by Lisa Regan
“Like what?”
“You tell us,” Josie said.
“I don’t know. I guess. I gave her rides and stuff. Sometimes I picked up some groceries or cigarettes for her. That kind of thing. She was in real bad shape, and her kid was all over the place. Vera had a hard time controlling her. She was something else.”
“Beverly,” Josie said. “How well did you know her?”
“Not that well.” He noticed them staring at him intently and added, “I ain’t no pervert, so don’t even think that. She was grown up but too young for me. Plus, she was Vera’s kid, you know? I don’t mess with shit like that.”
“You sure about that?” Gretchen asked. “Because we’ve got evidence that Beverly was fixated on you.”
“That wasn’t my problem. That kid was wild. She wasn’t really interested in me, anyway. She was trying to piss Vera off. I never gave her anything to work with.”
“What does that mean?” Josie asked.
He blew out a loud breath. “It means that she flirted with me every chance she got but only when Vera was around to see it. I made sure to shut her down every time. I tried telling Vera that she only did it when Vera was there, that it was fake, to get a rise out of Vera, but she didn’t believe me. That kid wouldn’t give me the time of day if her mom wasn’t there to witness it. She wanted to make Vera jealous. No way was I getting in the middle of that. I didn’t need that crap, and like I told you, I’m not a perv. I don’t mess with young girls. That ain’t right.”
“You never had sexual contact with Beverly Urban?”
“Of course not! Even if I wanted to—which I didn’t—Vera would have kicked my ass.”
“Did Vera ever talk about Beverly’s father?” Josie asked.
“Not at first. But then right before she did her disappearing act, she tried to tell me that the kid was mine. Crazy, right?”
Josie said, “Was she your daughter?”
He gave her an incredulous look. “Of course not. Vera and I were together a few times, but I never got her pregnant.”
“How do you know?” Gretchen asked.
“’Cause I know, okay? I can count.”
“You remember precisely when the last time you were with Vera in a sexual way was?” Josie asked.
“No, no. I just know it couldn’t have been me, okay? I don’t remember dates and stuff. Just that at the time when she told me, I knew it couldn’t be me.”
Josie said, “Would you be willing to give a DNA test?”
“Does it hurt?”
“No. It would be a simple cheek swab.”
“Sure, whatever. I don’t care.”
Gretchen took out her notebook and pen. She flipped to a clean page and jotted down some notes. “Great. We’ll have a couple of officers from our evidence response team come by your place and do the test. Try not to run from them.”
“Does that mean you’re going to let me go?”
Ignoring his question, Gretchen asked, “Do you know if Beverly was involved with anyone? A male?”
“Hell if I know. Look, I know you gotta do your job, ask all these questions and stuff, but I don’t know what you want from me. Me and Vera were friends. I dealt her some drugs over the years. When she was at the salon and going to these drug parties. Then I didn’t see her for a long time. She got in touch after she had back surgery. I kept her out of pain as much as I could. I helped her because we were friends, even though she was behind in paying me. Then one day she was gone. Never saw her again.”
“Do you have any idea where she might have gone? Was there anyone who might have helped her move away? Anyone you can think of who might have offered her financial help?” Josie asked.
Again, Silas laughed. “Financial help? Vera owed everyone money. She had a real problem by that time. I always thought that was why she left. I thought she took her kid and found some place to lay low.”
“Did she have other friends that you know of?” Gretchen asked. “Besides you?”
He shook his head. “No. She was private. The last time I saw her, her only real friend was Percocet. So are you gonna let me go or what?”
Josie said, “That depends. Would you be willing to let us see the tattoo on your back?”
He let out a sigh of frustration. “You bitches want anything else? A lock of my hair or something? Shit. Fine. You want a look at the goods, go ahead.”
Josie turned him around and she and Gretchen lifted his T-shirt, pulling it up to his neck. Gretchen said, “That’s not a skull.”
Silas said, “Whaddaya mean it’s not a skull? It’s a coyote skull. Took weeks to get that shit.”
Josie could see why. The coyote skull took up his entire upper back. Silas Murphy was definitely not the married man they were looking for.
“Let him go,” Josie said, feeling defeated.
Forty-One
“Do you think he’s telling the truth?” Gretchen asked as she drove them back to the stationhouse.
