Save Her Soul (Detective Josie Quinn #9)(70)

“Their relationship was already strained,” Gretchen said. “I’m sure news of the pregnancy didn’t help.”

“I agree. But now we’ve got a blind spot. A period of time in their lives where we have no idea what happened. The next thing that we can gather is that someone killed Beverly and buried her beneath their house.”

“Right,” Gretchen said. “Vera goes into hiding—whether she was involved in the murder or just a witness, we can’t say at this point—but she disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“There was no one in their lives to even notice they were gone,” Josie said. “Don’t you think that’s strange?”

She looked over long enough to see Gretchen shrug.

“You don’t think it’s odd?” Josie pressed.

Gretchen flipped her notebook closed, eyes focused on the outskirts of the city flying past them. “I don’t think it’s that odd. When I moved here, other than my work colleagues, no one would have known if I went missing.”

“Not true,” Josie said. “Your old partner from Philadelphia—he would have come looking for you when you didn’t check in.”

Gretchen smiled. “Guess so.”

Josie said, “At the very least, Vera’s drug dealer would have noticed. Or the guy my grandmother told me was giving Vera rides back and forth to school whenever Beverly got in trouble and she had to meet with the principal.”

“They might be one and the same,” Gretchen pointed out. “Her drug dealer and her only friend. For all we know, he’s the one who killed them.”

“Then we need to find him. And I know just who to ask.”





Thirty-Five





Noah stood next to his desk in the great room at the stationhouse, towel-drying his hair with an old sweatshirt. His jeans and Denton PD polo shirt were soaked. Mettner was nowhere to be found. The Chief’s door was closed. At the desk that had now become hers by default, Amber sat with her small laptop, tapping away at the keys. Josie wondered what she was working on. She smiled at Josie and Gretchen as they entered. They didn’t smile back.

Gretchen said, “Fraley, you know you can go home and get changed after emergency flood calls.”

Noah grimaced. “I wasn’t on a call. The water breached the sandbags out front, and we’re still short the tube barrier we were supposed to have for around the building. Lamay and I got plastic barricades from Dalrymple Township and put them out. I don’t know how well they’ll hold up, but it’s better than nothing.”

Josie said, “We haven’t had rain all day. Maybe the water will recede soon. Hey, you know those looters you picked up the other night? Are they still down in holding?”

Noah froze, the sweatshirt in both hands, his sandy hair sticking up every which way. “Uh, yeah. They are, but, uh—”

“I already know,” Josie said, cutting him off. “I know Needle’s down there.”

Amber had stood up and now inched closer to them. “Who’s Needle?”

Noah balled up the sweatshirt and put it on his chair. “This is a personal matter. Do you mind?”

Amber gave a wan smile. “Oh, sure, sorry.”

Josie kept her eyes on Noah. “I know that’s what you were trying to tell me the other night when you came home. It’s okay. He’s the person I need to talk to.”

Noah came around the desks and stood within inches of her. Lowering his voice, he said, “You need to talk to Needle? What the hell for?”

Gretchen, too, walked over, inserting herself into their small circle. “It’s about the Vera Urban case.”

Noah looked at her. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Afraid not,” Gretchen replied.

Josie said, “He has information we need. He’s been part of the Denton drug scene since before I was born. There’s a very good chance he’ll remember Vera Urban and maybe who was supplying her with the drugs she was peddling to her salon clients.”

Noah said, “Send Gretchen. You don’t need to talk to this guy.”

Josie put a hand on her hip. “I don’t?”

Gretchen said, “He’s right, boss. I can talk to him myself.”

Josie looked from Gretchen to Noah, thrust her chin forward and said, “I’m talking to him.”

She turned to walk away, but Noah caught her hand. Quietly, he said, “You don’t have to do the hard stuff all the time. The last twenty-four hours have been… difficult.”

In the last twenty-four hours, Josie had watched biblical flooding swallow up her city; she’d been shot at; she’d been swept away; and she’d failed to save Vera Urban, the only solid lead they had in the Beverly Urban case. The culmination of those things had hollowed her out and pushed her to the brink of a mental breakdown, but she said, “Noah, it’s fine. Besides, we have a history of sorts, Needle and I. He’ll be more likely to tell me what we want to know than Gretchen. Trust me.”

He let go. “Okay, but let me have him brought up to an interview room. You can butter him up with coffee and cigarettes.”

“Fine,” Josie said.

Twenty minutes later, Josie and Gretchen walked into one of the interview rooms on the second floor. A cloud of cigarette smoke hung in the air. Larry Ezekiel Fox, the man Josie had come to think of as “Needle” sat in a chair next to the metal table centered in the room. In front of him was a half-empty paper cup of black coffee and an ashtray that already contained two cigarette butts. Josie hadn’t seen him in three years, but he looked like he had aged a full decade. He was in his mid-sixties, but a hard life of drug use, homelessness, and criminal enterprise had aged him well beyond that. His skin was tanned and wrinkled. He had unkempt, stringy gray hair and a long beard that yellowed at the edges. In Denton’s holding cells, he’d been allowed to wear his own clothes which included a drab, olive green jacket that he’d owned for as long as Josie had known him. It was threadbare and faded now, worn over a black T-shirt, dirty jeans that had seen better days, and a pair of boots that were blackened with age and grime. He smelled as if he hadn’t bathed since the last time she saw him.