Her Final Breath (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 2) by Robert Dugoni Page B

lowered his eyes and stepped out, cowboy boots clicking on the linoleum.

CHAPTER 19
    T he cool air off Elliott Bay felt refreshing, and Tracy sucked it in, still feeling flushed as she and Kins crossed Jefferson Street to their car.
    Kins opened the driver’s side door but did not get in. “What was that all about in there?”
    “Was I wrong to leave, Kins?”
    “Don’t do that to yourself.”
    “Maybe I should have stayed. Maybe if I had, we would have caught this guy by now.”
    “This isn’t your fault. Don’t make it personal. Nolasco chose to send Hansen to cold cases. He took it from us to make you look bad. You had to go to Cedar Grove, and there’s not a single cop on this entire force who wouldn’t have done exactly what you did. You had every right to find out what happened to your sister.”
    She nodded, but Kins’s reassurance didn’t take away the pain she’d felt watching Shirley Berkman’s final moments with her daughter, or the harsh reality that while an arrest of the Cowboy might bring the families of his victims justice, it would never bring them closure.
    Tracy knew that firsthand.
     

     
    The Washington State Patrol Crime Lab was located in a block-long squat cement structure in Seattle’s SoDo neighborhood, an industrial area south of downtown. As Tracy and Kins maneuvered through the halls and neared Michael Melton’s office, they heard the soothing melody of Melton’s guitar and equally soothing voice.
    “‘Country Roads,’” Kins said.
    Melton had his office door open but didn’t flinch or miss a chord when Tracy and Kins reached the threshold. He ended the song with an impressive guitar riff. “How’s my favorite detective?” Melton said.
    “I know you’re not talking to me,” Kins said.
    Tracy forced a smile. “Getting ready for your next gig?”
    Melton sang in a country-western band called the Fourensics with three other crime lab scientists. They played local bars, small gigs, and at an annual fund-raiser for victims of crime. Melton told Tracy playing guitar and singing kept him sane in an insane world. He looked like a lumberjack, with a mane of graying hair tied in a ponytail, a bushy beard, and a flannel shirt rolled up to reveal forearms that looked like he’d grown up splitting cords of wood.
    “Nothing on the calendar,” he said. “But you know me. If there’s beer, I’ll be near.”
    Melton hung the guitar on a prong protruding from the wall amid an eclectic collection of odd mementos from the various cases he had worked—baseball bats, ball-peen hammers, knives, guns, even a slingshot.
    “Might be a while though; we’re so backed up here my eyes are brown.”
    Melton handed them his reports on the rope found at the shooting range and the rope used to strangle Veronica Watson. “Which do you want first?”
    “How about the shooting range,” Kins said.
    “Generic three-strand. Polypropylene with a right twist.”
    “So same type of rope as the ropes used to strangle Hansen and Schreiber,” Kins said.
    “Same type.”
    “Can you tell if it came from the same length of rope?”
    “Not definitively. The ends were too frayed.”
    “If you had to guess?”
    “I’d say no.”
    “What about a manufacturer?”
    “Too common. You can buy it pretty much anywhere.”
    “And the knot?” Tracy asked.
    “Different. Definitely different from Hansen or Schreiber. Not nearly as intricate.” Melton handed them photos.
    “What do you make of it?” Tracy asked.
    “Thankfully, that’s not my job.”
    “What about the person who tied it, right- or left-handed?”
    Melton shook his head. “Too rudimentary to draw any conclusions.”
    “So no skill required,” Tracy said.
    “No skill required,” Melton agreed.
    Tracy addressed Kins. “Maybe on purpose, to throw us off?”
    “Maybe. What about Veronica Watson?” Kins asked Melton.
    “Also generic three-strand polypropylene with a right twist. If I had to give an opinion, I’d say it comes