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

by Lisa Regan

  Amber sighed loudly and tugged at her hair. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “I can’t answer that,” Josie told her. Mug in hand, she walked to the door. Amber didn’t move. “All I can say,” Josie added, “is that trust is earned.”

  She slid past the small gap between Amber and the doorframe, brushing up against her. Before she could return to the stairwell, the desk sergeant, Dan Lamay, came shuffling down the first-floor hallway. “Boss,” he called. “There’s something—”

  Josie held a hand up to silence him until she heard Amber cross the hall behind her and go back upstairs. “Okay,” she said. “What is it, Dan?”

  “The Mayor is here to see you. She’s in the lobby right now.”

  “She’s here to see me, specifically?”

  “Yeah, she says she wants to speak with you and only you.”

  “Put her in the conference room down here, would you? I’ve got to run upstairs and let Gretchen know where I am, and I’ll be back to talk to her.”

  A few minutes later, Josie took her half-finished mug of coffee to the conference room where Mayor Tara Charleston waited. She paced along one side of the large table, a cell phone pressed to her ear. Her skirt suit was a muted teal, and her long legs were accentuated by a pair of six-inch heels. Her hair was chin-length and smartly styled, her face perfectly made-up, covering almost all of her wrinkles. As she barked instructions to someone on the phone about an upcoming city council meeting, Josie stood on the other side of the table, sipping her coffee.

  Tara hung up and tossed her phone onto the table with a clatter. She blew out a long sigh and put her hands on the back of the nearest chair. “Detective Quinn,” she said.

  Josie said nothing.

  Tara strode across the room and closed the door. Josie’s heart raced a little. The last time she had been truly alone with Tara Charleston, the Mayor had asked her to do something illegal and when Josie refused, she had threatened Josie’s job.

  Tara returned to her position across the table from Josie and narrowed her brown eyes, her gaze bearing down on Josie. “I need to get ahead of something here.”

  Josie held up a hand and said, “If this is about Quail Hollow, you have to talk to the Chief. It’s not my place to—”

  “Stop,” Tara commanded. “It’s not about Quail Hollow. It’s about Vera Urban.”

  “Vera Urban?” Vera’s identity hadn’t yet been released to the press. The only people who knew that she had been murdered the day before were the police.

  Tara put a hand on her hip. “I’ve asked Amber to keep me apprised of what’s going on over here.”

  But Amber wasn’t the Mayor’s plant, Josie thought ruefully.

  Tara kept talking. “I know Vera Urban was killed yesterday in some very unusual circumstances.”

  “She was shot,” Josie said pointedly.

  “Yes, and before that she was evidently missing for sixteen years, isn’t that right?”

  Josie didn’t answer.

  “Detective Quinn, I know you. I know how deep you’ll dig on this case, so I am heading you off at the pass. I knew Vera.”

  Josie felt a tickle of discomfort. The Mayor had a reputation for aggressively protecting her own interests, often crossing lines to do so. “What are you saying?” Josie asked. “That in the course of my investigation, you think we would need to talk?”

  Tara gave an exasperated sigh. “Yes, that’s what I’m saying. Here I am, telling you I knew Vera, but it was a very, very long time ago. She was my stylist at a salon called Bliss. I’m talking twenty years ago, at least. When her daughter was small, even before that. That’s why I wanted to talk to you before you come at me with everything you’ve got. You’ll find out I knew her and think I’m hiding something.”

  “Are you hiding something?” Josie asked.

  Tara smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Of course not.”

  “But now you’re going to ask me to keep it quiet that you knew the murdered mother of a murdered teenage girl.”

  Tara rolled her eyes. “I’m not asking you to keep it quiet, I’m asking you not to broadcast it. It’s irrelevant. Vera was my hairstylist, for Pete’s sake.”

  Josie narrowed her eyes. “Sara Venuto told me that many of Vera’s clients were friends with her outside of the salon. Would you count yourself among that group?”

  “You’ve already been to the salon?”

  Josie smiled. “Not my first time solving a murder case. Yes, I’ve been to the salon.”

