Save Her Soul: An absolutely unputdownable crime thriller and mystery novel (Detective Josie Quinn Book 9)

by Lisa Regan

  He looked up and smiled at her. “JoJo,” he said, using her childhood nickname. “I was wondering if you’d pay me a visit.”

  “Zeke,” she greeted him, using the name he went by. Only Josie called him “Needle”—he didn’t even know about the private nickname she had given him as a small child, knowing him only as the man who brought needles to the woman who had posed as her mother. As a child, Josie hadn’t realized the needles were so that Lila could inject herself with drugs. She just knew this man came to their trailer often and as much as she didn’t like him or his wares, the truth was that he’d saved Josie from terrible things as a child. Not all the terrible things that had happened to her—he’d stood by while Lila locked her in a closet for days, starved her, and otherwise abused her, but he had saved her from the worst that Lila had tried to do to her.

  Josie was never sure if she should feel grateful to him for having improved her life with Lila even incrementally, or if she should be furious with him because he never stepped in and tried to have her removed from Lila’s care. Then again, he had been Lila’s drug dealer. That he noticed Josie at all and tried to help her was probably more than was warranted.

  “Sit,” Needle said, waving toward the other chairs in the room, as if he were hosting them in his living room and not in an interview room at the police headquarters.

  Josie took the seat closest to him, trying not to grimace as her stitches pulled. Gretchen sat opposite, her notepad in hand, pen ready to go. “I’m not here for a social visit,” Josie told him.

  He took a long drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke upward, away from her. “I know that, JoJo. But it’s good to get out of that cell. Never liked them cells much. Truth be told, I’d rather be out under the stars with nowhere to lay my head than in a cell.”

  Josie took out her phone and brought up a photo of Vera from her days at the salon, before Beverly was born. She slid it across to Needle. “Do you remember that woman?”

  Needle put his cigarette in the ashtray and sipped his coffee as he studied it. “She dead?”

  “Yes,” Josie told him.

  He looked up at her, smiling again, but this time she saw a familiar look in his pale gray eyes. A little bit of suspicion and a lot of hardness. “You tryin’ to pin something on me, JoJo?”

  Josie said, “That cell you hate so much? It’s your alibi. I’m not trying to pin anything on you. I just need information. Her name was Vera. I went to high school with her daughter. She used to work at a salon here in Denton which is where she sold drugs to rich women. Painkillers, pot, that sort of thing.”

  He kept studying the photo. Josie reached over and swiped through several more photos. He eyed each one as if it were some kind of hieroglyph he was trying to decipher. Josie waited. When he didn’t say anything, she picked up the pack of cigarettes that Noah had secured for the interview and shook a new one out, handing it to Needle.

  He took it, lit up, inhaled, and on the exhale, said, “I remember her. No one’s seen her in years though.”

  “How many years?” Gretchen asked.

  “Lotta years.”

  Josie said, “What else can you tell me about her?”

  He looked up from the phone and Josie took it back. “She wasn’t in it heavy, not at first. The painkillers were a side hustle, to get extra money. You’re right, sometimes she needed other things, but it was mostly painkillers. She had those rich bitch clients but there were only a few. She didn’t need much. Not until she started taking them herself.”

  “She had an accident,” Gretchen supplied. “Then she started taking painkillers.”

  Needle shrugged. “I don’t know what all happened to her. She was around a lot looking for them for a lotta years, then she wasn’t, then she was back, and it was like someone put her through a damn time machine. She couldn’t hardly walk, didn’t have no money, and all she wanted was more and more and more. Then one day—nothing. Figured she overdosed.”

  “Did she buy from you?” Josie asked.

  He chuckled. “Come on, JoJo. I’m already in here for lootin’. You said you wasn’t gonna pin nothing on me.”

  “I don’t care if she was,” Josie said. “I’m not charging you for drugs you sold to someone thirty years ago or sixteen years ago—someone who’s dead. I need to know who supplied her. I need a name.”

