Kins’s conversation with the Portland detective was considerably shorter. When he hung up, he swore. “Is nothing in this case simple?”
“What happened?” Tracy asked, disconnecting her call with Faz.
“They got a shooting over at one of the college campuses. My guy’s out the rest of the day.”
“Can someone else handle the warrant?”
Kins shook his head. “You know how it is. The earliest he can do it is tomorrow morning.”
The strain of long days and interrupted sleep had caught up to Tracy. Her clothing was wet and uncomfortable and she felt frustrated. “Well, no sense driving back to Seattle just to turn around and come back down,” she said. “I guess we’re going to have to get a hotel.”
“I just love wearing day-old underwear,” Kins said.
They ate lunch and checked into adjacent rooms in a Marriott Courtyard at the end of the waterfront. Tracy made some phone calls and answered e-mails while watching the storm out her hotel window, the sky now a roiling sea of angry dark clouds and the rain coming in sheets. She checked in with Dan and told him she would not be home, then called into the office. Faz and Del had returned to Police Headquarters after canvassing the marinas and the apartments with a photograph of Devin Chambers.
“Nobody recalls seeing her,” Faz said. “Only positive identification was by Dr. Wu, which didn’t exactly come as a surprise.”
“Did your uncle talk to Chambers’s sister?”
“He got to her this afternoon. He said it went okay as far as those things go. Said the sister took it stoically and thanked him.”
“Any parents?” Tracy asked.
“Deceased.”
“Any other siblings?”
“Apparently not. What did the hubby have to say?” Faz asked.
“He don’t know nothing from nothing,” she said, using a Faz colloquialism.
“You get the search warrant?”
“No. They got a homicide over at one of the colleges, so Kins’s guy is out until tomorrow morning.”
Someone knocked on her door. The clock on the nightstand read five thirty. She and Kins had agreed to meet at six. “Somebody’s at the door. I’ll call you later,” she said to Faz and hung up.
Kins stood in the hallway looking frustrated. “We’re not going to get our warrant,” he said.
CHAPTER 28
The jurisdiction cluster had become a whole lot more entangled. Portland Police were exercising control over Strickland’s Pearl District loft, and rightfully so. It was now a crime scene, an apparent homicide.
A large contingent of police and emergency vehicles—fire department response units, blue-and-white patrol cars, unmarked police vehicles, a CSI van, and the Portland Medical Examiner’s van cluttered the street in front of the three-story brick building. As was always the case, this much excitement was just too much for the local population to ignore. With the storm having passed and the sun again beaming, a crowd had gathered behind sawhorses that closed street access. Uniformed officers directed traffic to detours. Kins slowed as he approached and lowered his window, showing the officer his badge.
“Seattle?” the officer asked.
“We have an interest in another case up north.”
“Wherever you can find a place to park.” The officer moved one of the sawhorses so Kins could drive through.
Kins parked behind an unmarked Ford in the middle of the narrow street. Around them stood three-and four-story brick buildings that looked to have been originally built for industrial purposes, then renovated, earthquake proofed, and no doubt inspected ad nauseam for compliance with building codes before being turned into mixed-use structures. The area reminded Tracy of Pioneer Square in Seattle. After an urban renewal in the 1960s, Pioneer Square had become home to art galleries, Internet companies, cafés, sports bars, and nightclubs.
The ground floor of the Pearl District buildings housed retail businesses—cafés, restaurants, and what looked like high-end clothing and home-decorating stores. The upper floors, judging from what Tracy could see in the windows facing the street, were residential. Metal additions protruded from the roofs, likely multimillion-dollar penthouse condominiums.
“Busy area,” she said, looking around the street. “A lot of people around.”
The responding officers had set up a second perimeter at a wrought-iron gate between two concrete pillars. The walkway led to a side entrance to the building.
“I’m looking for Detective Zhu,” Kins said, again flashing his shield and ID.
“Third floor,” the officer said.
“What unit?” Kins asked.
“Only one unit per floor. It’s a loft.”
At the end of the sloped concrete walk, they came to a glass-door entrance beneath a forest-green awning bearing the building’s address and a symbol, what looked like an ampersand. Inside the lobby, with its wood-plank floors and leather furniture, they walked across to an old-fashioned cage elevator and wide staircase.
“Let’s take the stairs,” Kins said. “Those things give me the heebie-jeebies.”
“What about your hip?”
“I’d rather be in pain than die if that thing falls.”
“God, you’re paranoid.”