In her tracks, p.23
In Her Tracks, page 23
“No,” Tracy said. “They didn’t.”
“Then why are you here?”
Pleasant. Jewel motioned to the modern dining room table, and they sat across from one another. Tracy again explained that she had taken over the Cold Case Unit and was following up on several cases, including Elle’s.
“You said on the phone you’re taking another look at my ex?” Jewel asked. “What is the new evidence?”
Tracy nodded. “I can’t go into details yet, though I have spoken to him.”
That response at least got Chin to pause for a moment. Then the paranoia started. “Did he tell you that I kidnapped Elle and buried her body somewhere? Or that I sold her on the black market? Maybe he told you I’m crazy? Borderline personality disorder? Narcissistic? The guilty always blame the innocent.”
Tracy didn’t doubt that little pearl of wisdom; unfortunately, it applied equally to each spouse in this case. Still, she could see that Jewel Chin was getting ramped up. Tracy would lose her if she didn’t find some common ground. From everything she’d been told, Jewel was a predator who played on others’ weaknesses. Tracy needed to let Jewel see one of hers. This time, it wasn’t difficult.
“I have a newborn daughter at home. I know I’d be distraught if anything happened to her. A mother and a daughter have a special bond that fathers don’t understand, can’t understand. But I’m sure you know.”
Jewel Chin looked distrusting, or at least suspicious; Tracy had interviewed enough people to make an educated assessment that Jewel believed everyone was out to get her, even her elderly former next-door neighbor, Evelyn Robertson. She doubted Jewel Chin ever let her guard down.
“Then you know exactly how I feel,” Chin agreed.
“I do,” Tracy said. “Absolutely. What I’d like to hear is your story, though I know it must be difficult for you to go back to those days.”
“It is,” Jewel said. She almost looked ready to cry. Almost. There wasn’t a tear in her eyes.
“If you can, will you tell me about the night your daughter went missing? Your perspective.”
Chin turned at an angle so she could cross her legs. “I wish I could. I wish I had fought more to keep Bobby away from her. I regret it now but . . . No, I can’t. Not really. She was with Bobby.”
Tracy asked Jewel many questions she already knew the answers to, so Jewel Chin would keep talking and get in the habit of answering.
“The fact that he was a police officer is the reason you people didn’t investigate him the way you should have,” Chin said.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, it should have been obvious Bobby took Elle. Elle was with him and then suddenly she was gone. And his excuse was that he played hide-and-seek with her?” She made a face like the whole story was preposterous. “Elle was five. What kind of a father plays hide-and-seek with a five-year-old in a corn maze? Please.”
Tracy nodded as if she and Chin were two aggrieved sisters.
“He wasn’t even charged with reckless endangerment, though I pressed the prosecutor for months to charge him with something.”
So far, Jewel sounded exactly as Bill Miller had described in his report and Bobby Chin had stated in his interview.
“Where were you that evening?”
Jewel rolled her eyes. “Really? Again? Is this the reason why you’re here? I told the other detectives where I was. Ask them. Otherwise, you can speak to my lawyer.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Tracy said. “I’m just trying to catch up so I can move forward. The other detectives have retired, which is why it’s a cold case. I understood you were at home.”
Jewel straightened. “I’m sorry, but you’ve only been a mother for ten months. I was a mother for five years.”
Uncertain what Chin meant, Tracy ignored the comment and again sought common ground. “I’m divorced also.”
“Then you know what it’s like to go through it. It isn’t pleasant. I had to call the police three times because Bobby was beating me. The third time I’d had enough and agreed to file charges against him for domestic violence.”
She sounded like the divorce remained ongoing. “Why did he hit you?”
“Because I told him I was done with him and wanted him out of the house. He couldn’t take rejection. No woman rejected Bobby Chin. He had a lot of college girlfriends who I guess worshipped him. Well, I wasn’t some college girlfriend, and I wasn’t going to stand for his shit.”
Tracy moved back to her questions about the night Elle went missing, asking Jewel what she did that night, and whom she was with, looking for any inconsistencies.
“But don’t bother looking for him,” Jewel said, referring to Graham Jacobsen. “The idiot shot himself.”
Jewel didn’t exactly sound broken up about it. “I’m so sorry to hear that,” Tracy said.
“On top of everything I went through, I then had to go through that,” Jewel said, shaking her head. “I had to move. There was no way I was living in that place after that. I don’t care how many coats of paint they used.”
“I thought the house was sold in the settlement of the assets,” Tracy said.
“I would have at least considered buying it before that happened.”
Tracy knew from a court order in the file that Jewel would have had to buy Bobby out as a condition to staying in the home. There wasn’t much equity in the home, and Jewel couldn’t afford to stay in it.
“Anyway, he told the detective we were together that night, except for the few minutes when he left to pick up takeout. So you can pretty much forget that witness’s statement.”
“Which one?” Tracy asked, though she suspected she knew.
“The one in which the kid said he saw Elle with an Asian woman and a man.”
Jimmy Ingram had never used the word “Asian.”
