Firebreak (Josie Gray Mysteries #4)(51)

“No vital signs. I’d estimate he’s been dead since early morning. There’s vomit on the ground. Probably killed by alcohol poisoning.”

Josie winced. The smell coming off his body was horrible.

She pulled out her phone and dialed Mitchell Cowan at the coroner’s office.

“We’ve got a dead body,” Josie said. “Behind the trauma center. How soon can you be here?”

*

Dave and Juan set up a perimeter around the park and marked it with crime-scene tape while they waited on Cowan to complete his initial exam. Josie and Otto took photographs and examined the area. They found an empty fifth of Jack Daniel’s and a plastic baggie with several pills. Josie scanned the pills with her cell phone and used an app to identify them as OxyContin and Ambien, a deadly combination if mixed with enough alcohol.

Once the body had been removed for transport to the coroner’s office, Josie and Otto finished processing the scene while Marta walked the perimeter of the park and the parking lot, looking for anything else that might tie into the case.

The bag of pills and the bottle were both lying within two feet of Billy’s body. He appeared to have been sitting on the bench when he passed out, dropping the pills and bottle as he fell to the ground. There was nothing about the scene that appeared suspicious. Sadly, it looked like a straightforward and successful suicide attempt.

Josie placed the bag of pills into an evidence bag and Otto filled out a tag with date, time, and location.

“Suicide?” he asked.

“You think Billy killed Ferris and then killed himself over the guilt?” Josie said.

“Sure. If Ferris was HIV positive, he could have passed the virus on to Billy. Billy killed Ferris in anger, but couldn’t take the guilt so he drank himself to death.”

Josie felt something gnawing away at her, but couldn’t put it in words yet. “Part of this feels a little coincidental.”

“How so?”

She put a hand up and ticked off several points one at a time. “Ferris is found dead in Billy’s house. Ferris has some issues with homosexuality. Someone at Billy’s house is digging into research on HIV and AIDS. Billy shows up dead too. That’s a lot of drama.”

“Who has the motive to kill Billy?”

“If Brenda thought Billy contracted AIDS from Ferris?” Josie curled her lip up. “I’d want to kill him. That’d be motive enough for me as his wife.”

“What about the meal-ticket theory. Everyone who knows her says her primary goal in life is to make Billy a star.”

“I don’t know. Maybe we’re too focused on the HIV/AIDS theory.”

Otto didn’t respond and Josie noticed him giving her an uncomfortable look. “What about Brenda?” he asked.

She sighed. Their work at the park was finished. She had a job to do.

*

Manny’s Motel was just two blocks from the trauma center. Josie found Brenda and Manny sitting on a bench outside the motel.

“Did you find him?” Brenda asked, standing when Josie reached her.

“Can we talk inside your room?” Josie asked.

Brenda paused, her expression already searching. “Of course, yes, come in.”

Manny walked quietly back to his office, no doubt sensing the news was not good. Josie shut the door behind her and noted that the room was clean, the suitcase zipped up in the corner, the bed neatly made, the TV running on mute on top of the dresser. She imagined Brenda pacing the room waiting to hear from her husband. Manny, good man that he was, most likely came down to sit with her until she heard back from the police.

“I’ve come with terrible news.”

“What? What’s happened?”

“We found Billy’s body in the small park behind the trauma center. It appears he passed away from alcohol poisoning.”

“What?” The word came out in a strangled whisper. Brenda sank down onto the bed and stared at Josie.

“I’m so sorry,” Josie said.

“I don’t believe it.”

“I’m sorry, Brenda. Do you have some family I could call for you? Someone who could come be with you right now?”

“Billy drinks whiskey. He’s not a kid. Do you know how much he would need to drink to pass out?”

“We found an empty fifth of Jack Daniel’s and a plastic baggie with a few pills in it. It appears he took a combination of prescription drugs and alcohol.”

Brenda looked confused and then hopeful, as if there had been a mistake. “Billy doesn’t take any medication. He doesn’t take any pills. Even for a hangover he doesn’t take anything. He’s perfectly healthy.”

“Prescription drugs are fairly easy to get. Billy could have gotten them from any number of people at the Hell-Bent.”

“No!”

Josie leaned toward the bed, trying to get Brenda to listen to reason without going into details that she didn’t want to hear. “We don’t have blood results. We’ll wait until an examination has been done, but it looked like a combination of Ambien and OxyContin. If he combined the pills with a fifth of whiskey, the result would be fatal.”

“He doesn’t have access to pills like that.”

“Sometimes a spouse can have an addiction to drugs that their partner doesn’t even know about. It happens more often than you might think.”