by Lisa Regan
Gretchen stood up. “The boss is right. Amber, let’s prepare something. We’ll run it by the Chief and then you and he can do a press conference while the rest of us are out running down these leads.”
Amber smiled wryly. “Oh, working with the Chief. Happy day.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Noah and Mettner left, dodging the press outside while Gretchen and Amber disappeared into the Chief’s office. Josie booted up her computer and found the police files on the West Denton bus crash. The first 911 calls had come in between 3:30 and 3:45 p.m. as students were dropped off at their designated bus stops, ran home, and told their parents that Mr. Lesko had been slurring his words and driving erratically. At 3:47, a 911 call came in from a driver who had almost been sideswiped by the bus. Units were dispatched by 3:50 p.m. Before they could intercept the bus, the crash occurred. At 3:58 p.m. as the final six children were due to be dropped off—Heidi Byrne, Gail Tenney, Nevin Palazzo, Bianca Duncan, and Wallace and Frankie Cammack—the bus careened past the bus stop, jumped the curb, flipped once, and then the back half of the bus wrapped around a large sycamore tree in someone’s yard. The first units arrived on site by 4:05 p.m. By that time, the owner of the house whose yard the bus ended up in had come out and started trying to pull the children from the wreckage.
But it was too late.
Gail, Nevin, Bianca, Wallace, and Frankie were all killed instantly. Heidi was transported by ambulance to Denton Memorial where she stayed for a week. She sustained a concussion, several broken ribs, and a laceration to her spleen, which, thankfully, healed. Virgil Lesko was unconscious at the scene. Gretchen spoke to him later in the hospital. At first, many people speculated in the press that he had had some kind of medical event, perhaps a stroke, but it became clear, at least to Gretchen and the hospital staff treating Lesko, that he had been under the influence of both alcohol and oxycodone. In his first statement to Gretchen, he admitted to having one drink at lunch before going on his afternoon route but insisted that he hadn’t taken anything else, certainly not any narcotics. When asked if he routinely drank and drove his school bus, he answered, “No, of course not.” Gretchen asked him why he had had a drink that day. Her notes read: “Mr. Lesko relates that he was upset due to his mother being placed in hospice care that morning.” More notes indicated that Lesko stated that his elderly mother lived with him and had been battling breast cancer for several years.
Josie continued to scroll through the materials in the file, the photos from the scene nearly bringing her breakfast back up. Clicking through those, she came to photos of Lesko’s vehicle, which he had left at the bus depot when he took his bus for the afternoon route. There were no empty liquor bottles or prescription oxycodone bottles inside the vehicle. There was some sporting equipment—the gear he used to umpire Little League and softball games; a baseball cap; some fast-food wrappers; a crumpled receipt from the gas station; and a stack of opened mail, which included an electric bill and a statement from Denton Memorial Hospital.
“What do you think?” Gretchen asked, peering over Josie’s shoulder.
Startled, Josie looked up. “Seems cut and dried. I could see why a killer might target Virgil Lesko or his family, but not the parents of the kids who were killed. I don’t get this.”
Gretchen sighed. “Maybe Mett is right. Maybe the accident business is a form of distraction.”
“And what?” Josie asked. “We have a serial killer on the loose? Someone targeting grieving mothers?”
“Don’t use the S word just yet,” Gretchen said with a dry laugh.
“All right,” Josie said. “But it can’t be a coincidence that two of these mothers went missing in the last week.”
“But the other thing we need to consider is that almost all the details about the accident were known to everyone in the community. Anyone in that West Denton neighborhood would have had access to the families and could potentially know things not reported in the press. Maybe this is someone using the accident as a smoke screen. Killing Krystal, taking Faye, and wanting us to look at the accident because then we’re not looking for them.”
“True,” Josie agreed. “We don’t want to get tunnel vision, put all our focus on the accident, and miss something right in front of us. But we should still look closely at the accident, even just to get it out of the way.”
“You’ve got the file there,” Gretchen said.
