by Lisa Regan
“Excuse me,” Josie said and walked away.
Forty-Two
Gretchen stayed behind to answer the wives’ questions while Josie used the station bathroom and first aid kit to clean and dress her leg wound before driving to Paige Rosetti’s house. Several areas of the city were still closed down, as the flood water was slow to recede, and she had to take several detours to get there. Alone in her car, she turned her radio up, trying to drown out the thoughts of Lisette and Sawyer crowding her mind again.
She was relieved to arrive at Paige’s house. She tried to clear her mind as Paige led her into the kitchen again where two cups of coffee waited. She handed one to Josie and kept the other, taking a seat in front of the open laptop. Josie sat next to her and thanked her as she sipped the coffee. It was smooth and made to perfection. The knots in her shoulders loosened as they waited for Lana to come online. She felt a degree of comfort here, she realized, in this bright and airy space with Paige Rosetti.
A few minutes later they were staring at Lana onscreen. After she and Paige exchanged pleasantries, both women went silent, and Josie realized it was her turn to ask questions. Except she couldn’t think of any. What was happening to her brain lately? “I’m sorry,” she said. “Lana, was there anything else you remembered about Beverly that might be helpful?”
Lana shook her head. “I don’t think so. I was thinking about it, and I don’t know that I have any information. I just think, you know, Beverly wanted attention.”
“That makes sense,” Josie said. “It would explain a lot of her behavior.”
Lana nodded. “Beverly felt like her mom didn’t really want her. It started when we were in middle school after she heard her mom on the phone, talking about her. Beverly never knew who Vera was speaking with, but she said things like, ‘this is not what I signed up for’ and ‘come get her because I can’t handle her anymore.’”
Josie held her mug in both hands. “Did Beverly speculate as to who Vera might have been talking with?”
“Yes,” said Lana. The screen blipped momentarily and then she came back into focus. “Beverly believed Vera was talking to her dad, but Vera would never talk about the call or tell Beverly anything about her dad. After that, Beverly was sad and angry.”
“And her behavior got even worse,” Josie said. She felt an acute ache in her chest. Poor Beverly had been a child entering one of the most difficult phases of growing up—being a pre-teen—when she’d overheard her mother telling someone she didn’t want her anymore. Asking that someone to come get her. But no one had come for her. Certainly, no father figure. Instead, she had died a horrible death, buried alone beneath a house and forgotten. Her own mother knew about her horrible ending and hadn’t even reported it. The ache in Josie’s chest hardened into something else. Resolve. She didn’t care what she had to do. She’d figure out who killed Beverly and make sure he or she was brought to justice.
Quietly, Paige said, “I think few things are worse than feeling unwanted, especially when you’re a child.”
“You’re right,” Josie said.
Lana spoke again. “Beverly hated Vera after that. Vera would never tell her the truth. Beverly did everything she could to make Vera tell her who her dad was but Vera refused.”
“Did Beverly ever mention a man named Silas?” Josie asked.
“Not that I recall,” Lana said. “Oh, I meant to tell you, I remembered that one of the last times I talked to Beverly she was worried and upset about something. I asked her what was going on. She said Vera had found out about everything; that she knew everything—like, about the baby and the father’s identity. She said Vera was going to kill her. She couldn’t figure out how Vera found out the father’s identity. She said Vera didn’t even know the guy. That’s all I remember. Sorry.”
Josie smiled. “No need to be sorry. You’ve been really helpful.”
Paige and Lana chatted for a few more minutes while Josie finished her coffee. Paige walked her to the door. Before Josie could open it, Paige said, “I’m sorry we weren’t more help.”
“It’s no problem,” Josie said. “I actually enjoyed being here. It’s been a tough few days. You and Lana are good company.”
Paige said, “You don’t have to leave, you know. You’re welcome to stay. Talk, if you’d like. I’m a pretty good listener.” With a laugh, she gestured toward the other side of her house where Josie knew her office was located.
“Oh,” Josie said. “I don’t—I’m not—therapy isn’t really for me.”
“It’s usually the people who say that who could benefit from it the most, you know,” Paige said, a warm smile on her face.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate,” Josie said. “I went to high school with your daughter. I’m here about a case…”
Paige nodded. “Fair enough. But we could just talk. I’ll go first. Sometimes I worry that Lana doesn’t believe me when I tell her how proud I am of her because I am always so concerned about her safety and her health. I feel like a terrible mother. I am proud of her, but I wish she was here, closer to me, not half a world away in an underdeveloped country. It’s selfish and yet, sometimes I can’t help it. But I really am proud of what she’s doing. I think she’s amazing.”
“Have you told her that?”
Paige laughed. “Of course. We’ve fought about it many times. I don’t think she believes anything I say at this point. I’ve lost all credibility. Remember when you were a teenager and you would go through stages where nothing felt right? You felt awkward and maybe a little ugly, and your mom—”
“My grandmother,” Josie corrected, her voice catching on the word.
Paige nodded. “Your grandmother. Maybe she told you that you were beautiful and perfect? Did you believe her?”
In fact, Lisette had used those very words on several occasions, as well as many others. Her favorite thing to tell Josie in those low teenage moments of self-esteem crisis was that Josie was “extraordinary.”
