by Lisa Regan
Gretchen said, “That’s probably going to be just about every barn, Chief.”
Chitwood huffed, glaring at her. “You have a better idea, Palmer?”
Gretchen didn’t respond, instead sitting down at her desk and booting up her computer to write up some reports.
Mettner said, “I’ll be on the lookout for a diamond earring as well.”
Chitwood added, “Anyone who won’t let you take a look around their barn is a red flag, you got that?”
“Sure thing,” Mettner said, jogging off to the stairwell.
Chitwood disappeared into his office, door slamming. Josie’s cell phone chirped with a text message. “It’s Noah,” she told Gretchen. “He’s bringing early dinner, and he said he went over to Krystal Duncan’s law firm and started going through the files that they didn’t give us—the files Krystal wasn’t working on directly. Apparently he found something in those files.”
“Well, I hope it’s good,” muttered Gretchen. “The lead, not the dinner. Actually, both better be good.”
The stairwell door swung open, and a short whistle sounded. Josie looked over to see Drake motioning toward her. “Hey,” he said. “I’ve got Dee Tenney downstairs if you want to talk to her. You know, about any secrets she might be hiding?”
Josie laughed as she walked over to him and followed him into the stairwell. “It’s not usually that easy,” she told him. “People don’t generally like to tell their secrets to police.”
Drake led the way down to the first floor. He pulled up short outside the door to the conference room and turned back to Josie. “Amber’s in there with her now finalizing what we’re going to say to the press.”
“She agreed to go public with what Miles was doing?”
Drake nodded. “It was a hard sell. She’s still in a little bit of denial that Miles had let things get so bad without her knowing anything at all. She also has zero desire to deal with the press. All the parents had enough of that after the bus crash, she said.”
Josie put a hand on her hip. “How’d you convince her then?”
“Not me,” Drake said, pointing to his chest. “Your crack press liaison in there did the job. She told Dee it was strictly an issue of safety, to keep herself and anyone else she cared about alive and unharmed.”
“It was Heidi, then,” Josie said, thinking of how many times Corey Byrne had said those words when they interviewed him.
Drake laughed. “Yeah, that kid’s something else. Wouldn’t leave Dee’s side. Listened to every word. Mouthed off like crazy.” His appreciative smile told Josie that he wasn’t annoyed by Heidi in the least. In fact, Josie detected a note of admiration in his voice. “Honestly, if Dee didn’t care about that girl so much, I think she’d stand outside waiting for Cerberus to come kill her.”
“Yeah,” said Josie. “I got that impression, too. Is Heidi here with her now?”
“No, she had to go to camp for the day. She said she’d stop by Gloria Cammack’s house to see Dee tonight.”
The door to the conference room swung open and Amber stepped through it, her laptop tucked under one arm. “She’s all yours,” she told them.
Drake motioned for Josie to go inside. “After you.”
Dee sat in one of the executive chairs, looking small and insubstantial. Her skin was sallow, her hair greasy. Josie wondered if she had slept or bathed since they last saw her. She looked up at Josie, hope filling her wide eyes. “Did you find Miles? Is he okay?”
Josie sat down next to her while Drake lingered near the door. “I’m afraid not, Dee, but the FBI is looking for him and they’ve got a lot more resources than we do.”
The hope in her eyes extinguished. She fingered her wedding band. “I don’t even know if I want to see him again. We weren’t together anymore but not because I stopped loving him. It was just that once Gail died, everything fell apart.”
“Unfortunately, that’s very common following the death of a child,” Josie said. “I’m so sorry, Dee.”
“Do you believe me?” Dee asked, her voice taking on a sudden aggressiveness. “’Cause if you don’t believe me, how will anyone else? The press, the public, this… this crime syndicate?”
“Believe you about what?” Josie asked.
Dee leaned closer to Josie. “That I didn’t know what Miles was doing or how bad things were financially.”
“Dee, it’s not my place to—” Josie began.
