an obituary and a death certificate. Noah said, “His name was Ambrose McNeil. As you can see there, he had a history of arrests for drug possession and intent to sell. He was convicted of possession of heroin—four grams—and spent two years in prison before coming to work for Newton.”
Josie pointed to a line on the death certificate. “He died of a heroin overdose.”
Gretchen said, “And he was only twenty-seven.”
“Yes,” Noah agreed. “He overdosed within a year of the work on the Hempstead Road house being completed.”
Josie asked, “Did you check with the state police and FBI to see if Ambrose owned any firearms?”
Noah pushed a few things around his desk before coming up with another stack of pages. “I did. Actually, while I was doing that, I took the list you two had made of people whose firearms purchase history you wanted to check and got everyone.”
“That’s great,” Gretchen said. “What did you get?”
He read off the list before handing it to them to peruse on their own. “Ambrose McNeil owned one pistol, a .45 ACP. There are no records of George Newton ever having purchased firearms. Calvin Plummer owns three hunting rifles, one purchased in 1986, one purchased in 1999, and one purchased in 2003. He also owns a shotgun which he purchased in 2001.”
Josie took the pages from him and studied them herself. “No nine millimeters.”
“None that were legally purchased,” Noah said.
“True,” Gretchen said. “Any one of them could have obtained a nine-millimeter pistol illegally and there would be no record of it.”
“But for now,” Josie said, “we’ve got no proof that any of those people owned a gun the same caliber as the one that killed Beverly.”
“Unfortunately,” Noah agreed. “I also checked to see if Vera ever purchased a firearm. Found nothing.”
“What about Ambrose McNeil’s inmate records? Can we get those? Check and see if he had tattoos?”
“Already did,” Gretchen said. “He’s listed as having several tattoos but nothing described as a skull or skulls.”
Josie plopped into her chair and slouched down. Fatigue weighed down every inch of her body. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to still the whirling thoughts and brimming frustration inside. Gretchen said, “You okay, boss?”
Josie’s eyes snapped open. “I’m fine. I do have a couple of leads.”
Gretchen and Noah stared at her expectantly. She told them about the salon and then started to tell them about the call from Alice, but the sight of Amber behind them stopped her. Alice kept saying that it wasn’t safe to meet at the police department. She was obviously worried about being followed. She hadn’t trusted Josie and Gretchen to come to the meet alone that morning. Under normal circumstances, Josie could be absolutely certain that no one on the police force was a threat to Alice—or anyone else—but the circumstances were not normal. In fact, the only difference in the last two days was the addition of Amber to the staff.
“What did she say?” Noah asked. “Will she meet again?”
“Yes. She’ll meet with us. Tomorrow,” Josie said. “But I’ve got to wait for her to call back with the place and time.”
She’d tell Gretchen the real details of the call later. For now, if Alice was that paranoid about the police, Josie had to take that concern seriously.
Before either Gretchen or Noah could ask any more questions, the stairwell door flew open and Officer Hummel walked in, carrying a document in one hand and a paper bag in the other. He walked over to the desks. Ignoring Amber, he placed a fingerprint report in front of Josie.
“Boss,” he said. “This is the report from the prints we were able to get from the tarp and the duct tape. We got multiple unidentified prints from the tarps.”
Her heart gave an excited little patter, which quickly died as she looked over the report.
“As well as Vera’s prints and Ambrose McNeil’s prints on the tarps—”
“But not on the tape,” Hummel finished for her.
Noah said, “Did you get any prints from the tape?”
“One print that was still usable,” Hummel said. “But it didn’t get a hit on AFIS. So whoever left that print has never been arrested or charged with a crime.”
Gretchen noted, “The tarps were probably hanging up in the house or laid out to cover something if there was ongoing work happening. I’m not surprised that some of the prints were from Vera or this Ambrose guy. I think the print on the tape is the killer’s though.”