They met at a coffee shop near Wright’s home in Renton. Like Kelly Rosa, who technically worked for King County but whose unique skills were available to every county in the state, Wright’s abilities were in high demand. She’d been with the King County Sheriff’s Office for nearly thirty years, including stints as a CSI detective and a homicide detective, but her claim to fame was becoming the county’s first certified tracker, a skill she’d since cultivated over many years. Among the detectives who used her services, the consensus was that Wright didn’t see as much as the camera lens; she saw more—things that even seasoned investigators walked right past.
The Pit Stop looked to have once been an automobile repair shop before some enterprising soul with a greater imagination than Tracy turned it into a coffeehouse. The concrete floors had been painted rust brown, and the walls were adorned with metal auto-part signs and posters of scantily clad women draped across the hoods of cars and lounging on motorcycles. Slabs of wood had been fitted onto the lifts, turning them into customer tables and a barista counter, from which emanated the rich aroma of coffee.
Wright had set up in a corner near one of three roll-up garage doors. Glazed windows atop the doors provided murky light. The sky outside had darkened to a charcoal gray, giving every indication it would again rain hard. On the table, beneath a cone-shaped lampshade dangling from a wire, Wright had arranged Buzz Almond’s photographs in multiple stacks. She was standing there, flipping the pages of a legal pad. Tracy nodded to Wright’s half-full porcelain mug of coffee, a latte judging by the foam and swirl. “You need a refresher?”
“I’m good for now. I’ll probably be injecting it later today.”
They greeted one another, and Tracy rested on a barstool across from Wright. She considered the stacks of photographs arranged on the table. “Looks like you’ve put in a lot of work already,” she said.
“Like I said, you got me curious. I want to find out if I’m on the right track. I typed something up for you to follow.” She handed Tracy a copy of a draft report. “I’m assuming the person who took these photographs had some law-enforcement training or some well-developed instincts.”
At the time she’d given Wright the photographs, Tracy had no idea what the pictures were meant to depict, beyond the obvious. After speaking to Kelly Rosa and Peter Gabriel, however, she suspected she knew what had happened, though she was still a long way from proving it: Tommy Moore had run down Kimi Kanasket, then tossed her body in the river.
“Tell me why,” she said.
Wright remained standing. She looked like a blackjack dealer at a casino table. “The photographs were taken in a linear fashion.” She reached for one of the stacks and flipped to the first page of her report. “It took me a while to figure it out, but once I did, it made sense. Let me walk you through it.”
Wright removed a rubber band from the first stack and methodically handed photographs to Tracy as she narrated from her report. “The photographer took the first photographs at the road, where this path started. I’ve marked it with a number one on the back. He, or she—”
“He,” Tracy said.
Wright nodded. “He then proceeded to take photographs as he walked down the path.” She pointed out that in her report these photographs were numbered two through twelve, and methodically went through them with Tracy. Wright set down number twelve, removed a rubber band from a second stack, and began handing the photographs to Tracy. “When he reached this open area of dirt and grass, he photographed the site in a clockwise pattern, starting along the perimeter and working his way into the center.” These were photographs thirteen to thirty-two. After going through the second stack, she handed Tracy a third stack. “Then, he took photographs as he worked his way out. Judging from the direction of the shadows on the ground as these photographs progress, I’d estimate it was mid-to late afternoon and early fall to the middle of fall.”
“November,” Tracy said.
“When he walked in, he was heading east or southeast,” Wright said. “He walked out facing north or northwest.” She handed Tracy photographs thirty-three to forty-five. “So I’m assuming your guy had some law-enforcement training, though it’s doubtful he or anyone in his office had any real training in interpreting these. If they had, you wouldn’t be sitting here.”
“He was a sheriff’s deputy,” Tracy said, “but he was a newbie, just on the job. Why do you say I wouldn’t be sitting here?”
Wright held up a photograph as if admiring a work of art. “These are some of the best tire impressions I’ve seen captured by a camera.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“I’d venture to guess it’s because the ground was moist when the tracks were made, probably from a light rain. If it rains too hard, it can turn everything into slop. If the ground is too hard, you don’t get a good impression. The conditions when these were taken were perfect.” Wright handed Tracy three pictures marked forty-six to forty-eight. “These are almost as good as if someone made a cast of the tire tread.”
Tracy knew that was a good sign. “Can you identify the type of tire from the tracks?”
“Someone could. I don’t have that database, but the crime lab does,” Wright said. She drank what was left of her coffee and set her hands on the table. “Okay. Was there something in particular you wanted to know?”
Tracy looked at the different piles, but she didn’t pick them up for fear of disrupting Wright’s carefully arranged system. “There were a few pictures of a white truck . . .”
“I saw those.” Wright reached for a stack and thumbed through the photos. “Here they are.” She laid three out on the table facing Tracy.
“Any thoughts whether that could that be the truck that left the tire track?”
“I thought that might be the reason these were mixed in here.” Wright leaned on her forearms and used the eraser end of a pencil as a pointer. “He didn’t capture the tread, but he got the side of the tire. Someone in the lab could blow up the negative and see if you can read the tire make and model. If so, they can pull up the tire on the computer and compare it to the tread in these photographs.”
Tracy would have Michael Melton do just that. She set aside the photographs of Tommy Moore’s truck. “I know you don’t have a lot of time; can you walk me through your opinions and conclusions?”
Wright sat back on her barstool and took a second to reorganize the photographs. “Your deputy was following tire tracks that entered and exited the same path. The tire treads go in both directions.”
“That would make sense.”