“No one is going to believe I didn’t know, but you have to understand, I was a housewife Gail’s entire life. Miles worked. He handled all the finances. That was his job, his role. My job was to be Gail’s mother. I never wanted for anything. Neither did Gail. Anything we asked for, Miles made it possible. We were happy. I had no reason to doubt, to suspect—” She broke off as a sob erupted from her throat. She buried her face in her hands.
Drake slid a box of tissues along the table. Josie caught them and held them in her lap, waiting for Dee to look back up. She said, “You trusted your husband, Dee. There’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t think anyone can fault you for that. People don’t usually marry people they don’t trust.”
Dee looked up and barked a little laugh. She took a tissue from the box and wiped her cheeks. “I guess that’s true.”
Josie cast about in her mind for a subtle way to ask Dee if she had any secrets that a killer would want exposed, but came up short. She decided to ease back into the subject of secrets by continuing on with some of the things Miles had kept from her.
“While I’m here,” Josie started. “I just wanted to ask you about Ted Lesko. Someone told us that before the accident, they saw him and your husband together. When we asked Ted about that, he admitted that he’d been helping Miles sell or pawn things to make money. Did you know Ted as well?”
Dee put her hands in her lap and sniffled. “No, no. Ted wasn’t helping Miles. Oh, and yes, I knew who Ted was because Virgil had brought him to a couple of parties at our house when he first got out of prison. Did you know he was in prison?”
“Yes,” Josie said. “He mentioned it.”
“Oh, I’m sure he did. What did he tell you it was for? Jaywalking? Virgil told me about it, you know. Years ago, right before Ted came home. He was so embarrassed and so worried that Ted would be worse off once he got out than he was when he went in. There was some girl Ted became obsessed with while he was in college in Philadelphia. He used to watch her through her windows, like a peeping Tom. He followed her everywhere, stalked her on social media. He even stalked her friends. It was an ugly situation. He stole things out of her apartment, too.”
Josie asked, “Did Virgil tell you how he met the girl? Was it someone he’d been dating?”
Dee waved a hand in the air. “I don’t know. Virgil never said. I just know it was bad. Creepy.” She shuddered. “Ted Lesko is creepy. I still can’t believe they didn’t put him on the sex offender registry, although I know Virgil was grateful for that. I always thought, what if he escalates from stalking to attacking some poor woman? But he was Virgil’s son and when it comes to your kids, you just want what’s best for them, no matter what. But Ted still gave me the creeps.”
“Well, you knew he was an ex-con,” Josie pointed out. “What makes you think he wasn’t helping Miles?”
Dee stared at Josie as if she was missing a very obvious fact. “He was in prison for stalking women, not for selling stolen goods.”
From the doorway, Josie heard Drake stifle a laugh. She kept her own expression neutral. “Sometimes criminals branch out,” she told Dee.
Dee shook her head. “No, no. He was up to his old ways. I—I didn’t want to say anything to anyone because it’s over now and it doesn’t matter, and it stopped after the accident, but I saw him. I saw Ted.”
“What do you mean?” Josie asked. “Saw him where? Doing what?”
“Outside of our house. In the evenings. He would just be out there, lurking. I sent Miles out there a few times to talk to him—I didn’t want to call 9
11 because of Virgil—but he always left as soon as Miles went out there. The other day when I heard someone out there, for a moment, I thought maybe it was Ted again, but I didn’t see anyone. The FBI thinks it was probably someone from that criminal organization. Cerberus. But I’m telling you, before the accident Ted was regularly stalking me.”
“Dee,” Josie said. “Ted wasn’t stalking you. He was waiting for Miles. Someone had seen them exchanging goods at their old meeting place so they stopped going there. Miles told Ted to come to the house.”
