“Matson? Josie Matson?” a voice behind her called.
Josie turned to see the nurse standing in the doorway to that led to the exam rooms, holding a chart. She turned back to the window. Beverly was still talking to the guy.
“I’m sorry,” Josie said. “I have to go.”
“Do you want to reschedule?” the woman asked, but Josie was already out the door.
She walked a few paces down from the clinic where someone had parked a large truck. She could see Beverly from behind it, but Beverly wouldn’t be able to spot her very easily. After a few minutes, Beverly waved at the man behind the fence and started walking back in the direction of the ice cream shop where she worked. Josie edged around the truck and as soon as there was an opening in traffic, darted across the street.
She followed Beverly down the block. What had she been talking to the gatekeeper about? Why had she waved to him so familiarly? Like they were old friends. But how could they be old friends unless Beverly was a frequent visitor to the site?
Josie was only a few feet behind Beverly. Was she headed back to work? The corner was coming up. Josie would find out soon enough. Except that she didn’t cross the street to go to the ice cream shop. She stopped in front of the old theater, which was under construction according to the news. Or rather, it was being “revitalized.” Josie hung back a few feet to see what she would do. Beverly hesitated in front of the reflective glass of the door, fluffing her hair and unbuttoning the top button of her shirt. As she reached for the door handle, a woman pushed through from the other side. The door hit Beverly full-on, knocking her to the ground. The woman, clad in form-fitting black clothes—long sleeves and pants even in the heat—started to apologize. Huge sunglasses rested on her face, making her look like some kind of bug. She lifted them up and peered down at Beverly. “I’m so sorry,” she was saying. “I didn’t even see you. Are you—”
She stopped mid-sentence, staring down at Beverly as if the girl had just transformed into a three-headed snake before her eyes. Josie took a step forward, getting close enough to see yellow bruising around both the woman’s eyes just before she flipped her sunglasses back down. Straightening her posture, she flipped her long brown locks and stepped over Beverly, striding away from the scene with her head held high.
From the ground, Beverly turned her head and watched the woman walk off. She spotted Josie standing on the sidewalk. They locked eyes for the second time that day. The moment stretched out until Josie felt she had to say something.
“Are you okay?”
Beverly stood up, brushing off her rear. “Just leave me alone,” she spat. Instead of going into the theater, she went in the opposite direction, jogging across the street toward the ice cream shop. She didn’t wait for the light and a car beeped as it swerved around her. The driver rolled down his window and yelled something unintelligible at her.
Beverly kept running.
Thirty-Two
“A drug dealer?” Gretchen said. “That’s interesting.”
Josie said, “We’ll have to get some corroboration if we can.”
They sat at their desks in the great room waiting to hear from the landlord of the property Vera Urban, posing as Alice Adams, had rented from in Colbert. It was a little after ten a.m. Noah had come in and then been sent right back out on calls with Emergency Services. The rain had finally let up—it hadn’t fallen all morning—but they had yet to see sunshine. Mettner was over near the copier helping Amber to work the machine. Josie watched out of the corner of her eye as Amber’s hand slid from Mettner’s forearm to his shoulder. She laughed at something he said, and he blushed.
Gretchen said, “Think about the way Beverly was killed. Execution-style. Then you’ve got Vera’s murder. Also similar to the way some drug-related gangs handle things.”
“You think we should be looking at the drug angle rather than the father of Beverly’s baby angle?” Josie asked as she rifled through her desk looking for ibuprofen. Lucky for her, the bottle had two tablets left in it, which she swallowed dry. “We can’t be sure they were murdered by the same person.”
Gretchen shrugged and ran a hand through her short hair. “I think we should explore every angle. You’re right, we can’t be sure of anything, but Vera was hiding from someone and that someone killed her to shut her up.”
Josie’s cell phone rang. Hoping it was Colbert PD, she hit answer without looking at the number.
“Detective Quinn?” said a female voice. “This is Sara Venuto. We spoke yesterday. I’ve got a few things for you.”
“That’s great news,” Josie told her. “I’ve got my colleague with me today. We can come over now if that’s convenient.”
Gretchen drove to Envy. Sara waited inside at the reception. The styling area was packed with clients and stylists working. No one gave them so much as a passing glance. Sara beckoned them to her office. On her desk, several photographs were spread out, along with a piece of copy paper with a handwritten list of names on it.
Sara said, “I talked to a couple of the girls who worked here with Vera. Among the three of us, we came up with a handful of names. I’m not sure it’s helpful, but we did find pictures in our old salon photo albums.”
Gretchen slipped on her reading glasses and leaned over the list. To Josie she said, “Our lovely mayor is on this list.”
Sara said, “Oh yes, she was quite young then. None of us would have expected her to go into politics.”
Josie studied the photographs. There were about a half dozen showing Vera beaming proudly beside a client in a chair, showing off their freshly cut or dyed and styled hair. Josie recognized a young Tara Charleston in one of them.
Sara said. “If you look on the back, we tried to identify each client by name.”
Josie turned one of them over. It read: Marisol. Another read: Connie P? She used her phone to take a photo of the front of each picture and then the back where the client’s name had been written. Once she finished with those photos, she moved on to another stack. She fingered a photograph of Vera Urban standing in what looked like the reception area of the salon—although decorated quite differently—surrounded by other women, some of them the clients in the other pictures. Vera was smiling widely and held a paper plate overflowing with bows and ribbons onto her head. She wore a black, shapeless dress and with her other hand, she splayed her fingers across her belly. Not cradling it, Josie thought, as most pregnant women seemed to do. This was more of a protective gesture.
“That was the baby shower I told you about,” Sara said. “I was only able to find a few of those.”
Josie riffled through them. Vera in a cushioned chair, surrounded by pink balloons and large gifts, gazing at a stroller that had been pushed in front of her. Vera, holding up various gifts. In one photo, she held up a baby monitor in one hand and a card in the other. The card was spread open. Josie leaned in and saw that it said, Sorry I couldn’t be there. Love, Marisol. More photos followed. Vera in her chair of honor, surrounded by several smiling women, each of them holding up onesies that said Cutie. One of them was Tara Charleston. Clearly, Tara had lied about not attending the baby shower. Josie had the distinct feeling that Tara and Vera had been much closer than Tara let on.