Her Final Confession

Chapter Fifty-Four

“Are you out of your damn mind?” Bob Chitwood shouted.

He stood at the head of the conference room table facing Josie, Noah, and Detective Heather Loughlin. Josie had just briefed him on her trip to New York City and all she’d found out from Jack Starkey and the online forum that Trinity had gotten her access to.

Chitwood went on, “You’re telling me that you think a serial killer from two decades ago on the opposite end of the country is here in Denton now?”

Josie said, “Yes.”

“You think that Gretchen, a trained police officer, saw the guy who murdered her husband over two decades ago, and instead of arresting him, she let him shoot Omar and then went with him in her car?”

“No,” Josie answered. “I mean, yes, I think this guy shot Omar and kidnapped Gretchen. I don’t know what happened, but he obviously had control of the scene and of Gretchen. Otherwise, I’m certain she would have shot him on sight. I think he held her against her will.”

“And then he let her go?” Chitwood said. “How did that go, exactly? He told her to take the fall for Omar’s murder, and then he said, ‘Oh yeah, Gretchen, if you could not mention that I was there that day, that would be great.’ Do you hear this? ’Cause that’s what you’re telling me. Is that what you think?”

Josie put a hand on one of her hips. “I don’t have it all worked out yet,” she admitted.

“No shit!” Chitwood exclaimed. “This is some half-assed shit if I ever heard it.”

Ignoring his barbs, Josie said, “That’s exactly why I need to have a conversation with Gretchen.”

“Not going to happen,” Loughlin chirped without malice. She leaned back in her chair, legs kicked out in front of her. One of her feet rocked the chair back and forth. She looked almost bored. “Bowen isn’t going to allow it, especially now.”

“Then you have a conversation with her,” Josie said. “You get in the room with her. I’ll tell you the approach I would take.”

Chitwood tapped the table with two fingers. “You’re not listening, Quinn. None of us is getting in a room with Gretchen. Bowen thinks we’re trying to pin the double homicide on her, and I’m not so sure we shouldn’t be. We’ve got her prints inside the house. No alibi for that night.”

“We don’t have enough to charge her with the Wilkins murders,” Noah said.

“We also don’t have enough for Quinn’s outlandish theory that someone else was involved in the Omar shooting, and if you think Bowen is going to let us talk to her when we tell him we think she’s taking the fall for a serial killer, he’s going to tell us to go pound sand,” Chitwood said. “He’ll think we’re trying to nail her as accomplice—and if you can prove that someone else was there, I’m not so sure we shouldn’t be. Quinn, you’ve got nothing to support your crazy, half-assed theories.”

A soft knock sounded on the door, and Lamay shuffled in with a sheaf of papers, which he handed to Josie. With one finger, he pointed to something he had highlighted for her. It took only a few seconds for what she was looking at to register. “Wait a second,” she said. “We might have something. A hair. A gray hair was found in Gretchen’s vehicle, on the driver’s headrest, with the root still attached, which means we can get DNA from it.”

Chitwood was unimpressed. “Quinn. Gretchen’s got short hair and she’s in her forties. You don’t think she’s got some gray hairs?”

Noah said, “She dyes it. She keeps it brown.”

Josie stared at him with a raised brow. She hadn’t suspected he’d be the one to notice such a thing, but she was glad that he had. Turning back to Chitwood, she said, “All I’m asking is that you expedite the analysis on this hair together with the DNA found on Margie Wilkins’s body. If neither of them match the profile of the Seattle Soul Mate Strangler, and they don’t match each other, then you can dismiss all my—what did you call them? Outlandish theories?”

Chitwood glared at her through narrowed eyes.

“Test my theory,” Josie went on firmly. “If I’m wrong, I’ll get on board with Gretchen as Omar’s killer.”

From the corner of her eye, Josie could see Loughlin’s back had straightened and her eyes were locked on Josie with interest.

“This a hill you want to die on, Quinn?” Chitwood asked.

Josie thrust her chin forward. “Yes, sir, it is.”

They stared at one another for a few seconds longer. Josie was gratified when Chitwood broke eye contact first. “Fine,” he said, snatching the report out of Josie’s hands as he passed by her. “I’ll make some phone calls. See how fast we can get this done. But mark my words—I want some arrests in this goddamn Wilkins case. Yesterday. If I don’t get arrests soon, you better believe I’m going to make your lives a living hell.”

With that, he stalked out of the room.

Noah said, “That might be an improvement.”