“I stayed at home. I can even tell you exactly what I watched that night. I made a list.”
“When did you do that?”
“Sometime after I learned about the witness statement. My attorney suggested I do it, in case I was ever subjected to cross-examination. For all I know, Bobby paid the guy to say he saw me and Graham.”
“Did the detectives ask for the list of the shows you watched?” Tracy had not found one in the file.
“No. But I wasn’t about to let Bobby railroad me.”
Unbelievable.
She asked Chin how she heard that Elle was missing, and her statement coincided with what Miller had put in his report. “I told him that Bobby had something to do with it, but he just stood there, staring.”
“What did you want him to do?”
“His job. Arrest the person who was with my daughter when she went missing. I would have thought he’d call SWAT or something. Somebody. Maybe if he had, they would have found Elle.”
“Do you think your ex was capable of harming your daughter?”
Jewel smirked. “Capable? He beat me, and the court let him off with a slap on the wrist and made him go to anger-management classes. He shouldn’t have even been allowed to spend time alone with Elle. I had my attorney make that argument, but I lost. It was a male judge. A former prosecutor. Pretty sure a female judge would have had a better understanding.”
“A better understanding?” Tracy asked.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Someone who can lose their temper that quickly and inflict hurt that quickly? Bobby’s not a small man. He could have struck Elle and snapped her neck.”
“Did you ever see your ex-husband strike your daughter?” Tracy asked.
“No. But he never struck me either . . . until he did. So clearly he was ‘capable.’” She made air quotes with her fingers.
What struck Tracy was the way Jewel Chin painted herself as both a heroine and a martyr. Everything was couched in terms of what she did or how it had impacted her. She wanted to convince Tracy she was running the show—that she was a competent, capable woman whom the court system had seriously aggrieved—but still play the poor, defenseless mother abused by her husband. Tracy made a mental note to determine if Graham Jacobsen had an insurance policy and, if so, to determine who was his primary beneficiary. At this point, she didn’t put anything past the woman.
“Do you have any siblings?” Tracy asked.
Another eye roll. “I have a brother who lives in Boston. He’s got three kids of his own . . . The detectives checked him out too, and he didn’t take Elle. He was in Boston that night. Besides his wife is Caucasian, not Asian.”
There it was again.
“Who told you the witness saw an Asian woman?”
“I don’t know. One of the detectives, I suppose. You should talk to Bobby. His mother and his sister are both Asian. Gloria. Mousy thing. Hardly speaks. Bobby used her to pick up Elle from school on days he had her so I wouldn’t know about it. But I knew. I asked the school. And I kept a record of it.”
“You think Gloria took Elle?”
Jewel shrugged. “I don’t know what to think anymore. Doubtful.” She stood abruptly. “If we’re done, Detective, I have to get to my workout.”
“Of course.” Tracy stood and walked to the door. “The house looks beautiful. I wish I could buy it.”
“Come up with the money. I could act as your agent and give you a deal.”
I’ll bet you could, Tracy thought. She bet Jewel Chin was adept at working every angle.
CHAPTER 32
Tracy entered Lisa Walsh’s office at just before five o’clock on her drive back to Redmond following her interview with Jewel Chin. Walsh accommodated Tracy, who wanted to ask her counselor about the spell she had suffered at her desk and question whether she had anything to be concerned about.
She initially was concerned she’d had a mild heart attack or stroke. She worried she could be anemic. But other than being fatigued, she didn’t feel any adverse physical effects. She had no numbness in her chest or her left arm. Her breathing had returned to normal. She didn’t have a primary care physician to consult, and she didn’t think her symptoms appropriate for her ob-gyn. As much as she hated to admit it, she believed her symptoms were more likely mental than physical.
She wondered if maybe she was on the same wall as the climber who Walsh had mentioned, and whether she had just taken a fall.
She thanked Walsh for seeing her on short notice.
Walsh smiled. “I’m happy I could accommodate you. Tell me what’s going on.”
Tracy took her seat on the couch. “I don’t really know,” she said. “I was working long hours and keeping busy on the cases I talked to you about. I learned that the brothers I was investigating had a foster sister, and I was pursuing that lead.” Tracy gave Walsh the details of her conversation with Lorraine Bibby and her subsequent return to the office and search for Lindsay Sheppard, culminating in her attack.
“I’m smart enough to see the similarity in that girl going missing at eighteen and my sister going missing at the same age, but I’ve had similar cases and never suffered those physical symptoms. I feel fine now, fatigued after a long day, but fine.”
“Tell me more about the symptoms,” Walsh said.
Tracy did. “Should I go to the emergency room?”
“It sounds to me like you were having a panic attack, Tracy.”
“A panic attack?” Tracy was not familiar with the term. “What’s a panic attack?”
“It’s a sudden episode of intense fear that triggers physical reactions.”
“I was in my office; there was nothing to fear.”
“Exactly.”
“You mean I imagined something to fear?”
“No. What you experienced was real. The physical symptoms were real. When panic attacks occur, you might think you’re losing control, having a heart attack, even dying.”