Josie checked her jeans for blood. The gash on her leg was aflame. She was convinced the stitches had popped, but no blood soaked through. Regardless, the filthy water could introduce infection into her leg. She needed to get it clean as soon as possible. The pain and worry over the possibility of infection were only momentary distractions from thoughts of her grandmother and Sawyer Hayes. She’d managed to evade them while they were questioning Silas Murphy, but the moment they got into the car, the thoughts came roaring back. “What’s that?” Josie asked.
“Silas,” Gretchen said. “Do you think he’s telling the truth? About not being involved with Beverly and about not having seen Vera in all these years?”
“Actually, I do,” Josie said. “He’s pretty easy to crack. Aside from the fact that he ran, he gave up his secrets a little too easily.”
“Well,” Gretchen said. “He’s not the brightest bulb on the tree.”
Josie laughed. “He’s pretty guileless.”
“Or pretending to be guileless to fool us into thinking he’s not a threat of any kind. He has no alibi for when Vera was killed.”
“True,” Josie agreed. “But we’ve got no evidence that would connect him to Vera’s murder. I don’t see what reason he’d have to kill her.”
Gretchen said, “Unless he killed Beverly and Vera saw it and she’s been flying under the radar all this time because of that. His rap sheet lists him as six foot one. Definitely tall enough from what Dr. Feist said—although ballistic testing would be needed to confirm something like that.”
“I don’t see the motive there, though,” Josie said. “Silas is the kind of person who is only ever worried about his next payday or his next smoke or his next drink. He’s like Needle in that way. They don’t think long-term. They try to stay off people’s radars as much as possible unless those people want to buy drugs from them. Violence isn’t really in their wheelhouse. Not that they could never be violent, but given Silas’s history and that interview, I just don’t see him killing Beverly or Vera.”
Josie panned the municipal parking lot as they pulled in. It was filled with news vans from WYEP. A crowd of reporters much larger than the one that had assembled the day Beverly’s body was recovered stood before the back door. Across from the news vans were two patrol cars, lights flashing. Chief Chitwood and Amber stood in front of the first car. The Chief looked smug and triumphant, whereas Amber looked terrified.
“Come on,” Josie said as Gretchen squeezed the vehicle into the nearest parking space. “Let’s see what’s going on.”
The reporters didn’t even register them as they walked toward the Chief. Uniformed officers emerged from the cars and began unloading their prisoners from the back seats.
“Sweet baby Jesus,” Gretchen muttered under her breath as the Mayor and her husband were taken from the back of the first car in handcuffs. Connie Prather followed, also cuffed. From the backseat of the second car, the officers brought out Marisol Dutton and two men, one of whom Josie recognized as Kurt Dutton. She had
only seen him in campaign photos around town, but the Dutton Enterprises insignia on his navy polo shirt left no doubt. All of them were lined up in single file. The Chief began marching them inside. As the Mayor passed Amber, she glared. “Did you know about this? Did you know? If I find out you knew about this and didn’t tell me, you’re fired.”
“Shut it, Charleston,” the Chief said over his shoulder. “You’re not firing her. You wanted a press liaison so now we have a press liaison. Watts! Handle the press!”
He left Amber behind, standing before a gaggle of reporters. Josie and Gretchen slipped past her and into the building where the Chief was directing the women into one holding cell and the men into another. All of them except Connie Prather were shouting, demanding phone calls and attorneys and hollering about how the Chief had no right to arrest them.
Chief Chitwood stood before the two cells, holding his hands up until he had complete silence. “I know what your damn rights are. You’ll each get a phone call so you can have your attorneys down here. You just wait until we get you booked in here.”
“This is outrageous,” Tara Charleston shouted, her voice full of venom. “You’re done in this town, Chitwood.”
“Save it,” the Chief told her. “I’m not interested.”
Kurt Dutton stepped forward, wrapping his hands around the bars. When he spoke, his voice was calm and reasonable. “Chief,” he said. “I understand you’re trying to make a point here, and you’ve made it. What can we do to resolve this without having to involve our attorneys?”
Tara said, “Kurt, didn’t you see the press out there? It’s too late to not involve our attorneys! If nothing else, we should sue him for defamation of character.”
