That’s what I would have done,” he said.

  Tracy and Kins were in the car when Del and Faz called. They said they had information but didn’t want to share it at the office. Tracy said she and Kins would meet them in the food court in the plaza of the Bank of America building on Fifth Avenue.

  Over coffee, Tracy and Kins listened to Faz and Del explain what Nikolic had told them.

  “Awfully big coincidence for Devin Chambers to show up in the same city in Washington where Andrea Strickland goes to get her face rearranged and do her banking,” Faz said.

  “Too big,” Tracy said.

  “They were friends,” Kins said. “So Devin Chambers had to be the person who helped her off the mountain, and maybe the person who looked after Strickland after the surgery.”

  “And Strickland would have needed prescription drugs for the pain,” Faz said.

  “Or Chambers was after the trust money,” Tracy said.

  They all looked at her.

  She said, “According to the sister, Devin Chambers had a prescription drug problem and a money problem, right?”

  “That’s what he said,” Faz said.

  “So she could have been after both,” Tracy said. “And if Devin Chambers was helping Andrea Strickland, she’d have known Andrea Strickland’s alias as well as the bank, and probably the accounts and the passwords.”

  “You think she could have killed her?” Kins asked. “Then moved the money?”

  Tracy shrugged. “Strickland was already dead. Chambers would have known that too. It was the perfect crime, so long as nobody ever found the body.”

  “So maybe we should be looking for Devin Chambers,” Faz said.

  “Not our case anymore,” Kins said, finishing the last of his coffee.

  Tracy had not told any of them about San Bernardino, and what she’d learned from Penny Orr, or from the counselor, Alan Townsend. If the shit hit the fan about Tracy continuing th
e investigation, she wanted them to be able to say they had no knowledge of any of her actions.

  “I’ll call Stan Fields,” she said. “I’ll tell him it was something we had going on when the investigation was pulled, that we just now got the information and we’re passing it on.”

  “Nik won’t give up his source,” Faz said.

  “That’s not our problem,” Kins said. “Let Fields deal with it, if he decides to push it.”

  Tracy wondered how much Fields would push it.

  CHAPTER 22

  Tracy called Stan Fields that afternoon and told him he was going to want to meet her. She suggested Wednesday, July 5, her day off. When Fields pressed her for a reason for the meeting she remained vague, but said it would be worth the drive north to Seattle. She suggested they meet at Cactus, a restaurant on Alki Beach. If ever questioned about the meeting, it would be easier for her to explain a lunch on her day off at a restaurant near her home, rather than try to explain why she would drive all the way to Tacoma for an investigation she was no longer supposed to be working.

  Wednesday, at just minutes after noon, Tracy sat waiting beneath the green-and-red awnings on the Cactus patio munching chips and salsa and sipping iced tea. Across the street, people packed the beach and the Alki Beach boardwalk, so much so that runners had to venture into the street to avoid the crowd. Judging from the heavy car traffic, still more were coming to enjoy the beach, or to have lunch in one of the restaurants with the billion-dollar view. Tourists clustered around the concrete obelisk commemorating what was supposedly the birthplace of Seattle, or at least the location where the Denny Party settlers landed in the fall of 1851 to establish the first settlement. Native Americans already living in the area likely would dispute that the area needed finding.

  Tracy watched Fields approach the patio from along Sixty-Third Avenue, which ran perpendicular to Alki Avenue. He sucked on a cigarette. The seventies motif continued. Fields wore a gray pinstriped suit, open-collared shirt displaying a gold chain, and aviator sunglasses. Tracy had dressed casually in shorts, a blue tank top, and white shirt.

  Fields took a final pull on the cigarette before dropping it and grinding it with his shoe. Inside the restaurant he greeted her. “Traffic is a bitch around here. Good call on the parking.”

  Living close by, Tracy knew the secret parking locations, like the underground garage directly adjacent to the building.

  “Don’t these people freaking work?” Fields said, eyeing the mass of bodies walking the boardwalk across the street.

  “It’s lunchtime,” Tracy said. “People in the Northwest know to get out when the sun’s shining. The fall and winter can be very long.”

  Fields removed his jacket and pulled out his chair, sitting. He smelled of cigarette smoke. “In Arizona, you stay indoors in the summer and venture out in the fall and winter.”

  He removed his aviator sunglasses, folded them, and put them in his shirt pocket. When the waitress approached, he said, “Bring me a Corona with a lime, darling.” Tracy fought to keep her tongue in check. Fields directed his attention to Tracy. “So, why all the intrigue?”

  “No intrigue. I have some information for you on the Andrea Strickland case, a few things we were working when they pulled jurisdiction.”

  “No intrigue?” Fields gave Tracy a shit-eating grin. The mustache ends lifted. “Judging from your appearance, you’re not working today. You have information for me not in the file you shipped down, but you didn’t want to discuss it over the phone, and you asked me to come to you. I’ve been doing this job a while also.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s not your first rodeo,” Tracy said. “So you got the file?”

  Fields nodded. “And I had another chat with Graham Strickland, or, I should say, I tried.”

  “He’s lawyered up?”

  The mustache twitched. “Everything has to go through the attorney. I told the attorney we’d charge him and his client with obstruction.”

