Her Deadly Touch: An absolutely addictive crime thriller and mystery novel (Detective Josie Quinn Book 12)

by Lisa Regan

  The images that unfolded in her nightmares were real to her now in the daylight, crowding her vision. Her grandmother’s body jerking as the first round of buckshot hit her. Lisette falling and rising up again, taking the second spray of buckshot, putting herself in front of Josie with the kind of superhuman strength born of a mother’s love.

  A mother’s love.

  In all of Josie’s childhood only Lisette had loved her with such ferocity. Now she was gone. Josie felt the chasm yawn open inside her, and it was dark and bottomless. She didn’t believe Paige Rosetti when she said that the feelings were only feelings and could not harm her. The demons rising from the cleft in her soul would consume her. Hands shaking, she turned the car off and opened her door. What was a few shots of Wild Turkey to this pain?

  Her sneakered feet touched the ground of the parking lot. Shaky legs straightened, bringing her to her full height. Then she heard a noise. A small clink but so unfamiliar that it registered immediately, even through the panic building inside her. Panning the ground, she saw the small, beaded rosary bracelet that her Chief had given her when Lisette lay dying in the hospital. She bent to pick it up, closing her palm around it. The beads were dark green and polished— lovely, really—with a medal that showed a woman in flowing robes. Around her head were the words: Our Lady Untier of Knots.

  Josie wasn’t Catholic. She wasn’t even particularly religious. Between her childhood and the atrocities she saw in her job, it was difficult to believe in anything besides the depravity of human beings. Her Chief wasn’t Catholic either. He wasn’t even nice. Bob Chitwood had been hired by the Mayor four years ago. He was abrasive and quick to anger, and in the years he had been with them, he hadn’t seemed to warm up to anyone at all. But in his way, with this bracelet, he had tried to either help or comfort Josie. She wasn’t sure which. She recalled the conversation they’d had outside of the hospital as her grandmother was inside, fighting for her life.

  “I don’t understand, sir.”

  He reached forward and curled her fingers over the bracelet. “Someday, I’ll tell you the story of how I got that thing. All you need to know right now is that even if you never prayed a day in your life, when someone you love is dying, you learn to pray pretty damn fast. Someone who believed very deeply in the power of prayer gave that to me, and at the time, it was a great comfort. Maybe it won’t mean shit to you. I don’t know. Regardless, if this is Lisette’s time, nothing’s gonna keep her here, but you? You’re gonna need all the help you can get. You hang onto that until you’re ready to give it back to me, and Quinn, I do want that back.”

  “How will I know when I’m ready to give it back?” Josie asked.

  Chitwood started walking away. Over his shoulder, he said, “Oh, you’ll know.”

  Josie still had no idea what he’d been trying to accomplish or how she would know when to give it back. It felt like some kind of test, and as she frequently feared when it came to Chief Chitwood, she was afraid she’d fail.

  What she did know was that it wasn’t time to give the bracelet back now. Not yet.

  “I’m not ready,” she muttered, squeezing the warm beads in her hand.

  “Miss? You okay?” said a man walking past. He stopped a few feet away from her.

  Josie looked around, her reverie broken. Her car door hung open and she stood beside it, clothes rumpled and now stiff with dried sweat, fisting a rosary bracelet. She forced a smile for the stranger.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Thanks. I’m fine. I—I need to go home.”

  She got back into her car and tucked the bracelet into her pocket again. At home, she let Trout, their Boston Terrier, cover her face with kisses. She petted him and gave him all the requisite attention. Then she showered and ordered a pizza. By the time she was settled at the kitchen table googling Krystal Duncan, Noah came home. He greeted Trout and walked into the kitchen, planting a kiss on Josie’s head before snatching up a slice of pizza.

  “You had an interesting day,” he said.

  “I did,” said Josie. “Any news on the Krystal Duncan case?”

  “Nope,” Noah said. “Gretchen’s trying to figure out what ‘Pritch’ means. She’s meeting Dr. Feist at ten tomorrow morning to go over the autopsy findings.”

