Gretchen said, “What else could it be?”
Brownlow shrugged. “Don’t know. A dog or something? Who says it’s human?”
Josie said, “I am one hundred percent sure this is human. But I hope we are wrong, and if we are, we’ll feel pretty damn good because it will mean we don’t have a murder victim on our hands.”
Gretchen reached down into the boat. “Let’s get this into the truck.”
Brownlow put up both hands. “You’re not putting that in my truck.”
Josie said, “Are you kidding me?”
He didn’t reply.
“Just help us get it to the command post. I can put it in my car to get it to the morgue,” she said.
“Sorry, ladies,” he said. “I told you not to jump in after that thing, and you did it anyway. It’s not going in my truck and neither are you two.”
As he walked away, Gretchen spat out a few colorful words under her breath.
Josie sighed. “Unbelievable. Help me get the remains out of the boat. You can stay here and guard them while I walk up and get my car.”
“Your new car?” Gretchen teased as they lifted the tarp out of the boat and found a place away from the water where Gretchen could sit and guard it.
Josie’s old vehicle, a Ford Escape, had been totaled in an accident the month before. She had just bought a new one. She sighed, thinking of the pristine gray interior and new car smell that still permeated it. “Yes, my new car.”
Gretchen sat on the grass beside the body and pulled her helmet off, running a hand through her short, spiked brown and gray hair. “Get one of the ambulances. They’ll take us to the morgue.”
“No,” Josie said as she stalked off toward the university parking lot. “We need them for the living. I’m not diverting resources right now. Not with these flash floods.”
“Good call,” Gretchen called after her.
Josie wiped more rain from her face as she passed Brownlow, who was hooking the rescue boat to the back of his pickup truck, and took the long walk to the parking lot where a bright orange sign marked the command post. Immediately she noticed the news vans crowding one of the triage tents. Reporters, garbed in ponchos and raincoats, gathered around Evelyn Bassett where she sat beneath a canopy tent on a gurney, an ice pack held to her head. They held out their phones and shouted questions. Behind them, cameramen pointed large, heavy, plastic-wrapped cameras at her. Next to her was Hayes. As Josie got closer, she saw that he, too, had taken off his helmet. His black hair was in disarray, sticking up everywhere. He looked to be about her age, mid-thirties, with dark stubble along his sharp jaw. He busied himself tucking a blanket around Mrs. Bassett’s shoulders.
A reporter said, “Mrs. Bassett, were you scared? Did you think you’d get swept away?”
“Course I was scared,” she replied. “I’m seventy-eight! Didn’t think I’d get swept away though. You guys know who saved me, right?”
“Detective Quinn,” another reporter shouted from the back.
Josie felt unease roil her stomach. Five years earlier, she’d cracked a scandalous missing girls’ case in Denton and since then, she’d been instrumental in solving several other high profile cases that had garnered national attention. She’d been on Dateline three times—thanks to her sister who was a world-famous television journalist—and had become something of a local hero. Being semi-famous in her hometown didn’t really suit her. The cases that had put her on people’s radars haunted her. She just wanted to do her job as best she could, but her unwanted celebrity was often unavoidable. Josie put a hand up to adjust her hair as she approached. Mrs. Bassett’s voice came again. “There she is! Detective Quinn! My hero. Jumped right in after me, she did.”
Josie froze in place. For a split second before the reporters turned and converged on her, she got a glimpse of the frown on Hayes’ face. Questions were shouted at her seemingly from every direction though none of them were about her rescue of Mrs. Bassett:
“Detective Quinn, what was inside the tarp?”
“Was that a body that you recovered in the water?”
“Detective, have you confirmed that a body was inside the tarp?”
“Were human remains found inside the tarp?”
Josie held up her hands, silencing the crowd. “I can’t comment on that at this time.”
More shouts followed, these more enthusiastic. Josie had to talk loudly to quiet them. “When we have more information, we will let you know. Right now, I’ve got work to do.” She leaned past them and caught Mrs. Bassett’s eye. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to speak to Mrs. Bassett privately.”
Reluctantly, the reporters dispersed. Josie walked over to the tent, glad to be out of the rain for a few moments. She waited to make sure all the reporters were out of earshot before she addressed Mrs. Bassett. “How are you feeling?”
Mrs. Bassett winked at her. “Just fine, thanks to you. Now I just need to find a place to live.”
Hayes patted her shoulder. “I’ll find somewhere suitable. There are options.”
Josie said, “Did you have homeowners’ insurance? You may be able to rebuild.”
Mrs. Bassett shook her head. “That was a rental. It’s just the stuff inside I lost.”
“I’m sorry that you lost all of your possessions,” Josie told her. “We do have a couple of local businesses donating clothing and other things to people who’ve lost everything in the flooding. You’ll be able to get the basics.”
“I’ll make sure she gets what she needs,” Hayes said quickly.
Mrs. Bassett put the ice pack on her lap and grabbed Josie’s wrist. “I lost my husband in a fire fifteen years ago. I’d give up everything I ever owned in my lifetime to have him back. Things can be replaced.”
Josie was stunned by her optimistic attitude. The last week had been straight out of hell, watching members of her beloved community in dire straits. Some had lost their homes altogether and many others had lost most of their possessions. They’d been lucky so far that no one had died in the flooding, but still, people were displaced and devastated. Josie patted Mrs. Bassett’s hand. “I’m sorry about your husband. Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions?”
Hayes said, “This isn’t really the time.”
Ignoring him, Josie said to Mrs. Bassett, “How long had you been living in that house?”
“Fifteen years. I moved in right after the fire. I had insurance money to rebuild, but I didn’t want to rebuild a home without my husband. But there was the matter of the land, which I still owned. I wasn’t sure what to do—I needed time to think. I was homeless—we never had children and I had overstayed my welcome with my sister-in-law—so I looked for a rental while I sorted things out. There was a local attorney looking to rent the house. He was nice enough. We went with a month-to-month lease.”
“But you never left,” Josie filled in.
Mrs. Bassett relinquished Josie’s hand and pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Things move so fast, don’t they? I did sell the land our house had been on and put that money away. I just never got around to buying something else. My heart wasn’t in it, to tell the truth. It was easier to stay in the rental. Mr. Plummer—that’s the landlord—he always takes care of things. When something breaks, he has it fixed. When an appliance needs replacing, he has one delivered and installed. He takes care of everything, even landscaping and snow removal. He’s always been good to me. I just pay rent and utilities. If I bought my own place, who would I call for all those things?”