Save Her Soul: An absolutely unputdownable crime thriller and mystery novel (Detective Josie Quinn Book 9)

by Lisa Regan

  “Did she tell you any of their names? Other than Ray’s?” Josie asked.

  “No.”

  “Kelly said she had nicknames for them? Do you remember any of them?”

  “No, I don’t. It was such a long time ago. I’m really sorry. I wish I could. I’ll give it some more thought, but… I mean, that was high school.”

  “I understand,” Josie said. “What about someone named Alice? Did you guys know anyone by that name? Did Vera have any friends named Alice?”

  “No, not that I remember,” said Lana.

  The screen blipped again, Lana disappearing once more and a strange metallic clang sounding from the speakers. Paige’s fingers moved the mouse, clicking several times to try to get Lana back. They heard her voice before her face popped back up. “Vera knew.”

  Josie felt a chill on the back of her neck. “Vera knew? Her mother knew about the men?”

  Multi-colored lines filled the screen. A sound like “Yes” came through.

  Gretchen leaned toward the screen and loudly asked, “Did Vera know their names?”

  “Yes.”

  For a long moment, there was nothing but blackness where Lana had been. Then she was onscreen again. Josie let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Lana said, “Sorry. The connection isn’t great.”

  Josie asked, “Did Vera know she was pregnant?”

  “Yes, Vera knew about the pregnancy. Vera knew who the father was, evidently, although I’m not sure how ’cause Beverly wouldn’t even tell me or Kelly. I don’t even think she told Kelly she was pregnant. But she and Vera fought horribly about the pregnancy.”

  Gretchen said, “Would you say Vera was abusive?”

  Lana’s brow furrowed. “It’s hard to say. I don’t think she meant to be. I think they just had a very strained relationship.”

  Josie asked, “Do you think Vera could have killed Beverly?”

  The screen twisted again into a kaleidoscope of broken digital images. They heard one word from Lana before the connection went down altogether. “Maybe.”

  Twenty

  Paige invited them back in a few days for Lana’s next scheduled video call. She gave them Lana’s email address but warned that Lana rarely had time to respond to emails. Back at the station house, Josie and Gretchen got takeout and sat at their desks with Noah, who had returned from the City Codes office. Amber was nowhere to be found, although her tablet still sat at one of the empty desks. Josie and Gretchen filled Noah in on their interviews with Kelly and Lana.

  He finished off his cheeseburger and wiped his hands on a napkin. “Are you thinking that Vera killed her own daughter, buried her, and took off?”

  Josie munched on a French fry, thinking it over. Then she went to her computer and pulled up a copy of Vera’s driver’s license again. “Here it says Vera was five foot five. Dr. Feist believes whoever shot Beverly was at least six feet tall. Based on the bullet’s entry wound and both Beverly and Vera’s heights, it seems unlikely. But Vera has been off the radar for sixteen years now. So either she went into hiding—and if she did murder her own kid, that might have caused her to go into hiding—or whoever killed Beverly killed her as well. I’m leaning toward Vera also having been murdered, though.”

  “Why’s that?” Gretchen asked.

  “Because if she was in as bad physical shape as George Newton, Kelly, and Lana said she was, I can’t see her burying Beverly’s body under the basement.”

  “Good point,” Noah said. “But she could have had help.”

  “From who?” Gretchen said. “Vera didn’t have a boyfriend. It doesn’t even seem like she had any friends.”

  “That we know of,” Josie pointed out. “We don’t know enough about Vera. We really need to track down some people who knew her.”

  “We need to find out where she was working before she hurt her back. It had to be a local salon.”

  Josie’s cell phone rang. When she looked at the number, her heart jumped into her throat. “It’s Alice,” she said, swiping answer. The room went silent, all eyes on her.

  “Detective Quinn?” Alice said. “Is this you?”

  “Yes, Alice. It’s me. I’m glad you called. We really need to talk.”

  “Yes, we do.”

  Josie looked at Gretchen and Noah who nodded at her to keep going. “I can meet with you somewhere private, but I need to bring a colleague with me. Surely, you understand that. It’s for everyone’s safety.”

