My Sister's Grave (10 page)

They spoke for another minute; Tracy was in need of another Kleenex by the time Peter Kaufman departed. Dan, who had stood back a respectful distance while she had greeted those who’d come, stepped forward and handed her a handkerchief.

Tracy gathered her emotions and blotted her eyes. When she’d regained some semblance of composure, she said, “So I don’t understand; I thought you lived back east. How’d you find out?”

“I did live back east, just outside of Boston. But I’ve moved back. I live here now—again.”

“In Cedar Grove?”

“It’s a bit of a story, and you look like you could use a break from the past.” Dan slipped her a business card and gave her a hug. “I’d like to catch up when you feel up to it. Just know how sorry I am, Tracy. I loved Sarah. I truly did.”

“Your handkerchief,” she said, holding it out.

“You can hang on to that,” Dan said.

She noticed that the handkerchief was embroidered with his initials, DMO, which made her consider the cut of his tailored suit and the quality of his tie. Having spent time with attorneys, she knew both were high-end, which didn’t exactly fit the image of the boy she’d known, who’d worn hand-me-downs. She looked at his business card. “You’re a lawyer,” she said.

He gave her a wink. “Recovering.”

The card included a business address for the First National Bank building on Market Street in Cedar Grove. “I’d like to hear that story, Dan.”

“Just give me a call.” He gave her a gentle smile before opening a golf umbrella and stepping out from beneath the canopy into the rain.

Kins approached with Laub and Faz. “You want some company on the drive back?”

“I know a great place to eat on the way,” Faz said.

“Thanks,” she said. “But I’m going to stay another night.”

Kins said, “I thought you wanted to come straight back to Seattle?”

She watched as Dan reached an SUV, pulled open the door, lowered his umbrella, and slid inside. “My plans just changed.”

CHAPTER 17

F
irst National Bank’s fortune had been literally tied to Christian Mattioli’s fortune. Established to protect the considerable wealth of the founders of the Cedar Grove Mining Company, including Mattioli, the bank had nearly died when the mine had closed and he and his cohorts had left town. The Cedar Grove residents had rallied together, transferring savings and checking accounts and making a commitment to the bank for their mortgages and small-business loans. Tracy wasn’t certain when the bank had folded for good and vacated the building. Judging from the register inside the vacant lobby, the opulent, two-story brick building had since been carved into office spaces, though many of those offices were currently vacant.

As she climbed the interior staircase, she looked down on the intricate mosaic floor that depicted an American eagle with an olive branch in its right foot and thirteen arrows in its left. Dust had settled over it, along with sporadic cardboard boxes and debris. She recalled teller cages, bank officer desks, and sprawling potted ferns. Her father had brought her and Sarah to the bank to open their first savings and checking accounts. First National’s president, John Waters, had initialed and stamped their books.

Tracy found Dan’s office on the second floor and stepped into a tiny reception area with a vacant desk. A sign told her to ring the bell. She slapped it with the palm of her hand, resulting in an obnoxious clang. Dan came around the corner in khakis, leather boat shoes, and a blue-and-white-striped button-down shirt. She was still having trouble accepting that the man before her was the same kid she’d known in Cedar Grove.

He smiled. “Have any trouble finding parking?”

“There’s quite the selection out there, isn’t there?”

“The City Council wanted to put in those automated parking meters. Someone did the math and determined it would take ten years before the revenue generated would pay for them. Come on in.”

Dan led her into an octagon-shaped office with rich, dark molding and wainscoting. “It was the bank president’s office,” he said. “I pay fifteen dollars a month more in rent to say that.”

Law books filled bookshelves, but she knew they were mostly for show. Everything was now accessed online. Dan’s ornate desk faced the arched bay window still bearing the maroon-and-gold lettering that had advertised the building as the First National Bank. From it, Tracy looked down on Market Street. “How many times do you think we rode our bikes down that street?” she asked.

“Too many to count. Every day of the summer.”

“I remember the day you got the flat tire.”

“We were going to the mountains to put up that rope swing,” he said. “Sarah bought me the tube and helped me fix the tire.”

“I remember, she used her own money,” Tracy said. She turned from the window. “I’m surprised you came back here to live.”

“So was I.”

“You said it was a long story.”

“Long. Not interesting. Coffee?”

“No thanks. I’m trying to cut back.”

“I thought coffee was a prerequisite for being a cop.”

“That’s donuts. What do lawyers eat?”

“Each other.”

They sat at the round table beneath the window. A law book wedged in the sash held up the lower pane, allowing fresh air into the office.

“It’s good to see you, Tracy. You look great, by the way.”

“I think you better get some new contacts. I look like hell, but thanks for being kind.” His comment made her even more self-conscious about her appearance. Not having intended to stay another night, she hadn’t brought much to wear. Before leaving Seattle, she’d thrown jeans, boots, a blouse, and her corduroy jacket into her car to change into after Sarah’s service. She’d slipped the same clothes on in the morning. Before leaving her motel room, she had stood at the mirror contemplating pulling her hair into a ponytail but decided it only accentuated her crow’s-feet. She had left her hair down. “So, why did you come back?” she asked.

“Oh, it was a combination of things. I’d burned out practicing at a big law firm in Boston. Every day just became a grind, you know? And I’d made enough money and thought I wanted to try something different. Seemed my wife had the same idea; she was trying a different man.”

Tracy grimaced. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, so was I.” Dan shrugged. “When I suggested I was going to quit law, she suggested we quit each other. She’d been sleeping with one of my partners for more than a year. She’d grown accustomed to the country club lifestyle and was afraid of losing it.”

Dan was either over the pain or hid it well. Tracy knew that some pain never fully resolved. You just suppressed it beneath a façade of normalcy. “How long were you married?”