  Needle sat back in his chair and puffed away at his cigarette. He stroked his beard. “A name,” he said. “I might have a name for you.”

  “You do or you don’t,” Gretchen said.

  His eyes darted in her direction and then landed back on Josie. “I do. But JoJo, you caught me at a bad time, you know? I’m in here. Tomorrow they’ll be taking me over to central booking. Then I’ll be in for a few months before all this gets straightened out.”

  Josie smiled at him. “Three meals a day, Zeke. You could do worse.”

  “Never had no trouble finding meals,” he said.

  Josie leaned in toward him. “What do you want?”

  “You’re a big shot now, JoJo. You could pull some strings for an old friend. Get me some reduced charges. Hell, maybe get me out of here completely.”

  She felt something harden inside her. “You’re not an old friend, and I’m not pulling any strings for you. Give me the name. I’ll make sure you’re comfortable while you’re here.”

  He sighed, put his cigarette out, and folded his arms across his chest. “Maybe we’re not friends, JoJo,” he said. “But you always were a smart kid. You know how the world works. I have something you want. You have something I want. Seems to me that’s a fair trade.”

  Josie said, “I don’t even know if the information you’ve got is of any use. What if the person I’m looking for is dead? Then what? You can’t guarantee anything. I’m not making any deals with you. Either you give me a name or you don’t.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  Josie smiled. “I’m a smart kid. I’ll figure it out.”

  Needle narrowed his eyes at her. “Jojo—” he began, but his words were cut off by her new cell phone ringing on the table between them. Josie glanced at the screen, then back at Gretchen. “It’s Colbert PD. Come on, let’s go.”

  Thirty-Six

  Ten minutes later, Josie and Gretchen were on the way to Colbert in Josie’s vehicle. The landlord had been tracked down, and he was more than happy to help them. He said he’d meet them at Alice’s address with keys and a copy of the lease she had signed. The emotional roller coaster of the past day seemed to slow with this news. It felt like they might have a real lead.

  Gretchen said, “I think when we get back, you should talk to Needle again.”

  Josie’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I’m not asking Needle who Vera’s supplier was. I’m not doing him any favors.”

  “Boss,” Gretchen said. “It’s the fastest way to get the information.”

  “By asking the district attorney to go easy on him? Gretchen, he’s a career criminal.”

  “Yes, he is, but he’s also a non-violent offender. His rap sheet up until this past week was made up entirely of drug offenses.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Gretchen sighed. “I’m saying that if you just talk to the DA and ask them to consider a reduced charge in exchange for information on a current murder case, and they agree to it, it’s not like you’re endangering the public—not in the sense that he might go out and assault or murder someone.”

  Josie took one hand from the steering wheel to wipe sweat from her brow, only to discover that it was trembling. Was this one of those times when she wasn’t thinking clinically enough? she wondered. The road they were traveling down was blocked where flooding had inundated it. Josie pulled up to the “Road Closed” sign and stopped, her foot pressing hard against the brake. When she spoke, her voice shook. She stopped and tried again, attempting to steady it. “My whole life that man stood by and did nothing while terrible things happened to me. No, not happened to me—were perpetrated
against me. Violent things. Unspeakable things. Yes, he intervened a couple of times when things were very bad, but he left me there. He left me there with—with a crazy woman. He gave her the drugs that made her… made her…” The words seemed to get hung up in her throat. A sob threatened, making her shoulders quake. Gretchen touched Josie’s shoulder.

  “Boss,” she said softly. “It’s okay.”

  Tears stung Josie’s eyes. What the hell was wrong with her? Why was she crying all the time now? She understood her feelings about Vera Urban’s death. She’d tried and failed to save the woman. That warranted tears, although even those tears were anathema to Josie’s career-long professionalism. But she didn’t cry over just anything like this. Certainly not over things that had happened decades ago. Things she couldn’t change. She tried to push it all down the way she always did, but it wasn’t working.

