Tracy and Kins met with Del and Faz over the weekend to discuss the DNA results, and how best to present the information to Nolasco and Martinez. All agreed that, given the volatility of Tracy’s relationship with Nolasco, it would be best if Kins took the lead explaining the DNA results and the potential ramifications. None of them believed for a minute Nolasco or Martinez would not see through the ploy, but they hoped two factors would at least make them look past it. Tracy had hinted at the first factor in her earlier meeting with Nolasco—the case was continuing to generate publicity. Most recently, the national news media had picked up the story, and it was a certainty that media coverage would only intensify when news broke that the woman in the pot was not Andrea Strickland, but her friend Devin Chambers. Second, Nolasco and Martinez would not be able to deny Tracy’s reasoning that Pierce County no longer had a basis to assert jurisdiction.
The four of them asked for a meeting with Nolasco and Martinez Monday afternoon and walked, en masse, into the conference room. Nolasco and Martinez joined them minutes later, confirming that the two men had met prior to the requested meeting, probably to speculate on its purpose. Nolasco and Martinez continued to the far side of the table and settled into chairs. Rather than the four detectives all sitting together on the same side of the table, like rival gangs drawing a line in the sand, Del sat at the head of the table, Tracy at the far end, and Faz and Kins directly across from their superiors.
Nolasco seemed mildly surprised when Kins, not Tracy, handed each of them a copy of the first report from ALS and explained how that report came to exist. Nolasco slid on cheaters, alternately considering the report and looking over the top of his glasses as Kins spoke. Martinez remained hunched over the report, his meaty forearms pressed to the table.
“During one of our end-of-the-day meetings, Tracy was going over what she’d learned talking with Penny Orr, Andrea Strickland’s aunt,” Kins said. “The aunt said Andrea was withdrawn and prone to anxiety, that she bit her fingernails until, at times, they bled.”
“That made me think about the autopsy photographs,” Faz said, just as they’d rehearsed, though it didn’t sound that way. “One in particular—the one of the victim’s hand—jumped out at me. She was wearing blue nail polish.”
“You thought of this?” Nolasco said.
“Yeah,” Faz said, sounding slightly indignant and doing a good job of making it seem authentic. “I was thinking maybe if she’d put the polish on recently—it might be evidence she had a date and was concerned about her appearance, that maybe she knew her killer. But when Tracy mentioned what the aunt said, I said ‘holy shit’ and pulled up the photograph.”
“Funk confirmed the nails are real,” Kins said. “That got us all thinking that the body in the crab pot might not be Andrea Strickland.” He directed his final comment to Martinez, who’d remained silent and maintained a poker face.
“Why wasn’t this revelation in the report provided to Pierce County?” Nolasco said.
“For the reasons I’m about to explain.” Kins picked up a stapled document from the manila file. “What you have before you is a DNA profile of Penny Orr, Andrea Strickland’s aunt. The lab compared that profile with the DNA profile the crime lab developed for the woman in the crab pot. There’s a 99.95-percent probability that the two women are not related.”
Martinez looked up from the report. “It isn’t Strickland?”
“It is not,” Kins said.
“So you were wrong,” Nolasco said, directing his comment to Tracy.
“No,” Kins said. “We were right. The woman in the crab pot used the name Lynn Hoff to obtain facial reconstruction surgery. Lynn Hoff is the alias Andrea Strickland used when she went into hiding. It’s her picture on the driver’s license.”
“Then how can it not be her in the pot?” Nolasco asked.
“I’m going to explain that now,” Kins said. He handed the second report across the table. “This is the DNA profile of a woman named Alison McCabe.”
“Who’s she?” Nolasco asked.
“She’s the sister of Devin Chambers. Devin Chambers was Andrea Strickland’s best friend.”
“It’s Devin Chambers,” Martinez said. He’d flipped to the last page quickly to read the conclusion in the report. “How the hell did she end up in the crab pot?”
“That’s what we hope to find out, sir.”
“What do you mean you hope to find out?” Nolasco said, his gaze shifting between the four of them.
Martinez raised a hand and sat back from the table, looking at them like a bemused grandfather considering his grandchildren. Those in the department knew Martinez to be a cop first and a bureaucrat second. The fact that he insisted on wearing the uniform every day reflected how he perceived and projected himself. Tracy was banking on that perception now, banking on Martinez understanding that every good cop wanted to clear his or her cases, not to pad personal statistics. They owed it to the families of the victims.
“What your detectives mean, Captain, is if the woman in the crab pot is not Andrea Strickland, then Pierce County does not have jurisdiction, because the woman who went missing in their county is not the woman in the crab pot,” Martinez said. “Therefore they have no basis to assert a continuing investigation. Am I right, Detective Crosswhite?”
“I believe you are, sir,” Tracy said.
“Detective Rowe?”
“Makes sense to me.”
“Perhaps you can explain how you obtained the DNA profiles of these two individuals,” Nolasco said, holding up both documents, “when you no longer had jurisdiction.”
Martinez again raised his hand. “I’m suspecting your detectives forwarded DNA kits to the individuals and there was a time lag between when they were sent and when they were obtained for analysis. Am I right?”