One Last Kill (Tracy Crosswhite), page 1
PRAISE FOR ROBERT DUGONI’S TRACY CROSSWHITE SERIES
Praise for What She Found
“A deep dive that manages to be both grueling and masterful.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Readers will eagerly await Tracy’s next outing.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“The fact that there’s a truly gripping mystery, full of corruption, murder, and scandal, at the heart of the book to push and propel our protagonist into new realms is just the icing on the cake.”
—Bookreporter
Praise for In Her Tracks
“Gripping . . . Fans of police procedurals will hope Tracy has a long career.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A warmhearted procedural about some ice-cold crimes.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Dugoni has produced one of his most shocking twists yet and Tracy, expertly developed over seven previous novels, is almost pared down here, in a refreshing, perspective-changing way.”
—Bookreporter
Praise for A Cold Trail
“Tracy Crosswhite is one of the best protagonists in the realm of crime fiction today, and there is nothing cold about A Cold Trail.”
—Associated Press
“Impressive . . . Dugoni weaves a compulsively readable tale of love, loss, and greed. Readers will look forward to the further exploits of his sharp-witted detective.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Crime writing of the absolute highest order, illustrating that Dugoni is every bit the equal of Lisa Gardner and Harlan Coben when it comes to psychological suspense.”
—Providence Journal
Praise for A Steep Price
“A beautiful narrative. What makes A Steep Price stand out is the authentic feel of how it feels to work as a police officer in a major city . . . another outstanding novel from one of the best crime writers in the business.”
—Associated Press
“A riveting suspense novel . . . A gripping story.”
—Crimespree Magazine
“Packed with suspense, drama, and raw emotion . . . A fine entry in a solid series.”
—Booklist
Praise for Close to Home
“An immensely—almost compulsively—readable tale . . . A crackerjack mystery.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“Dugoni’s twisted tale is one of conspiracy and culpability . . . richly nuanced and entirely compelling.”
—Criminal Element
Praise for The Trapped Girl
“Dugoni drills so deep into the troubled relationships among his characters that each new revelation shows them in a disturbing new light . . . an unholy tangle of crimes makes this his best book to date.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“All of Robert Dugoni’s talents are once again firmly on display in The Trapped Girl, a blisteringly effective crime thriller . . . structured along classical lines drawn years ago by the likes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. A fiendishly clever tale that colors its pages with crisp shades of postmodern noir.”
—Providence Journal
“Robert Dugoni, yet again, delivers an excellent read . . . With many twists, turns, and jumps in the road traveled by the detective and her cohorts, this absolutely superb plot becomes more than just a little entertaining. The problem remains the same: Readers must now once again wait impatiently for the next book by Robert Dugoni to arrive.”
—Suspense Magazine
Praise for In the Clearing
“Dugoni’s third Tracy Crosswhite novel (after Her Final Breath) continues his series’ standard of excellence with superb plotting and skillful balancing of the two story lines.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“Dugoni has become one of the best crime novelists in the business, and his latest featuring Seattle homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite will only draw more accolades.”
—Romantic Times, top pick
Praise for Her Final Breath
“A stunningly suspenseful exercise in terror that hits every note at the perfect pitch.”
—Providence Journal
“Absorbing . . . Dugoni expertly ratchets up the suspense as Crosswhite becomes a target herself.”
—Seattle Times
“Another stellar story featuring homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite . . . Crosswhite is a sympathetic, well-drawn protagonist, and her next adventure can’t come fast enough.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
Praise for My Sister’s Grave
“One of the best books I’ll read this year.”
—Lisa Gardner, bestselling author of Touch & Go
“Dugoni does a superior job of positioning [the plot elements] for maximum impact, especially in a climactic scene set in an abandoned mine during a blizzard.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Combines the best of a police procedural with a legal thriller, and the end result is outstanding . . . Dugoni continues to deliver emotional and gut-wrenching, character-driven suspense stories that will resonate with any fan of the thriller genre.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“What starts out as a sturdy police procedural morphs into a gripping legal thriller . . . Dugoni is a superb storyteller, and his courtroom drama shines . . . This ‘Grave’ is one to get lost in.”
