In the Clearing (42 page)

“My point is, if your husband hit you with the sculpture, why aren’t his fingerprints on it?”

This time, Angela was clearly caught off guard. “Excuse me?”

“There are no fingerprints on the sculpture. Not his, not yours, not Connor’s.”

“I . . . I don’t know.”

“Did you wipe the sculpture down, Angela?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you were protecting Connor.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Connor saw your husband hitting you and tried to stop him, didn’t he? He grabbed the sculpture, and they scuffled. Your husband knocked Connor to the ground, and you used that time to try and escape to the back bedroom. Connor was on the ground and reached out and grabbed your husband’s foot, trying to stop him. He even yanked the shoe off. That’s why Connor’s fingerprints are on your husband’s shoe.”

Angela Collins had begun to shake, as if about to cry. She crossed her arms and looked to a corner of the room. Tracy alternately watched her and Atticus Berkshire’s and Connor’s reactions.

Kins said, “Why don’t you tell us the truth, Angela?”

Tears rolled down Angela’s cheeks. “Connor was just trying to protect me,” she said. “He was just trying to protect me. I don’t think he meant to shoot Tim. He didn’t mean to do it.”

“What?” Connor said softly, and Tracy knew her hunch had been accurate. The one consistent thing about psychopaths was their ego. They never imagined getting caught because they believed they were smarter than everyone.

Atticus Berkshire placed a hand gently on the boy’s shoulder. Not like a lawyer. He was acting like a grandfather.

Connor looked up at his grandfather. “Why is she saying that?”

In the other room, Angela wiped her tears with Kleenex. “After Connor shot Tim, I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. I told Connor to drop the gun on the bed and go in the other room. I picked it up so that my fingerprints would also be on it. Then I just started wiping things down. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I just remember my father saying once that the police can use any evidence against you, so I just started wiping everything. When I went back to the living room, Connor had taken the sculpture off the floor and was replacing it on the mantel. I shouted at him to put it back. That’s when I realized his fingerprints would be all over it, so I wiped it down also.”

“She’s lying,” Connor said, looking up at his grandfather, eyes wide and starting to breathe heavily.

“He’s just a boy, Detective,” Angela said, “trying to protect his mother.”

“She’s lying,” Connor said again, louder, starting to cry. “Why is she lying?”

“Why did she shoot your father, Connor?” Tracy asked.

Berkshire remained silent.

“She told me that she had to do it. She said my dad was going to take everything from us, that she was going to get nothing in the divorce. She said he didn’t want anything to do with us, that he had a girlfriend, that he was selling the house and we were going to have to move, that we would have no place to go.”

“How did your mother get her injuries?”

Connor was weeping, shoulders shuddering. Berkshire wrapped an arm around him. “Tell us what happened,” Berkshire said.

“She had me hit her with the sculpture. She told me to hit her in the back of the head so I didn’t leave a scar. I didn’t want to do it, but she told me that I had to, that if I didn’t we’d both go to jail, that they’d say I was an accomplice, that I’d lured my dad into the house under false pretenses.”

“What about the injuries to her ribs? How did your mother get those?”

“She told me to kick her, but I couldn’t because I wasn’t wearing any shoes. She said to put on one of my dad’s shoes, that they could tell from the bruising the type of shoe I was wearing.”

“That’s why your fingerprints are on the shoe?”

“I guess.”

“And that’s why your father’s right shoe was untied. When you put it back on his foot, you forgot to tie it.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t remember.”

Tracy looked to Atticus Berkshire. He had an arm around his grandson’s shoulder but was staring through the glass at his daughter. He looked as though someone had stabbed him in the heart.

“Why is she doing this?” Connor said, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his jacket.

“She has a mental illness, Connor,” Berkshire said. “Your mother is sick.”

“Can you help her?” Connor asked.

Berkshire shook his head, solemn.

