Chapter 40

FORTY

Denton Memorial Hospital’s emergency department was bustling despite the fact that it was early afternoon, though Fridays tended to be very busy. Josie waited near the nurses’ station, a rapidly cooling coffee in her hand. She couldn’t bring herself to drink it. Everything tasted like death and decomposition. She could still smell it on her clothes and in her hair. Closed-in homicide scenes tended to do that. For the third time in less than ten minutes, a patient walked past her, nostrils flaring, face crumpling in disgust. She was definitely going to have to throw this entire outfit away.

Gretchen appeared from a long hall that led to the emergency department’s main entrance. Everyone she passed gave her a wide berth. Every single person who’d been inside the church carried the odor of death with them like a cloud. No one had time to go home and shower. Not yet. There was too much to be done. Too many leads to run down, and now they had a potential witness.

Gretchen stopped in front of Josie. “Anything?”

Everything had been a blur once they’d realized the boy was still alive. Josie had left the rest of the team at the scene to accompany the victim in the ambulance. “He didn’t speak on the ride over here. They’re working on him now. Running some tests. Dr. Nashat should be out soon. Officer Chan is collecting his clothes, shoes, and any items on his person for processing. The good news is that he had his wallet on him. I checked for it on the way over. His name is Jared Rowe, seventeen. Denton resident. His house is about twenty minutes from here. I texted the address to Noah.”

An officer would be dispatched to Jared’s residence. They knew his mother was the victim in the church but if his father also lived in the household, they’d need to contact him right away. With the address, they could also find out his mother’s name and begin investigating her last known whereabouts.

“Was he at least conscious?”

“Barely.” Josie pictured the boy’s pale face, his drooping eyelids. She could still hear his incoherent moans. “Sawyer thinks he was in shock. Most of the stab wounds are on his forearms. The hand that was trapped under the pulpit has a pretty large wound straight through. Nothing on his body, but Sawyer was certain he’s got some broken ribs. He may have internal injuries.”

A man with his arm in a sling walked toward them, slowing as he passed, sniffing the air with a pinched expression. “It’s us,” Gretchen told him. When he opened his mouth to speak, she added, “You really don’t want to know.”

Josie watched him until he turned a corner into the waiting room. “What about the polaroid?”

There had been no chance for her to get a closer look at it. They’d left it exactly where they found it. Gretchen slid on her reading glasses and took out her phone. “Hang on. Hummel sent me a picture of it.”

The ERT would be processing the church now. Dr. Feist was likely en route. It would be hours before they learned any details about the body or the scene that could help them further their investigation.

Gretchen handed Josie her phone. Just like the previous polaroids, this one was slightly blurred but appeared to be nothing but the tops of trees as far as the eye could see. The top of the photo was distorted but from what Josie could tell, it was just blue sky. From the angle, the camera had been almost level with the treetops when the photo was taken. “This wasn’t taken above some valley,” Josie said.

“Right,” said Gretchen. “It’s like he climbed to the top of a tree and took it.”

“Great,” Josie sighed, giving the phone back. “Now we just have to search every place in the city where there are trees.”

Gretchen texted the photo to Josie before pocketing her phone. “Every place in the city where there are trees that we worked a case.”

Josie laughed. “That could be anywhere. It’s literally every case. Sure, it would have been a significant case. That’s his pattern, but this?”

She let the question hang in the air, wondering if the killer really wanted them to find the next victim. Every new piece he shifted in his sick game only made it harder for police to know where to go next. If he stumped them, did that mean he won? Or would he give them a free turn, and leave them a new victim in a more obvious place with a new polaroid that was easier to figure out?

Their cell phones chirped at the same time, interrupting Josie’s thoughts. She got to hers first, reading off the texts from Noah before Gretchen had a chance to put her glasses back on. “They found the footage from the parking lot. Around midnight last night, a man drove up with a woman in the passenger’s seat. Dragged her out by her upper arm and marched her away, out of camera range.”

“Last night.” Gretchen looked over her reading glasses at Josie. “He left the polaroid with Stella Townsend on Monday. Five days ago. We found it two days ago.”

Josie’s heart thudded painfully in her chest. “He waited. Shit.”

Gretchen didn’t say it out loud but Josie knew they were both thinking it. If they’d found Stella Townsend and the polaroid sooner, and been able to identify the location in the photo more quickly, they could have put surveillance on the church. They could have caught the killer and prevented the murder of Jared Rowe’s mother.

Josie’s chest felt tight. Had he done it on purpose? Given them time? Or had he simply not been able to pull off the abduction until last night?

“Josie.” Gretchen’s tone held both solace and a gentle warning. “Don’t get too far down that rabbit hole. Chances are he might have figured out we were waiting for him and changed the location.”

Josie paced, pinching the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. Her other hand squeezed her phone so hard, her knuckles blanched. “That kid lost his mother because we couldn’t figure out where the picture had been taken.”

Gretchen stepped in front of Josie. “No. That kid lost his mother because some depraved piece of shit murdered her. You know that. It’s what you tell family members who think they could have done something to change the outcome of their tragedies.”

Josie dropped into the box breathing she’d learned in therapy, trying to calm her body. “Killers kill,” she murmured.

“Yes,” Gretchen said. “Killers kill, and we put them away. The best—and only—thing we can do right now is focus.”

Josie nodded, lifting her phone to read the rest of the messages. There was no way to identify the killer from the Harper’s Peak footage, given the position of the camera and the fact that he was wearing a hat. It was nighttime, so it was very likely no one saw them, though Noah had sent units to discreetly speak with the Griffin Hall guests.

“The kid wasn’t with them.” Gretchen scrolled through her own messages.

“It might have been hard for the killer to control both of them, even with a gun, given the distance they’d have to travel on foot, in the dark, from Griffin Hall to the church.”

More texts from Noah populated her screen and Josie read through them as quickly as they came. “The car he used to drive to Harper’s Peak is registered to a man named Greg Downey, Denton resident. Sent someone to his home. Should have word any minute.”

In the meantime, the ERT would impound Downey’s vehicle to see if DNA, fingerprints, or any other evidence could be collected that might help their investigation. More waiting.

“Excuse me. Detectives?”

Dr. Nashat, the emergency department’s attending physician, stood behind them smiling politely.

Josie said, “How is he?”

“He’s stable.” Dr. Nashat folded his hands at his waist. “He has some broken ribs and a fracture to his pelvis, but no internal injuries. The wounds on his forearms are superficial. The one to his hand is quite serious. I’m not sure if he’ll regain full function or not. They’ve already taken him up for surgery.”

A barbed spike of sadness lodged itself in Josie’s heart. Seventeen, and facing the possibility that he could lose some function in one of his hands.

Josie’s phone chirped again. She took it out, quickly reading the latest text from Noah.

Brennan made contact with Greg Downey. Forty years old. Tax attorney. Resides with his mother. Says his car was in the shop. Owner of the shop confirms it was stolen from their lot during the night.

Something in the back of her mind crept forward, a connection asking to be made.

Gretchen said, “How long will he be in surgery?”

Josie fired off a response to Noah. Which shop?

“It’s very difficult to say. If you check back in an hour from now, I’ll know more,” Dr. Nashat offered.

Gretchen thanked him for his time just as Noah’s response came back. Schock’s Auto Repair. Same one Sheila Hampton used.

As the doctor walked away, Josie tapped in a reply. We’re headed there now.