My Sister’s Grave by Robert Dugoni
Twenty years have passed since Tracy Crosswhite first began to doubt the details of her sister Sarah’s disappearance and the ensuing murder trial. She doesn’t think Edmund House, a man convicted of rape and sentenced to death for Sarah’s murder, is to blame. Tracy joined the Seattle PD as a homicide detective and has devoted her life to finding killers because she is driven by the chance to receive true justice.
In the northern Cascade highlands of Washington State, close to their homeland, Sarah’s bones are finally found, and Tracy is eager to learn the truth. As she looks for the real perpetrator, she uncovers murky, long-kept secrets that will permanently alter how she feels about her past and pave the way for grave danger.
My Sister's Grave by Robert Dugoni
60 used from $1.59
Free shipping
Amazon.com
Sarah Crosswhite, then 18 years old, vanished from the face of the planet during a shooting match, which ended twenty years ago. Sarah should not have allowed Tracy, her older sister, to win the competition by one shot. Sarah insisted Tracy go with her partner and drove Tracy’s truck home by herself, which was inappropriate. Instead of taking the interstate, which she had been advised against doing, Sarah decided to take the backroad home. Nonetheless, she had her own justifications for each choice and believed they were sound ones.
The following day, Tracy’s truck is discovered abandoned on that country road with mysteriously no fuel. Only Sarah and three other things are missing from the truck, including Tracy’s thick duster coat and her black Stetson hat. The third item is Tracy’s engraved belt buckle, which she received for “winning” the contest and which she had just the day before pushed into Sarah’s hands. Not one of these things—not the hat, not the duster, not the belt buckle, not even Sarah—has ever been found again despite a protracted and thorough search.
Tracy Crosswhite was a high school chemistry teacher when Sarah vanished. Tracy’s divorce from a man who wouldn’t or couldn’t give her time to process her grief and self-imposed shame occurred three years later. She has a mother who is estranged from her and accuses her of abandoning Sarah. Her doctor’s father has also abandoned her after sinking into a chasm of grief, alcoholism, and self-immolation. Tracy, who is completely alone but has a strong sense of purpose, is admitted into the Washington State police school with the specific intention of one day working as a homicide detective in Seattle. Twenty years after Sarah vanished, Tracy has now succeeded in that endeavour. She actually accomplished it six years ago.
But now, she receives a call informing her of the discovery of a body. The situation is common for a homicide team, of course, but this body is unique. The whereabouts of this body, which is only partially exhumed from a shallow grave after being discovered nearby the scene of Sarah’s disappearance—an area that had already been thoroughly explored by Tracy and the sheriff himself—is unknown.
Tracy notices a change in the investigators’ demeanour as she observes the forensics team exhume the skeleton from behind the cordon. She is stroking her fingers over the inscription on her competition belt buckle a few minutes later. Sarah’s been located.
With a body in place, Tracy can move on to her next objective, which is reopening Sarah’s case. And given that Edmund House was detained, put on trial, and found guilty of Sarah’s murder, Sarah’s case was deemed to be closed, this will be a difficult assignment. He was judged guilty despite there not being a body because blood and hair were discovered in his truck, and a pair of Sarah’s earrings were discovered stashed in his workshop. Even before she started working as a police officer, Tracy had her doubts about the arrest and conviction. Her background as a detective has taught her that the evidence against House is riddled with holes that a truck could easily pass through. She doesn’t just suspect this; she knows it. She needs a fresh trial for House so she can bring the killer to light now that she has the belt buckle, the bones, and DNA testing at her disposal.
