Her Mother’s Grave

Chapter Fifteen

Noah had done a good job cleaning up Josie’s door handles, but she was still convinced that the smell clung to her. Standing beside him in the morgue, she sniffed the air but could only smell the chemical odor of death that saturated Dr. Feist’s small basement empire. They had stopped for coffee on the way, but now Josie held her full paper cup in one hand, feeling too queasy to drink it.

Dr. Feist breezed into the room with Gretchen in tow and headed over to the ancient x-ray viewer that hung on the wall. Dr. Feist snapped it on, and the fluorescent lights inside flickered to life. She took two films from Gretchen and hung them side by side. It didn’t take an expert to see that the dental x-rays Dr. Feist had taken during Belinda Rose’s autopsy were a perfect match to the ones that Gretchen had retrieved from the dentist. Josie’s heart skipped painfully in her chest; if Belinda Rose had been buried in the woods for over thirty years, who the hell was the woman who called herself Josie’s mother?

“Well,” Dr. Feist said, turning back to the officers. “Now you’ve got your victim’s identity. Guess you just have to find her killer.”

“How old was she when those x-rays were taken?” Josie asked Gretchen.

Gretchen put her reading glasses on and riffled through the thin file she had brought with her. “Looks like the last exam was done when she was fourteen years old.”

“What else is in that file?” Josie asked.

Gretchen shuffled more pages around, frowning.

“What is it?” Noah asked.

“Looks like she was a ward of the state,” Gretchen said. “There’s a notation here. She lived in a group foster home in Bellewood.”

Bellewood, the county seat, was forty miles away from Denton. Josie crossed the room and peered over Gretchen’s shoulder, studying the address. “That place was torn down when I was in high school. There’s a strip mall there now. Is there a contact listed? Someone had to bring her to her dental appointments, sign off on treatment and stuff.”

Gretchen turned a page. “Maggie Smith.”

“Let’s find her. If she’s still alive. We’ll write up some warrants and see if we can get this girl’s file from Child Services,” Josie instructed.

Noah stepped forward. “I’ll run Belinda’s name through the databases.” He glanced at Josie. “We think someone might have been using her identity after she was killed.”