“No,” Josie said. “I didn’t believe her for one second. But I’m glad she said it.”
Paige nodded. She looked at the floor, smiling. Suddenly wanting to fill the silence, Josie said, “My grandmother gave me some news yesterday, and I’m not really handling it all that well. I don’t want to talk about it because—” She broke off.
Paige said, “Because then you’ll have to deal with it.”
Josie nodded.
“Is she okay? Your grandmother?”
“Oh, yes,” Josie answered. “It’s not anything medical. Actually, for her, it’s great news.”
“But not for you?”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s not bad for me. It just changes things.”
“In a bad way?” Paige asked.
Josie shrugged. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
“Change is scary but it isn’t always bad, you know,” Paige told her.
It is if you get left out in the cold, said a voice in the back of Josie’s mind. She didn’t say it out loud. She didn’t want to, but she felt she should tell Paige something true, something borne of her own vulnerability, since Paige had done so. Also, she felt comfortable with Paige. Perhaps it was because she didn’t know every horrifying detail of Josie’s past already. Right here, right now, in this moment, Josie was just a woman with an issue, not a damaged person whose childhood had been filled with unspeakable torture.
“I’m afraid I’ll be… left behind,” Josie said carefully. “It was always just me and my grandmother. Us against the world, sort of. There used to be Ray too.”
“Your boyfriend from high school?” Paige asked. “I remember you discussing him with Lana the other day.”
“Yes. After college we got married. Then he died. My grandmother and I have been through so much together, including his death. Now there’s—” She stopped. She didn’t even want to say it. It couldn’t be real, could it? Had she imagined the entire conversation? Gretchen hadn’t been there to overhear it. Was she in some ki
nd of fever dream? No; Lisette had called Noah, warned him about the bombshell. Now he and Misty were waiting for some dramatic emotional reaction from her, and yet, she still couldn’t believe it was really true. “Now someone has come forward and says that he’s her grandson. No one knew about him. He didn’t know about her either until recently.”
Paige said, “That’s wonderful that they could get to know one another.”
“It is,” Josie agreed. No matter what her own feelings were about the situation, she would never deny her grandmother happiness, especially not the happiness that came from finding a family member after having lost so many. Josie remembered her own joy at being reunited with her biological family. No matter how uncomfortable the situation made her or how territorial she felt over Lisette, this was and should be an exceptionally happy time for both Lisette and Sawyer. Josie knew this in her heart, and she knew that she needed to get past her own feelings. They didn’t really matter. What mattered was Lisette and her happiness.
Paige said, “But you’re worried that you’ll no longer matter now that there’s another grandchild in the picture?”
Josie laughed. “That sounds ridiculous. I’m sorry. This was a bad idea.”
Paige touched her arm. “No, it’s not ridiculous.”
Josie pulled away. “It is. I’m a grown woman. This is just silly. I can’t be worried that someone else is going to take my place with my grandmother. I’m not a five-year-old.” She went to the door and twisted the knob, pulling the door open.
“Josie,” Paige said, her voice firmer. “No one is suggesting you’re a five-year-old. I think it’s a valid concern that your dynamic with your grandmother might change now. In fact, it will change, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”
Josie stepped through the door. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—thanks for the coffee. I’m sorry. I’ve got to go.”
Forty-Three
Back at the stationhouse, the holding cells were empty, and the team was gathered in the great room. Josie walked over to her desk. “I guess Chitwood let the wives out of holding?”
“Yeah,” Noah said. “Things seem to have been smoothed over with the Quail Hollow people, although the Mayor is pretty pissed about everything being covered by the press. I’m sure she’ll be up all night with her people trying to figure out a way to spin it. What did Lana Rosetti say?”
“Nothing that we can use,” Josie said with a sigh.
Noah said, “Hummel couldn’t pull prints from the casings found at the abandoned bowling alley, but he’s sending them on to the state police lab for ballistics testing.”
“Which could take weeks,” Josie complained. “If not months, and even then, it will only tell us if the same gun killed both Beverly and Vera. It doesn’t get us any closer to finding out the identity of the killer. I’m not sure where to go from here.”
“You ran DNA on Beverly and the baby, right?” Noah asked. “Something might come of that.”
“Only if the father’s DNA is in the system. If it doesn’t, we’re right back to where we are now. All we know is that the father of Beverly’s baby was a married man with a skull tattoo on his back.”
Noah said, “If he was married, then we need to be looking at adult men Beverly was exposed to—I’d start with teachers. Do you remember if she had a job in high school?”
“Great point,” Josie said. “She worked at this ice cream place on Aymar Avenue, but it closed ages ago. There’s something else there now.”
Josie fished her yearbook out from under a stack of paperwork on her desk. “I’ll make a list of teachers who were on the faculty at Denton East when Beverly and I went there.”
As she paged through the yearbook, she winnowed out the male teachers who were single at the time. That left five teachers. All of them still lived in the area and two of them still worked at the high school. Josie started making calls and interviewing them. Most of them didn’t remember Beverly and had only been reminded of her when her murder was featured on the news. All of them had alibis for Vera’s murder.
