She pulled away from him. Noah looked at her, confused. “What is it?”
“Good God,” she said. “I know what we’re missing. I know why Beverly had Ray’s jacket and why his prints were on the Wellspring receipt.”
Forty-Four
2004
Ray and Josie stood outside the construction site. The structure had walls and windows now, resembling a building instead of some kind of Erector set. The noise from inside was still steady but less deafening. Josie swiped the sweat from her upper lip and squinted at Ray, wishing she’d brought her sunglasses. While she was wishing for things, she wished they were somewhere with air conditioning. The July heat was sweltering. She had no idea how he worked in it all day long.
“Ray,” she said. “How much longer?”
He checked his watch. “Not long. He said he’d be here to check out the site around noon today.”
“You don’t know that he’s really going to show up. These rich office people say all kinds of things they don’t mean. This is a waste of time.”
“No it’s not,” Ray insisted. “I’m telling you, this guy is really nice. He was one of the team sponsors last year. He was at the big game. Don’t you remember us having to take all those pictures?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t meet those guys,” Josie said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Ray said. “I told him all about you. He was the one who told me to bring you around. He has some foundation or something, and all they do is give out scholarships to girls. I’m sorry. Young women.”
“That’s it?” Josie said. “You just have to be a female?”
Ray gave a half shrug and adjusted the tool belt slung around his waist. “I mean, I guess you have to be studying a certain field. Like science or whatever. Technology. Computers.”
“I’m going into criminal justice, Ray. That’s none of those things.”
“Come on, Jo. Just talk to the guy. Even if you don’t qualify, it’s worth a try.”
Two large droplets of sweat raced down Josie’s back before soaking into her shirt. “Ten minutes,” she said. “Then I’ll be so sweaty he won’t even want to shake my hand.”
Ray pulled his hardhat down so it shaded his eyes and looked down the street. “There,” he said. “There he is!”
Two men walked from the direction of the old theater. They both wore suits even in the intense summer heat. As they drew closer, Josie recognized them from the championship game. One wore glasses and the other was the man she’d run into. The one on her list. Tanned and Toned. She was about to tell Ray she wasn’t comfortable with this, but Ray was already walking up to them, hand extended. The man with glasses shook it. “Hello, Ray.”
“Mr. Prather,” he said. “Nice to see you.”
Forty-Five
Noah followed Josie to the City Codes office. Having been there recently, he was able to help her find what she was looking for relatively quickly. Still, it took over an hour. Josie spent that time on her phone, locating the other pieces she needed to present her theory to the team. Back at the stationhouse, Gretchen, Mettner, and the Chief waited. In the corner, Amber lurked.
Everyone was seated at their desks except the Chief who stood behind Josie, arms folded over his thin chest. “What’ve you got, Quinn?”
Across her desk, Josie spread a map of Denton’s central business district which she’d gotten from the City Codes office. She pointed to Aymar Avenue, which was a few blocks from where they stood and still underwater. “Here,” she said. “On this corner of Aymar is the Denton Theater Ensemble Playhouse. It’s been a fixture here since before I was a kid.”
“So?” Chitwood said.
“You’re not from here so you won’t know the background,” Josie said. “It’s a historic building. It used to be run by various theater companies. Then they ran out of money. Eventually the college took it over. Now it just features student performers and guest speakers.” Josie pointed across the street from the playhouse. “There,” she said. “It’s a pizza shop now, but it used to be the ice cream shop where Beverly Urban worked in the fall of 2003 and spring of 2004, which was mine, Ray’s, and Beverly’s junior year of high school. The theater was being remodeled that same year.”
“I’m listening,” Chitwood said.
She ran her finger down the line that represented Aymar Avenue. “Here,” Josie said. “This is the corner of Aymar and Stockton. This is an office building. One of the businesses it houses is Joe Prather’s software company. The Prather Foundation is also located there. Construction on this building started six months after the theater remodel, in the spring of our junior year. Ray worked on the site as a laborer during the summer between our junior and senior years. And over here,” she pointed to another square directly across from the office building, “was the Wellspring Clinic.”
Chitwood had gone from looking frustrated to looking bored.
Gretchen said, “Beverly worked within a block of the clinic and the construction site where Ray was working the summer she was killed.”
Mettner added, “And you’ve got the Prathers moving in after this office building was built. That seems a little coincidental.”
“Not really,” Josie said. “Guess who orchestrated and supervised the remodel of the theater and the building of that office complex?”
They all stared at her.
“Dutton Enterprises,” Josie said. “I looked it up. It’s all there in the permits and land records. Kurt Dutton has always been in commercial real estate development. The Duttons have been friends and neighbors of the Prathers for decades, so of course they rented out space to them.”
Noah held up a sheaf of papers he had printed out before the meeting started. “Then there’s this.”
Everyone crowded around him. He held up the page for them all to see. It was an article from the Denton Tribune dated September 3, 2003. The headline read:
Dutton Enterprises to Revitalize Historic City Theater.
Chitwood said, “Just give us the highlights, Fraley.”
Noah read quickly and then summarized it for the others: “Basically, the theater changed hands several times during the one hundred fifteen years it’s been in Denton. Dutton Enterprises bought it for a song. Kurt promised to restore it and worked with the City Council to have it added to the city’s historic registry. He wanted to do a full remodel, which would take about a year, and bring it back to its ‘former glory.’ Then at the end of the article, he says, ‘I’m going to be personally on site here every day until the project is finished. It’s an honor to be a part of a project so dear to this city.’”
Once he finished reading the article’s highlights, Noah said, “There’s a photo here too.”
Josie squinted at it as he held it out for everyone to see. There stood Kurt Dutton and several other town officials in front of the then-dilapidated theater, grinning. Dutton cut a handsome figure, just as she remembered when they had met behind the bleachers at the championship game. He looked vastly different now that he was in his sixties. Josie hadn’t realized that the present-day mayoral candidate who had negotiated so smoothly with the Chief from behind bars was the same man who had groped her at the championship baseball game.