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

by Lisa Regan

  “What about Vera?” Gretchen asked. “Where does she fit into all this?”

  Noah said, “Maybe she saw him kill Beverly? She disappears because she’s afraid he’ll kill her, too, and then when Beverly’s body is found, she comes back to Denton and he actually does kill her.”

  Gretchen shook her head. “I don’t think that makes complete sense. If Vera saw the murder, why wouldn’t she just report it? We’re talking about her kid here.”

  Noah said, “Dutton was rich and powerful and, at that time, he was running for City Council.”

  Gretchen said, “But he wasn’t cartel powerful or federal government powerful. She could have turned him in easily. I think we’re still missing something. Besides, he’s got an alibi for the morning Vera was shot. After we met with Connie and Marisol, I made some calls to confirm their alibis. Both were home with their husbands.”

  Mettner said, “Maybe Marisol lied for her husband.”

  Josie said, “Or maybe she slept late that morning and never knew he was gone. What if she’d been drinking heavily the night before? Passed out? It’s possible he could have snuck out and back in before she even woke up. We’re onto something now. It’s a start. We also checked Dutton’s firearm purchase records. He has owned a nine millimeter pistol since 2000.”

  Chief Chitwood said, “You’ve got enough to bring him in and talk to him. Do it. Tomorrow. Schedule him to come in. Two of you stay here to question him while the other two serve the warrant at his home for the gun. We’ll go from there.”

  Forty-Six

  The next morning, Josie and Noah waited in her car just outside the entrance to Quail Hollow Estates. Gone were the protestors and the residents opposing them. Josie sipped her coffee while Noah looked at his phone. “Dutton was due at the stationhouse ten minutes ago.”

  “He’s running late,” Josie said.

  They had driven past the Dutton residence upon their arrival at Quail Hollow and seen both Dutton vehicles in the driveway. Then they’d taken up position outside of the development so they’d know exactly when he left. But he never emerged.

  Josie’s cell phone chirped with a text message. She looked at it. “Gretchen,” she told Noah. “Dutton’s attorney is there waiting for him. He’s called Dutton’s cell phone but didn’t get an answer.”

  Noah grimaced. “You want to go in or wait a few more minutes?”

  “Let’s give it ten more minutes,” Josie said. “Then we’ll knock.”

  The ten minutes passed slowly. Gretchen texted once more to let them know Dutton’s attorney had tried again, unsuccessfully, to reach Dutton. Still there was no sign of Dutton’s vehicle leaving the development.

  Josie put the car in drive, a sinking feeling in her stomach, and headed toward the Dutton residence. She parked on the street and together, she and Noah approached the house. They knocked on the door but there was no answer. They rang the doorbell. Nothing.

  “I don’t like this,” Josie said.

  “We can’t go in without cause,” Noah said.

  Josie took out her phone and fired off a text to Gretchen. “I’m going to ask her to make sure attempts to contact both the husband and the wife have been made. Wait here, I’m going to see if any of the neighbors are home. Maybe one of them has a key.”

  Noah stood at the front door, alternately knocking and ringing the doorbell to no avail while Josie went door to door along the street. Of the six houses she went to, three of the neighbors either weren’t home or didn’t answer. Two didn’t have keys. The last neighbor was Connie Prather. She answered the door in jeans and a fitted T-shirt that said Mama Bear on it. In her arms was her tiny dog.

  “Mrs. Prather,” Josie said. “By any chance do you have a key to the Duttons’ home?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Mr. Dutton was supposed to meet his attorney at the police station this morning, and he didn’t show up. Both vehicles are there, but we’re not able to get in touch with Marisol or her husband.”

  “Oh,” Connie said. “I don’t—well, I might have one from a long time ago. I don’t know if it would still work, but I can—”

  “Could you get it for us?” Josie asked, cutting her short.

  “Um, sure, I guess. Wait here.”

  Josie could see Noah’s outline on the Duttons’ front steps from where she stood. It took Connie thirteen minutes to find the key. She left her dog in the house and walked to the Duttons’ with Josie. “This is so strange,” Connie said. “Maybe they just didn’t want to pay the fines.”