“Twelve years.”

“Do you have kids?”

“No.”

She sat back. “So why Cedar Grove? Why not someplace . . . I don’t know.”

He gave her a resigned smile. “I thought about moving to San Francisco and looked into Seattle. Then Dad died and Mom got sick, and someone needed to take care of her. So I came home figuring it a temporary situation. After a month, I decided I’d die of boredom if I didn’t do something so I hung out a shingle. I do mostly wills, estate planning, a few DUIs, anything that walks in the door that is boring and can pay a $1500 retainer.”

“And your mom?”

“She died a little over six months ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I miss her, but we had time to get to know one another in a way we never had before. I’m grateful for that.”

“I envy you.”

His brow furrowed. “Why would you say that?”

“My mom and I never really had much of a relationship after Sarah disappeared, and then after my father . . .” She let it drift and Dan didn’t press her, which made her wonder how much he knew.

“That must have been a terrible time for you.”

“Yeah, it was,” she said. “It was awful.”

“I hope yesterday brought some closure.”

“Some,” she said.

Dan stood. “You sure I can’t get you any coffee?”

She suppressed a smile, seeing him again as the young boy who didn’t like heavy conversations and would quickly change the subject. “Really, I’m fine. So tell me what type of law did you practice?”

Dan sat again and folded his hands in his lap. “I started out doing antitrust work and realized it
is
truly possible to die of boredom. Then a partner brought me in on a white-collar criminal-defense case, and I found that I really liked it. And, if I say so myself, I was pretty good in court.” He still had a boyish grin.

“I’ll bet juries loved you.”

“Love’s a strong word,” he said. “Worshipped, maybe.” He laughed and she heard the boy in that too. “I defended the CEO of a big corporation, and when I got a defense verdict, every attorney in my firm who had a client who’d gotten his hand caught in the cookie jar or a relative who’d drunk too much at the company Christmas party came to me. That evolved into larger white-collar criminal-defense cases, and before I knew it, I’d developed a good practice.” He tilted his head, as if studying her. “Okay, your turn. Homicide detective? Wow. What happened to teaching?”

She waved him off. “You don’t want to hear about that.”

“Hey, come on, now. What about that good for the goose thing? Wasn’t your dream to become a teacher at Cedar Grove High and raise your kids here?”

“Don’t make fun.”

He scoffed. “Hey,
I
live here now. And that’s what you always said, you were going to teach, and you and Sarah were going to live next door to each other.”

“I did teach, for a year.”

“Cedar Grove High?”

“The Fighting Wolverines,” she said and made claws with her hands.

“Let me guess, chemistry?”

Tracy nodded. “Very good.”

“God, you were such a nerd,” he said.

She displayed mocked indignity. “I was a nerd? What about you?”

“I was a dork. Nerds are smart. There’s a subtle distinction. And are
you
married, with kids?”

“Divorced,” she said, “No kids.”

“I hope it ended better than mine.”

“I doubt it, but at least mine was short. He felt like I was cheating on him.”

“
Felt
like?”

“With Sarah.”

Dan gave her a quizzical look.

Sensing the timing to be right, Tracy said, “I left teaching and joined the police academy, Dan. I investigated Sarah’s murder for more than ten years.”

“Oh,” he said.

She reached into her briefcase and pulled out the file she’d brought with her, setting it on the table. “I have Bekins boxes filled with witness statements, trial transcripts, police reports, evidence reports, everything. What I didn’t have was forensics from a grave site. Now I do.”

“I don’t understand. They convicted someone, didn’t they?”

“Edmund House,” she said, “a paroled rapist living with an uncle in the mountains outside of town. House was the low-hanging fruit, Dan. He’d spent six years at Walla Walla after pleading guilty to having sex with a sixteen-year-old high school student when he was eighteen. He was initially charged with first-degree rape, kidnapping, and assault, but a legal question arose over the admissibility of certain evidence found in a shed on the property where he’d kept her against her will.”

“No warrant?”

“The court held that the shed was an extension of the home and the police needed a search warrant. The evidence was tainted and a judge ruled it inadmissible. The prosecutor said he had no choice but to offer the plea. After Sarah disappeared, Calloway targeted House from the start, but he didn’t have any hard evidence to dispute House’s alibi he was at home sleeping the night Sarah disappeared. His uncle was working a graveyard at the mill.”

“So what changed?” Dan asked.

Seven weeks had passed since Sarah’s disappearance when Tracy answered the door to find Roy Calloway outside, looking anxious.

“I need to speak to your father,” he said, stepping past Tracy and knocking on the panel doors to James Crosswhite’s office. When he got no answer, Calloway slid the doors apart. Her father lifted his head from his desk, eyes bloodshot and bleary. Tracy stepped in and removed the open bottle of Scotch and a glass from his desk.

“Roy’s here, Dad.”

Her father took a moment to put on his glasses, squinting at the sharp light filtering in the leaded-glass window. He had not shaved in days. His hair was disheveled and had grown well past the collar of his button-down shirt, which was wrinkled and stained. “What time is it?”

“We have a possible development,” Calloway said. “A witness.”

Her father stood, stumbled, and braced a hand on the desk to regain his balance. “Who?”

“A salesman driving back to Seattle the night Sarah disappeared.”

“He saw her?” James Crosswhite asked.

“He recalls a red truck on the county road. A Chevy stepside. He also recalls a blue truck parked along the shoulder.”

“Why didn’t he come forward earlier?” Tracy asked. The tip line had long been disbanded.

“He didn’t know. He travels twenty-five days out of the month. The trips blur together. He said he recently saw a newscast about the investigation, and it triggered his memory. He called the police station to make a report.”