  Tracy could only imagine how far that tactic had gotten Fields.

  “He told me to put up or shut up,” he continued. “We compromised. He’s going to make Strickland available for questioning.” Fields sat back, watching two young women in shorts walk past the patio before redirecting his attention to Tracy. “Not sure how much good it’s going to do since we can’t get an exact time on the murder, and there are no forensics to speak of with the salt water doing a number on the crab pot and body. Even if we found the gun, which is less than doubtful, we don’t have a bullet. We’re working to get Strickland’s credit card and phone records to see if maybe he rented a crabbing boat for the day. Not likely.” Fields took a chip, dipped it in the salsa, and popped it in his mouth. “In other words, it remains circumstantial, and the little prick knows it.”

  The waitress returned with Fields’s beer, a lime slice sticking out the neck.

  “Are you ready to order?” she asked.

  “Just bring me that steak dish you have,” Fields said. “What’s it called, carne asada, am I right?”

  The woman smiled. “How do you like it cooked?”

  “Bloodred. You tell the chef I want it to ‘moo’ when I stick it with my fork. And throw a couple of them big green peppers on the grill for me also.”

  Tracy ordered a tostada. “No sour cream or guacamole,” she said.

  Fields shoved the lime slice into the bottle. “Watching your figure?” He took a sip of his beer. “So what do you have for me?”

  Tracy dipped a chip, munching. “I spoke to Andrea Strickland’s aunt in San Bernardino.”

  “Yeah?” Fields said, sounding surprised and irritated. “What? You just happen to be down there, like you just happened to want to spend your day off working a case no longer yours? Don’t they keep you busy up here in Seattle?” Fields’s eyebrows drew together.

  “I also spoke to her counselor,” Tracy said, ignoring him.

  “Strickland’s or the aunt’s?”

  “Strickland’s. The aunt took Andrea to see him after the car accident that killed her parents. She continued when she realized her husband was molesting Andrea.”

  “No shit?” Fields said loud enough for heads to turn at the other tables.

  Tracy sipped her iced tea. “The kid loses her parents in a car accident then has to endure crap like that.”

  “Not everyone grew up in the Brady Bunch,” Fields said, taking another sip of his beer.

  “Yeah, far from it,” Tracy said.

  “So she was all screwed up,” Fields said.

  “Counselor called Protective Services and she was removed from the home until the aunt moved to a new place.”

  “Charges pressed?”

  “I haven’t looked.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “Counselor isn’t certain but said it is entirely plausible Andrea could have developed what he called a dissociative disorder—multiple personalities she might take on to avoid the real world.”

  “Sort of like that Sybil movie?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Did he name any of these other personalities?”

  “You mean like Lynn Hoff? No. But he said Andrea was an obsessive reader and could have taken on the role of the characters in the books she read.”

  “Let’s hope she didn’t read Carrie,” Fields said. “Sounds like she was a train wreck waiting to happen.”

  “Maybe. He also said she could have been prone to violent acts.”

  “He ever witness that?”

  Tracy shook her head. “Andrea left when she turned eighteen. He said the symptoms likely would manifest, if they were going to manifest, in her early twenties.”

  “So she could have been a time bomb waiting to go off; did he say what could set her off?”

  “He speculated on a number of things—another trauma, abuse, abandonment, or if she felt desperate.”

  The waitress returned with Tracy’s tostada and Fields’s carne asada. He stuck it with his fork. “I don’t h
ear no ‘mooing,’” he said. The waitress looked concerned. “Don’t you worry about it, darling. I’m just playing with you. Bring me another Corona, will you?”

  The waitress took the empty bottle from the table.

  Fields grabbed his knife and cut at the meat, putting a hunk in his mouth and talking as he chewed. “You said abandoned, like if her husband was cheating on her, or planning on killing her, and she found out?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Okay. So where does this get me?”

  Tracy spooned some salsa onto her tostada. “Well, it could explain how a seemingly introverted young woman walked off that mountain in the first place, and went to such extremes to set her husband up to look like he’d murdered her.”

  Fields lowered his knife and fork. “What do you mean, set him up?”

  “According to your report, the husband had no knowledge of the insurance policy naming him a beneficiary.”

  “That’s what he said, but we both know that’s probably bullshit,” Fields said.

  “Maybe not,” Tracy said. “No confirmation on the ‘girlfriend’ Andrea was convinced her husband was sleeping with either. What we do know is she walked off the mountain, but not before she left the debris field of clothes and equipment, which means she had to have brought an extra set to get down the mountain. She didn’t carry all that up there for the hell of it. And she obtained a fake driver’s license, which all points to premeditation.”

  “So you’re saying she got the insurance policy to make it look like the husband was trying to kill her?”

  “Or maybe he was trying to kill her and she found out,” Tracy said. “But, yeah, getting the policy, consulting a divorce attorney, telling her boss she suspected her husband was cheating on her again, all could have been part of a plan to leave a trail of bread crumbs leading right back to her husband.”

  “She doesn’t strike me as that smart, especially if she was as big a nut job as the shrink says.”

  “Bundy was a nut job.” Tracy let that sink in for a moment. “According to Andrea’s boss, she was very bright.”