  Tara waved a hand in the air. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I was friendly with her outside of the salon on occasion. I wouldn’t call us friends but back then, I was the young wife of a surgeon with no ambition of my own, no job, and nothing to do all day. I was bored. I had money. My parents left me a trust fund. I was the one who put my husband through medical school but with him on a surgical residency, I was alone ninety percent of the time. I had Vera over a couple of times for a glass of wine and a chat. That was all.”

  “How about when Vera got pregnant? Do you remember that?”

  “Very vaguely, yes.”

  “Sara Venuto says several of Vera’s clients threw her a baby shower. Were you in that group?”

  “No, I was not. Like I said, we were friendly, not friends.”

  “What do you remember about Vera?” Josie asked.

  Tara placed a manicured hand on the table and leaned forward. “Nothing except what I just told you. She was my stylist. We had a glass of wine once or twice. She had a daughter named Beverly. That’s all.”

  “You had Vera over to your house when you had your glasses of wine?” Josie asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Had you ever been to her home, either before she moved into the house on Hempstead Road or after?”

  “Of course not.”

  “When is the last time you were in contact with Vera?”

  “Detective Quinn, it was so long ago that I couldn’t even tell you. Decades.”

  “Where were you yesterday morning at seven a.m.?”

  “Oh please. You can’t really think— I was in my office in City Hall, meeting with my campaign manager and some aides. At least a half dozen people can confirm that.”

  Josie appraised her, wondering exactly what it was that Tara was trying to hide. There had to be something. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have come to the police station and demanded to see Josie alone. “You know I’ve got to tell my team about this, right?”

  Tara sighed. “I don’t see any reason to tell anyone. I’ve just told you everything I know, and all of it is completely irrelevant to a murder case that took place in 2004.”

  “What about a murder case that took place yesterday?” Josie asked.

  “Still irrelevant. By the time Beverly was killed, I hadn’t spoken to Vera in nearly ten years. Really, Detective. I know we’ve had our… issues over the years, but I would appreciate your discretion in this matter.”

  “My discretion?” Josie laughed. “You’re joking, right? You’ve been trying to get rid of me from day one. What is your angle here? Are you trying to protect yourself or are you trying to set me up for something?”

  Tara glared at her.

  Slowly, Josie picked up her coffee cup and took a long sip, never taking her eyes from Tara. She placed the cup back on the table and said, “Mayor Charleston, you know how these investigations work. You should also know me to some degree by now. Under no circumstances am I keeping secrets from my team. There is no amount of influence you can exert to make me dishonest.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic, Detective Quinn. I’m not asking you to be dishonest. I’m simply saying that any investigation into me so far as it relates to Vera Urban is a dead end. I’m asking you to treat it as such.”

  “The fact that you’re asking me to treat it as such is the very thing that makes me think you have something to hide. Why don’t you just tell me what it is that you don’t want people finding out?”

  A tense mome
nt unfolded between them. With each second that passed, Tara’s face grew ruddier. Josie waited her out, content to let the silence in the room build the pressure. “Fine,” Tara spat, finally. “If you must know, Vera was a drug dealer. Okay? Are you happy now?”

  Josie leaned in with interest. “What are you talking about?”

  “What did I just say? Vera Urban dealt drugs. I found out what she was doing, and I distanced myself from her, okay? I never took anything from her or bought anything from her.”

  “What kinds of drugs was she dealing?” Josie asked.

  “Painkillers. Sometimes marijuana but almost always painkillers.”

  “Where did she get them?”

  Tara threw her arms in the air. “How the hell should I know? Wherever dealers get their drugs.”

  “Okay, okay,” Josie said, raising her hands to indicate for Tara to calm down. “How do you know she was a drug dealer?”

  “Because I saw her sell drugs to the other clients at the salon. You have to understand, back then I was newly married to a surgeon. A doctor. Do you understand? I couldn’t be associated with someone who was selling prescription drugs to people!”

  “Because they might think your husband had a hand in supplying her with them,” Josie filled in.

  “Yes,” Tara said. She sighed and pulled out the chair before her, flopping into it.

