Save Her Soul (Detective Josie Quinn #9)(69)

Marisol and Connie looked at one another and laughed. “At seven in the morning?” Marisol said. “We were home, probably still in bed. I know I was.”

“I was awake,” Connie said. “But yes, I was home.”

“Your husbands can verify this?” Josie asked.

“Well, sure,” Marisol said. “Mine can. What about Joe, Conn? Was he home?”

“He doesn’t leave for the office until eight-thirty,” Connie answered. “So yes, he can verify that I was home. Why are you asking this?”

Gretchen stood up and handed each woman a business card. “Just standard police questions. Thank you for your time. Call us if you think of anything.”

Marisol stared at them, as if she was going to ask for more of an explanation, but then she clamped her mouth shut.

Josie stood as well. “We’ll let ourselves out.”





Thirty-Four





“All right,” Gretchen said, once they were in the car headed back to the station. “Let’s go over what we know.”

Josie eased out of the Quail Hollow entrance, waving to the protestors and to the patrol unit now stationed between them and the residents. “Do we know anything? Really?”

Gretchen laughed. “It always seems like we don’t until we do.” She took out her notebook and flipped through some pages. “Vera Urban was a stylist at this upscale salon, Bliss.”

“A very good stylist,” Josie said.

“Yes,” Gretchen said. “Her clients, boss, and co-workers have agreed on that.”

“She was single,” Josie added. “If she had any significant boyfriends, no one remembers their names.”

“Right. She started peddling painkillers to her clients at the salon, unbeknownst to her boss and co-workers.”

“It seems like that started with Connie Prather. She starts getting them for her. They strike up a friendship. Vera starts getting invited to things. Starts providing more drugs for more women.”

“But keeping it within a pretty small circle,” Gretchen said. “But no one knows who was supplying her with these painkillers. Is there any chance that Mayor Charleston’s husband was supplying them? He’s a surgeon, right?”

“He is,” Josie agreed. “I asked the Mayor about that and of course, she denied it. I don’t trust her. I don’t trust her husband. He’s cheated on her in the past, which means he has no problem lying, but I’m not sure he would put his career in jeopardy that way. He would only have been a resident back then. Besides that, Vera also supplied pot and cocaine. She couldn’t have gotten those from a surgeon.”

“True,” Gretchen said. “We can check him out, but we’re not looking at him as the supplier. Also, if Marisol Dutton knew that Tara’s husband had supplied drugs to Vera Urban as a resident, don’t you think she’d tell her husband so he could use it against Tara in the campaign?”

“No,” Josie said. “I don’t think Marisol would want any of that exposed because of her own part in it. It would be terrible for Tara and her husband, but it would also make the Duttons look bad. Did you happen to see the bruises on Marisol’s wrist?”

“No,” Gretchen said. “I didn’t pick up on that. You think Kurt Dutton abuses his wife?”

“I can’t say for sure, but the bruises were suspicious. Anyway, we can probably rule out Tara’s surgeon husband as Vera’s drug supplier, which brings us back to someone in the local drug trade, most likely.”

“Connie said it was either Vera’s ex or a friend who was supplying her with stuff. So if that person had access to several different types of drugs then yes, he was probably known in the local drug trade. Okay, we’ve got Vera getting drugs from an unknown person, selling them to these rich housewives at parties at their houses while their husbands are away,” Gretchen went on.

“The Mayor claims she begged out of these parties early on,” Josie said. “Leaving Whitney, Connie, and Marisol although Connie and Marisol’s accounts dispute that.”

“Right,” Gretchen said. “At the very least, we know the Mayor didn’t stop going to these parties as early as she claims she did. But let’s say eventually her attendance drops off. Whitney dies. Connie and Marisol both go into rehab.”

Josie went on, “Vera had Beverly. The parties stopped. The women all fell out of touch although Vera continued working at the salon until Beverly was thirteen.”

“Beverly and Vera had a fight. Beverly pushed Vera down the steps, injuring Vera’s back badly enough for her to need surgery—”

“And go on painkillers,” Josie finished.

“If she was taking as many painkillers as your grandmother implied she was—enough for her to pass out when she was supposed to be at a meeting with the principal—then she wasn’t getting them from a doctor,” Gretchen said.

“She found someone to buy them from illegally.”

“Or she already knew someone who could supply them,” Gretchen argued.

“Exactly.”

“If she was spending a lot of money on painkillers from an illegal source, that might explain the issues with her making her rent.”

“True,” Josie agreed. “Her addiction gets worse. She’s broke. Beverly’s having behavioral problems. Beverly gets pregnant. Vera finds out.”