Connie turned toward Marisol. “Were you with him, Mar?”
Marisol wrinkled her nose. “Of course not. He was our drug dealer. I was bored with Kurt but not that bored.”
Connie looked at her feet but not before Josie noticed her lower lip quiver. “What about you, Tara?”
Tara whipped around. “Oh Connie, for Pete’s sake. What do you think?”
Connie looked up at her. “I don’t know what to think. So tell me. Were you with Silas?”
“It was Whitney,” Marisol said. “She had an affair with him. It went on for years. Until she died.”
Connie wiped a tear away.
Marisol said, “Wait a minute. Were you with him, Con?”
They all stared at Connie Prather. She said, “Please don’t tell my husband. It was only a few times. I was young and stupid. It was before my kids and before rehab. I’m a different person now. I have been for a long time. That was just a mistake.”
Josie said, “Some people can let go of their mistakes. Others spend their lives trying to keep them secret. Wouldn’t you say, Tara?”
Swearing under her breath, Tara turned back to Josie. “I wasn’t with Silas Murphy, so just stop trying to pin that on me.”
Gretchen said, “Are you sure you didn’t have a sexual encounter with him?”
Giving an exasperated sigh, Tara threw her hands in the air. “No, I didn’t. Was I attracted to him? Yes. We all were. Back then he was young and handsome and completely unlike our boring old husbands. He came to the parties and we treated him like he was some kind of god. It’s no wonder he tried to sleep with all of us. He came on to me, yes, but I shut down his advances. But someone like him could easily lie about it. I was there at those parties, taking pills and drinking. I was afraid he would go around telling people he had slept with me. I knew he’d been making his way through the circle.”
“Hey,” Connie said. “That’s not fair.”
Marisol laughed. “It’s not? Please. Stop acting like you’re somehow better than the rest of us, Connie. We were all there. We all loved it. We loved the way we felt at those parties. We loved doing something bad.” She said the word “bad” in a breathy tone of feigned excitement. “Some of us just took it too far.”
“You mean me,” Connie said. “I took it too far.”
Marisol shrugged. “You, Whitney, Vera.”
Again, Connie looked stricken. “Vera?”
Marisol rolled her eyes. “Oh come on, Connie. Really? You didn’t know? Yes, Vera. She was in love with the guy.”
Tara wrinkled her nose. “Vera never made good decisions.”
“Oh and the rest of us did,” Marisol said, laughing.
Tara said, “Well obviously. We’re here and she’s not.”
“We haven’t made great decisions either,” Marisol said. “I don’t know if you realized it or not but we’re in jail.”
Connie said, “We’re in jail because of your husband!”
Marisol pointed at Tara. “It was her damn idea. She’s the Mayor!”
Before a full-blown argument could take place, Josie raised her voice so she could be heard. “Vera Urban was murdered two days ago. The Mayor knows but it hasn’t been made public yet.”
Their silence was so complete, Josie could hear the wall clock over the officers’ desk ticking. Then they started calling out questions. Before Josie could calm them again, her cell phone rang. It was Paige Rosetti. They were supposed to meet her in a half hour to take a video call from Lana again to see if she had anything useful to tell them that she might have thought of since their last chat.
“Excuse me,” Josie said and walked away.
Forty-Two
Gretchen stayed behind to answer the wives’ questions while Josie used the station bathroom and first aid kit to clean and dress her leg wound before driving to Paige Rosetti’s house. Several areas of the city were still closed down, as the flood water was slow to recede, and she had to take several detours to get there. Alone in her car, she turned her radio up, trying to drown out the thoughts of Lisette and Sawyer crowding her mind again.
She was relieved to arrive at Paige’s house. She tried to clear her mind as Paige led her into the kitchen again where two cups of coffee waited. She handed one to Josie and kept the other, taking a seat in front of the open laptop. Josie sat next to her and thanked her as she sipped the coffee. It was smooth and made to perfection. The knots in her shoulders loosened as they waited for Lana to come online. She felt a degree of comfort here, she realized, in this bright and airy space with Paige Rosetti.
A few minutes later they were staring at Lana onscreen. After she and Paige exchanged pleasantries, both women went silent, and Josie realized it was her turn to ask questions. Except she couldn’t think of any. What was happening to her brain lately? “I’m sorry,” she said. “Lana, was there anything else you remembered about Beverly that might be helpful?”
Lana shook her head. “I don’t think so. I was thinking about it, and I don’t know that I have any information. I just think, you know, Beverly wanted attention.”
“That makes sense,” Josie said. “It would explain a lot of her behavior.”
Lana nodded. “Beverly felt like her mom didn’t really want her. It started when we were in middle school after she heard her mom on the phone, talking about her. Beverly never knew who Vera was speaking with, but she said things like, ‘this is not what I signed up for’ and ‘come get her because I can’t handle her anymore.’”
Josie held her mug in both hands. “Did Beverly speculate as to who Vera might have been talking with?”
“Yes,” said Lana. The screen blipped momentarily and then she came back into focus. “Beverly believed Vera was talking to her dad, but Vera would never talk about the call or tell Beverly anything about her dad. After that, Beverly was sad and angry.”
“And her behavior got even worse,” Josie said. She felt an acute ache in her chest. Poor Beverly had been a child entering one of the most difficult phases of growing up—being a pre-teen—when she’d overheard her mother telling someone she didn’t want her anymore. Asking that someone to come get her. But no one had come for her. Certainly, no father figure. Instead, she had died a horrible death, buried alone beneath a house and forgotten. Her own mother knew about her horrible ending and hadn’t even reported it. The ache in Josie’s chest hardened into something else. Resolve. She didn’t care what she had to do. She’d figure out who killed Beverly and make sure he or she was brought to justice.
Quietly, Paige said, “I think few things are worse than feeling unwanted, especially when you’re a child.”
“You’re right,” Josie said.
Lana spoke again. “Beverly hated Vera after that. Vera would never tell her the truth. Beverly did everything she could to make Vera tell her who her dad was but Vera refused.”
“Did Beverly ever mention a man named Silas?” Josie asked.
“Not that I recall,” Lana said. “Oh, I meant to tell you, I remembered that one of the last times I talked to Beverly she was worried and upset about something. I asked her what was going on. She said Vera had found out about everything; that she knew everything—like, about the baby and the father’s identity. She said Vera was going to kill her. She couldn’t figure out how Vera found out the father’s identity. She said Vera didn’t even know the guy. That’s all I remember. Sorry.”