by Lisa Regan
Noah said, “But Gloria, Dee, and Heidi had been missing for hours before Ted and Miles were killed. What if Cerberus took them out of the house so they didn’t alert the police unit outside and executed them somewhere else?”
“We would have found them by now,” Gretchen said. “They wouldn’t hold onto two women and a teenage girl. They would have killed them right away and left them. I think whoever killed Krystal Duncan and Faye Palazzo took those women.”
Chitwood said, “But it’s not Sebastian Palazzo?”
Josie said, “No. We don’t think so.”
“Based on what?” asked Chitwood.
“My gut,” replied Josie.
“Don’t come at me with gut feelings, Quinn,” Chitwood snarled. “I’ve got three missing persons right now. We need to find them yesterday—if they’re not already dead.”
Noah said, “For what it’s worth, I think Detective Quinn is right.”
Chitwood snorted. “You’re her damn husband, Fraley. Of course you think she’s right. I need evidence, people. Evidence. This isn’t your first day on the job. Now come on, what’ve you got for me?”
Unfazed, Noah continued, “Sebastian Palazzo had a nervous breakdown in front of us tonight. He admitted to manipulating Virgil Lesko into drinking vodka that he spiked on the day of the bus crash. The crash that killed his own son. I think if he had more to confess, he would have just told us. He thought he was dying from an overdose.”
“Well, he didn’t die,” Chitwood said. “I called the hospital. He’s hanging on. Maybe when he wakes up, you can take another crack at him. We need to find these women.”
Mettner cleared his throat. All eye turned to him. “I searched the county property records for anything that either Sebastian or Faye Palazzo owned, and there’s nothing but their home. No farm. No barn. No other property. I even checked records in the adjacent counties just to be sure.”
Josie said, “You’re forgetting that Ted Lesko had vigil candles in his home.”
Chitwood shook his head. “That doesn’t mean Sebastian didn’t do it. Maybe they were working together.”
Gretchen said, “I do think that Ted was working with someone else. It makes sense. His alibi for Faye’s disappearance was airtight.”
Mettner said, “But not Krystal’s. Although, his alibi is based on the GPS coordinates of his car, Palmer. That’s not that solid. When he wasn’t working, he could have left his car in his driveway and found other ways to get around.”
“Yeah,” said Josie. “Like hitching a ride with an accomplice.”
“His accomplice would have to live in the neighborhood,” Chitwood said. “Which has been your theory all along: that the killer was someone known to the families or a member of one of the families. Sebastian Palazzo fits that bill. He also had access to the vigil candles. His wife was the one who bought them!”
“No. It’s not him.” Josie spun in her chair and faced her computer, booting it up. “You said look at the evidence, right? What else have we got here? What else?” She started scrolling through the case file. Noah leaned over her shoulder and watched the pages of the file—reports, photos, evidence logs, and warrants—flash across the screen. Josie looked up to see that no one else had moved. “Come on, guys,” she said. “Let’s take another look at everything we know.”
Mettner said, “Everything we know isn’t going to tell us where Gloria, Dee, and Heidi are or who has them. We’ve been over all this. Nothing has changed since the last time we scoured the file.”
Noah said, “We’ve got warrants here for stuff that should be coming in. Check your emails.”
Mettner remained still, but Gretchen moved her mouse across her desk. A few minutes later, she said, “I’ve got something. The results for the IP address search from where Krystal Duncan logged into her law firm’s database the Saturday before she was murdered.”
“Print it out,” said Josie.
Gretchen clicked twice and the ancient printer across the room whirred to life. Pushing her reading glasses up the bridge of her nose, she leaned in closer to the screen.
“What’s it say?” Josie asked.
Gretchen read off the street address.
Mettner jumped out of his chair. “Holy shit.”
Josie’s tired brain worked to remember why she knew the address but before it got there, Noah said, “That’s the address of All Natural Child and Family. Gloria Cammack’s store.”