  Josie said, “Why wouldn’t you just lead with that?”

  Tara let out a long breath. “Because I know you don’t trust me.”

  “Was your husband helping to supply Vera with prescription drugs?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I had to ask. Where else did she sell them or was it just in the salon?”

  Tara sighed. “I don’t know. I think mostly at social events—I think some of her clients invited her to their houses to hang out not because they wanted to spend time with her but because they were buying painkillers from her. I never purchased any from her. I just… knew about it.”

  Josie said, “We can keep this out of the press as long as neither you nor your husband had anything to do with Beverly or Vera’s murders. That’s the only thing that I can promise you. I have to tell my team. As long as everything you’ve told me is the truth, then you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  Tara raised a brow. “Your Chief isn’t exactly my biggest fan right now. How do I know he’s not going to use this as leverage to get the upper hand in the Quail Hollow situation?”

  Josie rolled her eyes. “I can’t speak to that. That is between you and the Chief. My job is to find whoever killed Vera and Beverly and bring them to justice. That’s it.”

  “So you won’t help me with the Chief?”

  Josie laughed. She walked to the door and pulled it open. Before she left, she looked over her shoulder and said, “You’re the one who hired him.”

  Thirty-One

  2004

  Josie had only been sitting on one of the hard metal chairs in the Wellspring Clinic’s waiting room for ten minutes, and her ass already ached. Really, if they were going to make patients wait so long for their appointments, they ought to have more comfortable chairs. What was taking so long anyway? she wondered. She was the only person in the waiting room. Just as the thought crossed her mind, the front door swung open.

  They’d better not see this person before me, Josie thought. She was only there for a physical for her lifeguard job. She’d be in and out of there in fifteen minutes.

  Beverly Urban stepped through the door. Josie stared at her, open-mouthed. It was bad luck, pure and simple. Josie looked away from Beverly and picked up a magazine, spreading the pages and pretending to read. A few seconds later, the door swooshed again. She looked up. Beverly was gone.

  Josie turned her head and looked out the window, watching Beverly run across the street. She ran along the safety fence in front of the construction site where Ray worked. He was over there now. Josie was going to try to see him after her appointment. What the hell was Beverly doing? Maybe she was just walking past it.

  But she wasn’t. She stopped at the entry gate where Josie had picked Ray up only a couple of weeks earlier. Josie watched as she had a conversation with the man behind the fence.

  “Matson? Josie Matson?” a voice behind her called.

  Josie turned to see the nurse standing in the doorway to that led to the exam rooms, holding a chart. She turned back to the window. Beverly was still talking to the guy.

  “I’m sorry,” Josie said. “I have to go.”

  “Do you want to reschedule?” the woman asked, but Josie was already out the door.

  She walked a few paces down from the clinic where someone had parked a large truck. She could see Beverly from behind it, but Beverly wouldn’t be able to spot her very easily. After a few minutes, Beverly waved at the man behind the fence and started walking back in the direction of the ice cream shop where she worked. Josie edged around the truck and as soon as there was an opening in traffic, darted across the street.

  She followed Beverly down the block. What had she been talking to the gatekeeper about? Why had she waved to him so familiarly? Like they were old friends. But how could they be old friends unless Beverly was a frequent visitor to the site?

  Josie was only a few feet behind Beverly. Was she headed back to work? The corner was coming up. Josie would find out soon enough. Except that she didn’t cross the street to go to the ice cream shop. She stopped in front of the old theater, which was under construction according to the news. Or rather, it was being “revitalized.” Josie hung back a few feet to see what she would do. Beverly hesitated in front of the reflective glass of the door, fluffing her hair and unbuttoning the top button of her shirt. As she reached for the door handle, a woman pushed through from the other side. The door hit Beverly full-on, knocking her to the ground. The woman, clad in form-fitting black clothes—long sleeves and pants even in the heat—started to apologize. Huge sunglasses rested on her face, making her look like some kind of bug. She lifted them up and peered down at Beverly. “I’m so sorry,” she was saying. “I didn’t even see you. Are you—”

  She stopped mid-sentence, staring down at Beverly as if the girl had just transformed into a three-headed snake before her eyes. Josie took a step forward, getting close enough to see yellow bruising around both the woman’s eyes just before she flipped her sunglasses back down. Straightening her posture, she flipped her long brown locks and stepped over Beverly, striding away from the scene with her head held high.

