“Were there any interruptions to the job?” Gretchen asked. “That you remember now? Anything unusual?”
He looked from Gretchen to Josie and back. “You think someone buried this girl under the foundation while we were in the middle of the job? And we didn’t notice?”
They said nothing.
Again, he gave them the grimace that indicated he was searching his memories. “A couple of times we had to stop because they were having plumbing work done, if I remember correctly, and we didn’t work weekends. There was some time at the end of the job that the house was empty. My dad had to get the key from the landlord, I think. Back then, we just figured the mom and daughter were on vacation or something. We just wanted to finish the job. That’s all I remember. I mean, I guess it’s possible someone could have put her in there while we were in the middle of the job if they did it at the right time and left everything looking the way we left it.” He shuddered. “That’s a terrible thing. I’d hate to think we poured concrete over that girl and didn’t even know it.”
Josie took out a business card and handed it to him, telling him to give them a call if he remembered anything else he thought they should know. He took it slowly, suddenly looking dumbfounded and very distressed.
Gretchen said, “Mr. Newton? You okay? Is there something else?”
He shook his head and Josie thought she saw his eyes glistening. “It’s just—who would do something like that? Something so awful?”
Josie said, “That’s what we’re going to find out.”
Seventeen
It was nearing lunch time so they got takeout which they ate in the car before heading to Kelly Ogden’s address. As Josie drove, Gretchen sent a text to Noah asking him to check into the firearm ownership of Calvin Plummer and George Newton to confirm they were both telling the truth. She also asked him to see if he could find a death certificate or obituary for a man in his mid-twenties whose name started with A during the summer of 2004.
“So, possible suspects: we’ve got the landlord,” Josie said. “Ray, George Newton, and now this guy Beverly was flirting with on Newton’s work crew.”
Gretchen said, “The list is getting longer with each person we talk to.”
“It doesn’t help that half of our list is dead,” Josie said.
They pulled up in front of a crumbling five-story apartment building in a run-down part of Denton that had somehow escaped the flooding thus far. They found Ogden’s apartment easily enough but after ringing the bell and knocking for several minutes, there was no answer. Since Josie had figured out from perusing her Facebook page that she now worked at one of the local supermarkets, they headed there, where they found her working checkout in lane seven. She passed people through her line with a blank-faced efficiency, only talking to customers to tell them how much their bill was and to ask if they had any coupons. As in her profile photo, her brown hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. In person, she looked much older than her thirty-three years.
Gretchen left Josie just inside the store while she went in search of the manager. Fifteen minutes later, Kelly led them sullenly out to the parking lot, around to the side of the building. A light mist had begun to fall from the heavy clouds overhead. Beneath a small overhang, a lone ash tray stood among the weeds on the cracked asphalt. Kelly took a long drag from her cigarette and wrapped one arm across her chest like a shield. “I don’t know nothing about that looting last night. I know you got my brother, but I wasn’t there. I was home sleeping, minding my business. I got a job. I don’t need to steal stuff. My brother, you know, he got into the drugs, or whatever. I don’t do drugs. The looting and all that wasn’t even his idea. He started running with that old dude, what’s his name? He got arrested last night too, you know. You should talk to him, not me.”
Josie and Gretchen stared at her.
Josie said, “We’re not here about any of that.”
Kelly thrust her cigarette into the air. “Zeke!” she exclaimed. “That’s his name.”
Josie’s heart went into overdrive for a few seconds, before settling back down. Quietly, to Gretchen, she said, “Zeke was arrested last night for looting?”
Gretchen frowned. “I don’t know, boss. Noah and Mett handled it.”
Why hadn’t Noah told her? Or perhaps he had tried to tell her, but she’d gotten the call from Alice and hadn’t had a chance to speak privately with him since. Did it matter? she wondered. No, she decided. Nothing that Larry Ezekiel Fox did mattered to her. She cleared all thoughts of him from her mind and focused on Kelly.
Gretchen said, “Kelly, we’re here to talk to you about Beverly Urban.”
Kelly stared at her for a long moment. She took a final drag of her cigarette, tossed it onto the ground, and stepped on it. Then she took out another cigarette and lit it. After a deep inhale, she said, “Beverly Urban. I haven’t thought about her since high school.”
“You were good friends,” Josie said.
Kelly straightened her shoulders and with some pride, said, “I was her best friend.”
Gretchen asked, “When is the last time you spoke to her?”
Kelly’s chin dropped to her chest. She sucked in some more smoke and let it back out. “Why don’t you ask me when she last spoke to me? We were best friends and then one day she just stopped calling and stopped coming around.”
“You didn’t think to check on her?” Josie asked.
Kelly’s brow furrowed. “Check on her? Like what? In case she was sick? She wasn’t sick. I went to her house and she was gone. Her and her mom. They took off. Didn’t tell anyone. Just left.”
“You didn’t find that unusual or suspicious?” Gretchen asked.
“Nah… they said they were going to have to leave. They were broke as hell. No way were they getting out of moving. I just didn’t think they’d leave without saying goodbye or that Beverly wouldn’t ever call me again. But it was probably her mom. She had a real bug up her ass.”
Josie said, “About what?”
Kelly laughed. “You think I don’t remember you? You were there. About what. Please. You knew what Beverly was like. Always getting into trouble.”
“I wasn’t friends with her. I need to know what kind of trouble she was in before she left.”
For the first time, Kelly seemed to realize the significance of two police officers coming to her place of employment to discuss a friend she’d neither seen nor heard from in sixteen years. “Hey, wait a minute,” she said, pointing her cigarette at Josie. “What’s going on here? Did Beverly do something?”
“No,” Gretchen said. “She didn’t do anything. I’m afraid she’s dead, Kelly.”
“Oh shit!” Kelly said. She walked in a small circle, as if she couldn’t contain her shock. “Oh shit, she was in that tarp, wasn’t she? On the TV? She was under the house? She was, like, murdered?”
“Yes,” Josie said. “We’re trying to figure out what happened to her and who might have killed her. Besides you and Lana Rosetti, was there anyone else she hung around with regularly?”