  Gretchen reached between them and put the gear shift in park. “Let’s take a minute,” she suggested.

  Josie shook her head. Her whole body quaked. She opened her mouth, willing the words “I’m fine” to come out but instead, different words came out, high and squeaky. “Lila tried to cut my face off! She tried to cut my face off. She was crazy, and he supplied her with everything she asked for, even when she didn’t have any damn money, and it didn’t matter to him or to anyone else what she did to me. He’s not—he’s not—”

  “Boss.”

  “He’s not a good person!”

  Once the last words were out, Josie felt like she might crumble. She sank back into her seat, hands in her lap. Suddenly, she felt light, as though she weighed nothing. Everything around her began to spin. Gray crept in around the edges of her vision. Gretchen tapped her shoulder. “Boss,” she said again. “Look at me.”

  Josie stared into her brown eyes.

  “Focus on my voice,” Gretchen said.

  Josie nodded. That was easy. She listened as Gretchen spoke in a calm and even tone. Normal, matter-of-fact. Not pitying. Not sympathetic to the point of being saccharine. Not patronizing. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” said Gretchen. “We’ll get around this. We’ll find another way to get the name we need. You know where the usual suspects hang out. We’ll go and talk to them. There might be someone else besides Needle who knows who Vera’s supplier was.”

  The more Gretchen spoke, the clearer Josie’s vision became. Her breathing returned to normal. The heaviness returned to her body. She could feel a flush creeping from her collar to the roots of her hair. She nodded. “Okay, yes,” she said. “Yes. Let’s do that.”

  Gretchen waited a few more moments for Josie’s full composure to return.

  Josie looked straight ahead. Then she whispered, “What just happened to me?”

  Gretchen said, “You can only push trauma down for so long before it starts coming out in weird ways and at weird times.”

  “I thought I had dealt with it,” Josie said.

  Gretchen smiled. “By doing this job? No, not the same thing as dealing with it, processing it, moving on from it.”

  Josie knew Gretchen was just as intimately acquainted with trauma as she was. “What do you do?”

  “Since everything came out a few years ago,” Gretchen said, “I’ve been in therapy.”

  Nothing sounded quite so painful to Josie as therapy. Gretchen must have seen it in her face because she said, “I know you don’t think it will help. A lot of people don’t see the value in it, which is understandable, but it’s helped me a lot. Anyway, what do you say we turn around and get back on the road? Check out Vera’s apartment, see what we can turn up there?”

  “Yes,” Josie breathed. “That sounds good.”

  Thirty-Seven

  Colbert was a small town to the west of Denton, its quaint streets laid out in a grid pattern with all the necessary amenities and shopping at its center in old brick buildings that looked like they’d been built in the 1800s. The apartment that Vera Urban had been renting under the name Alice Adams was on the first floor of a duplex about five blocks from Colbert’s main street. It was well kept but nondescript, just like the street it sat on. The landlord met them at the front door. After they made introductions, he handed them a copy of the lease. Josie studied it. It had been signed five years earlier. “It was always month-to-month,” he told them. “She always paid cash, rarely complained. She was a model tenant, really. I’m sorry to hear what happened to her.” He unlocked the front door and ushered them inside. “She said she didn’t have any family. I guess that means all her stuff is… well, I’m not sure what I’ll do with it so feel free to take anything you’d like. I’ll wait outside.”

  The apartment was small but bright, airy, and clean. The living room held a couch and coffee table across from a small stand with a television and DVD player on it. Along one wall was a row of bookshelves. Half of them held DVDs and the other half held dog-eared, broken-spined paperback books. Beyond that was a kitchen/dining area fit for no more than two people. A hallway off the kitchen led to a bathroom and large bedroom.

  Josie and Gretchen searched meticulously, finding few personal items other than some pieces of junk mail which were addressed to “Resident”. The bathroom had a few more prescription bottles—painkillers, additional anti-anxiety drugs, and heartburn medication. In the bedroom were more well-used paperback books on the bedside table but again, nothing personal. No photos, no cards, not even home décor items like knick-knacks or wall hangings. It was obvious someone lived here, but the entire apartment seemed very impersonal. Almost like a hotel room.

