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“Nothing is stupid.”
“At the beginning of the summer, I decided to cut off all my hair. Like, pixie-length short. I had really long hair that I always wore in a bun on duty. I was tired of doing the bun thing. A week after, Marcy got the same haircut—well, not identical, but she cut her shoulder-length hair pretty short. That’s when I also noticed she was dressing like me when we weren’t working. I’ve always been a dress girl—I know, sounds weird because I’m in a nerdy job, but I love casual dresses. If I’m not working, I’m wearing a dress. So then Marcy started wearing dresses. I mean, when we moved in together she owned one cocktail dress that she’d bought for an event. Then I saw her in a sundress. And another dress. I commented on it, and she said she just liked my style. But she never looked comfortable wearing them.” She paused. “See, it’s weird.”
Kara considered the blazer last night. Damon commented on it, as if he’d never before seen Marcy wear one. Kara wore a blazer when she was on duty. And also the change in workout clothes.
“Marcy had a boyfriend before she moved to Friday Harbor,” said Kara. “When she was in Seattle, working for Seattle PD. Did you know him?”
“I didn’t keep up with Marcy. Really. If she had a boyfriend after I moved out, I never met him. But that was five or six years ago.”
“What about family?”
“She was from Colorado, that’s all I know. She never talked about her family.”
Kara wrapped up the call, then made another call to Detective Juan Ortega. Six years ago, he’d been Marcy’s FTO in the Seattle PD. Kara had tried to reach him, left a message. He hadn’t called back.
This time, he answered. Kara told him who she was and what she wanted to know.
“Is this part of an official investigation?” Juan asked. “Do I need to bring in my boss?” He didn’t sound hostile, but maybe a little concerned. She understood that.
“I’m not bringing in my boss,” she said. “It’s a—Hell, I don’t know if it’s official or not. Let’s just say I’ll keep this completely off the record unless I need to put it on the record—then I’ll call you back and we’ll jump through all the bureaucratic hoops, okay?”
“Give me more.”
“I’m investigating the bombings on San Juan Island. And I just had a feeling I needed more information. My boss is pretty certain he’s taking the right guy into custody—”
“You have a suspect?”
“We do. It hasn’t been announced. We just got the warrant.”
“And you still want to know about Marcy Anderson?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. What do you want? Off the record.”
“You were Marcy’s FTO. How did she do?”
“She was a good trainee. Did everything I said. A fast learner.”
“But.”
“I didn’t say but.”
“You were thinking it.” Kara hoped. She was really going out on a limb here, and cops hated talking shit about other cops. “I’m not IA, Juan. Hell, I’ve been dragged in front of IA a dozen times over a dozen years. I’m not going to do that to you. But this is important.”
“Marcy was a fast learner, like I said, but I also had the sense that she...well, not that she had a crush on me, there wasn’t anything sexual about it. But if I ordered a hamburger for lunch, she ordered a hamburger. When we first started riding together, she drank dark, sweetened coffee. I drink mine light, unsweetened. She started drinking it light, unsweetened. I would talk about a movie I saw with my girlfriend, and she would see it that night and want to talk about it the next day. I thought at first she was just trying too hard, I said something, and she toned it down, but it was still there. It was like she didn’t quite fit in and knew it, so did everything she could to seem like she was just like me.”
“How long did you ride with her?”
“Eighteen weeks. That’s our standard FTO period.”
“Do you know who her first partner was? Do you have a partner system?”
“Yes, and he’s retired. Moved, I don’t know where.”
“Can you tell me if he had similar problems with her?”
“I wouldn’t call this aproblem, it was just uncomfortable.”
