Her Final Confession

Chapter Three

“Slow down,” Noah said.

Josie glanced over at him to see one of his hands tightly gripping the door handle of her Ford Escape as the city of Denton flashed past beside him in a blur. “There’s a homicide at Gretchen’s house,” she reminded him.

“And we know it’s not Gretchen, because if it was, the responding officers would have made that known,” Noah replied.

Josie slowed down, but only fractionally. “Text her.”

“I already did,” Noah said. “And I tried calling her while you were changing. It goes straight to voicemail. No response to my texts. But I called the station, and dispatch told me that Gretchen was last seen there, about an hour before the body was found. We don’t even know she was at her house when this happened.”

“But we don’t know that she wasn’t. An hour is plenty of time for her to have gone to her house.”

“While on duty?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. We don’t have enough information.”

A sinking feeling spread through her stomach. It was unlike Gretchen to disappear and not answer her phone or texts—particularly in the middle of a shift. Josie’s foot pressed harder on the gas once more. “Dispatch couldn’t raise her?” she asked.

“No,” Noah answered. “They’re checking the MDT now to see if they can locate her car.”

Gretchen usually drove a department-issue Chevy Cruze that was outfitted with an MDT, or Mobile Data Terminal, a computerized mobile device that not only allowed Gretchen to communicate with the department’s dispatch, but also allowed dispatch to locate her vehicle.

“I want to know the moment they’ve found her,” Josie said.

Noah nodded silently. When Josie chanced a quick glance at him, she saw a muscle in his jaw tick, his gaze set on the scenery flying past his window. Nestled in one of Denton’s quiet, middle-class neighborhoods, Gretchen’s home was a detached two-story red-brick craftsman. It sat on one acre of land with a long, straight driveway leading from the street and running along one side of the house to a garage in the backyard. A tall white fence ran the length of the driveway, cutting off the neighbors on that side. Towering evergreen shrubs barred the view of the neighbors on the other side. On any other day, the house looked cute and welcoming, but today it was surrounded by police cruisers and ambulances. Josie and Noah parked across the street and walked to the driveway, edging around an ambulance parked across its entrance. A strip of crime-scene tape kept them from getting any closer to the house. In front of it stood one of Denton’s patrol officers with a clipboard in his hands.

“Hummel,” Josie greeted him.

“Boss,” he responded.

Josie’s fingers drummed a steady beat against her thigh, but she managed a tight smile. “Just Detective Quinn now, remember?”

For two years, Josie had served as Denton’s interim chief of police, but had happily returned to her position as detective once the mayor insisted on replacing her with Bob Chitwood. But the staff still called her “Boss.”

“It’s a hard habit to break,” Noah said, giving Hummel an easy smile.

Hummel nodded as he entered their names into the log. He gave Noah a quick once-over. “Nice suit.”

With lightning speed, Josie had changed into her usual khakis and a Denton PD polo shirt under a black jacket, but Noah still looked like something out of a men’s fashion magazine. “I was on my way to dinner when I got the call,” Noah told him.

Hummel pointed to one of the cruisers parked curbside, its trunk open. “There are Tyvek suits in there.”

“What’ve you got?” Josie asked Hummel.

Hummel motioned toward the house, where members of Denton’s evidence response team were working their way across the driveway, yard, and porch, wearing white Tyvek suits. They were busy marking evidence with yellow flags, taking measurements, sketching out the crime scene, and taking photographs. To the left, in the driveway, several yards from the front porch, a white pop-up tarp had been erected. Josie knew that was where the body lay.

Hummel said, “We got one dead body, Caucasian male, gunshot wound to the back, unarmed, no identification. No one else is here, but the front door was open. We tried reaching Detective Palmer on her cell phone, but it goes straight to voicemail. Cap says she’s not at the station either. Someone saw her there about an hour ago, but now nobody can find her. Dispatch couldn’t raise her. They’re checking the MDT now.”

“I heard,” Josie said. “If she’s still unreachable a half hour from now, I want Lamay to check the station’s CCTV footage to pinpoint exactly when she left. Who found the body?”

“The house has one of those security monitoring systems. You know, like the kind where if an alarm gets tripped, they send out the police?”

“Yeah,” Josie said. “I’m thinking of getting one for my place.”

“Well, the alarm for the front door went off. Security firm called Detective Palmer, got no answer. They called 911. We rolled up. Found the dead body. Oh, and there’s something else…”

“What?” Noah asked.

Hummel shifted from one foot to the other, his mouth briefly forming a thin, nervous straight line before he answered. “It’s best if you just go have a look.”