  “I’ll be there,” said Josie.

  Chapter Seven

  The city morgue was located in the basement of Denton Memorial Hospital. The hospital itself sat high on a hill overlooking the city. All the other floors provided beautiful views of the small metropolis of Denton and its surrounding mountains, but the basement was windowless and looked like something out of a horror movie with its grimy yellowed floor tiles and drab, white-tiled walls, now gray with age and dirt. It was by far the quietest place in the building. Josie’s and Gretchen’s footsteps echoed in the long hall as they made their way to the morgue, which consisted of one very large exam room, a walk-in freezer area for holding bodies, and Dr. Feist’s office.

  They found Dr. Feist in the exam room, leaning over a laptop on one of the stainless-steel countertops that lined the back wall. She wore her usual dark blue scrubs. Her silver-blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail. “Detectives,” she greeted them with a smile. “Come in.”

  The smell of the room, even absent any dead bodies, always curdled any food or drink in Josie’s stomach. Even the chemicals that Dr. Feist and her assistant used to routinely disinfect the place could not cover the ever-present stench of putrefaction. Still, Josie managed a smile for the doctor. “It’s good to see you back, Josie,” Dr. Feist said.

  Josie nodded. Her gaze wandered to the examination tables. One was empty but the other held a body lying flat, a sheet covering it.

  “That’s her,” Dr. Feist said. “I was able to break the rigor mortis. I was also able to positively identify her with ID provided by your department, which I understand was found in her home.”

  “Yes,” said Gretchen.

  “Cause of death is as I predicted: carbon monoxide poisoning. The findings are pretty characteristic. Her organs, musculature, and viscera had the cherry-red coloring typically seen in those kinds of deaths. She also had characteristic pulmonary edema and organ congestion. A measurement of her level of carboxyhemoglobin will tell us how much carbon monoxide she had in her blood, but I don’t have the equipment to do those tests here, so I’ve sent some blood samples off to the police lab, but the results may take some time. My report won’t be finalized until I’ve got those and the other standard toxicology results back, but I can tell you with certainty that this woman died from carbon monoxide poisoning. The manner of death is homicide. Officer Chan was correct, the substance on her mouth was wax. As I told you yesterday, your team sent some off for analysis, but it looks as though it was candle wax. Whoever did this to her poured it into her mouth.”

  Josie winced. “Were you able to determine whether or not they did that while she was alive?”

  Dr. Feist shook her head. “It’s very difficult to determine. There are some burns deeper in her throat. It took me a long time to dig the wax out, and I wasn’t able to get all of it. There’s damage to her uvula, epiglottis, and pharynx—all the structures toward the back of her mouth— but not so much her gums or inside of her cheeks, or even her lips.”

  Gretchen’s notebook was out, and she scribbled as Dr. Feist spoke but now she paused, pen in the air, and said, “How is that possible? Wouldn’t she be struggling? Thrashing? There’s no way I would let someone pour hot wax down my throat without a fight.”

  “Unless someone was holding your head while someone else poured,” Josie suggested.

  Dr. Feist nodded. “Yes, that could be, but given the partial burning, it’s more likely that the wax was used as she expired.”

  “You mean in the moment of her death,” Gretchen said.

  “Yes. You must remember she would have been extremely disoriented. Carbon monoxide poisoning causes headaches, nausea, dizziness, weakness, fatigue. If the wax was poured into her throat as she was
dying, it’s likely she didn’t even know what was happening at that point. That would account for how carefully it was poured, so as to injure the structures deeper in her throat and mouth but not so much inside her cheeks or her lips.”

  Josie asked, “Is there any way to know how long she was exposed to carbon monoxide?”

  Dr. Feist shook her head. “It depends on the size of the structure the person is in when they’re exposed and the concentration of carbon monoxide. It could take less than an hour or it could take several hours. There’s really no way to know for certain. In all of the cases I’ve seen in my career, they’ve either been suicide or accidental and the person was found where the poisoning and death occurred. With Krystal Duncan, I have no idea.”