“No,” said Josie. “I want to drive the route the bus took that day.”
To her credit or maybe because they had no other leads, Gretchen shrugged and said, “Let’s go.”
The parking lot was mercifully empty now that reporters would get a full presser in an hour. Gretchen drove them to the bus depot, which was a large, gated lot in South Denton filled with big yellow school buses and a tiny, flat-roofed building that served as an office. Gretchen pulled up outside the gates, now locked since it was summer and schools were closed. “Virgil went home between his morning route and his afternoon route to tend to his mother.”
“Is she still alive?” Josie asked.
“No. She passed two months after the accident. Ted Lesko took care of the arrangements since Virgil was in jail by then.”
“So how does this go?” Josie asked. “He shows up, parks outside that building, and takes his bus?”
“He clocks in and then he takes his bus,” Gretchen corrected. “There’s usually a supervisor on duty, but he wasn’t there that afternoon. His wife was having a baby, so he left the depot unattended for the afternoon shift. He didn’t think it would be a problem—all the drivers knew what to do, and he had assigned one of the last drivers in to lock up the gate at the end of the day.”
“Was anyone else here when Virgil clocked in?”
“No,” Gretchen said. “He was late. All the other drivers had clocked in, taken their buses, and left.”
“Jesus,” Josie said. “If the supervisor had been here that day—”
“He might have noticed that Virgil was impaired,” Gretchen filled in. “Yeah. Tragic.”
Josie closed her eyes, feeling a vise tighten around her chest. If only, if only. If only the supervisor’s wife hadn’t gone into labor that day. If only Nathan hadn’t canceled the orthodontist appointments that day at least three of the children would still be alive. If only Gloria hadn’t forgotten her precious planner and gone home to get it. She wouldn’t have seen the missing PlayStation and called Nathan, insisting he cancel the appointments. But how far did it go? Josie wondered. If only the person stealing things from West Denton homes hadn’t taken the PlayStation that day. If only Virgil Lesko’s mother hadn’t been put in hospice care that morning.
If only she had told Lisette to go back to her hotel room the night she was shot.
“Boss?” Gretchen said. “You okay?”
Josie forced the images of Lisette’s body jerking from the buckshot out of her brain and turned her attention back to the crash. Something was niggling at the back of her mind. “If only, if only,” she muttered.
Gretchen’s hand was warm on Josie’s forearm. “Josie.”
The pieces in her head shifted into place. Her eyes snapped open. “Virgil Lesko’s mother didn’t go into hospice care that day.”
“What?”
“When I was looking at the file right before we left there were photos from Virgil’s car. He had mail. The ERT took photos of it, and one of the pieces of mail was a statement from Denton Memorial. It was for home hospice care for the month before the accident.”
“Are you sure?” Gretchen asked.
“Yes,” Josie said. “I’m sure. I mean, we can check when we get back, but I’m pretty certain.”
“Why would Virgil Lesko lie about the reason he had a drink that day?” Gretchen said.
“I don’t know. Maybe he drank regularly and that was the first time he got caught?”
“He had a lot of oxycodone in his system.”
“Which he denied taking,” Josie pointed out.
Gretchen pulled away and drove past Denton West Elementary School. “He gets to the school, where the kids are already waiting since he was late.”
She moved on, weaving through the streets of West Denton, occasionally checking her phone for the coordinates of the various bus stops, which she had programmed into her GPS app before they left the station. “The stops are all on corners that are central to a three- or four-block radius. So each time he stops, he lets off between three and six kids and they either walk home from the stop or the parents are there, waiting. That day, no parents were waiting.”
If only, Josie thought. If only one parent had been waiting at one bus stop that day. Maybe they would have seen something was off about Lesko and stopped him from going any further.
“This is the third stop,” Gretchen said, pulling up to another idyllic corner in West Denton. “This is where the kids got off and ran home to tell their folks that something was wrong with Mr. Lesko.”
