A Matter of Trust

Chapter 17





As she sat at her desk trying to triage her e-mails, Mia couldn’t get over the idea that Colleen had been dating. Or maybe what she couldn’t get over was that Colleen hadn’t said anything to her about it. Had she been embarrassed about using an online dating service? Or had they not been as close as Mia thought?

Charlie knocked on her door, interrupting her thoughts. Police headquarters was just three blocks from the county courthouse. “I asked our computer forensics guy to separate out anything related to Colleen’s love life and make two copies,” he said. “He said to give him an hour.”

Mia nodded, distracted. Charlie smelled like french fries. He must have hit the drive-through on his way back. Her stomach rumbled. There hadn’t been any leftovers to pack this morning, and breakfast had been a cereal bar eaten in the car. This was going to be one of those days when lunch came from vending machines.

“Okay,” she said. “And I made an appointment for us to meet the Danes at their house at four. The mom’s a nurse and she gets off at three thirty.”

Charlie remained on his feet. “Let’s talk about what we know so far. Do you have a flip chart? It helps me think.”

“There might be one in the supply room.” Mia went into the hall, and Charlie followed. The supply room was jammed, mostly with discards—broken printers, chipped laminate bookcases, discarded binders. These were piled haphazardly among items that were still actually useful. Sometimes it was easier to put something in the supply room than to fill out the paperwork required to get rid of it.

In the far corner Mia spied a silver flip chart. She picked her way toward it, Charlie at her heels. Reaching for it, she stepped on something small and round that rolled away from her, suddenly pitching her backward. She crashed into Charlie. He caught her with one hand on her shoulder and the other on her waist. Mia jerked upright, her cheeks flaming. She grabbed the flip chart and thrust it into Charlie’s hands. On her way out, she snatched up the brown marker that had nearly caused her to fall.

Back in her office, Charlie set up the flip chart. She handed him the errant marker, and he made two lines down the paper, dividing it into three. With blocky handwriting he labeled the first column Colleen, the middle Stan, and the last Both. Then he drew in horizontal lines to create a grid.

“Okay, you’ve got your guy checking the database to see if they have an angry defendant in common.” He wrote Angry Defendant in the Both column. “And we know from Violet that Martin was arguing with Colleen about money. And Violet wasn’t getting along that well with her either.” Martin and Violet went under Colleen’s name. Mia didn’t agree with putting Violet down, but she didn’t argue. “We also know Colleen was dating.” New Boyfriend went in the Colleen column.

“What about Violet saying there’d been a prowler in the neighborhood?” Mia said.

“This doesn’t feel random,” Charlie said, but he still added Prowler under Colleen’s name. “But better to start with too many suspects than too few.”

“Maybe Colleen was the target of some fringe group,” Mia suggested. “She’s prosecuted guys from the Mongol biker gang and the Aryan Nation and probably a few more. I’m sure Stan did too.” She wrote a note to herself on a yellow sticky. “That reminds me to ask our database guy if he has a way of teasing that out.”

Charlie added Fringe Group to the Both column. After a pause, he added Angry Defendant to both Colleen’s and Stan’s columns. “I guess we shouldn’t overlook the idea that they were killed independently by different defendants.”

“Both of them were shot with a .22 at night, at home, through a window,” Mia said. “Both of them Seattle prosecutors. Don’t you think that’s too many coincidences?”

With an edge of impatience Charlie said, “Like I said earlier, we can’t rule anything out, Mia. Not at this stage.”

She knew he was right, but something about Charlie made her want to argue. “But we can’t draw the circle so wide that everyone is inside it. Otherwise pretty soon you’ll be putting my name up there.”

His mouth twisted, but he didn’t argue any further. He also didn’t change anything on the flip chart. “So when will your guy have those files for us?”

“It’ll be tomorrow before Jonas has the paper files. We need them because there are prosecutors’ notes that don’t make it online.”

“So much for the paperless society.” Charlie stepped back and regarded the chart. “We also need to figure out if there was anything outside of work that Colleen and Stan had in common. Were they friends? Lovers? You told me she bought him pierogies.”

“That was just Colleen being motherly. I don’t think they really had that much in common.” Something had been nagging at her, though, and Mia’s eyes widened as she remembered what it was. “Wait a minute. They were both pretty active in Safe Seattle.”

“The gun control group?”

“Right. They both worked on that measure that made it illegal for people who’ve been in a mental hospital to buy guns.”

“So you think somebody on the other side decided to take them out?” Charlie pushed out his lips, looking dubious. “That’s taking it pretty far. That’s when you try to get the law repealed. Not go around shooting people. And that law passed when? Ten years ago? Why wait all this time to kill Colleen?”

“Maybe because she was working with Safe Seattle on a new ballot measure.” Mia tried to remember the specifics. “Something about mandatory trigger locks or background checks at gun shows.” Mia turned to her keyboard, her hands suddenly trembling. She was onto something, she knew it. “Look at this comment some guy calling himself True Patriot left on KIRO’s website.”

Charlie leaned over Mia’s shoulder, close enough that she could feel his breath on the side of her face. He read out loud, “‘Now, if only the same would happen to a few thousand more anti-American, anti-constitutional traitors mooching off the public’s dime.’” He let out a whistle. “We need to track down that jerk. Can you get a subpoena for the TV station’s website?”