  “Who? Who would you bring?”

  Josie thought about what Alice had said about the police station not being safe. She didn’t believe for an instant that anyone on her team was corrupt, but obviously Alice had concerns. They could discuss those when they met. “Detective Gretchen Palmer,” Josie said. “She came here a few years ago from Philadelphia.”

  There was a long silence. Then Alice said, “Fine. Bring her. But only her. You understand?”

  “Yes,” Josie said. “I understand. Where do you want to meet?”

  “There’s a Stop-N-Go by the interstate. You know it?”

  “Yeah, I know it,” Josie said. “Meet you in the parking lot? Half hour?”

  “Not the parking lot,” Alice replied. “Behind the Stop-N-Go.”

  “Behind the— Alice, there’s nothing back there but trees and grass. It just drops off to the interstate.”

  “Then no one will see us,” she said. “No one will think to look for us there. Don’t tell anyone you’re going to meet me. Do you understand? No one. If I see anyone besides two of you—anyone at all—I’m leaving. You got it?”

  “Yes,” Josie said. “I understand.”

  “I’ll see you in a half hour,” Alice said and hung up.

  Josie pocketed her phone and looked at Gretchen. “Let’s go.”

  In the parking lot, reporters huddled beneath umbrellas, rushing at them, shouting more questions. Like broken records, Josie and Gretchen said, “No comment” a half dozen times until they got out of the fray. The rain had slowed marginally. With so many roads barricaded, it took twenty minutes to go only a few miles to the Stop-N-Go. The gas station/mini-market sat atop a small hill just off the exit ramp from Interstate 80. Josie chose a spot in the parking lot, and they walked slowly around the back of the building. The other patrons were running to and from their cars, rain hoods pulled low over their faces, hurrying to get out of the rain. No one noticed Josie and Gretchen. The rain beat a steady rhythm on their raincoats. Josie smelled the dumpster before it came into view. It was flush against the back wall of the building, its green paint chipped, and its black plastic lid propped open. There was just enough asphalt for the trash truck to get back there and collect the refuse from the dumpster. Beyond that, as Josie had pointed out to Alice, was roughly an acre and a half of grass dotted with trees. The land terminated in a drop-off that overlooked the ribbon of route 80 below.

  Their boots made sucking sounds in the grass as they walked toward the trees. “I don’t see anyone,” Gretchen said quietly.

  “Let’s wait,” Josie said. They found a spot beneath a large, leafy maple tree and waited. In the distance, the interstate stretched out before them. Eastward, the Susquehanna was a thick brown smudge where it passed beneath the highway about a mile away. Red brake lights blinked periodically as cars approached the overpass.

  “Shit,” Josie muttered. “Look at that. I think the river might be overtaking the interstate.”

  Gretchen wiped rain from her eyes and squinted in the direction of the river. “There’s a creek that runs parallel to the interstate on the other side, isn’t there?”

  “Yeah,” Josie answered. “That overpass is going to be underwater in the next hour.”

  She took out her phone and called dispatch to ask them to call the emergency management department and the state police. As she spoke, she felt a thickness in her throat and tears welling behind her eyes. What was happening to her town? How much longer was this going to last? What would be left? She had spent her
whole life in Denton. She’d graduated high school here. Gotten married here. Served on the police force for years. She had sacrificed so much for this city—literally bled for it on more than one occasion. It was hers and it was decimated. Turning away from Gretchen, she took in a shuddering breath and tried to focus on giving the dispatch officer instructions. For the first and only time since the flooding had started, Josie was grateful for the rain. Hopefully, Gretchen wouldn’t be able to tell she was becoming emotional.

  Ten minutes later, the brake lights were a steady glow as the water sloshed over the barrier and onto the overpass. There was no sign of Alice. Josie dialed her number, but she didn’t answer.

  “What do you think?” Gretchen asked. “She get spooked?”

  Josie rubbed her temples, trying to keep the headache forming behind her eyes from getting worse and any errant tears from leaking out. “I don’t know. Maybe this was just a test. Maybe she can see us, but we can’t see her. She wanted to make sure we would come alone.”