Chapter Forty-Two
The sun was creeping over the horizon as Josie led the caravan to the All Natural Child and Family building, tires squealing every time they took a turn. At sixty miles per hour in light traffic, they got there in less than ten minutes. They deployed from their vehicles in tandem: Josie and Noah; Gretchen and Mettner; Chief Chitwood; and three uniformed units behind them. Adrenaline surged through Josie’s veins as she strapped on her bulletproof vest once more. Once everyone was ready, Chitwood gathered them around the hood of his car. Mettner had managed to rouse one of Gloria’s employees from bed who was only too happy to meet them at the store. Josie watched as he drew a diagram of the building on a piece of computer paper and then handed Chitwood a key to one of the back entrances. “I hope you’re right about this,” said the man. “If not, Gloria’s going to kill me. Oh, shit. No pun intended.”
Gloria.
Josie struggled to focus on Chitwood’s instructions. Her mind kept wandering back to every interaction she’d had with Gloria Cammack, looking for the signs she had missed. Why hadn’t she looked closer at Gloria? She was the only parent who didn’t go to the support group. Even Miles had gone from time to time. She was highly organized, efficient, and driven. She was a control freak. It wouldn’t have been that much of a challenge for her to orchestrate the killings or even bring Ted into the fold. In fact, by pointing the police in her direction with the very first murder, she’d practically eliminated herself as a suspect. Plus, she’d been able to control the narrative practically from hour one of the investigation by painting her and Krystal as rivals. But how did she know about everyone’s secrets?
“Quinn!” barked Chitwood. “You paying attention or what?”
“Sorry, sir,” Josie said. “Yes. I’m ready.”
Chitwood raised a bushy eyebrow. “Bullshit. Let’s go over this again.”
This time, Josie paid attention to the plan. She and Gretchen were paired up. When the Chief gave the order, they went to their assigned entrance and waited for one of the other teams to let them inside so they could help clear the rooms. The place was larger than Josie had realized. As she and Gretchen cleared several rooms in their quadrant of the building, one part of Josie’s mind was tuned to the other officers calling out “Clear!” every few seconds. Within minutes, there was only silence, and Josie knew they’d hit a dead end. They followed the sound of Chitwood’s voice to the lobby. He stood just inside the doors with the employee. Under the fluorescent lights of the interior, Josie saw he was in his twenties, probably just out of college given his Penn State sweatshirt. Mesh shorts and slides completed the youthful look.
“What’s your name?” she asked him.
He took a step back as they formed a circle around him, and Josie realized how it must look—a dozen police officers in tactical gear with guns drawn closing in on him. She turned back to the others and said, “Search the entire place for anything that might help us find where Gloria took them. Desks, file cabinets, documents. Anything at all.”
Gretchen and Chitwood stayed behind as everyone else dispersed.
“You won’t find anything,” said the employee. “Everything’s electronic and the computers are all password-protected.”
“We still have to search,” Josie said. “What’s your name?”
“Mason Brock.”
“Mason, my team searched the property records for this county and all the counties surrounding it to see if Gloria, her ex-husband, Nate, or this company owns any other buildings or land other than this. We didn’t find a
nything. Does that sound right to you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess. This is the only place I know about.”
Gretchen said, “How long have you worked here?”
“About a year.”
“In that time did you ever hear Gloria talk about any other place she might go besides here and home?” Gretchen asked.
“No. I’m sorry. I don’t know where she went.”
Josie turned around, taking in the shelves of organic products. She thought about the building. While it was big and had garage bays that Gloria could have used to kill someone with carbon monoxide poisoning, there were no slatted surfaces and no place that was rife with animal hair. Where in the hell had Gloria taken Krystal, Faye, and now Dee and Heidi? They could go back to working their way through every farm and barn in the area but in the time that would take, Gloria would kill Dee and Heidi.
