Save Her Soul (Detective Josie Quinn #9)(81)
Gretchen chuckled. “One of the guys working the holding cells yesterday left an envelope on your desk.”
Josie found it on top of a pile of paperwork. Her name was on the front. She turned it over and slid a finger under the seal to open it. “How was your first night with Poppy?”
Gretchen put a hand through her hair. “She doesn’t sleep either, so I think we’ll get along just fine.”
Inside the envelope was a blank piece of printer paper. It smelled like cigarette smoke. Josie unfolded it and read it. The handwriting was surprisingly neat.
Jojo: the name is Silas. That’s all I got. – Z
Josie felt something go out of her. Some kind of tension she’d been holding onto for so long, she couldn’t remember when it first started. Maybe when she was a child. She had no idea why Needle had chosen to help her now when there was absolutely nothing in it for him, but the act brought all kinds of feelings to the surface. She pushed them back down and showed Gretchen the note. Within ten minutes, they had a driver’s license photo, rap sheet, and background check on one Silas Murphy, age fifty-five. Although he was much older in his driver’s license photo, it was definitely the same man they had seen in the photo they’d found in Beverly’s possessions, of Vera standing in her kitchen talking with a man.
His employment history showed that he’d worked at several local auto repair shops and from what they could see, he’d gotten married in 2000. They didn’t have divorce records, so it wasn’t clear how long he’d been married or if he was still married, but he was definitely the friend they’d been searching for.
Josie did more searching. “He has never legally purchased a firearm.”
“He wouldn’t be able to,” Gretchen said. “Not with his rap sheet. The prison inmate records show he’s done time for possession on several occasions and—check this out—he has a large tattoo on his back. Under description it says: skull.”
Adrenaline surged through Josie’s veins. “Let’s go find him.”
Forty
Silas Murphy’s apartment was in a six-story building in West Denton. The area was flooded, with a couple of inches of water in the streets, but the level wasn’t high enough to reach people’s homes. Now that the rain had stopped, patrol units had let traffic back into the area. Josie parked out front of Silas’s building. It had seen better days. Its brick face crumbled in several areas. Where the brick had worn away near the windows, birds had burrowed inside the walls. A set of double glass doors were centered on the first floor of the building. One of them had been broken and boarded up with plywood and duct tape. Inside was a small room filled with dented metal mailboxes, each one bearing an apartment number. Silas’s number was 612, which meant he was on the sixth floor.
Gretchen looked around. “There’s no elevator.”
Josie shook her head. “Figures.”
Josie led the way, trudging up six flights of stairs, trying to ignore the pain in her leg. She was glad for all the early morning jogs she, Noah, and Trout took. Even though she was in good shape, she felt beads of perspiration along her hairline. The stagnant air in the stairwell was hot and cloying. By the time they reached the sixth floor, sweat ran down the sides of Gretchen’s face. The hallway was at least twenty degrees cooler. Josie and Gretchen took a moment to suck in the air before they searched out Apartment 612.
Josie pounded on the door. There was no answer. They waited a few minutes, knocked again and waited. They turned when they heard the sound of the stairwell door creaking behind them. Silas Murphy stood there in a black T-shirt and jeans, a white plastic takeout bag in one hand and a set of keys in the other.
Gretchen said, “Silas Murphy.”
He dropped the bag and his keys and took off, banging through the stairwell door. Josie pushed past Gretchen and ran after him. She was faster and in better shape, even though the stitches in her thigh ached with the exertion. As she got to the stairwell, she heard his footsteps pounding down, down, down. Josie tore after him, jumping down as many steps to each landing as she safely could.
As she reached the lobby, she saw the double doors flap closed. She was gaining on him. Bursting outside, she saw him run across the street, his footfalls splashing up water. He slipped into an alley between two buildings—one condemned and the other a mirror image of his apartment house. Josie sprinted after him, running down the alley, catching a flash of his shirt before he turned left, behind the condemned building. Josie emerged into a lot flanked by high concrete walls on two sides. A dumpster lay tipped over in a two-foot puddle of murk where the floodwaters had collected with nowhere to recede to. Silas dashed across the lot toward the dumpster and jumped on top of it. He was going to scale the wall, Josie realized.
“Stop,” she yelled. “Police!”
His sneakers slipped on the surface of the dumpster, and he fell on all fours. Scrambling to his feet, he reached up and tried to grab the top of the wall. It was too high.
“Stop,” Josie said again. “Stop right there! Police!”
He jumped up, trying to reach the edge again as Josie waded through water so grimy, dirty, and greasy that it was black with a rainbow oil slick running across it. There was no time to be concerned about what was soaking through her pants into her skin and her fresh stitches. Hopping onto the dumpster, she rushed at Silas, slamming into him from behind and knocking the wind out of him. He fell forward and she stayed on him, flipping him onto his stomach and applying zip ties to his wrists.