  They took a slow walk back to the Stop-N-Go, eyes searching all around for any woman sitting in a vehicle or standing beneath a tree. Across from the Stop-N-Go on one corner was simply a grassy knoll beside the entrance ramp to the interstate. The other two corners held a bank, which was closed, and a modest ranch-style home. From where they stood, Josie didn’t see anyone who might be Alice.

  “Let’s go,” Josie said.

  As they got into the car, the long wail of the emergency siren sounded again in the distance.

  Twenty-One

  At the stationhouse there was a reprieve: the press was gone. Josie and Gretchen tromped up to the second floor where Mettner sat at his desk. His brown hair was in disarray, and his clothes looked wet. “Hey, boss,” he said.

  “Where are the reporters?” Josie asked.

  “Amber is giving a press conference over at the command post,” he explained. “Hey, I’ve got something.” From the floor, he picked up a cardboard box and set it on his desk.

  “What’s this?” Josie asked as she came around to peer into it.

  Mettner used both hands to slick his hair away from his face. “Hempstead is still under water. Nothing to see there. It will probably be another day or two before the water recedes. But I did locate the wreckage of Mrs. Bassett’s house.” He pointed to the box. “Those are some of her personal belongings. I grabbed whatever I could safely gather. Maybe when Emergency Management is able to do more of a clean-up, they can get further into the house and find more.”

  Josie stared at the contents: a few framed photographs, a small jewelry box, a couple of pairs of shoes, and several items of clothing. “Mett, this is great. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled. We just have to figure out where Emergency Services placed her, and we can get this stuff to her.”

  Gretchen reached into the box and started taking items out. “Let’s see if we can get some of this dried out.”

  They laid each possession out on paper towels on one of the empty desks. Mettner found a box fan in third floor storage, and they used that to speed up the drying process. Then he went out on a few more emergency calls while Gretchen tried to track down which salon Vera Urban had worked at nearly twenty years earlier. Josie took on the task of tracking down Mrs. Bassett, who—as it turned out—had been placed at Rockview Ridge, Denton’s only skilled nursing facility, where Josie’s grandmother, Lisette Matson, lived.

  Josie stood and began gathering up Evelyn Bassett’s now-dry possessions. “I’ll take these over. I can talk with my grandmother while I’m there. She would remember Vera Urban. Maybe she’ll have something useful for us.”

  Rockview Ridge sat on the outskirts of Denton, high atop a rock-strewn hill. Josie’s eighty-three-year-old grandmother had been a resident there for nearly a decade. As Lisette grew older, her arthritis had made it more and more difficult for her to live on her own, so Josie and Ray had brought her to live with them. They’d taken care of her for as long as they could but after several falls when she was home alone, they’d had no choice but to find her a new home in an assisted living facility. It was one of Josie’s greatest sources of guilt, that she couldn’t keep Lisette home with her, but she knew Lisette was well taken care of at Rockview, and Josie had Lisette over to her house whenever time allowed.

  Josie delivered Mrs. Bassett’s personal items to the front desk and waited while the receptionist looked up her room number. Josie was intimately familiar with the layout of the facility. She delivered Mrs. Bassett’s things to her in her room and helped her place some of the framed photographs on her dresser and windowsill before going off to find Lisette. As usual, Lisette was in the community cafeteria, sitting at a table, shuffling a deck of cards. Across from her sat a man—with dark hair and broad shoulders. Curious, she picked up her pace, striding over to the table only to discover the man was Hayes.

  Josie stared at him.

  Lisette said, “Josie, how lovely to see you.”

  She pulled her gaze away from Hayes to look at her grandmother. Her smile was strained, the lines around her blue eyes crinkled. “Gram,” Josie said. “What’s going on?”

  Lisette pointed toward Hayes. “Nothing new. This is a friend of mine, Sawyer.”

  Josie said, “Sawyer?”

  “That’s my first name,” he said.

  “You’re friends?”

  “Josie,” said Lisette.

  Sawyer stood, a tight smile on his face. “I’ll go,” he said. “Mrs. Matson, it was great to see you.”