Dee folded her arms across her chest. “Who told you that? Ted? You’re going to believe him over me? I know what I saw, and besides, Virgil told me I was right.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like I said, I didn’t want to call 911 and get Ted in trouble. I knew how badly Virgil wanted him to get better, to lead a normal life. I was a parent, too. I understood that. When I saw him hanging out around the house, I went to Virgil instead of the police. I told him what was happening, and he told me he would look into it. He even thanked me for coming to him first. About a week later, I talked to him at the bus stop. Our kids were always the last to be dropped off. He asked me to stay for a minute. I sent Gail walking the rest of the way to the house and talked with him. He was upset. Really upset. He said he’d found proof of what I said. Proof that Ted was stalking again.”
“What kind of proof?” Josie asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know, to tell you the truth. He just told me that he would handle it and if he couldn’t, he’d definitely get the police involved. I trusted him. Then the accident happened, and well, I could care less what Ted Lesko does to me or anyone else.”
Josie’s heart raced. She said, “When was this? What day did you have this conversation with Virgil?”
Dee took a moment to think about it. Then she said, “The day before the bus crash.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Back upstairs, Josie found Gretchen and recapped the conversation with Dee Tenney. Noah appeared with bags of takeout and started spreading them across the desks, listening to the update. Even as Josie talked, the smell of food wafted toward her, making her stomach grumble. As soon as she finished speaking, she dug into one of the takeout containers, letting Gretchen take in the new developments.
Gretchen said, “Either Ted Lesko is lying about what he was doing at Dee Tenney’s house on those nights or Dee Tenney completely misunderstood what was happening.”
“That’s what I thought,” Josie said. “But if that were true then what the hell did Virgil find that made him think that Ted was stalking women again?”
Noah plopped into his desk chair and threw his feet onto his desk. “We have an independent witness in Corey Byrne who confirmed Ted was helping Miles and Ted admitted to it. Why else would he be at the Tenney household?”
Gretchen shrugged. “Because deep in his heart, he’s a stalker? You know, it’s possible he was assisting Miles in his criminal enterprises and stalking women on his own time.”
“That is true,” Josie said.
“What about the original case against Ted Lesko?” Noah asked. “Didn’t you say that Ted told you the whole thing came about as a result of a break-up? You just told us that Dee Tenney said he was stalking ‘some girl.’ It would be easy enough to check on that and find out if Ted was lying about it being an ex-girlfriend or not.”
Gretchen said, “But he still stalked her.”
“Yeah,” Noah agreed. “I’m not suggesting it was right, but someone who stalks an ex-girlfriend may not go on to stalk strangers or casual acquaintances. It’s very possible that Dee Tenney was biased against Ted because Virgil had confided so much to her about his criminal history. She also didn’t know that Miles was using Ted to sell stolen goods. She could have misconstrued that entire situation, and Miles isn’t here to disabuse her of the notion that Ted was stalking her. Either way, whether Ted lied about the origins of the stalking case against him would tell you a lot about him.”
Josie said, “I’d also like to know what Virgil found. He had this conversation with Dee the day before the accident. He was upset. Isn’t it possible that whatever it was he found was the thing that drove him to drink on the day of the accident and that he lied about it so that he didn’t incriminate his son?”
Gretchen said, “I think that’s not only possible but probable. I’ll call Andrew Bowen and demand a meeting with Virgil Lesko.”
Josie laughed. “You’re not going to get it.”
But Gretchen was already dialing. After a curt exchange of words with Andrew Bowen’s secretary, she hung up. Josie turned back to Noah. “What did you find in the files at Krystal’s firm?”
Noah put his feet onto the floor and leaned his elbows on his desk. “It’s about the orthodontist that Bianca Duncan and the Cammack kids went to—they had to close the practice. They’re facing a huge malpractice suit, and guess who’s bringing it?”
Josie said, “Gil Defeo.”
Noah shook his head. “No. His partner, Richard Abt. That’s why Krystal wasn’t working on it.”
“But she would have had access to the file through the firm’s database,” Gretchen supplied.
“Yes. About a month before she went missing, Krystal was having lunch with the other legal assistants in the office, and they were complaining about the case. Evidently there are a lot of clients—but not enough for a class action suit. Anyway, when Krystal heard the name of the orthodontist, she mentioned to the other women that that was where Bianca had been going. She even wondered whether, if Bianca had lived, she would have been one of the medical malpractice clients.”