Josie’s gaze landed on a shelf of caps for infants made in several different colors. She walked over and fingered them, searching for a label, but of course there was none. They were handmade. “Mason,” she said. “What are these made from?”
He walked over. “Oh, I’m pretty sure alpaca fur.”
Gretchen came over as well. “Do you make them here?”
“Well, I don’t make them, but we do have a lady who comes in and makes them. I can show you her work area if you’d like.”
“Not necessary,” Josie said. “Where do you get the alpaca fur?”
“I don’t know. Gloria just brings it in once a week. She gets it from someplace local.”
“Would the supplier be in your computer system?”
“I can check,” he said. “Hang on.”
They followed him into another room where several employee desks were spread out. He went to one in the middle of the room and opened a laptop. After several minutes, he frowned. “It looks like she used to get it from some farm in upstate New York till about a year ago. Then the shipments stopped. I don’t see anything after that at all. If she was buying it local, she didn’t put it into the system.”
Gretchen said, “How many alpaca farms could there possibly be around here?”
“Not that many,” Josie said. “But we don’t have time to run them all down. Heidi and Dee could be dead already. It doesn’t take that long to die from carbon monoxide poisoning.”
From behind them came Chitwood’s voice. “You’re coming at this wrong, Quinn.”
Josie turned to him. “Sir?”
“Gloria Cammack was getting the fur from someone. She couldn’t have been running this place and an alpaca farm by herself. But if she was using a building on that same farm to kill people, she wouldn’t want a record of ownership or of purchasing the fur from someone.”
Gretchen said, “But she’d have to pay someone unless they were in on it, and I don’t see an alpaca farmer with no ties to the bus crash going in on something like what Gloria and Ted were doing—assuming that we’re right that finding the vigil candles in Ted’s house means he was involved.”
“But—” Josie stopped, her mind puzzling it together. Turning back to Mason, she said, “Can you check the company records for anyone she was paying rent to, or any person listed as an employee or subcontractor who doesn’t come to the office?”
“Sure,” he said. He worked for a few more minutes and then waved them over. “Here. She pays monthly rent to a woman named Marilyn House.”
“For what?” Gretchen asked. “Does it say?”
“No,” said Mason. “But I’ve got an address here.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Marilyn House was a spry eighty-year-old Denton resident who owned several tracts of farmland to the southeast of the city. She didn’t bat an eye when Josie and the other detectives rolled up into her driveway at seven thirty in the morning. She was on the porch of her large, white farmhouse, drinking coffee with a fat gray cat in her lap.
“Gloria Cammack?” she said when they asked her about the rental income. “Yeah, she pays me to rent this little old house and old barn out past the alpaca farm about three miles from here. I haven’t got many alpacas left but the ones that are there produce some wool. ‘Course Gloria usually buys it all up. Pays cash.”
Josie said, “Do you take care of the alpacas yourself?”
Marilyn laughed. “Goodness, no. I’ve got a few young men who tend to them. They rotate according to their personal schedules. So long as the animals are taken care of, I don’t care who’s there when. Of course, I haven’t seen the one gentleman for weeks now. I’d hate to have to fire him.”
“What’s his name?” asked Gretchen.
“Teddy,” said Marilyn. “Teddy Lesko.”
From the porch steps, Mettner let out an audible gasp. Marilyn craned her neck to have a look at him. “Something wrong, young man?”
“No,” he said. “I just—was Teddy already working here when Gloria rented the building or was it the other way around?”
“You want to know who came first? Teddy. He’d been working here a few years before Gloria showed up wanting to rent that old house and barn. I said, ‘Why do you want that old place?’ and she said she wanted to raise her own alpacas eventually. The plan was for her to learn from my little operation and start her own. She asked if she could make renovations to the barn. I said, ‘Why not?’ Any renovations to those two buildings would be an improvement. As long as it doesn’t come out of my pocket, I don’t mind.”
Noah said, “What kind of renovations?”
