Page 67 of The Guilty Trial

The dock worker who had found her was sitting in the back of a cruiser thirty yards away, a blanket around his shoulders despite the fact that it wasn't particularly cold. He arrived for a first shift at a salvage yard two properties over and took a wrong turn in the dark, then stopped for something he saw at the end of the dock.

Sarah Park lay thirty feet ahead.

The dock groaned under their feet as they moved toward her. The bay pushed against the pilings beneath with a low, rhythmic pressure, and water slapped below the planks. A crane barge sat dark and motionless out in the channel, its running lights the only color in the harbor.

Park lay on her side near a rusted bollard, her arms bound behind her with rope, her pale face turned toward the water. The number 48 had been burned into her chest. It was visible where her jacket and blouse were pulled aside, the tissue around it raw and familiar in a way that had now become grimly routine. Her eyes were open, staring at nothing.

Allie stood still for a moment.

She'd shaken this woman's hand in the U.S. Attorney's conference room and watched as she spoke about Thomas Sterling with a grief that had been real and unguarded. Park had been composed and careful with her words, a prosecutor through and through, and underneath all of that, she'd been frightened, aware enough to know that being on the prosecution team meant something. She had a son named Lucas. Somewhere tonight, Lucas was waiting for his mother to come home.

Allie pulled her focus back to the scene.

Marze crouched at the edge of the tape line with his forearms on his knees. Jason stood to Allie's left with his hands in his jacket pockets. He hadn't said anything since they arrived.

A Tacoma PD officer came around from the direction of the nearest cruiser. He was solidly built, with a graying mustache.

“Officer Ray Golder,” he said, and nodded to each of them in turn. “My partner and I were first on scene after dispatch. The dock worker called it in roughly forty-five minutes ago. We secured the scene and reached out to you.”

“Who else has been on this dock?” Marze asked, rising to his feet.

“Myself, my partner, two additional officers who helped establish the perimeter. Forensics is en route. Nobody has touched her.”

“Good. Walk us through what you have.”

Golder led them closer without stepping past the inner boundary he'd marked with a second length of tape. He stopped beside the body, his hands clasped behind his back, and nodded downward toward Park's slacks.

From the knee down, a fine dust coated the slick fabric. The soles of her shoes showed the same powdery residue, and it was caked deep into the treads. The back of her pants showed it along the pockets and up toward the waistband, as if she'd been seated or been dragged on a surface covered with the stuff.

Allie crouched to look. The dust was finer than ordinary dirt, with a reddish ochre cast that distinguished it from the silt and grit of the waterfront underfoot. It had settled into the seams of Park's slacks, into the crevices in her exposed feet, even into the stitching of her jacket hem.

“That's not from around here,” Golder said. “The soil on this waterfront is mostly silt and marine sediment. What you're looking at is something different. I've seen it before on a trespass call at one of the old industrial sites.”

“What is it?” Allie asked.

Golder looked at her. “Brick kilns. There are a few abandoned facilities in the industrial corridor northeast of here. They were old manufacturing operations, most of them shut down fifteen or twenty years ago. The Tacoma Brick Works is the largest. It's maybe two miles from where we're standing, between the rail yard and the old freight terminal.” He pointed toward the dust again. “The clay they processed had a specific mineral composition—that color and that fine texture. You don't find that combination anywhere else in this part of the county. When I saw it on her pants and her shoes, it was the first thing I thought of.”

“Is it fenced?” Allie asked him.

“Sort of. There’s a chain-link around the perimeter, but it's been cut in a dozen places over the years. Kids initially, but these days it's mostly squatters.” He glanced toward the north end of the waterfront. “Tacoma PD has answered calls out there twice that I know of. Both times, the building was open. Nobody's maintained it since the operation shut down.”

Allie stood. She looked at Marze, who was pulling out his phone.

“If he killed her there, it fits,” Jason said. “If it’s been empty for that long, the structure’s probably crumbling and there’s probably no regular access or security. He could have had her in that building and nobody would’ve known.”

“It would have been easy to move her here too,” Allie said. “The docks are isolated enough. I’d be surprised if anyone came through at night.” She looked back at the bollard nearest Park's body. The rust on it was layered and flaking, some of it disturbed along the surface in a way that suggested rope contact. She photographed it with her phone. Crime scene would get the full documentation when they arrived, but she wanted her own record.

Marze had stepped away, his voice low and clipped as he relayed the information. Beyond the body, a channel marker blinked in the distance. Gulls called overhead in the darkening evening, their voices cutting in and breaking off.

Park had been branded with the number 48, the exhibit where she’d falsified witness affidavits, coerced from reluctant witnesses who never should have been on the stand. She’d had a promising career until she threw it all away, and Pym obviously considered her a number that demanded correction.

Allie looked at the rope around Park's wrists and then tore her gaze away.

Marze returned, pocketing his phone. “Three tactical units and two evidence response teams are heading there to stage now.” His eyes moved between Allie and Jason. “You two are going in.”

They nodded, then followed him back along the dock toward the access road. Allie kept her eyes on the planks, which were uneven beneath her feet, warped and heaved by decades of salt air and wet winters. “We’re lucky someone found her so quickly.”

Jason nodded. His face was as somber as hers. “You know what I don’t get? Why he didn’t brush her off. If that dust is as unique as Golder says…”