Her Mother’s Grave

Chapter Fifty-Two

The Alcott County Jail was located in Bellewood and managed by the sheriff’s office. The jail acted as a hub for all the police departments in the county, processing their prisoners and holding them over for trial. Although Denton police had a holding area in their station house, it was mostly for drunk college students and other people guilty of minor offenses. Once it came time for someone to be arraigned and booked, the sheriff transported them from Denton and processed them through the county facility.

Because Lloyd Todd’s lawyer insisted on being present for their meeting, the deputies had placed them in a private meeting room. Lloyd sat hunched over the table, his hands cuffed and threaded through an iron loop fixed to the tabletop. The orange jumpsuit he wore stretched tight across his broad shoulders. Dark eyes glared from beneath a pair of bushy eyebrows, and gray threaded through his short, spiked brown hair and the patchy beard that stubbled his cheeks. He looked much older than his brother, although Josie knew they were only two years apart. Noah waited outside.

“This is highly irregular,” Lloyd’s attorney said from where he stood behind his client, looking sharp and imposing with his slicked-back black hair and a charcoal suit that probably cost more than Josie’s car.

“Your client agreed to it,” she said.

The attorney bristled. “I advised him against it.”

No one was more surprised than Josie that Lloyd had agreed to meet with her, but as Trinity Payne often said: People always want something, you just have to figure out what it is. It wasn’t normally Josie’s style to bargain with people, but she had two major issues she needed to address with Todd, and whenever possible, she preferred to go directly to the source.

Lloyd, however, gave nothing away.

Josie started close to home. “I met with your brother the other day.”

Nothing.

“Your boys are doing well there.”

A flicker in his eyes, barely perceptible. He folded his hands together, chains clinking. Josie forged ahead. “I was there to talk to him about Belinda Rose. Do you remember her?”

“We went to high school together,” Lloyd said.

“That’s right,” Josie said. She recapped everything Damon had told them, and Lloyd agreed that all of it was accurate.

“You wouldn’t be coming around asking about her unless something bad happened to her,” Lloyd said.

“She’s dead,” Josie told him. “Someone caved her head in thirty-three years ago and buried her in the woods in Denton.”

Lloyd’s expression didn’t change, but he offered, “Sorry to hear that.”

“Mr. Todd,” Josie said, “do you remember anyone that Belinda hung out with? Any of her friends? Perhaps from the courthouse?”

“Why are you asking me?”

“Damon said you and Belinda spent a lot of time together,” Josie said.

“Damon also told you she was seeing our father, so you know that me spending time with her—it was all fake.”

Josie raised a brow. “But you did spend time with her. Surely the two of you talked now and then.”

Lloyd chuckled. “Belinda talked a lot, Chief. I don’t remember everything she said.”

“I’m not asking you to remember everything she said,” Josie told him. “I’m asking one question. Surely you remember Belinda talking about her friends.”

Lloyd sighed. “She was friends with a chick named Angie from the foster home,” he said.

“Anyone else?” Josie prodded.

“That’s more than one question.”

“It’s the same question. I want to know who Belinda’s friends were.”

“There were a couple of girls from the courthouse.”

“Names?” Josie asked.

“Come on, Chief—” he began.

“You remembered the name of her friend from the care home; what were the names of her friends from the courthouse?”

He sighed, shaking his head as though what she was asking was ridiculous, but seemed to give it some thought. Lines creased his forehead until, finally, he said, “Sophia. Sophia and Lila. That was the other one, Lila.”

Josie hoped her excitement didn’t show on her face. Her spine straightened, and she leaned forward slightly. She hadn’t expected him to remember. Not Linda or Lilly or Laura.

Lila.

It was like unlocking a secret code. She felt slightly breathless. “Do you remember Lila’s last name?”

He shook his head. “Nah, sorry. I never met her or the other one. Just heard Belinda talk about them all the time. She talked a lot, and like Damon told you, I let her follow me around at school sometimes so no one would get the wrong idea about her and my dad.”

Josie was sure that Noah was already on his phone, asking Gretchen to get into the county foster-care records, but she glanced meaningfully at the camera over the door anyway. “There’s one more thing,” she told him.

“I think that’s quite enough,” the attorney interjected. “My client has been more than helpful on this matter. He didn’t have to meet with you today.”

Lloyd glanced over his shoulder and silenced the man with a look. He turned back to Josie and opened his palms, inviting her to go on.

“I want you to get word to your people to stop harassing me. You crossed a line last night.”

“Chief Quinn,” the attorney said, approaching the table.