Tara’s husband, who sat on one of the benches in the men’s cell dressed in surgical scrubs, said in a weary voice, “Tar, just stop, okay? Let Kurt handle this.”
The third man, a stocky guy with thinning blond hair dressed in a suit, stepped up to the bars. He called out, “Conn? You okay?”
Connie Prather spoke for the first time since they’d entered the station. “I’m fine, Joe,” she said tightly.
Her husband, Josie realized. Mr. Prather turned his attention to the Chief. “I’m interested in hearing your answer, Chief. What can we do to avoid taking this any further?”
The Chief raised a brow. “I’ve been fighting with you people for days. Now you’re ready to talk? Now I have your attention?”
Kurt Dutton’s expression was conciliatory. “Look, Chief, I apologize. Perhaps some of the city’s supplies were… misappropriated.”
The Chief snorted.
Kurt went on. “We owe you an apology for making your job more difficult.”
Josie said, “You could have cost this city lives by taking resources meant for other areas.”
The Chief didn’t shush her. Instead, he looked at his prisoners, bushy brows raised, as if waiting for one of them to give an explanation. Connie Prather came to the front of the women’s cell and said, “What we did was wrong, okay? Is that what you want to hear?”
“No,” the Chief said. “What I want to hear is that you’ll return every last thing you took from Emergency Services.”
Tara’s husband said, “What if they return it? Kurt?”
Dutton glanced back at the surgeon, looking uncomfortable at being called out specifically. Turning his attention back to the Chief, he said, “Take us back to Quail Hollow, and your officers can supervise the return of every last resource. It won’t happen again, and we can forget this whole thing.”
The Chief studied him for a moment. Josie sidled up to him and without moving her lips, spoke low enough so that only he could hear her. “We need to talk to the wives about the Urban matter.”
“Fine,” the Chief said to Dutton. “But just you three. Patrol will take you back to Quail Hollow. Once everything is returned, you can collect your wives. I’m going to ask Emergency Services to patrol around the back of your development until all this is over to make sure you’re not sneaking supplies over there.”
Protests erupted from both cells. Chitwood shouted, “I’m not done!” and they fell silent.
“You’ll also be cited.”
Tara said, “You’ve got to be joking.”
Prather said, “For what?”
The Chief said, “I’ll think of something! You’re not getting off scot-free, you got that?”
“No deal,” Tara said. “Forget it.”
Chitwood shrugged. “Okay, we’ll do it your way. We’ll book you all in, and you can call your attorneys one at a time.” He walked away, Josie and Gretchen following. The patrol officers went to the desk. One of them started booting up the computer. Everyone in the cells began shouting at once. The noise rose to a deafening crescendo before Chitwood stopped. He looked over his shoulder. Josie glanced back as well. Tara’s face was hot pink with fury. Kurt Dutton said, “We’ll pay any fines you deem necessary. Please. We’d much rather do it your way.”
Josie could see from the way Tara’s lips pressed into a thin line that it was killing her not to be in control of the situation, but she kept silent. After a long, drawn-out moment, Chitwood nodded at the patrol officers. “Get these guys back over to Quail Hollow.”
An audible sigh of relief sounded from the back of both cells. Chitwood went back upstairs. Josie and Gretchen lingered, waiting for the men to be escorted back out to the patrol cars. There was the whoosh of the door followed by the shouts of reporters and then silence as the door closed again. Josie checked her wet, dirty pants again but no blood had soaked through. Still, she’d have to clean her wound as soon as possible. Alone with the women, Josie and Gretchen took up position just outside of the cell. Tara remained at the front with her hands white-knuckling the bars. Connie and Marisol sat on the benches behind her, Connie hugging herself and rocking slightly, and Marisol slouched down, looking bored.
Josie said, “We spoke with an old friend of yours today. Silas Murphy.”
Connie’s head snapped up. Marisol looked over slowly, unsurprised. The pink of Tara’s cheeks turned to dark red. Gretchen said, “It’s interesting that none of you mentioned him when discussing Vera Urban and her drug habits—well, your drug habits.”
“Silas Murphy is irrelevant,” Tara snapped.
“Is he?” Josie said. “Or is the real reason none of you mentioned him was because you had sexual encounters with him while you were married?”
Now three sets of eyes widened and stared at them. After a long couple of seconds, Tara said, “Don’t be absurd.”
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.