  Josie watched him walk off and then took his seat. Lisette raised a brow. “Well, that wasn’t very polite, was it?”

  “I’m sorry,” Josie said. “We had a disagreement yesterday during a rescue. I don’t much care for him, and I don’t think he likes me at all.”

  Lisette’s eyes dropped to the table. She shuffled her deck of cards and began laying them out for a game of Solitaire. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “How do you know him?” Josie asked.

  Lisette began turning over cards. “We’ve had quite the influx of new residents with all the flooding. Sawyer has brought a lot of people in. We got to talking, is all.”

  Josie studied her for a long moment. Lisette wouldn’t look at her. Josie had the distinct feeling there was something her grandmother wasn’t telling her, but she couldn’t imagine what it might be. Unless Lisette was truly disappointed that Josie hadn’t given Sawyer Hayes a better reception. She knew Lisette’s life at Rockview Ridge could be lonely. Who was Josie to deny her friendships? Josie reached over and touched Lisette’s hand. “I’m sorry, Gram. I was impolite. I promise the next time I see Sawyer I’ll make more of an effort.”

  Lisette looked up at her briefly before going back to her game. “I would appreciate that.”

  Josie let a moment pass, watching Lisette’s gnarled hands mow through a game of Solitaire and begin shuffling again. Finally, she looked up at Josie. “Shall we play Kings in a Corner?”

  Josie nodded. Lisette finished shuffling and dealt the cards. “I see on television you’ve got a homicide on your hands. A young girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “So,” Lisette said as they began playing in earnest, each of them on automatic pilot. They’d been playing Kings in a Corner since Josie was ten years old. “With everything going on in this city plus a murder, I know you’re not here on a social call.”

  Josie leaned in toward Lisette. “The body we found? It was Beverly Urban.”

  Shock loosened the lines of Lisette’s face. She bowed her head, her gray curls bouncing. “Oh dear.”

  “She was murdered, Gram. Shot in the head and buried beneath her house. Everyone thought she had just moved away. As far as we can tell, her mother disappeared around the same time. We can’t find any record of Vera existing after the end of Beverly’s junior year of high school.”

  Lisette shook her head. “It’s a tragedy. That poor girl. I know you two didn’t get along. Believe me, I had half a mind to throttle her myself wh
en you were in school, but I always had the sense that she was struggling with something at home.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” Josie told her. “I know you had to meet with Vera on several occasions when Beverly and I…”

  “Got into fights? Vandalized each other’s lockers? Each other’s cars?”

  “I only vandalized her locker and car because she did it to me—and she spray-painted foul words on my stuff. All I did was break the lock on her locker and toilet paper her car.”

  Lisette regarded her with a raised brow, but Josie could see a small smile on her lips. “How about the time that Beverly pushed you down the steps at school and so you punched her in the face? She had a black eye. You were both nearly suspended. You both should have been suspended, really. I wore the principal down.”

  “She could have killed me,” Josie said. “It’s never okay to push someone down the steps.”

  “Is it okay to punch people in the face?”

  “Okay, I was a hothead. Is that what you want to hear?”

  Lisette laughed. “I’m giving you a hard time, Josie. You were a teenager, raging with hormones, and you were still trying to process all the abuse you’d endured before you came to live with me. I still think you would have benefitted from therapy, but you refused.”

  The game finished, Lisette victorious. Josie took the cards and shuffled them for another round. “I didn’t need therapy.”

  “Pah!” Lisette said, laughing. “You need therapy right now.”

  Josie bristled but said nothing. She knew Lisette would not budge on this issue. “My point is, Gram, that you met and spoke with Vera many times. I need to know anything you can tell me about her.”

  “Well, let’s see,” Lisette began as Josie dealt the cards for their second game. “What I remember most is that Vera had barely any control over Beverly. I was essentially a single mother raising a hotheaded teenager, just like her, and I handled it just fine. Vera was… a mess. Weary, as though she was at the end of her rope with Beverly. Then again, she was pretty strung out on painkillers most of the time. At least when you two were in high school.”