“Mett,” Josie said. “We just call him Mett. Thank you.”
Josie sipped the cup Noah had brought her as she watched Amber hand out the rest of them, each one made to the person’s liking as per Mett’s instructions.
Mettner said, “I told her we usually like Komorrah’s, but they’re flooded now.”
Gamely, Noah said, “This was very thoughtful. Thank you.”
When she had finished dispensing the drinks, Amber pulled a chair over from one of the unoccupied desks. She produced a tablet with keyboard which she opened on her lap. Then she looked at them expectantly.
Gretchen said, “Miss Watts, you’ll be joining us for all of our briefings from now on?”
Amber smiled. “Please, call me Amber. Well, not every briefing but I thought for now, to get myself acclimated, I’d sit in on as many as I can. This will give me an idea of what types of cases you’re working on and any press issues you might be up against.”
Josie wanted to tell her that they’d handled the press just fine as long as she’d been with the department, but it was obvious that in spite of the Chief’s protests, Amber was there to stay. When no one spoke, Amber said, “Look, detectives, I’m not the Mayor’s plant, okay?”
“No one said that,” Mettner told her.
Josie, Gretchen, and Noah all swiveled their heads to stare at him. Noticing their looks, he said, “What? You guys think she’s a plant from the Mayor? Really?”
“It’s okay,” Amber said. “Really. Listen, I can’t change the fact that the Mayor hired me, but I am here to do a job and that is to handle all press matters so that all of you can do your jobs. That’s what I’m here to do, and if it makes you feel any better, I report to your Chief, not the Mayor.”
No one spoke.
After a tense moment, Mettner said, “Come on, guys. We might as well make the most of this situation. We’ve got work to do.”
Gretchen said, “What happens if Mayor Charleston doesn’t get re-elected? Do you lose your job?”
Amber waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, the election is months away. I’m not worried about that now.”
“But the primary is in a couple of weeks,” Noah pointed out. “The other party doesn’t have a candidate, which means either Charleston or Dutton will run unopposed for Mayor in November. You’ll know in two weeks who your boss is going to be next year.”
Josie said, “Dutton’s running on a campaign to cut spending. He’s made Charleston out as though she’s gone buck wild with the city’s budget.”
Amber stared at them, a genial smile frozen stiffly on her face. An awkward moment passed. Then she let out a breath and said, “Well, I can’t worry about that right now. I have a job to do for as long as I’m here, so if you wouldn’t mind…”
Reluctantly, they began their morning briefing on the Beverly Urban case. Gretchen ran down everything they’d learned the day before. Josie talked about having tracked down Beverly’s two best school friends; the call from Alice; her search for the name in the Urban materials; and the warrants she had prepared for the cellular networks. Then Gretchen passed around a list of contractors that Plummer’s secretary had emailed over that morning.
Noah skimmed over it. “Here,” he said. “Newton Basement Waterproofing. I’d talk to them first.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Gretchen said. “But I’d still like to dig up the permits from the City Codes office.”
“I’ll go,” Noah said.
Mettner said, “I’m supposed to be at the command post today. I can have someone take me over to Hempstead and see if it’s still underwater. If it’s not, I can poke around; see if I can find any clues.”
“Look for the house downstream too,” Josie told him. “See if you can find anything there.”
“On it,” Mettner said. He stood, picked up his coffee cup, and smiled at Amber. “I’ll see you later.”
Noah said, “I’ll head over to the City Codes office. That’s probably going to take a few hours. This way you two can start talking to people while I do that.”
Amber clicked away on her tablet as Josie picked up several documents Gretchen had printed out that morning, looking for known relatives of Vera Urban. “There’s a brother here,” Josie said.
“Yeah,” Gretchen answered. “I looked him up. He lives in Georgia. Not married. He’s a chemical engineer. Looks like he’s ten years older than her.”
“Let’s give him a call.”
Fifteen
Josie picked up the phone and set it to speaker so they could both hear. She dialed Vera’s brother’s number. After six rings, a man’s voice answered.
“Mr. Floyd Urban?” Josie asked.
“Who is this?”
Josie identified herself and Gretchen and told him why they were calling. For a long moment there was only dead air. Then he said, “You said my niece was murdered? I hate to tell you this, officers, but I don’t have a niece.”
Gretchen said, “You have a sister though, correct?”
“Well, yeah, but I haven’t talked to her in decades. We’re… how do you say? … Estranged.”
“Why is that?” Josie asked.
“I don’t really have time for this,” Floyd told them.
Josie said, “Okay, well what we can do is contact the police in your area and have them bring you in for an interview at your convenience. Would that work better?”
The sound of a heavy sigh filtered through the line. Then Floyd said, “Our mother died when Vera was very young, but our father passed when Vera was just out of high school. He didn’t have much, but she wanted it all. The house, the car, whatever was in his bank accounts. Said she needed it. Said I had been out of the house for ten years and was already established. When I insisted on getting my half of the estate, she tried to pass off a forged will, saying our dad had written it before he died, cutting me out and leaving her everything.”
“How did you know it was forged?” Gretchen asked.
“My sister was eighteen at the time, and believe me, she was never a genius. I just knew. As soon as I threatened to get lawyers involved, she backed down. We split the estate down the middle and never spoke again.”
“Not even once?” Josie asked. “Not even through social media? No calls for major life events?”
“Let me put it to you this way, officer, I didn’t even invite her to my wedding. My kids are grown now and have no idea she even exists. I really didn’t want someone like that in their lives anyway.”
“Someone like that,” Josie echoed. “Vera was just a kid.”
Floyd laughed bitterly. “You sound like my father. She was old enough to know right from wrong. Listen, she wasn’t a murderer or anything, sure, but she was conniving, and she had a problem with lying. The estate business was the final straw.”
Gretchen said, “You had no idea that Vera ever had a child?”
“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t.”
“You haven’t heard from or spoken with or been in any contact with Vera since she was eighteen years old?” Josie asked.