Her Final Confession

Chapter Thirty-Two

Andrew Bowen looked like he had just gotten out of bed. Looking at the time on her cell phone, Josie thought maybe he had. It was after 11:00 p.m. when he trudged into the police department wearing a pair of suit pants and a wrinkled white button-down shirt. In one hand, he carried a briefcase. His thick blond hair looked hastily combed away from his face. He was in his late thirties, tall, with a handsome, angular face and piercing blue eyes. He glared at Josie as one of the uniformed officers led him down the hallway to where Josie and Noah stood outside the conference room with Detective Heather Loughlin.

“Thank you for coming,” Noah said to Bowen after introducing him to Loughlin. “She’s in there.”

Bowen merely nodded and disappeared into the conference room.

“Well, that was a warm reception,” Josie remarked.

“Guess he’s taking her case,” Noah said.

Loughlin asked, “You said she just showed up here; how did she get here? Did anyone ask her?”

Noah shook his head. “She wouldn’t tell us, but Lamay checked the external footage. She drove up in her Cruze and parked in the municipal lot.”

“So, we’ve got the car?” Josie asked.

“It’s at the impound until the evidence techs can get over there and process it,” Noah replied.

Josie felt something like relief mixed with hope wash over her. No matter what Gretchen said or implied, she didn’t believe for one second that she had killed Omar. Something else was going on. Someone else was involved. Josie would find out who, starting with the car. Gretchen had left and returned in the vehicle. Whoever had been with her had surely been in the car. There had to be something there. Prints. DNA. Even if it was a single hair, Josie would find it.

“What about the gun?” Josie asked. “Her service weapon?”

“Not on her person or in the car,” Noah answered.

Then another thought occurred to her. “Was her jacket in there?”

“What?”

“Her leather jacket,” Josie said. “The one she got from the Devil’s Blade gang. The one she never takes off.”

“I’ll find out.” He walked off to make a phone call.

“You guys have coffee here?” Loughlin asked.

Josie led her across the hall to the small first-floor kitchenette and made them each a cup of coffee. Loughlin’s cell phone rang, and she answered it, plopping into a seat at the table and speaking softly to whoever was on the line. Josie was stirring extra half and half into her own mug when Noah returned.

“No jacket,” he told her.

Josie walked out into the hallway and gestured with her coffee mug to the camera mounted on the ceiling. “She was wearing it when she got the call from Omar. We saw her on the footage.”

“So?” Noah said.

“It’s not at her house. It’s not in the car.”

“It’s probably in the river with the rest of the stuff she ditched.”

Josie took a sip of coffee and shook her head. “No. She wouldn’t toss that jacket into the river. Whoever took her has it.”

“You still think there’s another person?” Noah asked. “Josie, she turned herself in. She punched you in the face so we’d arrest her. She told Loughlin that she killed him.”

“No,” Josie said. “She said, ‘I’m responsible for that boy’s death.’ That’s not the same thing. That’s not a confession.”

Noah raised a brow. “I think a jury might feel differently. Listen, I know you feel a certain… loyalty toward Gretchen, but I think you need to consider that she did this. We don’t know what went down—why Omar was there or what happened between the two of them—but we have no evidence that another person was involved. Gretchen turned herself in. She hasn’t implicated anyone else.”

“Because she’s not talking. She’s freaked out. Something is going on. There is more to this.”

“Maybe there is,” Noah said. “Maybe there isn’t. Sometimes even people who are trained to do the right thing don’t do it.”

Josie put one hand on her hip. “What are you talking about?”

“Look what happened to Luke,” he said. She shot him a wilting glare, and he put his hands up. “Just hear me out.”

Luke had been a state trooper. When Josie’s marriage to Ray Quinn disintegrated, she’d started dating Luke, and eventually they got engaged. After two and a half years together, he’d been involved in an off-duty shooting, and instead of reporting it, he’d covered it up, ruined his career, and faced criminal charges.

Noah said, “Luke was trained, just like us, on how to respond to a crime. That was his job as a police officer. It should have been a no-brainer for him. I’m sure it wasn’t the first time he caught a homicide. Doing the right thing should have been easy for him. Second nature. But he didn’t do it. He freaked out. He did everything wrong. Sometimes people get it wrong. Even when there is no good reason. Even when it’s the very last thing you’d expect them to do. People get things wrong.”

