Jensen shook his head. “No. He was walking up South Henderson and heard a thud. You know how that is.”
Tracy did. The vast majority of witnesses to a car accident were not helpful. They often wanted to be, but it was more the norm that they didn’t see the actual crash. They’d only heard it and saw the aftermath. The mind filled in the blanks, which were often inconsistent with the physical evidence, making the witness more damaging than helpful, if the matter went to trial.
Jensen pointed to another man on the street corner. “That man was driving home and stopped when he saw the patrol cars. He said the kid played basketball at the community center tonight and was hurrying to get home.” Jensen pointed down the street. “He said the victim cuts over the Chief Sealth Trail.”
“That’s the opposite direction,” Kins said, meaning opposite to where the body lay.
“I know,” Jensen said. “If he came up the sidewalk to the intersection, he had to have been hit at a high rate of speed.”
“Parents know yet?” Tracy asked.
“Not from us. Someone here, though, probably.”
Tracy looked up at the array of dangling traffic lights and black wires strung between the telephone poles. The lights on Renton Avenue changed from green to red. “Any problem with the lights?”
“None that I’ve detected,” Jensen said. “But we’ll get it confirmed.” He noticed Tracy looking south, at the significant hill coming down Renton Avenue before the street flattened at the intersection. “And no, we didn’t find any skid marks,” he said.
“So the driver didn’t try to stop?” Tracy said.
“No evidence of it,” Jensen said. “My guess, this was either a wrap or a forward projection.”
Tracy knew a wrap was when the victim hit the car and wrapped around the hood. A forward projection was exactly what it sounded like.
“Given the distance of the body from the intersection, I’d say it’s likely there was some damage to the front of the car,” Jensen said. “We’ll work to get the word out.”
“What about cameras?” Faz considered the businesses on the four corners. An auto body shop had black gates over the windows and the door, as did the ground-floor windows of a three-story apartment building on the southeast corner. On one of the other two corners stood a mustard-colored commercial building with a dry cleaner. Across from it was a restaurant with a faded red awning. Weeds growing in the street-front windows indicated the restaurant had been out of business for some time.
“Don’t know yet,” Jensen said.
Williams removed his hands from his pockets. “Let’s get going. Del, Faz, find out if the tenants in the apartments saw anything or if the auto body business uses any cameras that picked up anything.”
As Del and Faz departed, a female officer approached the group. “Detectives? Sorry to interrupt, but I think we found something.”
The group followed her up the street to about ten feet from the intersection. “We didn’t initially see it because it’s clear,” the officer explained. She directed the beam of her flashlight to the ground, to a triangular piece of glass. To Tracy, it looked like the kind that covered a headlight.
“Good find,” Jensen said. “Now all we need is the car to match it.”
Tires screeched on the pavement, drawing everyone’s attention. A white, older-model Honda had come to an abrupt stop in the intersection. The driver’s door pushed open, and an African American woman jumped out from behind the wheel. Frantic, she left the engine running, the lights on, and the door open. “My son,” she said to no one and everyone. “Where’s my son?”
Patrol officers moved quickly to restrain her, but she slapped at their hands. “I want to see my son. Where’s D’Andre?”
The people on the street corners started to voice their agitation. The man Jensen had noted earlier stepped into the street. The mother turned to him. “Terry, where is he? Where’s D’Andre?”
Crying, Terry pointed down the street to the white sheet.
The mother put a hand to her mouth, but otherwise stopped moving. She melted, knees buckling and body collapsing onto the pavement, where she moaned and wailed. Tracy made her way to the woman. The man stood over her, seemingly uncertain about what to do. Tracy knelt and the woman raised her eyes. Tracy saw the same overwhelming grief she’d seen in her father’s and mother’s faces the night Sarah went missing.
“I’m sorry,” Tracy whispered, thinking again of what Del had said in the restaurant.
No parent should have to bury their child.
The two dogs had not burst from the bedroom barking when Tracy entered the front door. Apparently they’d become accustomed to her working the night shift. She put her shoes on the bench seat, hung her jacket on one of the hooks, and made her way into the kitchen.
Dan had remodeled the inside of the single-story stone-and-mortar cottage, opening the floor plan and refinishing dark oak floors that contained all the nicks and scars one expected in a farmhouse. The ceiling was pitched, with large wooden crossbeams, and a stone fireplace dominated the living area. Dan had found a company to build an insert with a blower so that a fire could heat the entire house for hours. A red leather couch, love seat, and area rugs delineated a living room, while an antique oak table and chairs defined the dining area. In the far corner, a comfortable chair and lamp provided a place to read. At the back of the building, a single bedroom barely fit their queen-size bed. The kitchen, adjacent to it, didn’t have room for a dishwasher, or more than two people at the same time.
Tracy pulled a glass from a kitchen cabinet and filled it at the sink while staring out the back window, thinking again of the mother in the street, and of her own mother. A full moon shimmered over the horse pasture, painting the grass a sorrowful, pale blue. The world was weeping tonight.
Dan had bought the five-acre farm and cottage because he liked how isolated it felt, much like his home in Cedar Grove, but Tracy had lived for years in downtown Seattle, and then in a West Seattle neighborhood. It was taking her longer to get used to how remote and quiet the farm could be, especially on nights like this, when she wanted a distraction, anything to divert her mind from the image of the white sheet and the grief-stricken mother who would never completely heal.
Sherlock padded out from the bedroom, followed by Tracy’s cat, Roger. Tracy shut off the water, which had overflowed the rim of her glass. Roger popped up onto the kitchen counter, pacing and emitting a low mew. It had taken months, but Dan’s two dogs, Rex and Sherlock, 140-pound Rhodesian mastiffs, seemed finally uninterested in the cat.