  Gretchen sighed. “What about time of death?”

  Dr. Feist frowned. “That’s a little tricky. I can’t narrow it down as much as I’d like but I can tell you this: when she was found, she was in full rigor, which usually appears between one and six hours after death.”

  “That’s a huge window,” Josie said.

  Dr. Feist held up a hand. “But the average is two to four hours. Livor mortis and rigor mortis are usually seen together. As you know, livor mortis is when the blood settles into the lowest parts of the body and causes the discoloration. This occurs within thirty minutes to four hours after death and becomes fixed between eight and twelve hours. When livor mortis becomes fixed, moving the body will not change the area of discoloration.”

  Gretchen said, “But before it’s fixed, if you move the body, the area of discoloration will change.”

  “Right,” said Dr. Feist.

  Josie said, “What happened when Krystal Duncan’s body was moved from the cemetery to the morgue?”

  “The blood settled elsewhere,” Dr. Feist said. “Here.” She folded back the right side of the sheet to expose Krystal’s arm, which now lay at her side, palm down. Dr. Feist lifted the arm so that they could see the word “Pritch” written on the inner forearm. Where the skin had been pale at the cemetery, it was now a bright red. “Livor was not fixed when Josie found her yesterday morning. She was, however, in rigor. She would have had to have died and been left posed for some time in order to go into rigor while in this position. It’s likely that whoever brought her to the cemetery probably had the same trouble that the EMTs had with her yesterday.”

  Josie said, “You mean she was in the kneeling position when the killer moved her.”

  “I believe so,” said Dr. Feist. “The way that you found her in the cemetery is the way she was positioned when she died. The killer poured wax down her throat as she was dying, then left her like that for somewhere between one and four hours, at which point she went into rigor and then she was moved.”

  “So the killer exposed her to enough carbon monoxide for long enough to kill her, sealed her airway and her lips with wax as she was kneeling, and then left her like that for hours.”

  “Yes,” said Dr. Feist. “That’s my assumption.”

  “She was moved after rigor set in but before livor was fixed. That means when the boss found her in the cemetery yesterday morning at ten, she’d been dead less than eight hours,” said Gretchen. “That’s not a very narrow window, doc.”

  “I’m afraid that I can’t narrow it much more than that. Even her body temperature doesn’t tell me enough for me to give you a more specific time frame. Typically, the body temperature falls about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit per hour after death, but it will fall faster if the body is left in a cool area. Assuming she was moved from a cool area to the cemetery, the temperature would have begun to rise again the longer she was out in the heat. It’s simply not a reliable factor in determining the precise time of death in this case.”

  Josie said, “Any sign of sexual assault?”

  “No, none.”

  “Was there anything else? Skin under her nails? Anything?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Dr. Feist said. “Nothing that would help you identify the killer. But there is one more thing of note.” She reached for Krystal’s hand, separating her middle finger from the others and holding it so they could see the side of the first knuckle. “I think that Krystal was right-handed. You can see a callous here, which is exactly where a pen or pencil would rest when she was writing.”

  Gretchen said, “I write with my right hand. I don’t have a callous.”

  “Not everyone does. It’s possible she just held her pens too tightly and developed one, or did a lot of note-taking at her job. She also has a scar on her palm from what I believe is a carpal tunnel release surgery.” Dr. Feist gently turned Krystal’s hand up so they could see her palm. It was cherry red from having lain palm-down in the morgue until livor became fixed, but Josie could see the thin silver scar in the center of her palm where it met the wrist. “Carpal tunnel syndrome is most likely to develop in the writing hand.”

  Josie said, “If she was right-handed then she most likely did not write on her own arm.”

  “Precisely,” said Dr. Feist. Her hand lingered over Krystal’s body. Her head gave a small shake. “Sad,” she muttered, almost as if to herself. Then she forced a smile and turned to them. “I’m afraid that’s all I can give you, detectives.”

