Mettner said, “The press has already gotten wind of it. Amber was fielding calls all morning. She’s at lunch now, but she was pretty busy today. She gave them all the standard ‘our investigation is ongoing’ line for now.”
“I’ll make sure she keeps it that way. Quinn!” Chitwood barked. “You got anything?”
Josie told him about the brownie crumbs found in a baggie in Nysa’s discarded backpack, as well as Dr. Feist’s confirmation that Nysa had eaten said brownies before her death. Then Josie handed him a printout of the sticker.
Chitwood pushed his reading glasses higher onto his nose and stared at the picture. He said, “This is weird.” Then he sighed, handed it back to her and shifted his glasses lower so he could look over them. “So she took something, got high, went for a swim while she was intoxicated and drowned. It’s damn sad but not unique to young people. Open and shut.”
Josie said, “Sir, I’m not sure—”
“Let me guess,” he cut her off, leaning over and bracing his hands against her desk and staring closely at her face. “You think this is something more than some college kid doing an incredibly dumb thing and paying the ultimate price for it?”
Josie braced herself for one of his signature tirades. “Actually, a couple of things do seem off.”
“Meaning what?” Chitwood demanded.
“Meaning, sure, she ate the brownies and yeah, they were probably laced with something, but I don’t think she would voluntarily or knowingly take drugs.”
Picking up on her train of thought, Mettner said, “Everyone we spoke with said that Nysa Somers didn’t use drugs and rarely drank. If she was under the influence of something, I can see Detective Quinn’s point. It would be odd if Nysa had chosen to eat those brownies knowing they had something in them.”
“Also,” Josie said. “The ‘time to be a mermaid’ calendar notification makes no sense.”
“It does if she was high as a kite, Quinn,” barked the Chief. “You know people do crazy, nonsensical shit when they’re under the influence.”
“I just don’t think she ate those brownies knowing they had something in them.”
Chitwood made a noise of frustration. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe she was depressed and just didn’t care anymore? Maybe she was suicidal and didn’t care if the drugs killed her.”
Gretchen picked up a stack of pages on her desk and set them back down. “When I got here today, I drew up some warrants and served them on the campus health center in person and then her doctor’s office in her hometown in New Jersey, by email. Mett and I spent all morning looking through her medical records. There isn’t a single suggestion of her struggling with depression or anxiety.”
“Even extremely high-functioning people get depressed. They don’t always go to the doctor for it. You talk to her parents yet?”
“I’m going to their hotel now to speak with them,” Josie said. “But I have a feeling they’re going to say the same thing that everyone else who knew Nysa Somers said. She wasn’t depressed. She would never willingly or knowingly take drugs.”
Chitwood said, “Quinn, college kids do dumb shit all the time. Even the most promising ones. Sometimes things are just exactly what they appear to be.”
“What about the sticker?” Josie asked. “Whoever made those brownies and that sticker gave Nysa something that killed her. Or made her kill herself.”
Mettner said, “You think she got into the pool and drowned herself? Wouldn’t that be really hard to do?”
“Not if you’re under the influence of something really powerful,” Gretchen noted. “New drugs are coming onto the scene all the time. Maybe it wasn’t pot in the brownies. We could be looking at a variation or combination of drugs. I saw the video you guys got from the lobby. She didn’t appear intoxicated in the least and yet, Dr. Feist told Detective Quinn that she likely died soon after entering the pool area. How do you explain that?”
Mettner looked at Gretchen. “Maybe whatever substance she ate didn’t hit her until she was in the pool.”
“Then why would she get into the pool in regular clothes?” Josie asked.
Gretchen, eyes still on Mett, raised a brow. “We’re not talking about tranq darts here, Mett. Dr. Feist said she ate the brownies sometime after midnight, not right before she walked to the pool.”
“You don’t know that—” Mettner began.
Chitwood held up his hands and yelled, “That’s enough. All this speculation is a waste of time. We can say with ninety percent certainty that this girl had something in her system. We’ll wait for toxicology. It’s as simple as that. Quinn will go tell the parents today that their daughter ate brownies we believe had an illicit substance in them and then drowned. Once the toxicology comes in, Dr. Feist finishes her report. Case closed.”
“But the sticker,” Josie said. “Sir, what if more students get their hands on whatever was in those brownies?”
“You just said that the campus chief of police had no other drug-related incidents involving these stickers. We have no idea if anything was in the brownies. This is all speculation. Hell, it’s speculation that the sticker is an indicator of drugs. I’m not starting a public panic until we have more information.”
“But sir,” said Josie. “Don’t you have a contact in the DEA? You could get in touch and ask about the sticker.”
“Or we could wait until toxicology comes back,” Chitwood repeated. “Like I just told you.”
Josie opened her mouth to respond but Chitwood held up a hand to stop her. “Quinn, I know you’ve got that feeling you get. I know your instincts rarely fail you, and I know that you want to run with this, but you can’t. There’s nothing to run with. I can’t expend this department’s time and resources on a case that’s going to turn out to be a tragic accident.”
Josie kept her tone calm and even. “Sir, just let me try to track down the person Nysa Somers was with the night before she died.”
He folded his arms across his chest again and stared at her. Josie knew she had him. This was a reasonable request. A loose end that should be tied up no matter what the outcome of the investigation. “Fine,” he said grudgingly.
“And follow up with Chief Hahlbeck about drug activity on campus. She didn’t see any instances of the sticker in any of her files, but she said she was going to keep looking and make some inquiries on campus.”
“Quinn—”
Gretchen stood up from her chair, drawing Chitwood’s attention. “It’s just a conversation, Chief. That’s all.”
He waved his finger at Gretchen, Josie, and Mettner. “Thin ice,” he said. “You three are on thin ice.”
Then he stalked off to his office, slamming the door behind him. After a moment of silence, Gretchen said, “He didn’t say no.”
Josie smiled.
Mettner said, “How are you going to find the person Nysa was with?”
Josie said, “I need you to get that warrant to see where her phone pinged the other night. That’s a place to start. Also, given the probable drug angle, I think we should talk with the guy who threw the party that Nysa and Christine were at Saturday night. Hudson said he didn’t know if there were drugs there or not.”