CHAPTER 33
Friday afternoon, Tracy’s phone vibrated as she and Kins drove west across Lake Washington on the 520 floating bridge. Traffic was heavy with people trying to get downtown. Tall cranes jutted high above the darkened water on floating platforms, helping construct a badly needed second bridge parallel to the first one, but screwups in the concrete pontoons that would keep the second bridge afloat had delayed completion until sometime in 2015.
Tracy checked her most recent calls and saw that she’d missed two previous calls from Dan. She called him back.
“Hey,” she said. “Sorry I missed your calls. We’ve been running around today tracking down witnesses and talking with experts about the rope in that murder in North Seattle.”
“I got a surprise this afternoon.”
“A good surprise or a bad surprise?”
“I’m not sure. I was in court most of the day, and when I got back to the office I found a copy of Vance Clark’s Opposition to the Petition for Post-Conviction Relief in my fax machine.”
“They filed early?”
“Apparently.”
“What do you make of it?”
“Haven’t read it yet. Thought I’d call you first and let you know.”
“Why would he file early?”
“It could be he decided to keep it simple, make the Court of Appeals think the petition lacks merit. I won’t know until I read it. Anyway, it sounds like you’ve got your hands full.”
“Email it to me and we can talk more about it tonight at dinner.”
“Yeah, about that,” Dan said. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to cancel.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, just some things to take care of. Okay if I call you later?”
“Sure,” Tracy said. “We’ll talk tonight.” She hung up, uncertain what to make of Dan breaking their date. Though initially concerned about it, she’d begun to look forward to it and where it might lead. She’d planned to buy a couple of Dick’s hamburgers—the $1.39 variety—and serve them at her apartment just to tweak him.
“New development?” Kins asked.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I said, new development?”
“They filed the opposition to the petition. We weren’t expecting it for another two weeks.”
“What’s it mean?”
“Don’t know yet,” she said, still hearing the uncertainty in Dan’s voice.