More dead ends. Josie started going through all the reports, paperwork and photos that had amassed in the Beverly and Vera Urban files, hoping she might find some clue they’d overlooked.
Gretchen took a call from the Colbert Police Department. They had interviewed the neighbors of Alice Adams as well as several local establishments. Although many people in town knew of her, no one was close to her. No business would admit to hiring her on a cash basis. It was another dead end.
“We’re missing something,” Josie said, echoing one of their earlier conversations. “What the hell is it?”
Before Gretchen could answer, Hummel emerged from the stairwell with a sheaf of papers in his hands. “Hey, boss,” he said, walking over and handing them to Josie. “More reports. Mostly to do with the clothing that Beverly and Vera Urban were wearing at the times of their deaths. We also processed everything you found in Vera Urban’s motel room for prints and DNA. No prints other than Vera’s. I’m sorry we don’t have more for you.”
“It’s okay,” Josie said. “This case is just one dead end after another.” She flipped through the reports, a familiar name catching her eye. “What’s this?” she asked, pointing to it.
Hummel leaned over her shoulder. “That’s from the receipt we found in Beverly’s jacket pocket from the Wellspring Clinic. There were some unidentified prints, most likely hers, and then Ray’s prints as well.”
Josie stared at Ray’s name in black and white on the report. Her heart hammered in her chest. She choked out a “thank you” so that Hummel would leave. She felt three sets of eyes on her: Gretchen, Noah, and Mettner, all staring.
It didn’t matter, she told herself. It wasn’t important. So what if Ray’s prints were on the receipt from the clinic that Beverly had gone to shortly before her death? Maybe they had been involved. Maybe they’d had a relationship behind Josie’s back. Maybe Ray was the father of Beverly’s baby. That would explain why she was wearing his jacket. Lana had said Beverly was only intimate with one man, but Beverly could have been lying to Lana. Josie still didn’t believe Ray killed Beverly, and he certainly could not have killed Vera. Something much larger was at work in the case. Something that had nothing to do with Ray. It was ancient history, anyway, she thought. Both Beverly and Ray were gone. Anything that might have happened between them no longer mattered. The only thing that mattered was finding who killed Beverly and Vera and putting them away so they wouldn’t hurt anyone ever again.
So why did Josie feel as though her heart was about to burst out of her chest?
She placed the report onto the desk and said, “I’ve got to use the bathroom.”
Then she walked into the stairwell, down the steps, and out into the parking lot. She barely registered the reporters. Their shouts were drowned out by the rush of blood in her ears. Without even realizing it, she got into her car and began to drive. Her cell phone chirped, but she ignored it. She came out of her daze when she found herself parked in front of the nearest liquor store which, mercifully, had escaped the flood zone. Her feet carried her out of the car and into the store. Some part of her fought to be heard. The part that had been buried beneath the avalanche of emotion as a result of Lisette’s news, the guilt over Vera’s death, the terror of having nearly drowned when they were swept downriver, and the possibility that Ray had lied to her, back when they were both still innocent and in love.
Her hand closed around the neck of a bottle of Wild Turkey.
Don’t do it, said the muffled voice.
Just one sip, said the voice that was now firmly in control of her body. The voice of panic, loud and unpleasant, driving away reason, wanting only to soothe the demons that now swirled around the periphery of her consciousness. Demons that had been there since childhood. She thought she’d pushed them down, exorcised them. They didn’t matter. But they were here.
“Cash or credit?” said a male voice.
Josie looked up
at a young cashier placing the bottle of Wild Turkey into a bag. “No,” she said.
He gave her a lopsided smile. “Well, those are the only two ways to pay, so…”
“I’m sorry,” Josie said. “I—I have to go.”
She went back to the car, trying to slow her pounding heart, and peeled out of the parking lot. She didn’t realize where she was headed until she was already through the gates of the cemetery. After parking, she picked her way between the headstones to Ray’s grave. Following his death, she had come there often, but she hadn’t been there in months. A bouquet of flowers lay limply at the stone’s base. Most likely from Misty, Josie thought. Misty visited religiously. The ground was damp from weeks of unrelenting rain, but Josie sat down anyway, crossing her legs. She wasn’t sure why she had come. After five minutes, she realized she didn’t feel any better.
“It doesn’t matter,” she muttered at the headstone through gritted teeth.
She needed to focus on her job. Letting things like Lisette’s news and silly high school mistakes that her dead husband may have made in the past interfere with her present-day life was a huge problem. What was happening to her?
She heard Gretchen’s voice in her head. You can only push trauma down for so long before it starts coming out in weird ways and at weird times.
Closing her eyes, she took in several deep breaths. She would calm herself down, get control. Then she would take all these strange, cumbersome feelings threatening to overtake her and push them down as far as they would go into some black hole in her mind. She would move on. Go back to work.
“Josie.”
Noah’s voice startled her. She jumped to her feet, swiping at the back of her jeans, brushing off dirt and grass. He stood several feet away, hands jammed into the pockets of his khaki pants.
She said, “What are you doing here?”
He stepped closer until there was only a foot between them. “You didn’t come back. I was worried.”