  “We’ll work with it,” Gretchen promised her.

  Chapter Eight

  In the parking lot, they sat in Gretchen’s car with the air conditioning blasting while Gretchen took a few more notes. It was going to be another scorcher; the heat and humidity were already nearly unbearable and it wasn’t even noon.

  Josie said, “This killer is trying to send some kind of message.”

  “I agree,” said Gretchen without looking up from her notes. “The wax seals her lips. You don’t pour wax down someone’s throat when they’re already taking their last breaths for nothing.”

  “The carbon monoxide poisoning is strange, don’t you think?” Josie asked. “I’ve never seen this—not a murder. Like you said, it’s always accidental or suicide. Whoever did this would need an enclosed area that they could fill with carbon monoxide.”

  “Right. The easiest setup would be a garage, I’d think. Pull a car right in and leave it running,” Gretchen replied. She looked up from her notes, tapping her pen against the pad. “What are we looking at here, psychologically? Did he use carbon monoxide poisoning because it was less violent and messy than a shooting or stabbing?”

  “Less intimate than strangling or smothering,” Josie added. “Or did he use it because he wanted to watch her suffer and decline slowly?”

  “Good point. Given the wax and the message on her arm, leaving her at her own daughter’s graveside, I’m not sure this killer is turned off by overt violence.”

  “We’re back to the message he’s trying to send, then,” said Josie. “Was he trying to shut her up with the wax?”

  Gretchen set her notepad and pen on the console and put the car in drive, slowly pulling out of their parking space. “That would make sense but then why leave a message on her arm? Why leave her in a public place like that?”

  “Because the killer wants us to know whatever Krystal knew,” Josie said. “Maybe it’s not that he was trying to shut her up but that he wanted us to know that she was hiding something? Her lips were sealed because she was keeping a secret?”

  Gretchen drove down the long road that led from the hospital back into town. “Then why leave such an obscure clue? Pritch. What does it even mean? Is it a name? A place? Some kind of inside thing?”

  Josie said, “Did you talk to her coworkers again last night?”

  “I talked to her boss,” said Gretchen. “Everyone else was gone for the day. He didn’t know the significance of ‘Pritch,’ but he said he would have someone on the staff make copies of all the files Krystal was working on when she disappeared.” She glanced at the clock on her dashboard. “Actually, we could probably swing by there now and talk to a few more people, get those files.”

  “When Krystal went missing, you went through the usual que
stions with the rest of the staff, right?” Josie asked.

  “Yeah,” answered Gretchen. “I went through those questions with every person who knew her: coworkers, neighbors, the parents in her support group. Was she prone to disappearing for long periods of time? No. Did they know of anyone who might have been giving her trouble? No. Had she been feuding with anyone or had bad blood with someone? Friends, ex-boyfriends, neighbors, clients, anyone? No. Had she expressed any concerns about being followed or stalked recently? No. Could they think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt her? No. We were looking at all dead ends before Dee Tenney stumbled on her in the cemetery.”

  “I know you said she was a single mother, but did she have any kind of contact with Bianca’s dad? Child support? Anything? What about boyfriends or ex-boyfriends who were giving her trouble?”

  “Nothing,” said Gretchen. “One of her coworkers—a woman named Carly who was evidently closest to Krystal—told us that Bianca was the result of a one-night stand while on vacation in Florida. Krystal never even got in touch with him to tell him about the pregnancy, so that was a complete dead end. That same coworker told us she had had a couple of boyfriends when Bianca was a toddler but stopped dating once Bianca was school-aged. Not enough time or patience. Her focus was on her daughter. The only thing Carly said was that Krystal was not the same since Bianca’s death and that all of them worried about her possibly trying to kill herself. We were able to get into her work and personal email as well as her social media accounts, but we didn’t find anything useful. You can look at her Facebook page. We got full access to her account but there wasn’t much more than what she made public.”