After Berkshire and Collins had departed, Kins and Faz turned their attention to the restraining order, specifically to Angela Collins’s signed affidavit that the restraining order was necessary because Tim had come to the house one evening and become violent. In her statement she said Tim shoved her into the door frame, then pushed her over a table, necessitating a trip to the emergency room. The ER doctor’s report confirmed bruised ribs, and bruising along Collins’s upper arms. Nothing else in the file showed that Tim had a violent temper or a propensity for violence, though they were admittedly just getting started.
“According to court documents, the matter was resolved when he agreed not to set foot in the house on days he was to pick up Connor,” Kins said. “He was supposed to wait in the car.”
“She didn’t press charges?” Faz asked. “If she really was an abused spouse, why wouldn’t she press charges?”
“Maybe she figured the restraining order was enough.”
“Not if you believe what’s in the divorce papers,” Faz said. “Read that, and she was married to Attila the Hun.”
Kins flipped to CSI’s preliminary report, which had been sent over while they’d been interviewing Angela Collins. The report included dozens of photographs, as well as the latent print examiner’s findings. The examiner identified positive fingerprint hits for Angela, Connor, and Tim Collins throughout the house, which was to be expected. They’d found additional prints as well, but so far none of those generated hits when run through AFIS, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, which kept a record of the prints of people who had been convicted of crimes, served in the military, or entered specific professions.
Kins sat forward when he read the next sentence. “Did you see this?” he said to Faz. “The examiner found both Angela’s and Connor’s fingerprints on the Colt Defender.”
“So the kid did touch the gun,” Faz said.
“Apparently.” Kins continued reading, stopped, and reread the same sentence a second and then a third time. “They didn’t find any prints on the sculpture.”
“What?” Faz got up from his desk and walked across the bull pen to Kins’s cubicle.
Kins pointed to his computer screen and read the sentence aloud. “Negative for any prints.”
“How can that be?” Faz said. “That don’t make no sense.”
Kins continued reading. “But they did find Connor’s fingerprints on his father’s shoe. Why would the kid’s prints be on one of the shoes?”
“Maybe he tried to move him?”
Kins shook his head. “ME’s report says there was no indication the body was moved. Lividity is consistent with a body that had been lying in one spot.” Kins rocked in his chair. “The only way that sculpture could be clean is if someone wiped it clean, right?”
“Or no one touched it in the first place,” Faz said.
“Then how’d it get on the floor?”
“Got knocked over during the argument.”
“Why would she say he used it to hit her?”
“She needed to explain the cut on her head.”
“How else would she have gotten it?”
“Don’t know.”
“Well, at least we know somebody was doing something during those twenty-one minutes,” Kins said.
“You think she’s covering for the son,” Faz said.
“Very well could be.”
CHAPTER 6
Back in the car on their drive home from the Almonds’ house, just past Kelso, Dan reached for the radio and turned down the Seahawks game, drawing Tracy’s attention. She’d been staring out the window, watching the acres of farmland pass along I-5, the daylight fading quickly, as it did in the fall.
“I thought you were enjoying the game,” Tracy said.
Dan angled toward her, his left arm on the steering wheel. “Enjoying? The Forty-Niners are kicking our butts. I’m not enjoying it.”
“Oh,” Tracy said.
“You’ve been awfully quiet. I don’t think you’ve said more than two sentences the past half hour, and you’ve obviously tuned out the entire third quarter, or you’d have known we’re down by twenty points.”
She smiled. “Okay. Guilty.”
“Does it have anything to do with that file back there?” Dan gave a small nod toward the backseat.
“You noticed that, did you?”
“You’re not the only one with detective skills. So, what is it?”
“An old case Jenny found in her father’s desk.”
Dan reached into a bag of wasabi-flavored almonds. He was on a quest to lose five to ten pounds and didn’t go anywhere without some form of nut to snack on. “A cold case?”
“Not exactly. In 1976 a seventeen-year-old Native American girl went missing on her way home from work. Two fishermen found her body in the White Salmon River the next afternoon, caught on the limbs of a submerged tree. The autopsy and the prosecuting attorney concluded she jumped into the river and drowned.”
Dan popped more nuts in his mouth. “Jumped? As in, on purpose?”
“The official conclusion was that she was upset over a recent breakup with her boyfriend. Unfortunately, it happens too often in high school. One minute they’re in love; the next minute they hate each other. Jenny thinks her father believed there was something more to it. She asked me to have a look.”
“Can you do that? It’s a different county.”
“We can. It usually happens if a body is found in one county but it’s suspected the murder took place somewhere else—things like that. But the sheriff of a county can always ask for assistance. Jenny wants a fresh take, in case she has to reopen the investigation.”
“How do you think Nolasco is going to react?” Dan asked, referring to Tracy’s captain and longtime nemesis.
“Johnny Boy’s been on his best behavior since he got his hand slapped by OPA,” she said. The Office of Professional Accountability was reviewing a decade-old homicide investigation by Nolasco and his then partner, Floyd Hattie. Tracy had found the file for the case while hunting the Cowboy, and her review of it revealed certain improprieties that called into question Nolasco’s methods. OPA had broadened its inquiry to Nolasco’s and Hattie’s other cases, and word was, it was finding more misconduct. Only the support of the union had kept Nolasco at his desk.
“You think maybe it could be too close to home?” Dan said, concern creeping into his tone.
“They’re always going to be too close to home,” she said. “A disproportionate number of victims who get abducted, abused, and murdered are young women. I can’t change that.”
“No, but you don’t have to volunteer either.”
“I know, and when Jenny started telling me about the case, I thought my first reaction would be to say no. But the similarities between Kimi and Sarah are what made me want to take a look. Maybe it’s because I know what something like this does to a family.”
“Forty years is a long time,” Dan said. “Is there any family left still alive?”
“The mother passed away. The father would be is in his mid-to late eighties. Jenny thinks he lives on the Yakama Reservation. The girl also had a brother.”