Marilyn shrugged. “Air conditioning for sure. Other than that, I don’t know what all she got up to back there. I saw Teddy bringing back some drywall now and then. Figured they were repairing some of the old walls. Tell you the truth, I suspect Gloria just wanted the place so she could get away. I saw her staying over at the house a few times.”
Gretchen thrust a phone into Marilyn’s face. “This is Google Earth. We’re right where that little red thing is. Can you show us where your alpaca farm is in relation to that?”
It took a few minutes of Marilyn zooming in and out and then Gretchen re-centering the map but eventually, she gave them some directions. Seconds later, they were back in their vehicles, speeding down the road until they came to the dirt turn-off Marilyn had told them about. A long, rutted driveway wound its way through several fields before the alpaca farm came into view. Josie held onto the dash as they bounced mercilessly over the unpaved path. “Keep going,” she told Noah. “Gloria’s rental should be behind that grove of trees to the left.”
The dirt path gave way to flattened grass. To their left was a large, more modern barn with two smaller buildings next to it and a gated area where several alpacas grazed. There were two old pickup trucks next to the barn with faded letters that read: House Farms. No one emerged from any of the buildings as the police caravan sped past, heading toward the copse of trees behind the alpaca farm that Marilyn House had shown them on the map. As they rounded the wooded area, Josie saw exactly why Gloria and Ted had chosen this place for their activities. Not only was it hidden away from the rest of the world, but it was even hidden from the small alpaca farm. There would be no reason at all for anyone to come to this place, even the other people Marilyn had hired to tend to her alpacas.
“There,” said Noah, veering left.
The house that Marilyn had told them about wasn’t much more than a one-room cabin, its wooden walls dull and gray with age and dirt. Beyond it was the barn, a dilapidated white thing with a red roof. A fence made of four-by-four posts and chicken wire ran between the barn and the house. Two dead walnut trees sat across from it, their spindly branches reaching skyward, as if begging the heavens to just take them already.
“There she is!” Noah said.
Josie looked up and saw Gloria emerging from the barn. She was dressed in sweatpants and an oversized Food Frenzy T-shirt. Her hair was loose and mussed. Heavy boots weighed down her feet. She spotted the two vehicles and took off in a dead run, following the fence to the b
ack of the house.
Josie said, “We can’t let her get inside. What if she’s got a gun in there?”
Noah gunned the engine, bouncing them so hard over the terrain that Josie’s head hit the roof, but they were too late. By the time they pulled up to the house with Gretchen and Mettner in tow, Gloria had already disappeared into the back door.
Noah stopped in front of the house, his vehicle turned sideways. Mettner and Gretchen followed suit. As they got out, Noah called, “Take cover behind the vehicles. We don’t know if she’s armed or not.”
As she crouched on the other side of Noah’s car, watching the front of the cabin, Josie said, “I’ve got to get to the barn. That’s where Dee and Heidi are.”
“You don’t know if she’s armed or not, Josie. You could run to the barn, and she could pick you off like it’s target practice.”
From behind the other car, Mettner yelled, identifying them as the police and instructing Gloria to come out of the cabin with her hands in the air. A minute ticked by. Then two. Then three. Josie’s heart was in overdrive. Were they too late? Were Heidi and Dee already dead inside the barn, kneeling with wax in their throats? Josie tried to push the images from her head.
At the five-minute mark, Mettner started his spiel again but halfway through it, Gloria emerged from the front of the cabin, strutting toward them with a pistol at her side. She grinned at them. “I’m here! Is this what you wanted?”
Gretchen called, “Put the gun down.”
Gloria looked down at her hand as if seeing it for the first time. “Oh, this? I’m not going to use this on you guys. No worries.”
Noah said, “Throw it as far away from you as you can.”
“I’m afraid I can’t,” she said. “This is how this whole thing ends. If you’re here, then you’ve figured out my little project: exposing all those lying pieces of shit for their part in murdering my children. I never intended to get away with it, you know. I only wanted to make them pay.”