“Did they let her go through the files?” Josie asked. “Where is this going?”
Noah said, “Her going through the files never came up, but Abt and Defeo got a copy of the orthodontist’s patient database through the discovery process so it was there if Krystal ever wanted to access it. It would have been easy. I did it while I was over there. Carly let me use her login credentials to go through the firm’s server. I was able to then get into the orthodontist patient records and look up Bianca Duncan’s name. Guess what I found in her chart?”
Josie felt a prickle along the back of her neck. “A cancellation for an appointment on the date of the accident.”
“Right. Made by parent, not by the orthodontist.”
Gretchen said. “Which means that when Krystal looked it up, she knew that Nathan had lied about why the appointment was cancelled that day and why the kids ended up on the bus. Was that the thing that sent her to the East Bridge looking for something stronger than pot to calm her nerves?”
Josie said, “We’ll never know but you said that she found out about the file from her coworkers at least a month before she went missing, right? She didn’t get upset enough to ask Skinny D for something more potent than weed until a couple of days before she went missing. I think there was something else she found out. Something that bothered her more.”
Gretchen said, “What could be worse than finding out that your friend and neighbor caused your kid to be on the bus the day of the accident?”
Josie shook her head. “I have no idea, but I think there was more. There had to be more.”
Noah stood up and stretched his arms over his head. “I’m going back over to Abt and Defeo. They’re all going to be there pretty late ’cause they’re prepping for a trial. Multi-car accident. If there’s something else that Krystal found out from the work files, I might be able to find it. I can search for the names of the other parents in the other attorney’s files, see what comes up.” He looked at Josie. “You okay at home without me?”
She smiled. “I’ll survive.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Nevin had the whole seat to himself. He had tried talking to Gail and Bianca, but they weren’t talking at all anymore. Actually, the entire bus had gone eerily silent. For a minute, Nevin wondered if everyone had died or something. But that was a weird tho
ught. He had to sit up really straight in order to look around the whole bus. Everyone was still alive, although they looked kind of sick. Now it was just the last of them: him, Gail, Bianca, Wallace, Frankie, and Heidi. Usually, the girls were talking or Wallace was messing with one of them, but not today.
Nevin looked out the window. He recognized the vacant lot that came right before their streets. A flash of color caught his eye. There was a truck or something back there today. He wondered if they were finally going to build something there. He really wanted a skate park or an arcade or something, but his mom always said they’d only build houses there if they built anything at all.
Suddenly, the bus shook. Nevin’s whole body jerked side to side. A weird sound like metal scraping came from the outside. Then the bus sped up.
Wallace said, “Holy crap, you guys. I think Mr. Lesko just hit someone.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The rest of the evening was spent writing up her reports and listening to Gretchen argue with Andrew Bowen over the phone about getting a meeting with Virgil Lesko. After that, Gretchen called some of her old contacts in the Philadelphia Police Department to get more details on the stalking case that had sent Ted Lesko to prison for three years. After a full hour of muttering “mm-hmms” and “uh-huhs” into her phone receiver, Gretchen hung up and looked at Josie. “Ted Lesko was telling the truth. It was an ex-girlfriend.”
“But Dee was right that his behavior was pretty bad,” Josie said. “Or he wouldn’t have gone to prison.”
“Yes. I think after what Virgil shared with Dee about Ted, she was right to be concerned. I would have been.”
“Where do we go from here?”
“Home,” Gretchen said. “We’ve been at this all day. It’s almost eight p.m. Mett and Noah are still running down leads so things are still moving.”
Josie could not deny the exhaustion weighing her limbs down. The thought of sprawling across her couch in a pair of sweats was more than enticing. Of course, once she was on the couch, she didn’t feel tired at all. As if sensing her restlessness, Trout ran over, put his two front paws on the edge of the couch and dropped his Kong into her lap. Then he stared at her intently.