“He did.”
“And if a person was so inclined, they could stake out that Bartell’s and hope Devin Chambers, or Andrea Strickland, walks in, follow her when she leaves, and find out where she’s staying.”
Nikolic sat back, sipping his drink. “That’s what I would have done,” he said.
Tracy and Kins were in the car when Del and Faz called. They said they had information but didn’t want to share it at the office. Tracy said she and Kins would meet them in the food court in the plaza of the Bank of America building on Fifth Avenue.
Over coffee, Tracy and Kins listened to Faz and Del explain what Nikolic had told them.
“Awfully big coincidence for Devin Chambers to show up in the same city in Washington where Andrea Strickland goes to get her face rearranged and do her banking,” Faz said.
“Too big,” Tracy said.
“They were friends,” Kins said. “So Devin Chambers had to be the person who helped her off the mountain, and maybe the person who looked after Strickland after the surgery.”
“And Strickland would have needed prescription drugs for the pain,” Faz said.
“Or Chambers was after the trust money,” Tracy said.
They all looked at her.
She said, “According to the sister, Devin Chambers had a prescription drug problem and a money problem, right?”
“That’s what he said,” Faz said.
“So she could have been after both,” Tracy said. “And if Devin Chambers was helping Andrea Strickland, she’d have known Andrea Strickland’s alias as well as the bank, and probably the accounts and the passwords.”
“You think she could have killed her?” Kins asked. “Then moved the money?”
Tracy shrugged. “Strickland was already dead. Chambers would have known that too. It was the perfect crime, so long as nobody ever found the body.”
“So maybe we should be looking for Devin Chambers,” Faz said.
“Not our case anymore,” Kins said, finishing the last of his coffee.
Tracy had not told any of them about San Bernardino, and what she’d learned from Penny Orr, or from the counselor, Alan Townsend. If the shit hit the fan about Tracy continuing the investigation, she wanted them to be able to say they had no knowledge of any of her actions.
“I’ll call Stan Fields,” she said. “I’ll tell him it was something we had going on when the investigation was pulled, that we just now got the information and we’re passing it on.”
“Nik won’t give up his source,” Faz said.
“That’s not our problem,” Kins said. “Let Fields deal with it, if he decides to push it.”
Tracy wondered how much Fields would push it.
CHAPTER 22
Tracy called Stan Fields that afternoon and told him he was going to want to meet her. She suggested Wednesday, July 5, her day off. When Fields pressed her for a reason for the meeting she remained vague, but said it would be worth the drive north to Seattle. She suggested they meet at Cactus, a restaurant on Alki Beach. If ever questioned about the meeting, it would be easier for her to explain a lunch on her day off at a restaurant near her home, rather than try to explain why she would drive all the way to Tacoma for an investigation she was no longer supposed to be working.
Wednesday, at just minutes after noon, Tracy sat waiting beneath the green-and-red awnings on the Cactus patio munching chips and salsa and sipping iced tea. Across the street, people packed the beach and the Alki Beach boardwalk, so much so that runners had to venture into the street to avoid the crowd. Judging from the heavy car traffic, still more were coming to enjoy the beach, or to have lunch in one of the restaurants with the billion-dollar view. Tourists clustered around the concrete obelisk commemorating what was supposedly the birthplace of Seattle, or at least the location where the Denny Party settlers landed in the fall of 1851 to establish the first settlement. Native Americans already living in the area likely would dispute that the area needed finding.
Tracy watched Fields approach the patio from along Sixty-Third Avenue, which ran perpendicular to Alki Avenue. He sucked on a cigarette. The seventies motif continued. Fields wore a gray pinstriped suit, open-collared shirt displaying a gold chain, and aviator sunglasses. Tracy had dressed casually in shorts, a blue tank top, and white shirt.
Fields took a final pull on the cigarette before dropping it and grinding it with his shoe. Inside the restaurant he greeted her. “Traffic is a bitch around here. Good call on the parking.”
Living close by, Tracy knew the secret parking locations, like the underground garage directly adjacent to the building.
“Don’t these people freaking work?” Fields said, eyeing the mass of bodies walking the boardwalk across the street.
“It’s lunchtime,” Tracy said. “People in the Northwest know to get out when the sun’s shining. The fall and winter can be very long.”