Once again, Lloyd silenced him. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“Okay, fair enough,” Josie said. “Maybe your minions don’t keep you abreast of all their activities in here, but since your arrest, the department’s vehicles have been vandalized, the station house has been egged, someone put shit under the handles of my car doors, robbed my house and destroyed my personal property, and worst of all, someone placed sick personal ads on craigslist under my name. Last night, a man tried to assault me in the parking lot of a pharmacy because he was responding to an ad someone placed in my name for a rape fantasy.”

The attorney said, “These are very serious allegations.”

Josie kept her eyes fixed on Lloyd, whose expression had not changed. “I’m not accusing him of anything,” she said. “I’m accusing people he associates with. I believe if he had a conversation with these people and encouraged them to stop these behaviors, it would greatly help his situation.”

The attorney opened his mouth to speak, but Lloyd said, “My situation?”

Josie leaned forward again, both elbows on the table. “I’m not stupid, Mr. Todd. I know you didn’t have to meet with me. You didn’t have to talk to me about Belinda Rose. You did something for me. Now, what can I do for you? What can I do for you that might make you more amenable to talking to these associates?”

“I don’t have associates,” he responded. “But if I did, they wouldn’t be doing shit like robbing your house or putting ads online.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, anyone I associated with might pull off some harmless pranks.”

“Slashed tires and shattered windshields of the department’s entire fleet is hardly minor,” Josie pointed out.

Lloyd shrugged. “I told you, I don’t have associates. I’m speaking hypothetically.”

Josie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Okay, hypothetically, what are you telling me?”

“That the other stuff you’re talking about—robbery and personal ads—my hypothetical associates had nothing to do with that.”

“The man who robbed my house is in his fifties or sixties, thin, with gray hair, always wears a green jacket, can be found under the bridge, and goes by Zeke. Hypothetically, he wouldn’t be someone you associate with?”

Lloyd laughed, his shoulders shaking. “You’re talking about Larry Ezekiel Fox. He’s an old burnout. No one associates with him. He’s a pirate with absolutely no loyalty. He’s been using since you and I were in diapers. Used to go by Larry. Started using his middle name a few years back. Now everyone calls him Zeke.”

“So, hypothetically, he wouldn’t have robbed my house in retribution for my department arresting you?”

The attorney’s face flamed red. “Really, Chief, this is highly irregular. I must—”

This time Josie put a hand up to silence him.

Lloyd answered, “Hypothetically, no. If Zeke wanted to rob your house, he had his own reasons.”

“Where can I find him?” Josie asked.

“Can’t help you there.”

“But you can help me with my hypothetical problem with the vandalism and ‘minor’ property damage?”

A smile slid across his face. “If you can help me with my son. My oldest. You see, he got caught up in this mess—me being falsely accused and all that. He’s been charged with some things he didn’t do.”

“I’m sure he has a good lawyer,” Josie said pointedly.

“Oh, he does. But it never hurts to have the chief of police have a conversation with the district attorney.”

Normally, Josie would have taken great pleasure in telling a man like Lloyd Todd to go fuck himself. Somehow she doubted his oldest son was as innocent as Todd portrayed him, but she understood a parent’s need to protect his child. She also knew that Todd wouldn’t offer everything he knew and then ask for a favor after the fact. He was holding on to something, and the only way to get it was to make a show of good faith.

“Let me make some phone calls,” she said.

Two hours later, she was back in the conference room across from Lloyd, handing his attorney the paperwork concerning Lloyd Todd Jr. “I couldn’t get the charges dropped,” she told him. “But I did get them reduced. Plus, he can enter an accelerated rehabilitation program. He goes to therapy, drug and alcohol counseling, job training. He does community service and pays some fines, and if he completes all the requirements, his record is expunged of these charges. That’s the best I can do. He’ll still get a clean slate. This time.”

Lloyd bristled at the barb, but looked over the paperwork his attorney pushed in front of him, nodding as Josie spoke. He didn’t hurry. After a solid five minutes, he looked up at her and said, “There’s a strip mall on Sixth Street. That laundromat that’s been there for decades.”

“I know the one,” Josie said.

“Zeke hangs out there when he’s not under the bridge. So I’ve heard. Hypothetically.”

Josie stood. She couldn’t believe the words were coming out of her mouth, but they did: “Thank you, Mr. Todd.”

Her hand was on the doorknob when Lloyd called out to her one last time. “Bowen and Jensen,” he said.

Josie turned her head. “What?”

“Belinda’s friends. Their last names. Bowen and Jensen. I remember because together they made the initials B.J. You know, like blow job?”