  Josie was deciding whether or not to tell Connie that Dutton wasn’t going to the police station to work out the fines the Chief had levied against him for the supplies Quail Hollow had taken illegally, when a concussive boom shook the air around them. Both women froze. Josie looked toward the Dutton house where Noah was already kicking the front door. Josie left Connie behind and ran toward Noah, unsnapping her holster as she ran. By the time Josie reached him, the door had broken away from its frame. Noah took out his pistol and pushed inside. Behind him, Josie was ready, gun in hand, following him as he cleared each room on the first floor. Finding no one, he pointed toward the ceiling and Josie nodded. She let Noah lead as they padded up the steps.

  Behind the second door in the upstairs hall, Marisol slumped on the floor at the foot of a king-sized bed. Her hair was greasy and unkempt. Blood trickled from a split in her bottom lip. When she looked up at them, Josie saw that her nose had been smashed in, and her left eye was black and swollen.

  “Gun,” Josie said quietly to Noah.

  “I see it,” he said, advancing on Marisol. He pointed to the Glock on the floor beside her. “Mrs. Dutton, I need you to move away from the weapon.”

  Josie went in the opposite direction, where Kurt Dutton lay in a heap on the floor near a large walk-in closet. A gunshot wound in his chest pulsed blood. Josie checked him for weapons but saw none. Dropping to her knees, she took off her jacket and used it to put pressure on the wound. With one hand she felt for a pulse. It was weak and thready. “Noah,” she said. “He’s not going to make it. We need an ambulance now.”

  Noah had helped Marisol onto the side of the bed. He took out his phone and made the call.

  “Marisol, what happened here?”

  Noah and Josie looked toward the bedroom doorway where Connie stood, face pale, eyes wide, taking in the destruction in the large room. Overturned furniture, broken lamps, blood stains in the carpet.

  Josie said, “Connie, stay where you are. Don’t come any closer.”

  Connie seemed not to hear her, eyes still glued to Marisol, but she didn’t step inside the room. “Mar?” she said.

  Tears streamed down Marisol’s face. She hugged her middle, flinching, and looked over at Josie. “Is he dead?”

  “No,” Josie said. “But he’s lost a lot of blood.”

  “Ask him what he did,” Marisol said.

  Noah hung up his phone and put it back into his pocket. He holstered his weapon and went over to Marisol. “Are you wounded?” he asked.

  “He hit me,” Marisol replied. “He came after me. He was crazy.”

  “No gunshot wounds, though,” Noah said.

  She shook her head. “I shot him,” she said.

  Connie gasped and covered her mouth with one hand.

  “I shouldn’t say that,” Marisol said. “I know. I should wait for an attorney. You don’t know what he did. Ask him what he did.”

  Josie looked at Noah and gave a slight shake of the head. Beneath her hands, the life was bleeding out of Kurt Dutton. He was barely breathing. There was no way he could hold a conversation.

  Noah said, “He’s not in a position to talk right now, Mrs. Dutton. Why don’t you and I go downstairs and wait—”

  Marisol sprang off the bed only to flinch, the movement obviously causing her pain. She put her right hand over the left side of her rib cage. “He’s a monster. He killed them both. Vera and Beverly—and Beverly’s baby. Did you know
that he knocked Beverly up before he killed her?”

  Noah said, “Mrs. Dutton, you’re in shock right now. We can take a statement once you’ve been checked out by a medic.”

  He reached for her arm, but she swatted him away. “I saw her once, you know. She came to the theater to see him, but I was there that day. I never forgot that. He told me last night that he had to go to the police station today. I asked him why, and he said it was about the city flood supplies. But then he called our lawyer, and I knew he was lying. All night I asked him what was really going on until he hit me. I asked him if it had to do with Beverly Urban’s body being found. He told me. He admitted it. He killed her all those years ago, and he killed Vera because she wouldn’t keep his secret any longer. She was going to tell the police the truth.”