Tracy and Kins had suspected Berkshire knew, or strongly suspected, not only that his daughter had shot her husband, but that she was at least a sociopath, and likely had a borderline personality disorder. It was a terrible thing for a parent to have to admit about his child, and Berkshire probably would have rigorously defended Angela right up until the moment he’d realized that Angela was willing to sacrifice everyone to save herself, even her own son. Berkshire likely hadn’t agreed to let Angela give a statement. He’d likely had no choice in the matter. After all, he was in a position to know that Angela had always done what Angela wanted to do and got what Angela wanted, or there would be hell to pay. Berkshire was too experienced and competent a defense attorney not to have known that his daughter’s statement was potentially a huge mistake and likely wouldn’t match the evidence.

“Can anyone help her?” Connor asked.

“They’ll try,” Berkshire said. “But some mental illnesses can’t be helped. At the moment, your mother is a danger to you.”

“Did your mother tell you to confess?” Tracy asked.

“She told me what to say. She said they couldn’t convict both of us of the same crime.” He looked at Berkshire. “She said you would get us both off. She said we had nothing to worry about, that we could get all the money, and she’d have control and we could stay in our house. She said all I had to do was exactly what she said, and everything would be fine. She said if I didn’t, we’d both go to prison.” Connor Collins began to sob again. “I didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. I didn’t know she was going to shoot him.”

Atticus Berkshire turned his grandson away from the window. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s going to be okay. But now you have to tell the truth. You have to tell the truth about what happened.”

“Will you do that, Connor?” Tracy asked.

“What will happen to her?” Connor said.

“She’ll go to trial for killing your father, Connor, but not because of you. None of this is your fault.”

Connor looked again through the window, to the woman sitting in the chair. Tracy sensed that although he saw his mother and heard her voice, Connor was anything but certain he knew the person in that room. Then, as if stricken, he looked to Tracy. Gone was the look of sadness, replaced by a more sobering emotion. Fear.

“Will she go to prison?”

“Yes,” Tracy said. “She will.”

“Will she ever get out?” he asked.

“No, Connor,” Tracy said. “She never will.”

After Angela Collins had been booked and processed at the King County Jail, Tracy and Kins returned to the A Team’s cubicle. It was late, and they were both emotionally spent. Del and Faz had gone home, and Tracy was about to do the same. Dan was flying back from Los Angeles, and this time they were going to spend a few days in Cedar Grove.

“I’m going to head home,” she said. “It’s been a long week.”

Kins rotated his chair. “How did you know it would work?”

She thought of Eric Reynolds. “It’s a terrible thing when a child is stripped of his perception that his parents are perfect. Kids want to believe their parents will always be there to take care of them. One of the hardest things about getting older is losing that naïveté that allows us all to believe in myths and fantasies, having it replaced by harsh reality. We don’t want to believe our parents aren’t perfect, some far from it.”

Kins sat rocking in his chair. “Something else I wanted to talk to you about,” he said.

“Amanda Santos?”

Kins shut his eyes and blew out a breath. “Nothing happened, Tracy. It was just a couple of lunches.”

“Thanks for telling me,” she said, glad that Kins had come clean.

“Things haven’t been great at home for a while. You know that. When I met Amanda on the Cowboy investigation, I felt something I haven’t felt for a long time.”

“Everybody wants to feel like that, Kins.”

“I know. I never thought I’d act on it, but I found an excuse to call her and talk. Then I found another excuse to ask her to lunch.”

“She’s a beautiful woman.”

Kins nodded. “But I realize now this isn’t just about Shannah and me, is it?”

“I don’t have kids,” Tracy said. “I’m not about to preach on a subject I don’t know much about.”

He smiled. “I’m betting you know a lot more than you’re admitting.”

“Maybe from those years teaching high school, seeing what divorce did to kids.”

“I’m not perfect,” Kins said. “Far from it. But I’m not ready for them to know that.”

“None of us is perfect, Kins.”