“That’s exactly what I thought.”
“Many people have just one or two panic attacks in their lifetimes, and the problem goes away, usually when a stressful situation ends.”
“Stress triggers it?”
“It can.”
Walsh made sense, but . . . “So what can I do?” Tracy asked. “This is what a detective does.”
“You can learn to manage it. There’s also medication.”
“I don’t like medication.”
“Nothing addictive and not forever. Just to get you through this time. If you need it.”
“What I don’t understand is why is it happening now? Why at this point in my life? I didn’t experience these attacks when Sarah went missing, and that was the most stressful period in my life.”
Walsh nodded. “But from what you told me, your focus back when your sister went missing was holding your family together, being strong for your mother and your father. Later, your focus changed to trying to find your sister.”
“That’s true,” Tracy said.
“And you told me that finding your sister consumed you for many years. I think you used the word ‘obsessed,’ didn’t you?”
“It did become an obsession.”
“But that’s over now. You found out what happened to your sister.”
“I knew she was dead,” Tracy said. “I always knew Sarah was dead. There’s that faint hope you’re wrong, those very few cases where the woman escapes and makes it home, but I knew how rarely that happens.”
Tracy thought of Lindsay Sheppard, knowing the odds were more likely she, too, was dead. Sheppard had been high risk, coming from the foster care system with family drug problems. The odds had been stacked against her long before she entered the Sprague household. Stephanie Cole was also likely dead.
She was chasing ghosts. She was, again, surrounded by the dead.
“What’s different now, Tracy?”
“What’s different?” Tracy said. “You mean Dan and Daniella?”
“You met a good man and you fell in love. You got married. Had a daughter. Became a mom.”
“You’re saying I have something to lose.”
“Do you fear something happening to Dan, or to your daughter?”
Tracy gave the question some thought. “I do. But that’s natural, isn’t it?”
“What would be the worst thing that could happen to you now?”
“Losing my daughter,” Tracy said without hesitation.
Walsh nodded.
“Is that why I had the panic attack now?”
“Why did you pick this cold case to pursue?”
She thought of her conversation with Art Nunzio in his office. “Because somebody needs to speak for that little girl. Somebody needs to be her voice.”
“Because somebody needs to give a shit,” Walsh said. “I think that’s how you put it.”
Tracy smiled, thinking of Nunzio. “I do. I can’t help that.”
“And you can’t help worrying about those you love,” Walsh said. “So, what’s wrong with caring?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing.” Walsh smiled. “It’s a mother’s instinct to worry about her daughter; for a wife to worry about a husband. Unfortunately, because of what you do, you see horrible things happen to young girls and young women. You’ve got to learn to separate the two—your profession and your life.”
“I thought I did.”
“You told me you became a detective to find your sister, that you made it your profession and therefore that one was integral to the other. What you experience in your profession does not mean it is going to happen to you or those that you love. Statistically speaking, it is far less likely. Lightning rarely ever strikes twice in the same place. Almost never,” Walsh said with a smile. “So rather than asking ‘Can I do this job?’ you should ask ‘Do I want to continue doing this job?’”
Tracy beat Dan home. She planned to cook him a nice dinner and to try to relax. She’d called Therese on the way and had her remove chicken breasts from the freezer and defrost them in the microwave, then start rice in the cooker. She’d make Dan chicken marsala, one of his favorite meals.
When she arrived at home, she found everything as she had asked, except Daniella, who was fussy and didn’t want to be put down or ignored. Therese offered to stay, but she’d already worked late three days and she had her painting class. Tracy sent her off.
When Dan got home, Tracy had the parsley, mushrooms, and garlic on the kitchen counter and the chicken breasts in the pan, but she hadn’t been able to get any further. She was pacing, walking Daniella.
“She’s fussy,” Tracy said. “Maybe she has a tooth coming in.”
“You want me to take her?”
“And she’s hungry.”
“I can give her a bottle. What’s cooking?”
“Nothing at the moment; it was going to be chicken marsala, but I haven’t gotten that far. I was hoping to surprise you.” She sighed. “Surprise.”
Dan smiled. “You’ve activated my taste buds and it sounds too good to not follow through. I’ll handle it from here.”
Tracy’s smile waned as Dan went into the kitchen and started to cut and dice. “Things are different, aren’t they?” she asked.
“Sure they are,” Dan said, chopping parsley.
“Better?”
He stopped the knife in midstroke and looked at her. “What’s the matter? What’s bothering you?”
She told Dan about the panic attack in her office and her visit with Lisa Walsh.
“Everything okay now? Is there anything I can do?” Dan asked.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Really. Lisa just made me realize that Daniella has already changed our lives.”
Dan nodded and smiled, but it looked uncertain. “But . . .”
“No buts . . . just . . . different,” Tracy said. “A family.”
He looked at the chicken. “Look, if we’re being honest, I missed lunch and ate a sandwich at my desk about half an hour ago, so I was going to suggest we have something light and read by the fire.”
