She pulled out a thin manila file from the box. Josie gathered up the documents from Mrs. Bassett and made room for the new file. Gretchen opened it and began placing various documents side by side. The lease, copies of checks, letters, and what looked like legal documents. Josie picked one up and skimmed over it. The top of it was marked with the Denton City Municipal Court seal. “This is an eviction action,” she said. “Calvin Plummer versus Vera Urban, April 9, 2004.”
Something in the shadows at the back of Josie’s mind fought to burst forth.
Gretchen picked up more documents. “Looks like Vera lived there for about seven years before Plummer filed that. Did it go through?”
Josie flipped through the pages but found no evidence that Vera had actually been evicted. She moved on to the rest of the legal documents until she found a Petition to Withdraw. “They must have worked it out,” Josie said. “Because he withdrew the action June 18, 2004.”
“So what happened?” Gretchen asked.
Josie paged through the copies of Vera’s rent checks, then she went back to Evelyn Bassett’s checks. “There’s a year-long gap here between Vera Urban’s last rent check and Evelyn Bassett’s first one.”
“So the house on Hempstead was vacant for a year?”
“It appears that way. From the eviction proceedings, it looks like Vera hadn’t paid her rent for two months when Plummer filed against her. Then he withdrew the action, but I don’t see that she ever squared up with him or that he ever returned her security deposit,” Josie said.
“Maybe she took off, and he kept the security deposit,” Gretchen suggested.
“We’ll have to ask him. In the meantime, let’s see what we can find out about Vera Urban.”
Gretchen paged through the rest of the stuff in the letter box while Josie pulled up the TLO database. She took a few minutes to search through it. “This is strange,” she said.
Gretchen leaned over her shoulder to look at the screen.
Josie said, “She’s had no property purchases, no utilities, not even a phone for the last sixteen years.”
Gretchen slid her reading glasses on and leaned in closer. Josie moved her chair out of the way a bit to make room for her. “This can’t be right,” Gretchen mumbled.
Josie reached over and clicked through a few more tabs in the database. “She was born in 1962. Here we’ve got high school graduation from Denton West in 1980. No criminal record. A couple of speeding tickets. She was arrested once for a bad check but not charged. Here are utilities at various addresses including Hempstead but that’s it.”
“Pull up her driver’s license,” Gretchen said. “She would have to have kept that up to date.”
Josie looked it up, but the last license on file was sixteen years old as well. A sinking feeling began in her stomach. Gretchen nudged Josie out of the way and went through all the searches and information that Josie had just been through. She said, “Vera Urban stopped existing after 2004. She could be the body we found.”
Josie said, “It’s possible, but why would she be wearing a high school jacket?” Why would she be wearing Ray’s high school jacket, she added silently. Vera would have been old enough to be his mother.
“I don’t know,” Gretchen said. “We’ll know more about the age of the body after Dr. Feist’s autopsy.”
“Wait a minute,” Josie said. She sprung up from her chair and went around to Gretchen’s desk to get her yearbook. Paging through it, she found the photos of students in their junior year. In high school, her last name had been Matson. She found her own photo easily, cringing at her lank hair and acne. Then came Ray Quinn, looking less attractive in his school photo than Josie’s memories of him dictated. In her mind, he would always have the glow of feverish, passionate first love. But in his photo, he looked kind of dorky; his blond hair combed to one side and stiff with gel, his smile toothy. He hadn’t yet grown into his looks. She flipped a few more pages, toward the end of the alphabet.
“Oh my God,” she breathed.
“What is it?” asked Gretchen.
Josie came around and showed her the photo. “Beverly Urban,” she said. “She was in mine and Ray’s class. I think she was Vera’s daughter.”
Josie set the yearbook down and searched the database, looking for anyone associated with Vera Urban. Sure enough, Beverly’s name was listed under “close relative.” Wanting more confirmation of their relationship, Josie looked through Plummer’s records again until she found the lease originally signed by Vera. There was a section where she had to disclose the name, age, and relationship of everyone who intended to live with her on Hempstead. She had written Beverly’s name there, along with her age, and under the “relationship” question, she had written: “daughter.”
Josie tapped a finger against the yearbook page. “I was right. She’s Vera’s daughter. Well, she was Vera’s daughter.”
Josie studied the photo. Beverly had been taller and curvier than Josie. Among the girls in their class, she’d been the first to get breasts, the first to get her period, and, rumor had it, the first to have sex. Whereas Josie didn’t fully fill out until the end of junior year, Beverly had arrived on the first day of eighth grade looking like a college-aged woman. Josie remembered how gangly and unattractive she and many of the other girls in their class had felt when Beverly seemed to go through puberty overnight. She remembered how the boys leered at her and vied for her attention.
“She’s pretty,” Gretchen said.
The yearbook photo only showed her from the shoulders up, but Gretchen was right. Beverly had a wide smile; clear, pale skin; and long, curly brown hair. Her brown eyes held just a hint of mischievousness. If you didn’t know her, you might find it intriguing. But Josie knew that the look hid her malicious side.
“She is very pretty,” Josie said. “But she wasn’t very nice.”
Gretchen looked up. “Why do you say that?”
Josie laughed. “She was the school bully.”
Gretchen raised a brow. “Somehow, boss, I can’t imagine you getting bullied by anyone, even in high school.”
Josie leaned a hip against her desk. “I wasn’t bullied. But that didn’t stop Beverly from trying.”
Gretchen took her phone out and snapped a picture of Beverly’s yearbook photo. “What kinds of things are we talking about?”
Josie sighed. “Everything from spreading rumors about other kids to getting into fist fights. She could be very domineering. You know how when you’re a kid they tell you that some people make other people feel badly so they feel better about themselves? I think that was Beverly.”
“Did she ever spread rumors about you?”
“Sometimes, but she was mostly fixated on Ray.”
The memory came back fast and hard, like a stone landing on her chest. For a few seconds, it felt difficult to breathe.
“Boss?” Gretchen coaxed.
“She had a crush on Ray,” Josie said. “Or at least, I think so. I’m not sure if it was that she had a crush on him or that she hated me, but she started spreading rumors in our junior year that Ray was cheating on me with her.”