Kins opened the case binder and thought of Tracy’s trick of laying out the evidence in one place. He grabbed the file and the Bekins box and carried it into the conference room. There he dismantled the file and began laying out the witness statements, the photographs, the reports, the sculpture, and the other evidence in plastic evidence bags.
He started through it again, scanning his and Tracy’s typewritten reports, the witness statements, and forensic reports from the crime lab. Nothing new jumped out at him. He considered the crime-scene photographs. In his mind, he saw Connor sitting beside his mother on the couch in the living room, neither of them talking, both of them barefoot. A thought came to him.
“Why are you barefoot?” he said out loud. Connor was supposed to be going with his father. His father had sent a text message he was picking him up, and Connor had responded, K. It was winter. Why didn’t the kid have on shoes, or at least socks?
Another thought. Kins went through the photographs and found the ones of the room where Tim Collins had been shot.
No suitcase or duffel bag or backpack. There hadn’t been one in the front room either.
“Why aren’t you packed? If you’re leaving for the weekend, why didn’t you pack?”
Maybe he kept clothes at his father’s apartment. “Or maybe he wasn’t going with his father,” Kins said, talking it out. “Maybe he had no intention of going with his father.”
Another thought came to him, something he’d read in the ME’s report and dismissed but that now seemed relevant. He went back through the report, finding the paragraph on the condition of the body when first found. Tim Collins wore black lace-up shoes, but the shoelaces of one of those shoes were untied.
Kins went back to the coroner’s photographs taken at the scene and focused on Tim Collins’s shoes. One was indeed untied.
He knew how Connor’s print got on his father’s shoe.
CHAPTER 37
The celebration to rename the renovated athletic complex Ron Reynolds Stadium was postponed indefinitely, although the game was played that Saturday night.
Stoneridge lost.
Monday morning, Tracy and Kins walked to the King County Courthouse to meet Cerrabone to discuss what they wanted to do about the Angela Collins case. Cerrabone was trying another case but said he could speak to them during the morning recess.
They stepped into a marble conference room full of yellowed oak furniture that looked as old as the building. Kins explained why he thought Berkshire’s withdrawal confirmed his theory that they were going about the case wrong, and Tracy proposed her idea on how they might move the case from its current state of limbo. Cerrabone expressed skepticism, but he agreed that there wasn’t anything unethical about her proposal and that they had nothing to lose by giving it a try.
“Angela’s no longer represented by counsel,” Kins said. “If she agrees to talk to us, Berkshire can’t prevent it. All he’ll have to do is watch and listen, and I think he will. I think he wanted her to go on record about what happened. I think he wanted her to lock herself in.”
“It definitely was out of character; I’ll give you that,” Cerrabone said. “Maybe you’re right.” He checked his watch. His break was coming to an end. “I’ll make some calls this afternoon and let you know.”
Angela Collins voluntarily agreed to come to the Justice Center when Kins called and told her he had a few more questions about her son’s statement that he wanted to go over with her.
She had expressed reluctance, but it seemed halfhearted.
She came in alone, without counsel, as Tracy had also predicted.
Kins placed her in the hard interrogation room with the one-way mirror. In the adjacent viewing room, Tracy and Cerrabone stood watching. Moments later, Faz brought in Connor Collins and Atticus Berkshire.
“What’s my mother doing here?” Connor asked.
“She’s being asked a few questions also,” Tracy said.
She flipped a switch, and Kins’s voice came through the speaker. “We’ve had an interesting development, Angela.”
“Have you?” Angela Collins looked and sounded calm. Her bruising was only slightly visible beneath her makeup. She looked to have recently had her hair styled and her nails done. Far from the grieving widow, she looked like she was dressed for a date, wearing straight-leg jeans, ankle boots, and a soft red sweater.
“Am I correct that you are no longer represented by counsel?”
“That’s right.”
“Your father no longer represents you?”
“We had a mutual parting.”
“And you haven’t hired another lawyer?”
“As there are no pending charges against me, Detective, I hardly see the reason to spend four hundred dollars an hour on a defense attorney.”
Kins tapped the table. Then he said, “You’re obviously aware Connor has confessed?”
She nodded, solemn. “Yes.”
“So that means one of you isn’t telling the truth.”
She shrugged.
“You told us that you called 911 within minutes of the shooting.”
“That’s right. I called my father. Then I called 911.”
“Except we have a neighbor who heard the gunshot just as the bus pulled up outside her window at 5:18. You called your father at 5:39, and you called 911 at 5:40. We have twenty-one minutes unaccounted for, Angela.”
If the information came as a surprise, Angela didn’t display any. “I was emotionally distraught, Detective. I don’t recall how much time passed.”
“It was twenty-one minutes.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“You also said that your husband hit you with the crystal sculpture.”
“Would you like to see the stitches?”
“No. I’ve seen the photographs,” Kins said.
“Then what’s your point?”
“My point is, if your husband hit you with the sculpture, why aren’t his fingerprints on it?”
This time, Angela was clearly caught off guard. “Excuse me?”
“There are no fingerprints on the sculpture. Not his, not yours, not Connor’s.”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
“Did you wipe the sculpture down, Angela?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you were protecting Connor.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Connor saw your husband hitting you and tried to stop him, didn’t he? He grabbed the sculpture, and they scuffled. Your husband knocked Connor to the ground, and you used that time to try and escape to the back bedroom. Connor was on the ground and reached out and grabbed your husband’s foot, trying to stop him. He even yanked the shoe off. That’s why Connor’s fingerprints are on your husband’s shoe.”
Angela Collins had begun to shake, as if about to cry. She crossed her arms and looked to a corner of the room. Tracy alternately watched her and Atticus Berkshire’s and Connor’s reactions.
Kins said, “Why don’t you tell us the truth, Angela?”
Tears rolled down Angela’s cheeks. “Connor was just trying to protect me,” she said. “He was just trying to protect me. I don’t think he meant to shoot Tim. He didn’t mean to do it.”
“What?” Connor said softly, and Tracy knew her hunch had been accurate. The one consistent thing about psychopaths was their ego. They never imagined getting caught because they believed they were smarter than everyone.
Atticus Berkshire placed a hand gently on the boy’s shoulder. Not like a lawyer. He was acting like a grandfather.