“No, but you’re right—I’m as close to perfect in their eyes as I’m ever going to be, and I’m not going to throw that away without giving my marriage a better effort.”

“I hope it works.”

“I do too. Total honesty, right?”

Tracy smiled. “That was the deal.”

CHAPTER 38

A
week later, Tracy took the exit just after the water tower and drove past the murals decorating the buildings in downtown Toppenish. She turned onto Chestnut Street and drove past a series of modest but well-maintained homes. She pulled up to the curb of the last home on the right. The older-model Chevy truck and the Toyota remained in the carport. Parked in the street was Tommy Moore’s white commercial landscaping truck.

This time Tracy didn’t hesitate at the gate, though she did notice that the yard looked to have been freshly mowed and tidied. The ramp for the wheelchair to the porch had been disassembled, and someone had fixed and replaced the screen door. She pulled it open and knocked. No dog barked.

Élan Kanasket opened the door with a look of satisfied resignation. He gave her a sheepish smile. “I guess you proved me wrong,” he said.

“Actually, Élan, I proved you right.”

His smile widened, and he stuck out his hand. “Thanks,” he said. “I owe you an apology.”

“Don’t worry about it. Where is he?”

“Come in. I’ll take you.”

Élan closed the door behind her. The interior had also been cleaned and straightened. The walls had been prepped to be painted, spotted with patches of spackling, blue painter’s tape along the trim.

“You’re fixing up the house,” she said.

“It was time,” he said. “After my father passes, I’m moving to Arizona to take a job down there.” He smiled. “A friend has a sister.”

“I hope it works out for you.” She followed Élan up the stairs.

“It’s just a matter of time, now that he’s asked to come home,” Élan said. “Hospice is here in the mornings, but I stay with him in the afternoon.”

“I’m very sorry,” she said.

Élan stopped at the landing and faced her. “Don’t be. My father is at peace for the first time that I can remember. He’s ready to go, thanks to you.”

“What about the dog?”

“He died,” Élan said. “When my father went to the hospital, the dog went to his chair, laid down, and went to sleep. He never woke up.”

He led Tracy to a room just to the right of the stairs. The door was open, the hospital bed placed so that Earl Kanasket could look out the window at the expansive green field that seemed to stretch to the horizon. “I wanted him to have the best view in the house,” Élan said.

Tommy Moore, seated in a chair at the side of the bed, stood as they entered. He shook Tracy’s hand. “Thank you, Detective. You’ve lifted a huge burden from our shoulders.”

Tracy looked down at Earl. He’d been thin when she’d come to see him initially, but now he was just a skeleton of that man. “Is he coherent?”

“Not this afternoon, I’m afraid,” Élan said. “But he wanted you to have something.”

“Something for me?”

Élan left the room and returned a moment later carrying the feathered dream-catcher earring Tracy recognized from Kimi’s senior photo. “This was Kimi’s,” Élan said. “He kept this hanging in his bedroom window. He wanted you to have it for bringing Kimi home to him.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Tracy said. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. Thank him. The nurses say that he senses our presence. Talk to him. He’ll hear you.”

Tracy walked to the side of the bed. Earl Kanasket’s hair was no longer in a braid. She reached out and touched his hand, which was cold and nearly translucent.

“Mr. Kanasket,” she started.

“He would want you to call him Earl,” Élan said, smiling.

Tracy looked to Élan, then back to Earl. “Earl? It’s Tracy Crosswhite, the detective from Seattle. I came to tell you that you can put Kimi to rest.”

She felt Earl’s hand twitch, an almost imperceptible flutter.

“We found the men responsible for Kimi’s death,” she said.

Earl slowly opened his eyes. Élan and Tommy stepped closer, to the opposite side of the bed.

Tracy squeezed Earl’s hand. “Buzz Almond and I found them. Kimi did
not
take her own life, Earl. The men responsible are being brought to justice.”