“I know,” Emily said, wondering if the thought of the little girl who had died because of a mistake she had made so many years ago as a Seattle cop was always on the back of everyone’s minds. The wound that would never heal. Did they see her at the mall and think to themselves, “Oh yeah, that’s the woman who let Kristi Cooper die in that underground dungeon.” Did the woman who always chatted so amiably when she had her hair cut say to the other women when she left the room, “Oh that’s her. That’s the one I’ve been telling you about. The one who let that kid starve to death.”
“Really I am. It’s just this case. I know you do good work. We’re going to be crucified by McConnell and Crawford. You know how much I’d hate to be tarred and feathered.”
“From a woman with some experience there, let me tell you it’s no picnic.”
Emily managed a smile, a gesture that meant a call for a truce. “We’re on the same side, Camille. Give me twenty-four hours before we go to McConnell and the judge.”
Camille looked at her watch, an expensive Cartier that she surely didn’t buy at Rondo’s Fine Jewelry in town. “I’ll time you.”
“Thanks. I think.”
“I was kidding. Let’s see what you can come up with by the end of the day. Go bust some heads, shake some trees, do whatever it is that you gun-toting sheriffs do.”
“Are you asking me to shoot Cary McConnell?”
A look of horror came over Camille Hazelton. “God no, Emily! No such thing!”
“Just kidding,” she said. It was a gotcha that felt only a little bit good. She still had no plan. No hope for one. She thought of the one person she could call.
Chris Collier was eating a can of tortilla soup that he’d microwaved in a measuring cup because all the other vessels that could hold soup were dirty. He wasn’t a slob, he was just the kind of guy that liked to run a full load of dishes. And that meant about once a week. Cooking for Emily was one thing. Cooking for himself? A chore. When the phone rang, he set down his spoon and answered.
“Hi, baby,” he said, seeing it was from her. His mood lightened. “Miss me already?”
“You know I do. But it’s more than missing you right now. I need you, Chris. The Crawford case is crumbling. Can you come over to Cherrystone?”
He didn’t ask why. There was no need to. “Of course. I’ll leave in fifteen minutes. I have to put some food out for the cat.”
“You have a cat?”
“Sure.” A kind of mischievous look came to his face. “And you thought you knew everything there was about me.”
“I guess I did.”
“Actually, I’m feeding the neighbor’s.”
He never, ever wavered.
Emily pulled all the Crawford files and carried them to her car.
“Need some help, Sheriff?” It was Jason.
“No, I can manage.”
“I heard about Ms. Wilson,” he said.
If Jason had heard, it wasn’t from her. The word was getting around fast. Too fast. The minute Cary McConnell got wind of it, he’d be in front of the judge in the same breath.
“Let’s keep a lid on it, please, Jason.” Her tone was more scolding than she meant it to be.
Jason looked hurt. “I’m not stupid, Sheriff,” he said turning on his heels and leaving her to deal with the big box of files.
Emily called out after him, but he either pretended not to hear or the sound of traffic drowned out her call. She felt about two inches tall, and ashamed that she’d treated him with such a dressing-down. It was uncalled for. With all that was happening—in her life, in Jenna’s life—upsetting Jason Howard was the last thing she needed.
As Jenna would say whenever something had gone awry with the sorority job, “My life sucks royally right now.”
Like daughter, like mother.
She put the car in gear and went home, thinking that nothing else could happen to make the day any worse.
Chapter Fifty-one
Emily Kenyon couldn’t sleep.
She pored over the photos taken by the forensic team when it had been examined at the lab in Spokane. She reread Jason’s reports. Her eyes landed once more on the five-inch square hole in the fabric. She wished right then that her eyesight was better, that the hour wasn’t so late, or that she had a photographer’s loupe. Something was percolating in her mind, but she couldn’t quite grasp it.
She looked at the kitchen clock and sighed. It was after 4:00 A.M.—that time of day when it was too late to go to bed and too early to go to work. Emily decided to go take another look at the sleeping bag. Photographs and a report—no matter how finely detailed—weren’t working.
The evidence vault for all of the sheriff’s cases was the size of a walk-in closet—and quite frankly, didn’t need to be much larger. Cherrystone, thankfully, was that kind of place. Emily pulled the clipboard from behind the counter and signed her name and Crawford’s case number. She searched her key ring. She seldom needed the vault’s key, because there was always someone on duty—even with a tightening budget. Evidence was serious business, of course. She flipped on the light. Inside, six black metal Gorilla racks purchased at the Spokane Costco held the bits and pieces of criminal cases still in work. When cases were adjudicated, key materials were dispatched to a secure storage vault in an undisclosed location managed by the state of Washington.
The sleeping bag was cataloged with a code, but there was no reason for Emily to locate it by an accession number. Among the file boxes, it stood out because it was kept in a clear plastic bag. It looked like a puffy blue pillow.
Emily put on a fresh pair of latex gloves and initialed the tag on the plastic bag. When she opened it, it released a musty odor that reminded her of a wet dog, or maybe a men’s locker room. Not overwhelming, but a heavy presence, nonetheless. That was at the first whiff, but by the second or third she’d wished she’d dipped her nose into Vicks, as the smell of Mandy’s corpse filled the room. Emily brushed it off and unfurled the bag on a table in the center of the small room. Next, she pulled on the reflective metal shade of a gooseneck lamp clipped to the edge of the table.
The deep blue sleeping bag lay there, doused in the light, like a moonlit ocean.
“Now,” she said to herself, “let’s see what that hole is really telling us.”
She pointed the light onto a spot near the top of the bag. The five-inch square void winked at her. She bent down closer. The edge of the fabric was fringed from the stress of being in the water, being moved and jostled as