Josie laughed. Loughlin was still looking at them with interest. She said, “You think there’s something I can say to Bowen to get him to let us have a crack at Gretchen?”

Josie said, “I think if we could just get to her, she would talk.”

“She didn’t talk before,” Noah interjected.

“I know more now,” Josie said. To Loughlin, she instructed, “Ask Bowen to give Gretchen a message.”

“Which is?” Loughlin asked, taking out her notebook and pen.

“Ask him to tell Gretchen that I know the truth about Linc Shore and her year with Devil’s Blade. Make sure he says Josie. If she thinks I’ve told everyone, she’ll never talk.”

Loughlin scribbled down her words, then looked back up. “Anything else?”

“No. Just ask him to deliver that message.”

Loughlin stood up and tucked her notebook back inside her jacket. “What is the truth about Linc Shore and her year with Devil’s Blade?”

Josie smiled. “I’m not sure yet. It’s a bluff. I just know she lied about it, but I don’t know why.”

“How do you know?” Noah asked.

“Starkey said when they dumped her in front of the ATF building, she was sliced up all over, but that the newer cuts were superficial. They didn’t even require stitches. He said some of them were old, and that she said the old ones were also from whatever had happened to her in the time she’d been gone. Six months ago, when we were working the Belinda Rose case, Gretchen showed me the old scars criss-crossing her upper abdomen. She told me they were from operations her mother convinced doctors to do on her when she was a kid.”

“My God,” Loughlin said.

“Her mother had Munchausen’s by proxy,” Noah explained.

“At first I thought maybe she didn’t want to get into it with the medical staff—about her mother and her past. But I think she really just wanted everyone to believe that the Devil’s Blade had badly tortured her.”

“But she refused to press charges,” Noah said. “So why would she care about anyone thinking they tortured her the whole time she was with them?”

“Because she was lying. I’m not sure why yet. I just know there is something more to the story of her year in captivity.”

“How do you know Gretchen wasn’t lying to you about the scars when she showed them to you?” Loughlin asked.

Because we were talking about toxic mothers, Josie thought. It was a sacred topic between them. Not something Gretchen would lie about. But this wasn’t something she could explain to Loughlin, so she said, “It would be easy enough to prove. Her mother was convicted of murder and attempted murder. Gretchen’s injuries would have been well-documented in the court records.”

Loughlin nodded. “Excellent. I’m sure we can get our hands on them if we need to, but hopefully it won’t come to that. I’ll go talk to Andrew Bowen.”

Noah and Josie watched her go, listening to the sound of her footsteps as they faded. Noah pulled out one of the chairs and sat down. “You read the text messages?”

“They raise more questions than they answer,” she said.

Noah leaned back in his chair, lacing his hands together behind his head. “Omar and Robinson were planning something,” he said. “But what?”

“I don’t know,” Josie answered. “But I’m assuming the ‘she’ is Gretchen.”

“Has to be. But what did they lie about?”

“No idea. The problem is that the only two people who can answer that are Omar and Ethan Robinson. Omar is dead, and Robinson is missing,” Josie said. “Did you send the messages to Philly PD?”

“Yeah, I got in touch with the detective there handling Robinson’s disappearance. He had me email them. He was happy to have them, said he would shake down all of Robinson and Omar’s friends on campus and find out if anyone knew what they were planning. He also told me that they searched Omar and Robinson’s apartment, and that Robinson’s phone and laptop are missing. Robinson doesn’t have his own vehicle. He uses public transportation.”

“What about bank accounts?” Josie asked. “Credit cards?”

“Philly PD says he has a bank account that his dad funds, and he keeps an ATM card. They had his dad check the balance. Apparently, he withdrew $3,000 the day Omar was shot. Not long after he got that last text message.”

“So Ethan ran,” Josie said. “He’s hiding.”

“Looks that way,” Noah agreed. “Anyway, Philly PD said they’ll let us know if they come up with anything.”

“That’s great,” Josie said. She felt a small measure of relief knowing that Ethan’s case was being actively handled. Still, there were so many unanswered questions, her head spun. She was wondering what Ethan was running from. And what had he and Omar wanted from Gretchen?

Noah glanced at the clock. “We’ve still got a little daylight. What do you want to tackle next?”

She focused her attention on him, letting the swirl of questions float to the back of her mind, where maybe her subconscious would use everything they already knew to tease out some answers. To Noah, she said, “I want to find Amy and Justin Neal’s son.”