  From the ground, Beverly turned her head and watched the woman walk off. She spotted Josie standing on the sidewalk. They locked eyes for the second time that day. The moment stretched out until Josie felt she had to say something.

  “Are you okay?”

  Beverly stood up, brushing off her rear. “Just leave me alone,” she spat. Instead of going into the theater, she went in the opposite direction, jogging across the street toward the ice cream shop. She didn’t wait for the light and a car beeped as it swerved around her. The driver rolled down his window and yelled something unintelligible at her.

  Beverly kept running.

  Thirty-Two

  “A drug dealer?” Gretchen said. “That’s interesting.”

  Josie said, “We’ll have to get some corroboration if we can.”

  They sat at their desks in the great room waiting to hear from the landlord of the property Vera Urban, posing as Alice Adams, had rented from in Colbert. It was a little after ten a.m. Noah had come in and then been sent right back out on calls with Emergency Services. The rain had finally let up—it hadn’t fallen all morning—but they had yet to see sunshine. Mettner was over near the copier helping Amber to work the machine. Josie watched out of the corner of her eye as Amber’s hand slid from Mettner’s forearm to his shoulder. She laughed at something he said, and he blushed.

  Gretchen said, “Think about the way Beverly was killed. Execution-style. Then you’ve got Vera’s murder. Also similar to the way some drug-re
lated gangs handle things.”

  “You think we should be looking at the drug angle rather than the father of Beverly’s baby angle?” Josie asked as she rifled through her desk looking for ibuprofen. Lucky for her, the bottle had two tablets left in it, which she swallowed dry. “We can’t be sure they were murdered by the same person.”

  Gretchen shrugged and ran a hand through her short hair. “I think we should explore every angle. You’re right, we can’t be sure of anything, but Vera was hiding from someone and that someone killed her to shut her up.”

  Josie’s cell phone rang. Hoping it was Colbert PD, she hit answer without looking at the number.

  “Detective Quinn?” said a female voice. “This is Sara Venuto. We spoke yesterday. I’ve got a few things for you.”

  “That’s great news,” Josie told her. “I’ve got my colleague with me today. We can come over now if that’s convenient.”

  Gretchen drove to Envy. Sara waited inside at the reception. The styling area was packed with clients and stylists working. No one gave them so much as a passing glance. Sara beckoned them to her office. On her desk, several photographs were spread out, along with a piece of copy paper with a handwritten list of names on it.

  Sara said, “I talked to a couple of the girls who worked here with Vera. Among the three of us, we came up with a handful of names. I’m not sure it’s helpful, but we did find pictures in our old salon photo albums.”

  Gretchen slipped on her reading glasses and leaned over the list. To Josie she said, “Our lovely mayor is on this list.”

  Sara said, “Oh yes, she was quite young then. None of us would have expected her to go into politics.”

  Josie studied the photographs. There were about a half dozen showing Vera beaming proudly beside a client in a chair, showing off their freshly cut or dyed and styled hair. Josie recognized a young Tara Charleston in one of them.

  Sara said. “If you look on the back, we tried to identify each client by name.”

  Josie turned one of them over. It read: Marisol. Another read: Connie P? She used her phone to take a photo of the front of each picture and then the back where the client’s name had been written. Once she finished with those photos, she moved on to another stack. She fingered a photograph of Vera Urban standing in what looked like the reception area of the salon—although decorated quite differently—surrounded by other women, some of them the clients in the other pictures. Vera was smiling widely and held a paper plate overflowing with bows and ribbons onto her head. She wore a black, shapeless dress and with her other hand, she splayed her fingers across her belly. Not cradling it, Josie thought, as most pregnant women seemed to do. This was more of a protective gesture.