—Boston Globe
ALSO BY ROBERT DUGONI
Her Deadly Game
The World Played Chess
The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell
The 7th Canon
Damage Control
The Tracy Crosswhite Series
My Sister’s Grave
Her Final Breath
In the Clearing
The Trapped Girl
Close to Home
A Steep Price
A Cold Trail
In Her Tracks
What She Found
The Last Line (a short story)
The Academy (a short story)
Third Watch (a short story)
The Charles Jenkins Series
The Eighth Sister
The Last Agent
The Silent Sisters
The David Sloane Series
The Jury Master
Wrongful Death
Bodily Harm
Murder One
The Conviction
Nonfiction with Joseph Hilldorfer
The Cyanide Canary
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Otherwise, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2023 by La Mesa Fiction LLC
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781662500213 (paperback)
ISBN-13: 9781662500206 (digital)
Cover design by Damon Freeman
Cover image: © Raggedstone, © Jeffrey T. Kreulen / Shutterstock; © Robin Vandenabeele / ArcAngel
To Jennifer Southworth, Seattle Police Department Violent Crimes Section, retired.
And
Alan Hardwick, Edmonds Police Department acting assistant chief, retired. Private investigator, musician, member of two successful bands, writer of novels. Fisherman. Golfer. A true Renaissance man.
Thank you both for your service of many years. I admire and respect you. Many blessings to you in your retirement years.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
November 1993
Seattle, Washington
Vic Fazzio had, on more than one occasion, been accused of being a vampire. During the years he worked patrol and the various detective divisions of the Seattle Police Department, he frequently arrived at the Public Safety Building on Third Avenue at two or three in the morning. He didn’t aspire to be the first officer to ar rive on his shift, usually by several hours, but he also didn’t want to sit at home fretting about being unable to sleep and possibly wake his wife, Vera. His father had been an insomniac, only slept four to five hours a night, but he’d also died young, just seventy-two years of age. Got Faz to wondering if a person only had so many waking hours on this planet, and if each night his father couldn’t sleep had shaved minutes off his allotted time, the way they said each cigarette shortened a life span.
Faz had quit smoking.
Staying asleep was another matter altogether.
He had tried hot showers, melatonin, reading, sex, and everything else short of prescription meds. Nothing seemed to work. His doctor explained that some people only needed a few hours of sleep a night. At least as a homicide detective, Faz had chosen the right line of work. When he and his partner were the “next up” detective team for a homicide, the phone could ring at any hour of the day or night—but usually very late or very early.
An adage in SPD’s homicide section was: “Our day begins when your day ends.” Macabre, certainly, but only because it was true. Faz didn’t need to rush to a homicide—unless the victim turned out to be one of the undead, in which case you could count Faz out. Call Darren McGavin, from The Night Stalker television show, because Faz wasn’t going anywhere near the supernatural, not without a good cross, silver bullets, and a bottle of holy water.
Early morning, Faz was reading a novel at the kitchen table and contemplating going into the office when the house phone rang. He made the sign of the cross, an old habit from his mother’s side of the family to ward off bad news, and answered before the phone rang a second time and woke Vera.
“You sound like you’re awake,” his homicide partner, Taj Gibson, said.
“For an hour,” Faz said.
“So the rumors are true, Fazzio. You really are one of the undead.”
“I like to think of myself as one of the perpetually living,” Faz said. “However, your being awake at this hour is an indication you don’t have good news.”
“Depends on how you look at it,” Taj said. “At least we won’t be bored.”
“Laub call?” Faz referenced their new sergeant, Andrew Laub, who ran homicide’s A Team.
“Like a ray of morning sunshine. Got a body on the Aurora strip. So cowboy up, put on your big-boy pants, and ride like the wind . . . or fly. Whatever you vampires do.”
Half an hour later, Faz drove Aurora Avenue North, also known as State Route 99 and “the Aurora strip.” The windshield wipers on his black Chevy Caprice slapped a steady beat, and Tony Bennett’s smooth voice sang “New York State of Mind”—the cassette a gift from Vera. After Taj provided the address, Faz chose not to go downtown to sign out a pool car. He and Vera had recently bought a Craftsman house in Green Lake, north of downtown Seattle and closer to this presumed homicide.
The multilane thoroughfare’s skyline was cluttered with telephone wires, traffic lights, and lighted billboards advertising massage and tanning parlors, tobacco shops, adult-only establishments, and hotels and motels. Many of the motels had been quickly constructed to house the anticipated throng of visitors to Seattle’s 1962 World’s Fair. In the intervening decades, Interstate 5 largely replaced the Aurora strip, and the motels and hotels lost business until economic blight set in. Those structures that had survived showed their age. Rooms were cheap and catered to the pimps, prostitutes, and drug dealers working the area. Like the motels, the women who walked the strip struggled to survive.
Many didn’t.