  A noise from the bedroom closet startled them. Gretchen’s hand lingered over the Glock at her waist. At Josie’s nod, she unsnapped her holster and drew her weapon, keeping the barrel toward the ground. Josie did the same. Gretchen moved to stand behind Josie, and together they approached the closet door. Heart thundering in her chest, Josie swung open the door and lifted her gun, trying to focus in on any potential threat. Before she could even process what she was seeing, Gretchen erupted into laughter behind her. Both women holstered their weapons and stared at the large orange striped cat doing its business in a litter box on the floor of the closet. A moment later, it sauntered out of the closet and meowed loudly. It went straight to Gretchen, rubbing its body against her legs. She reached down to pet it, and the cat arched its back at her touch.

  Josie took in a couple of breaths, waiting for her heart rate to return to normal. “Looks like Vera—or Alice—wasn’t living alone, after all.”

  Gretchen picked the cat up and talked softly to it. It purred in her arms. She held it away from her body before hugging it again. “It’s a she,” she told Josie. “No collar though. Let’s hope Alice took her to a vet regularly. Maybe they’ll know her name.”

  She placed the cat back onto the floor so she could help Josie explore the contents of the closet, but the cat stayed close, weaving in and out of Gretchen’s legs. “She likes you,” Josie noted. The closet took up almost an entire bedroom wall. There was a rack filled with clothing and then several shelves from floor to ceiling holding shoes, folded sweaters, and jeans as well as some plastic bins. Josie pulled one of them down and handed it to Gretchen before retrieving another. They set them on the bed and began going through them.

  Gretchen said, “This looks like old medical bills for Alice Adams. Paid, paid—these are all paid. Looks like with cash. Oh, here’s a bill for a vet. It says the cat’s name is Poppy.” She took a photo of it and kept going, mumbling, “A copy of her lease. Receipts from when she paid rent…”

  Josie pawed through the other bin. “I’ve got photos.”

  Hundreds of photos had been piled into the bin. They seemed to span from Vera’s own childhood through Beverly’s birth and beyond. There were several pictures from Vera’s baby shower similar to the ones that Sara Venuto had provided them with. Then there were photos of Beverly as an infant, sleeping in a swing, in her crib, and one or two of her cradled in Vera’s arms.

  “Won
der who took those?” Gretchen said, looking over Josie’s shoulder.

  “Here,” Josie said. “Connie Prather.”

  She fingered another set of photos showing Connie holding baby Beverly. There was the occasional photo of some of Vera’s co-workers with Beverly as well, taken both at the salon and at what looked like Vera’s home. However, by the time Beverly was five or six—from what Josie could estimate—it was only Beverly in the photos. Dressed up for Halloween; blowing out candles on a birthday cake at a park surrounded by other small children; wearing a backpack on what Josie assumed was a first day of school: the photos captured all the small milestones and other hallmarks of a normal, American childhood. Milestones and hallmarks that Josie herself had never gotten to experience. Again, she wondered what had gone wrong between Beverly and Vera. Or maybe nothing had gone wrong. Maybe something had happened to Beverly sometime during her otherwise idyllic childhood to lead to her behavioral issues. Or was it chemical? Had she had some psychological condition or mental health issue that made her so volatile? Josie wondered if they’d ever know.

  Poppy jumped up onto the bed, walking right across the photos that Josie had spread out, again headed directly for Gretchen. Josie laughed. “Tell your friend there she needs to wear gloves if she wants to handle evidence.”

  The photos went up through high school, although sometime around Beverly’s adolescence they suddenly seemed to reduce in volume. Either Vera had taken fewer photos during that time or Beverly had refused to be photographed. Perhaps a combination. Or, Josie thought, after Vera’s back injury, she simply wasn’t up to taking photographs.