In the Clearing by Robert Dugoni Page B

minute?”
    Nolasco very deliberately set down paperwork on one of many piles on his desk and motioned to one of two empty chairs. Tracy entered and sat. She could see files on the carpet behind Nolasco’s desk and pieced it together. Nolasco had his old case files pulled and was going through them, likely preparing for OPA’s inquiry of possible improprieties in those investigations, an inquiry he no doubt blamed on Tracy. They said timing in life was everything, and Tracy couldn’t have picked a worse time to want something.
    “What is it?” Nolasco asked.
    “Wanted to run a case by you.”
    “Angela Collins?”
    “No. A cold case down in Klickitat County.”
    His eyebrows knitted together. “What’s that got to do with us?”
    She explained the circumstances, leaving out Jenny Almond’s name, with whom Nolasco also had a history from their days at the police academy.
    “We got somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred fifty open and unsolved cases in the cold unit,” he said. “You couldn’t pick one of those?”
    “The sheriff wants an outside inquiry to avoid any appearance of impropriety, and because there’s some indication that if things aren’t as they seem, it could implicate members of the community, including law enforcement.”
    “Any potential DNA for analysis?” Nolasco asked, focusing on the single most important factor in deciding whether to reopen an old case. Advances in DNA analysis and other technology made it now possible to solve cold cases detectives never could have solved with technology available at the time of the crime. But in the case of Kimi Kanasket, there was no DNA.
    Tracy didn’t lie. “No.”
    “And your witness pool has aged forty years. How many are even still alive?”
    “I’m working on that.”
    “What about Angela Collins?”
    “Faz and Del are looking for something to do,” she said. “That kid pled in the drive-by they were working. Faz testified at the sentencing today.”
    “Faz and Del have their own files.”
    “Faz is looking to work a homicide.”
    Nolasco sat back. “What about Kins?”
    “I’d work this one alone. Kins is taking the lead on Collins.”
    Nolasco rocked backward in his chair. “If I say no, then what? You going to take it to Clarridge?”
    Sandy Clarridge had been police chief both times that Tracy received the department’s Medal of Valor. In both instances she’d made Clarridge look good at a time when he and the department had been under scrutiny. She didn’t want to play that card. It would only make her life with Nolasco more miserable.
    “I think the upside could look good for the department,” she said, subtly answering Nolasco’s question without directly challenging his authority or bruising his already fragile ego.
    “Sounds like a hobby to me,” he said. “You want to use some of your personal days, go ahead. Otherwise, we got enough here to keep us all busy.”

    What Nolasco failed to consider was all the overtime Tracy had accumulated working the Cowboy investigation. She’d built up a boatload of personal days that she’d lose if she didn’t use them by the end of the year. With Dan in Los Angeles and Kins on a path to becoming a full-blown member of the idiot club, Tracy was happy to use those personal days to get out of the office.
    She grabbed her coat and purse and started from her cubicle, intending to call Jenny on the drive home, but stopped when her desk phone rang. The small window on the console indicated an inside line. She hoped it wasn’t Nolasco calling to rescind his backhanded consent, just screwing with her, which used to be his full-time hobby.
    “Detective Crosswhite,” the duty officer at the desk in the building lobby said. “I got somebody here says he needs to speak to you or Detective Rowe.”
    “I don’t have anybody scheduled to meet with me. I’m not sure about Kins. He’s gone for the day.”
    “He doesn’t have an appointment, but he says it’s