Martinez cleared his throat. “Be that as it may,” he said, his voice as deep and gravelly as a comic-book villain’s. “Your discussion with the aunt was related to the victim’s disappearance, was it not?”
“No, it was related to the victim’s murder,” Tracy said, keeping her tone flat and professional. “Pierce County handled the disappearance. Our jurisdiction was her murder.”
Martinez said, “And that discussion took place after SPD had relinquished jurisdiction.”
“My discussion with the aunt? Technically, yes.”
“So it’s really semantics, isn’t it, to say you were not on official SPD business?”
“I could see how someone could look at it that way, but I wasn’t.”
“How would you look at it, Detective?” Jessup asked, clearly struggling to keep his composure.
Tracy had already decided she liked Jessup about as much as she liked Fields. Since he wasn’t her captain, she didn’t feel compelled to answer him, but she did so because it gave her the chance to take a dig at Fields. “I’d look at it as a dedicated police detective taking steps to complete her file, as instructed by her captain, so that all relevant information could be provided to the agency taking over jurisdiction, with the common goal of capturing the murderer, sir.”
Jessup gave her a sardonic smile. “So you think we should say, ‘Thank you.’”
“You’re welcome.”
Jessup flushed again and looked across the table to Nolasco and Martinez, who looked to be suppressing a smile.
“Why not just give Pierce County the information and let them follow up?” Nolasco asked.
“Because I’d already made the contact with the aunt and I thought to blow her off would be unprofessional.” Tracy shifted her gaze to Fields. “And because Pierce County had the investigation for six weeks and had yet to talk with the aunt.”
“That was a different investigation,” Fields said. “It was a missing person case.”
“Except you said you thought all along the husband killed her,” Tracy said.
“There was no certainty Andrea Strickland had been murdered,” Fields said, voice rising.
“Yet you immediately operated under that premise, narrowing your investigation so much that you never spoke to Strickland’s best friend or her aunt, and you didn’t even know about Andrea Strickland’s counselor, or that her friend had also disappeared about the same time Strickland walked off Mount Rainier. Had you done your job, you would have obtained evidence that pointed your investigation in another direction, namely that Andrea Strickland had not been killed, but walked off the mountain and was still alive, possibly preventing the situation—”
Fields slapped the table with the palm of his hand and rose out of his chair. “Yeah, you’re great with twenty-twenty hindsight, Crosswhite.”
“Hindsight has nothing to do with it,” Tracy said, rising from her chair and speaking loud enough to be heard over the others who had jumped in. “Had you done your job, the next logical step would have been to look for Lynn Hoff.”
“That’s your opinion!” Fields shouted back.
“No, that’s good detective work.”
“It was no longer your call to determine how another organization conducts its investigation,” Jessup said, also standing, his face a red beacon. “Nor is it up to you to critique my department or to step in when you deem it appropriate. You never should have spoken to the aunt.”
“Exactly how did it interfere with your investigation?” Tracy asked.
Jessup froze for an instant. Without an answer, he resorted to the schoolyard equivalent of “It’s mine.”
“Because it was no longer your investigation.”
Tracy looked to Martinez. “I didn’t hide the fact that I spoke to anyone. In fact, I called Detective Fields on my day off and invited him to meet with me so I could immediately provide him with the information. I didn’t tell him what to do with it.”
Fields said, “I had every intention of speaking to the aunt and to the friend.”
“You didn’t even know the friend’s name. Your file made no mention of the friend or the aunt.”
“Enough,” Martinez said, quiet but deliberate. “Everyone sit down.” After a brief pause to allow everyone to catch their breath, he said, “Have you written up the reports of your conversations with the aunt and the counselor?”
“Yes. I was going to transmit them this morning.”
“We also want the information from the skip tracer,” Fields said.
Martinez looked to Tracy. “I can provide the information that person uncovered,” she said. “I can’t provide a name.”
“Can’t or won’t?” Jessup said.
Tracy was in a tough spot. If she said “can’t,” it could lead them to determine that Faz had actually spoken to the skip tracer. “The information was provided in confidence. It’s irrelevant who provided it. It’s the substance that matters.”
“We’ll decide what’s relevant,” Jessup said. He looked to Martinez. “We want the name.”