  Connie gasped again but said nothing.

  Marisol continued, “I asked him what the truth was, and he said that he and Beverly were having an affair. When she was in high school! I knew he was telling the truth because of the girls.”

  “Oh, Mar,” Connie whispered.

  “What girls?” Josie asked. She checked for Kurt’s pulse again. It was barely there.

  “My husband liked young girls,” Marisol spat. “When we first got married, it was just college-aged girls. Interns. Unpaid interns. He’d hire them from Denton University and then romp around town with them. Like I wasn’t going to find out.”

  Josie looked at Connie. “You knew about this?”

  Connie nodded. “My husband saw him with college girls a few times. It was obvious that he was… involved with them, but they were adults, so we never said anything.”

  “But they weren’t all adults,” Marisol said. “Beverly Urban was sixteen when they started their affair. I asked him if that was why he killed her—because if anyone found out he was having a sexual relationship with a minor, it would have ruined his life. He would have faced prison. He said he never meant to kill her, only to scare her because she was pregnant with his baby, and she was threatening to keep it. She invited him to her house when she thought her mom was out and told him. They had a big fight about it. Vera showed up. Things got worse. He was going to pay her, pay them both, to take care of it, but Beverly refused. He said he took out his gun to scare her, to scare them both into doing what he wanted, but things got out of hand and he shot her.”

  Josie knew this to be a lie. There was no scenario that she could imagine in which Kurt Dutton had shot Beverly in the back of the head by accident or in the heat of the moment. From Dr. Feist’s findings, Kurt would have had to be standing behind her, a few feet away, with her walking away from him when he pulled the trigger. But they were getting Dutton’s confession second-hand.

  Noah said, “Why didn’t Vera go to the police?”

  Marisol said, “I don’t know. He said he offered to pay her as long as she disappeared and never talked about it. He told her if she ever went to the police, he would tell them how she dealt drugs to his wife and her friends for years. He would ruin her. I asked him why, if he’d already killed Beverly sixteen years ago, he didn’t just kill Vera, too, and he said he wasn’t thinking straight and hadn’t meant to kill Beverly. Vera was so freaked out that she just did what he said. They made some kind of deal. I don’t know what it was or how it worked—just that he paid her, and she kept quiet. But he said Vera came back after Beverly’s body was found. She begged him to go to the police, explain it had been a mistake, and said she would go herself if he wouldn’t. He couldn’t risk it—especially not now, with the mayoral race going on—and so he killed her. He knew where she was staying so he followed her and killed her. I slept in that day. I just assumed he was here all that time, but he wasn’t. I was his alibi and I didn’t even know it. Then he said he would kill me too if I told. I tried to get to my phone, and he started to beat me.”

  Sirens sounded outside. Marisol collapsed onto the bed, weeping. Noah brushed past Connie and out of the room to meet the cavalry outside. Josie felt for Kurt Dutton’s pulse again, but it was gone.

  Forty-Seven

  One Week Later

  Josie sat at her desk at the Denton PD stationhouse, flipping through pages of records recovered from Vera’s apartment. She felt a presence behind her and looked over her shoulder to see Chief Chitwood lingering. “You still on that Urban thing, Quinn?”

  “We never found evidence that Kurt Dutton was supporting Vera Urban financially. I asked Marisol’s attorney if we could have the Duttons’ financial records, and he said he’d look into it, which means I’m never going to see a single record.”

  Chitwood pulled over an empty chair from Gretchen’s desk. He sat in it and leaned toward Josie. “Quinn,” he said. “The case is closed. We have the wife’s statement. The ballistics on Kurt Dutton’s gun match up to the bullet found in Beverly’s skull and to the shell casings found in the old bowling alley. It fits. Hummel couldn’t pull any prints from the casings but the ballistics match and that’s good enough for me.”

  “Chief, some things don’t fit. Mostly Vera.”

  “You think someone else killed Vera?”