“Luke wasn’t responding to a call,” Josie argued. “He was going to visit a friend. He lost people close to him. It wasn’t the same thing.”

“No, it wasn’t the same,” Noah agreed. “But to this day don’t you ask yourself why he didn’t just call 911?”

She hesitated a moment. Then she conceded, “Of course I do.”

“Because sometimes people get it wrong. No rhyme. No reason. It just happens.”

As annoyed as she was, Josie knew there was truth to what he said. People thought they knew who they were until they were tested. They thought they knew exactly how they would respond to frightening situations. But the disturbing truth was that even decent, law-abiding people with strong moral compasses were thrown off course sometimes. Still, she couldn’t keep her voice from rising an octave. “You’re telling me that Gretchen, an experienced investigator with almost four times as much time on the job as Luke had, shot someone she didn’t know and ran? That she deliberately destroyed evidence? That she just ‘got it wrong’?”

If Noah was stung by the acerbic tone of her voice, he didn’t show it. He merely shrugged. “I’m not saying that’s what happened. We don’t know what happened. I’m saying we should consider the possibility that yeah, Gretchen shot this kid and then ran.”

Josie pointed a finger at him and said only one word, clearly and firmly. “No.”

Before Noah could respond, the door to the conference room creaked open and Andrew Bowen stepped out, looking even more weary than he had when he’d gone inside.

“I’ll get Detective Loughlin,” Noah said.

Seconds later, she joined the three of them in the hallway. The officers stared at Bowen.

“You can process her,” he said. “I’ll enter my appearance on her behalf with the court in the morning.”

Once Gretchen entered the system, she would be picked up by the county sheriff and taken to their facility forty miles away in Bellewood. She would remain there until trial, unless she got out on bail or was able to strike a plea bargain.

“Will she be giving a confession?” Detective Loughlin asked.

“Detective Palmer will not be answering any more questions this evening.” He gave a long sigh and ran a hand over his blond locks. “But we will meet with you tomorrow so she can give you a confession. She’s instructed me to enter a guilty plea on her behalf.”

A small gasp escaped Josie’s lips. “To—to first-degree murder?”

Noah said, “She could get life in prison. Even the death penalty.”

Bowen gave a pained smile. “I’m not at liberty to discuss my client’s legal strategy with you, detectives. But it’s my job, as her attorney, to try to keep the death penalty off the table, as I would with any of my clients facing such serious charges.”

Loughlin stepped forward and handed Bowen a business card. “Call me in the morning.”

Bowen took it and tucked it into his briefcase. “Thank you. Tomorrow she’ll be transferred to the county jail in Bellewood. I’ll speak to the DA, and we’ll make arrangements for you to take down her confession so that a plea can be entered.”

Josie said, “Who’s the boy in the photo? Did you ask her about the boy in the photo?”

“Really, Detective,” Bowen said, sounding exhausted. “You know I can’t discuss privileged conversations between my client and myself.”

“What if the boy in the photo is in danger?”

“In danger from the woman you’ve got in your custody? I don’t think so. But I’m sure Detective Loughlin will get all the relevant information from Detective Palmer tomorrow.”

They wouldn’t get anything out of Andrew Bowen. Josie knew this. If Gretchen didn’t want to talk, she didn’t have to. Bowen was her buffer against their barrage of questions. Besides, at this stage, Josie and Noah were largely out of the loop. Their job now was to do all the requisite paperwork, tie up the loose ends of the investigation, and hand the case over to the district attorney for prosecution. Even though Bowen had told them Gretchen would plead guilty, they were still required to prepare the case for the DA to take to trial in the event that Gretchen changed her mind and decided to plead not guilty. But the state police detective would be the only law enforcement agency to have access to Gretchen. If Gretchen confessed to Loughlin as promised, then from that point on, what happened to Gretchen would be largely up to the attorneys and the court system.

Gretchen seemed determined to send herself to prison for life. But why? Why not fight? Take it to trial and try for an acquittal? Or at least try to negotiate a lesser plea? Josie knew what Noah would say: because she felt guilty for having killed Omar, and she was holding herself accountable. But Josie was certain there was more to the story. And if there was, and Josie was right, there was a killer still out there on the loose.

“Good night, detectives,” Bowen said, and helplessly, Josie watched him walk away.