“Yeah, I’ll do that today.” Mia should have done it yesterday, but she hadn’t been thinking clearly. “Although you’d have to be pretty stupid to post something like that if you’re the one who killed her.”

“Someone who decides to solve their problems with a gun is not necessarily accessing their higher mental functions.” Charlie wrote Gun Rights in the Both column, then looked at the empty spaces under Stan’s name. “Stan never married, right? Did he have a girlfriend? Guyfriend?”

“Stan? As far as I know, Stan was married to his job. If he had a love life, he kept it really quiet.”

“Carmen Zapata worked Stan’s case, but you probably heard she died of breast cancer last year. I need to find out where Stan’s murder book ended up.” A murder book was a fat binder with crime-scene photos, the autopsy report, investigators’ notes, and transcripts of witness interviews. “Then we need to reopen the case. Have you ever worked a cold case before?”

Mia shook her head.

“Basically what you do is throw out any ideas from five years ago and start from scratch. Things change, and sometimes you can leverage that. You might interview somebody who lied then, but by now they’ve forgotten exactly what they said. Or they’re no longer in love or in business with someone, so they don’t feel the same pressure to keep quiet.”

Mia thought back. “The problem is, I don’t think there were that many people to interview. I was out of office when they were investigating his death, but Colleen told me they were coming up empty-handed. They had no witnesses, no death threats, and no obvious enemies.”

Charlie tapped the butt end of the marker against his teeth. “We also need to follow the money. Violet and Martin both benefit financially from her death. Violet is the named beneficiary of Colleen’s life insurance and inherits everything from her mother. Martin had only an informal arrangement with Colleen to pay for Violet’s college. He could have figured that getting Colleen out of the way got him off the hook.”

Mia nodded. Even if the idea of Violet killing Colleen made her queasy, she had to consider it. “We need to talk to Martin.”

“I’ll set something up,” Charlie said. “Do you want to be with me for the interview?”

“I didn’t know him that well, but it might be useful not to let him know I’m involved just yet. Why don’t you see if you can get him down to the station? Then I can watch from an observation room.”

Charlie turned back to the flip chart. “How about Stan? Who benefited the most from his death?”

Mia tried to remember. “I don’t think there was much of an estate. Stan had an older brother, but that was about it.”

“I’ll track him down, see if there’s any other family I can talk to.” Charlie started to say something else, but Mia’s stomach let out a rumble and he broke off, laughing. “Sounds like someone’s hungry.”

“Maybe a little.” Her cheeks were hot. “Do you mind if I grab something from the vending machine?”

“No problem. I’ll make some calls to figure out where Stan’s murder book is. And if they have any Fritos, could you get me some?”

In the break room Anne was heating a bag of microwave popcorn. She turned toward Mia. “I hear you’re going to be working on Colleen’s case. I sure hope you can get the guy who did it.”

“Me too.” The sign for her garage sale was still posted on the bulletin board next to the vending machine. Surrounded by notices for piano lessons, coast house rentals, and cars for sale, it read: Cleaning out your attic, basement, or garage? Mia’s having a garage sale. Tears stung her eyes as she remembered how Colleen had offered to loan her money.

She blinked and turned to scan the vending machine’s choices, looking for something vaguely healthy that would last for a few hours. After feeding bills into the machine, she pressed the button for Fig Newtons, figuring that they at least counted as a fruit. “I’m kind of worried about how I’m going to do it all and still take good care of my kids. How do you do it with four, Anne?”

“Do it?” Anne laughed. “Some days I don’t. Some days it seems that no matter where I am, I should be someplace else. Like if I’m at work, I think of everything I need to do at home. And when I’m home, it’s easy to think of everything I should be doing here. But then I realized that the result was that no matter where I was, I was only half there. So what I tell myself now is, ‘Wherever your feet are, that’s where your heart is.’” Anne looked down at her flats. “So when my feet are at work, my heart stays at work. And when I’m at home, my heart stays at home. I don’t split my attention anymore.”

The microwave dinged.

“But what about when you’re at work and your kid texts you and says the coach doesn’t like him?” Mia needed protein. The closest thing the vending machine offered was Peanut M&M’s. Mia would kill Gabe if he ate this way, but she was an adult. She’d already been through her growth spurt. She stabbed the button. “Or when the only way you’re going to have time to read up on a case is to do it at home?”

Anne’s smile was rueful. “I didn’t say it was perfect.”

Mia pressed the button for Charlie’s Fritos. “Don’t worry, these aren’t all for me,” she said, pushing open the metal swinging door a third time. Anne smiled, but Mia didn’t know if she believed her. They left the break room together.

Back in her office, Mia spread out her bounty. Charlie ignored the Fritos and opened the Peanut M&M’s instead. He nodded at the photo on her desk. “That your husband? I never met him.”

“Yeah. That’s Scott. But that picture’s probably ten years old.” Sometimes Mia felt like she had stepped through the looking glass. Scott was dead, they were broke, her dad wanted to talk about his feelings, and her son no longer wanted to have anything to do with her.

“Your kid looks a lot like him.” Charlie’s eyes flashed up to hers. “That must be hard. Good and hard, both.”

Tears prickled in Mia’s eyes. She nodded, unable to speak. Charlie patted the back of her hand, still munching on her M&M’s, and for a minute she forgot that she didn’t like him.