She drove four blocks and rolled to a stop at a red light. “Here is where he almost sideswiped another vehicle. That driver called 911.”
“How many more stops?” Josie asked.
The light turned green, and Gretchen accelerated through the intersection. “Two. The next stop he lets off three children, leaving only Heidi, Gail, Nevin, Bianca, Wallace, and Frankie on the bus. Then the stop after that—the final stop—he crashes.”
Gretchen made a right onto a street named Tallon that was lined with houses on one side and trees on the other. Along the road a huge sign read “Land for Sale. Fifty Acres” with a phone number beneath it. Gretchen said, “This has been for sale forever. I read about it in the paper. Developers want to put apartment buildings up, but the local community wants green space. They’ve been fighting over it for ten years.”
Near the end of the block was an opening in the forest where a span of packed mud led to a clearing on the other side of the tree line. A flash of pink caught Josie’s eye.
“Stop,” she said.
“What?”
“Turn around,” Josie told her. “Go back to that clearing.”
Gretchen checked her mirrors and swung the car around. She pulled onto the mud drive. They bumped along it until they came to the other side of the trees where a large swath of land had been cleared—now just grass and dirt.
Josie’s heart skipped. Beside her Gretchen whispered, “Sweet Jesus.”
In the middle of the clearing, on her knees with her head tipped back, dead eyes fixed on the sky, was Faye Palazzo.
Chapter Twenty-Six
As they got out of the car, Gretchen was already on her phone, calling for units, an ambulance, the ERT, and Dr. Feist, instructing everyone to keep the news off the radio. Josie approached Faye’s body, feeling a chill despite the punishing August heat. Like Krystal Duncan, Faye’s skin was pink. She looked alive and healthy until Josie got close enough to see the wax dried in droplets along her lips and chin and her milky, sightless eyes. Her brown hair hung loose down her back. A diamond stud earring sparkled in her right ear, but the one in her left ear was missing. Fingerprint-sized bruises lined the underside of her chin. Her arms were laid out on her thighs, palms and forearms up. More light purple bruises, these larger, marred her skin.
Faye Palazzo had put up a fight.
Along the inside of one of her forearms was a name spelled out in black marker: GAIL.
“Gail Tenney,” Josie mumbled, letting out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Sadness swept through her.
Gretchen walked up behind her. “How did you see her? From the car?”
“I didn’t,” Josie said. “I saw something pink through the trees.”
They both turned in the direction they had come and walked ten feet to the right where they had a clear view of the road and any cars passing by. Directly across from the mud drive was a wide space between two neighboring houses on the other side of the road. Faye had been displayed but not so prominently that she would be seen immediately by the first passing motorist. She also wouldn’t have been seen from the window of one of the houses facing this area. Maybe not right away. It was possible that at some point one of the neighbors might have noticed the same ribbon of pink fabric through the trees and gone investigating.
Josie spun slowly, taking in the clearing. Behind Faye was a large dirt pile and then more trees. There were tire tracks in the mud, but they were numerous, each one running over the other, leaving only fragments. No clear tire tracks to cast. “Shit,” she said.
Gretchen said, “I don’t get it. What’s the significance of this place?”
Josie said, “Maybe they didn’t want to leave her at the cemetery because there was too much traffic? That was risky to begin with. Or maybe because this is on the bus route? Anyone in this clearing would have been able to see the bus pass that day.”
“I don’t—”
Gretchen’s sentence was cut off by the sound of an engine revving. A white pickup truck swung onto the dirt path and came barreling toward them. The sun glared off the windshield, making it impossible to make out who was behind the wheel. It sped past Gretchen’s car without slowing, heading directly toward Josie and Gretchen. Josie’s body moved without thought, and she threw herself into Gretchen, tackling her to the ground. The pickup kept going. Josie rolled off Gretchen and pulled her Glock from her side holster in one fluid motion, positioned on her back, head up, both hands pointing the gun toward the truck, which smashed into the dirt pile in front of the trees.
