In the Clearing (Tracy Crosswhite #3)(3)
Billy explained that dispatch had received a 911 call about a shooting at a home in Greenwood at 5:39 that evening. Tracy checked her watch. Twenty-one minutes earlier. She’d house hunted in Greenwood, a middle-class neighborhood in north-central Seattle with a decidedly suburban feel.
“Single-family residence. One fatality,” Billy said.
“Domestic dispute?”
“Looks that way. The medical examiner and CSI are en route.”
“You reach Kins?”
“Not yet. But Faz and Del are both on their way.”
Vic Fazzio and Delmo Castigliano were the other two members of the Violent Crimes Section’s “A Team.” In this instance, they were also the next-up team for a homicide, which meant they’d be assisting with the legwork, if there was any. Most domestic disputes were grounders—easy plays. The wife killed the husband, or the husband killed the wife.
Tracy cut short the shooting lesson and jumped in the cab of her 1973 Ford F-150. The commute north on I-5 was even heavier than usual for a Thursday evening. It took her almost forty-five minutes to travel the roughly fifteen miles from the combat range.
When she approached the address, the emergency lights of multiple patrol units from the North Precinct lit up a single-story clapboard house. Two vans were parked at the curb—the medical examiner’s and the CSI’s—along with an ambulance. A large press contingent with their own trucks and vans had also descended; shootings in predominantly white middle-class neighborhoods always made the news. Thankfully, no helicopter hovered overhead, likely because a heavy cloud layer hinting at snow would have prevented much in the way of aerial footage. The cold temperatures hadn’t deterred the neighbors, however. They’d waded onto the sidewalk and into the street, mingling with the press behind black-and-yellow crime scene tape.
Tracy didn’t see Kins’s BMW yet, though he lived in Seattle, several miles closer to Greenwood than the combat range.
“Hail, hail, the gang’s all here,” Tracy said as she lowered her window and showed her badge to an officer on traffic control.
“Welcome to the party,” he said, letting her through.
She parked beside the CSI van. Chatter spilled from the police radios. She couldn’t count the number of uniformed and plainclothes officers on the lawn, mingling with investigators in black cargo pants and shirts with “CSI” across the back. The medical examiner was still inside with the body. Nobody could do anything until the ME finished.
Tracy greeted a female uniformed officer holding a clipboard with a scene log.
“This zoo belong to you, Tracy?” the officer asked.
Tracy had trained many of the female officers to shoot, but she didn’t recognize this one. Then again, she’d recently captured a serial killer known as “the Cowboy,” receiving the Seattle Police Department’s Medal of Valor for the second time in her career and making her a bit of a celebrity, especially to the younger officers.
“That’s what they’re telling me.” She scribbled her name and time of arrival on the log. “Are you the responding officer?”
The officer looked to a fire-engine-red front door. “No. He’s inside with your sergeant.”
Tracy considered the house. It appeared well kept, recently painted, and likely north of $350,000 in a seller’s market. The lawn smelled like newly laid sod, and the glow from landscape and porch lights revealed recently spread beauty bark in flower beds with hearty rosebushes and well-established rhododendrons. Divorce, Tracy thought. They were fixing up the property to sell. The dead body inside won’t help the asking price.
She ascended three steps and ducked under red crime scene tape stretched taut across the entry. Inside, Billy Williams talked with a uniformed officer in a simple but well-maintained front room. A conical crystal sculpture lay on the dark bamboo flooring that flowed between two square pillars meant to differentiate the living room from the dining area and open kitchen. The walls looked freshly painted, the color choices—soft blues and hunter greens—something out of a home-improvement magazine.
Paramedics were attending to a brunette woman seated on a dark-blue leather couch. She was grimacing and pointing to her ribs. She also had a bandage wrapped around her head, and the left side of her face appeared swollen, with a small cut near the corner of her mouth. Tracy estimated her to be midforties to early fifties. Beside her sat a young man in the awkward throes of puberty—hair unkempt, lanky arms protruding from a size-too-small T-shirt, and pipe-cleaner-thin legs poking out from baggy cargo shorts. He had his head down, staring at the floor, but Tracy could see the left side of his face was a splotchy red. Both the woman and the young man were barefoot.
“That’s Angela Collins and her son, Connor,” Billy said, keeping his voice low. Billy resembled the actor Samuel L. Jackson, right down to the soul patch just beneath his lower lip and the knit driving caps he favored, this one plaid. “Her estranged husband is in a bedroom down the hall with a bullet in his back.”
Tracy looked down a narrow hall to a room at the end where several members of the medical examiner’s office milled about. A pair of black dress shoes and suit pants were visible to midthigh. The rest of the body was hidden behind the door fame and wall.
Tracy tilted her head toward Angela Collins. “What’s she saying?”
“She said she shot him,” Billy said, giving a nod to the officer.