Sometimes humans interceded.
That’s when Faz got involved.
Faz drove into the parking lot of the two-story Tranquil Gardens Motel, a misnomer if ever there was one. He didn’t see a single flower or leaf anywhere. He flashed his detective ID to a uniformed officer draped in plastic to protect against the persistent rain. As the officer wrote down the information on a log, Faz got a better, though not improved, view of the L-shaped, beige stucco motel. The rooms faced the parking lot, harsh light illuminating the landings.
“This a pool car?” the young officer asked.
“Nah. Mine.”
“Sweet.” He directed Faz to the parked patrol cars, their pulsing lights reflected in puddles in the asphalt parking lot. Faz parked alongside a black Ford pool car. The automobiles were unmarked, but only to the general public. Those within Seattle PD could pick one out in an airport parking lot.
Laub lowered his driver’s-side window. Faz turned down Tony Bennett and lowered his passenger-side window. They spoke across the bench seat.
“You got here fast.” A gust of wind nearly swallowed Laub’s voice and blew rain onto the passenger seat.
“The wife and I live in Green Lake,” Faz said, the implication that he hadn’t gone downtown understood.
“You spoke to Taj?”
“Said he’s on his way.” Gibson lived in Beacon Hill, and he had no doubt gone to the Public Safety Building before heading north. He’d be a while longer.
“We’ll wait. No sense repeating myself.” Laub raised his window and leaned his head back against the headrest. Faz closed his window and sat back, envious of Laub’s ability to catch a few winks.
Faz had been elevated to Homicide within Violent Crimes just three months earlier and was still learning the ropes. The Violent Crimes Section encompassed the Homicide, Robbery, Gang, Fugitive Task Force, and Intel units. A captain ran the section, and lieutenants ran each unit. A sergeant supervised each of the four homicide detectives assigned to one of three teams. An additional detective served as each team’s “fifth wheel.” That detective would rotate into a Homicide Unit as detectives retired or left the team.
Fifteen minutes after Faz arrived, Gibson parked another black Ford alongside his Chevy. The three men exited their vehicles and took cover from the rain beneath the hotel’s second-floor landing. Gibson wore his trademark porkpie hat to cover his bald head and chewed a toothpick, a nervous habit.
“Body is in a dumpster in the alley around the back, which is why I had the officers set the perimeter around the parking lot. I don’t want any press snapping pictures,” Laub said.
“Hotel owner bitch about the perimeter?” Gibson asked.
“Don’t know and don’t care,” Laub said. “An officer is getting his statement.”
“Fire department been here?” Faz looked around the parking lot.
“Left about fifteen minutes before you arrived. Engine number twenty-seven.”
Faz took notes in a spiral notebook. He’d call and get the engine crew’s report. The fire department responded to homicides, presumably in case the victim remained alive, and if not, to pronounce the victim dead. That was, more often than not, easily discernible. But the firefighters stormed the crime scene anyway, leaving their bootprints and fingerprints and sometimes stepping on evidence. On occasion they repositioned the body, which sent the medical examiner on a rampage. Nobody touched the body before the ME gave his papal blessing. In theory anyway.
Laub led them to the back of the building. At six foot four, Faz had to duck beneath a concrete staircase providing access to the second floor. A patrol car parked in the alley, sheets of mist falling in the shafts of light from its headlights. An officer, draped in the same opaque plastic poncho, stood alongside a battered dumpster against an unpainted concrete-block wall. Faz eyed the potholes and puddles in the asphalt. It was unlikely to yield a tire impression or a shoeprint, but he’d have the standby homicide detectives check anyway.
Faz shone his Maglite over the contents in the dumpster, which smelled of rotting food. He hadn’t yet put on his N-DEX gloves and was careful not to touch the edges in case the killer had left prints that could be lifted. His light illuminated flat cardboard boxes and black, industrial-size garbage bags. A bare arm protruded between the bags, presumably attached to a woman’s torso—though the emaciated limb and painted fingernails did not necessarily establish gender. The druggies, male and female, also walked the Aurora strip.
“Night manager found her when he dumped a bag of trash,” Laub said.
“Dumping trash at this hour of the morning?” Faz said. “Seems unusual.”
Laub nodded but didn’t otherwise comment.
“Anybody get a statement yet?” Taj asked.
“First responder is interviewing him in his office.” Laub made a vague gesture with his thumb. Faz put a star by the night manager’s name to indicate the interview. “We’ll know better when the ME gets here how and when she died,” Laub continued.
“Know better?” Faz said.