Next to Josie, Gretchen struggled to breathe. The wind had been knocked out of her. Before Josie could tend to her, the driver’s side of the truck swung open with a screeching sound. “Stop right there,” Josie shouted, aiming for the truck’s cab. “Freeze! Police. Put your hands up.”
Heidi Byrne stumbled out of the truck and fell to the ground on all fours. Blood poured from a gash in her forehead. Josie lowered her weapon and jumped to her feet. Holding her gun pointed downward at her side, she ran to the girl.
“Heidi? What’s going on? What are you doing?”
Josie looked into the cab of the truck, but it was empty. A thin column of smoke rose from the compacted hood. She holstered her weapon, reached into the truck, and turned it off, pocketing the keys, and then put a hand on Heidi’s trembling back. Blood dripped from the girl’s head into the dirt. She looked up at Josie. “Is that—is that Mrs. Palazzo?”
Josie’s gaze turned toward Faye’s body—still upright, kneeling, with her hands in her lap and her head tipped back. Josie moved until she was between Heidi and Faye. “Yes,” she answered. Pulling at the hem of her polo shirt, she squatted and pressed it to Heidi’s head, trying to stop the bleeding. “What are you doing here, Heidi? Whose truck is that? You’re not even old enough to drive.”
Heidi sat back and Josie followed, trying to keep the tail of her shirt pressed to the wound on her forehead. “What happened to her?”
“We don’t know,” Josie answered. She looked back to see Gretchen hauling herself to her feet and trudging over.
Heidi looked up at Gretchen as she approached. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to—I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
“Were you following us?” Gretchen asked.
Josie lifted her shirt tail, happy to see that the blood flow was slowing down. Gretchen pulled a tissue from one of her pockets and gave it to Heidi. “Thank you,” Heidi said, replacing Josie’s shirt with the tissue. “Yeah, I was following you. I’m sorry.”
“From the police station?” Josie asked.
“I wanted to talk to you but when I got there, there were all those reporters. Then they left, but I still felt weird so I just tailed you. Then I got stuck at a light and lost you. I was passing this opening when I thought I saw your car. I swerved. I didn’t mean to speed, but then I saw Mrs. Palazzo and I couldn’t—I just lost control, and I—”
&n
bsp; Josie said, “Whose truck is that?”
“My dad’s,” Heidi said matter-of-factly. She pulled the tissue away from her head, but it was still bleeding. Pressing it back in place, she said, “He’s got two. He says the alternator is going on this one, but I’ve never had a problem with it.”
Gretchen and Josie looked at one another, and Josie knew that Gretchen was thinking the same thing she was: “never had a problem” implied that Heidi had been using it often. “Heidi,” said Josie. “How often do you drive your dad’s truck?”
They all turned their heads toward the sound of tires over dirt. Several police vehicles pulled into the clearing, much like the caravan that had appeared at the cemetery the day Dee Tenney and Josie discovered Krystal’s body.
Heidi said, “I don’t know. I mean… sometimes.”
The vehicles parked and Josie noted the patrol officers emerging from their cars, as well as Hummel and a couple of other members of the ERT. Gretchen jogged over to them.
Josie looked back down at Heidi. “Does your dad know that you drive his truck?”
From under the tissue, Heidi rolled her eyes. “Duh. Of course not.”
“You’re what? Fourteen? You know that driving around without a license or even a permit is illegal, right? You almost killed me and my colleague today, Heidi.”
Her lower lip quivered. “I didn’t mean to, I swear it. I am always very careful. I’ve never even had a problem until today. I would definitely have stopped, but I got distracted when I saw Mrs. Palazzo.” She craned her neck to look around Josie. “Are you sure she’s dead?”
In spite of herself, Josie looked back at Faye’s body. Hummel was directing a couple of uniformed officers where to cordon off the perimeter of the scene with yellow tape. Beyond him, an ambulance and Dr. Feist’s truck pulled in. “Yes,” Josie said. “I’m so sorry, Heidi, but Mrs. Palazzo is dead.”