CHAPTER 11
Tracy kept her head down as she stepped from the elevator and made her way to her cubicle. She’d meant to get in early, but traffic had turned the two-hour drive back to Seattle from Cedar Grove into three and a half, she’d drunk Scotch for dinner, and had forgotten to set her alarm. Or she’d slept through it. She didn’t know.
She draped her Gore-Tex jacket over the back of her chair, dropped her purse inside her cubicle cabinet, and waited for her computer screen to come to life. Her head felt like someone was drumming inside her skull, and a handful of Tums had not extinguished the small brushfire in her stomach. Kins’s chair creaked and rotated, but when she did not turn to acknowledge him, she heard him rotate back to his computer. Faz and Delmo were not yet at their desks.
Tracy started going through her e-mails. Rick Cerrabone had sent her several that morning. The King County prosecutor wanted copies of the witness statements and Tracy’s affidavit to complete the search warrant Tracy was seeking for Nicole Hansen’s apartment. He’d sent a second e-mail half an hour after the first.
Where are witness statements and affidavit? Can’t go to judge without.
Tracy picked up the phone, about to call Cerrabone, when she saw an e-mail above his second message. Kins had copied her on his reply. She opened it. Kins had provided the witness statements and sworn out an affidavit. She swiveled her chair toward him, annoyed that he’d responded for her, even more annoyed that he’d done the affidavit when she was the lead detective. Kins glanced over his shoulder, caught her glare, and rotated to face her.
“He called me, Tracy. I figured you had enough on your plate and took care of it.”
She swung back to her keyboard, hit “Reply All” and started to type a nasty response. After a minute she sat back, read what she’d written, and deleted it. She took a breath and pushed back from the keyboard. “Kins?”
He faced her.
“Thanks,” she said. “What did Cerrabone say about the search warrant?”
Kins walked over, hands thrust in his pants pockets. “Should have it later this morning. You all right?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m feeling. My head hurts.”
“Andy came by,” he said, referring to their lieutenant, Andrew Laub. “He wants to see you.”
She laughed, rubbed her eyes, and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Great.”
“Why don’t we go get some breakfast? We can take a drive and talk to that witness down in Kent in that felony assault case.”
Tracy pushed back her chair. “Thanks, Kins, but the sooner I get this out of the way . . .” She gave him a resigned shrug. “I don’t know.” She made her way around the perimeter of the cubicles and down the hall.
Andrew Laub had been the A Team’s sergeant for two years before his promotion to lieutenant. That had earned him a small interior office with no window and a removable nameplate in the slot beside his door. Laub sat sideways at his desk, eyes focused on the computer screen, fingers pecking at the keyboard. Tracy knocked on the door frame.
“Yeah?”
“This a bad time?”
The clicking stopped. Laub turned. “Tracy.” He motioned her in. “Close the door.”
She entered and shut the door. The photographs on the shelves behind Laub served as a biography. He was married to an attractive redhead. They had twin daughters, though not identical, and a son who looked a lot like his father, with the same red hair and freckles. The boy apparently played football. “Take a seat.” The light from his desk lamp reflected in his glasses.
“I’m fine.”
“Take one anyway.”
She sat.
Laub removed his glasses and set them on his desk pad. Red impressions marked where the nose pads had pinched the bridge of his nose. “How you holding up?”
“I’m good.”
He eyeballed her. “People care, Tracy. We all just want to make sure you’re all right.”
“I appreciate everyone’s concern.”
“The medical examiner has the remains?”
Tracy nodded. “Yeah. Brought her back last night.”
“When will you get the report?”
“Maybe a day.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “At least now I know. That’s something.”
“Yeah, that’s something.” He picked up a pencil, tapping the eraser on his desk pad. “When’s the last time you slept?”
“Last night. Slept like a baby.”
Laub leaned forward. “You want to tell everyone else you’re fine, that’s your prerogative, but you’re my responsibility. I need to know you’re okay; I don’t need you to be a hero.”
“I’m not trying to be anyone’s hero, Lieutenant. I’m just trying to do my job.”
“Why don’t you take some time? Sparrow can handle the Hansen case,” he said, referring to Kins by the nickname he’d picked up working undercover with narcotics. He’d grown his hair long and sported a wispy goatee, making him look like the Johnny Depp character, Captain Jack Sparrow.
“I can handle it.”
“I know you can handle it. I’m saying, don’t. I’m saying, go home, get some sleep. Take care of what you need to take care of. The job will still be here.”
“Is that an order?”
“No, but it’s a very strong suggestion.”
She got up from her chair and made it as far as the door.
“Tracy—”
She faced him. “I go home and I have nothing but the walls to look at, Lieutenant. Nothing but time to think about things I don’t want to think about.” Tracy paused to get her emotions under control. “I don’t have any pictures in my cubicle.”
Laub set down the pencil. “Maybe you should talk to somebody?”
“It’s been twenty years, Lieutenant. I’ve gone through it every day for twenty years. I’ll get through these days the same way I got through those, one bad day at a time.”