  With a sigh, Josie leaned back in her chair. “No. I think he did kill her.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  Josie picked up a stack of pages on her desk and let them fall loosely back to the surface. “Vera was a loose end. He had no trouble killing her when she returned to town after being in hiding for sixteen years. Why didn’t he just kill her right away? Why spend all that money supporting her? Money I can’t account for, by the way.”

  “Quinn,” Chitwood said. “Has it occurred to you that maybe he was having an affair with Vera?”

  “No,” Josie said. “Marisol said he liked younger women. Connie Prather confirmed that.”

  “Have you corroborated that? Talked to any young women Dutton had affairs with?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “Quinn,” Chitwood said. “Let it go.”

  “I think Marisol knew something,” Josie blurted.

  “Like what? You think she knew her husband knocked up a minor sixteen years ago, killed her, buried her, and paid her mother off for almost twenty years to keep quiet about it, and she just chose last week to confront him?”

  “No,” Josie said. “Not exactly. I don’t know. I just think she knew something. I’m not sure if she knew something in a concrete way or if she knew it in the sense that something was always off, but she chose to ignore it and not ask questions because she liked her comfortable life and there was nothing particularly glaring in front of her face. Either way, she knows a lot more than she’s told us.”

  Chitwood appraised her. He folded his hands over his stomach.

  “Quinn, I’ve been at this a long time—”

  “I know, I know. Since I was in diapers,” Josie said with a groan. Immediately, she regretted it. She waited for Chitwood to leap out of his chair, point a crooked finger at her and berate her. But none of that happened. Instead, he laughed. Josie was so stunned she momentarily wondered if she had hallucinated. She looked around the room, devastated to find that none of her colleagues were there to witness it. They’d never believe her. Chitwood said, “Since the time you were in diapers, Quinn, I’ve had more cases than I can count that left me feeling uncomfortable after they wrapped up, like I had missed something even after I had my guy. Sometimes, that’s just the way it is. Sometimes, Quinn, you have to live with the discomfort.”

  With that, he stood and walked away. Josie watched him go back to his office and close his door, wondering if that last item was about the Urban case or about her. When she tore her gaze away from his door, Gretchen was coming out of the stairwell with two coffees in hand, both from Komorrah’s. In most areas of the city, the flooding had finally receded, and local businesses and residents were getting their lives back to normal. There were still problem areas which Emergency Services were monitoring and flood zones that were being patrolled regularly, but for the most part, pre-flood life ha
d resumed. Misty had taken Harris and Pepper and gone home, leaving Josie and Noah strangely lonely and very hungry. Gretchen put one paper cup in front of Josie and went around to her own desk.

  Josie peeled back the tab of the lid and let the smell of her favorite Komorrah’s brew waft up to her nose. To Gretchen, she said, “You might be my soul mate.”

  Gretchen laughed. “Fraley will be sorry to hear that.”

  Mettner walked in, waving a sheaf of papers. “Boss,” he said. “I just ran into Hummel. He gave me these DNA results from the Urban case. Apparently, Mayor Charleston pulled some strings to get them expedited. Another nail in Dutton’s literal coffin just days before the primary. Guess we’re stuck with her for another two years.”

  He handed her the reports. She flipped the pages. “Marisol was right. Kurt Dutton was the father of Beverly’s baby, and Silas was Beverly’s father. Vera was right when she told him he was the father.”

  “Think we should tell him?” Mettner asked.

  Josie set the pages on her desk and sighed. “Do you think he’ll reimburse the city for Beverly’s funeral expenses?”

  Gretchen gave a dry laugh.

  Before anyone could say more, Amber came in through the stairwell. Her alabaster skin was flushed and she walked fast, almost as though someone was chasing her. “Detective Quinn,” she said. “I have something for you.”

  She pulled a chair from one of the other desks and wheeled it over, plopping down next to Josie. From her pocket, she pulled a small flash drive and handed it to Josie.

  “What is this?” Josie asked.

  “Look at it,” Amber said. Her breath came quickly, her chest heaving. “Please.”

  Josie plugged it into her computer and waited for the PC to recognize it.

  Mettner came around to stand behind them. “Amber, what’s going on?”