Charlie glanced sideways at Mia as she drove through Seattle’s stop-and-go traffic. The last twenty-four hours had been a roller coaster. Jeremy, who was supposed to be on their side, was actually the one who had hacked Darin’s Facebook. Charlie had admitted his shameful secret to Mia. And then both of them had watched Seth Mercer die right after hearing him confess to murder.
Charlie had spent enough time with Mia in the past week that he could see on her face the toll it had taken: her shadowed, slightly puffy eyes, her downturned mouth. And now Ronni had given them something new to think about. After talking to her, Mia had waved Charlie over, introduced him to the skittish girl, and then had her repeat what she had seen.
Ronni had not understood their interest. She was sure what she had seen had been too little to help them. And maybe she was right. But Charlie couldn’t wait to get back to the office to check Colleen’s murder book. Something the girl had told them didn’t jibe with what they remembered.
But first they had to figure out what to do with her.
There was no easy answer. Ronni was an adult, so they couldn’t force her to go back to live with her family in an overcrowded house. Besides, what kind of mother would let her daughter squat in a foreclosed home? Charlie might not be a parent, but even he knew that was wrong.
The problem with Ronni was that she didn’t fit neatly into any charity’s mission. Still, Charlie had his contacts and so did Mia. They would spread the word, in the hopes that a church or even a family might take her in and allow her to finish her senior year at the same high school.
Mia nosed her car into a parking space in front of the Crown Royal Motel. As a stopgap measure, Charlie and Mia had decided to pitch in and pay out of their own pockets for three nights. Charlie knew the motel well because he had made a number of arrests here. The staff were cooperative with police and the rates were low. And it was safe enough if you didn’t leave your room at night.
“For you, we give discount,” the clerk said. Her name was Ksinia, and she had brown, deep-set eyes. Charlie had dealt with her a time or two.
“Oh, that’s not necessary,” he said. But after she insisted a second time, he took it. Thirty bucks was thirty bucks, and it wasn’t as if he had flashed his badge and asked for it.
He came back to the car, and then he and Mia carried Ronni’s stuff inside. The carpet was sticky, the walls were smudged, and there were cigarette burns on the bedspread, but at least the room had a dead bolt. Ronni put her teddy bear down on the thin pillow and pronounced it perfect. They gave her a few more dollars for food. Before they left, the girl hugged both of them. When her thin arms went around his neck, for some reason Charlie found himself having to clear his throat.
Mia drove them back to his office. Without Ronni in the car he was free to talk.
“It doesn’t make any sense, Mia. I remember what that spot was like in front of Colleen’s window. Soft. Even muddy. But the crime-scene techs didn’t pick up any strange prints from her yard. How could someone have pressed up against the window and not left any marks on the ground?”
Inside the station, she followed him into his cubicle, where he flipped through the murder book until he came to the photos of the crime scene. Mia pointed. “I thought you said there weren’t any prints.”
One photo, taken just outside the shattered window, showed a clear boot print plus a smudged partial. The center of the full print had an indented narrow oval. Each side of the oval was marked by a distinctive zigzag pattern. Underneath the arch of the foot you could clearly read the word Danner.
But just because there was a boot print didn’t mean it was a clue. In fact, this was the exact opposite.
Charlie explained it to her. “I wasn’t saying there weren’t any prints at all. All the crime-scene techs wear that style of Danner boots.” Wearing the same boots meant they could easily distinguish their own prints from those of the bad guy as well as the victim and witnesses. For exclusionary purposes, the crime-scene techs had taken photos of the bottom of Charlie’s shoes as well as those belonging to the uniforms and the paramedics.
“So some crime-scene guy stepped on the real print and obliterated it?” Mia asked, her brow furrowing. “That’s pretty clumsy of them, tromping on the evidence.”
Charlie took a magnifying glass from his drawer and held it over the boot print. The full print was clear, the mud on either side of it untouched. It didn’t make any sense. Even if the crime-scene tech had deliberately lined up his boot with the existing print, it still shouldn’t be that clear.
Mia took the magnifying glass from his hand. “Look at it.” She jabbed it with her finger. “Do you see what’s wrong with it?”
Now Charlie focused on the boot print itself, not the soft ground around it, but he couldn’t see what was causing her excitement. “Actually, I don’t. I don’t see anything wrong with it.”
“That’s the thing, Charlie. That looks like a brand-new boot. The tread is perfect. There’re no marks, no defects, no signs of wear.”
He looked closer. “You’re right.”
“So what are the chances that one of the crime-scene techs has brand-new boots and is clumsy enough to step on the evidence?”
They both knew the answer. Zero. The chances were zero. Charlie reached for his phone. “I’m gonna call all the team members to see if anyone has new boots.”
“And if they don’t, then the person wearing those boots wasn’t a tech. It was one of the killers—and they wore them because they knew that was the brand the crime-scene techs wear.”
Charlie said, “And the only people who know that . . .” His voice trailed off.
Mia looked around the room to see if anyone was listening. In a voice barely above a whisper, she finished the thought for him: “Are people who work in law enforcement.”
If what they were thinking was right, then whom could they trust? On the short drive back to Mia’s parking lot and then as they made their way to her office, they talked about what they had just discovered. But they stopped whenever anyone else was within earshot. Had Colleen tangled with a judge, a criminal defense attorney, even a cop? For now it seemed safer to keep their suspicions to themselves.
Judy let Charlie into Colleen’s office. For the hundredth time he began to page through her files. But this time he was looking for clues that someone inside the system had been the killer. Looking for evidence that Colleen had stumbled across something she shouldn’t have known, that she had rubbed someone the wrong way, that she had had a secret relationship with a judge or a cop or even a defense attorney that had turned sour.
Mia knocked softly and then opened the door and stuck her head in. “I’m going home.”
“Okay. See you tomorrow.” He paused. “And watch your back.”
Mia’s eyes met his for a long moment, and then she nodded.
Charlie continued to search, continued to ponder, but finally he had to give up. He used Colleen’s keys to relock the file drawers. He fingered the keys on the ring. He had already established that there were no mystery keys. Instead, there was the key to her Volvo and the black fob to unlock it. Keys to the front and back doors of her house and the mailbox on the curb. A small brass key fit the fire safe he had found in Colleen’s home office. It had held Social Security cards, passports, birth certificates, and even the license for her long-defunct marriage to Martin.
The three small silver keys he had just used were for her filing cabinets. They had been unlocked when Charlie originally searched Colleen’s office. But then again, she wouldn’t have needed to take the extra step of locking the filing cabinets if her office was locked at the end of the day, which seemed to be the norm here.
All the keys were accounted for.
Suddenly Charlie straightened up.
It wasn’t what was on the ring that was a clue.
It was what wasn’t on the ring.
Where was the key to Colleen’s office? Judy had let him in today, just as she had the day he first searched it.
No wonder he hadn’t found anything in Colleen’s office.
Someone had been here before him.
He grabbed his phone and punched in Mia’s number, but it went straight to voice mail.