and the Urban case. Beverly, Vera, the WORMM club, the Mayor, Ray. Had Vera really been some kind of upscale drug dealer, peddling painkillers to rich women? What else was the Mayor not telling Josie? What did Ray have to do with any of it and how had Beverly gotten his jacket? Why had Vera hidden all these years if she knew exactly who killed her own child? Who killed her? Was it the same person who killed Beverly? Was all of it drug-related or was there something else in play?
She was up and out of bed before anyone else in the house woke. She left Noah a note and went to work. Surprisingly, Gretchen sat at her desk in the great room, typing away at her keyboard. When Josie plopped into her desk chair, Gretchen pushed a paper coffee cup across to her.
Josie said, “Have I told you how much I treasure our friendship?”
Gretchen chuckled. “One of the guys working the holding cells yesterday left an envelope on your desk.”
Josie found it on top of a pile of paperwork. Her name was on the front. She turned it over and slid a finger under the seal to open it. “How was your first night with Poppy?”
Gretchen put a hand through her hair. “She doesn’t sleep either, so I think we’ll get along just fine.”
Inside the envelope was a blank piece of printer paper. It smelled like cigarette smoke. Josie unfolded it and read it. The handwriting was surprisingly neat.
Jojo: the name is Silas. That’s all I got. – Z
Josie felt something go out of her. Some kind of tension she’d been holding onto for so long, she couldn’t remember when it first started. Maybe when she was a child. She had no idea why Needle had chosen to help her now when there was absolutely nothing in it for him, but the act brought all kinds of feelings to the surface. She pushed them back down and showed Gretchen the note. Within ten minutes, they had a driver’s license photo, rap sheet, and background check on one Silas Murphy, age fifty-five. Although he was much older in his driver’s license photo, it was definitely the same man they had seen in the photo they’d found in Beverly’s possessions, of Vera standing in her kitchen talking with a man.
His employment history showed that he’d worked at several local auto repair shops and from what they could see, he’d gotten married in 2000. They didn’t have divorce records, so it wasn’t clear how long he’d been married or if he was still married, but he was definitely the friend they’d been searching for.
Josie did more searching. “He has never legally purchased a firearm.”
“He wouldn’t be able to,” Gretchen said. “Not with his rap sheet. The prison inmate records show he’s done time for possession on several occasions and—check this out—he has a large tattoo on his back. Under description it says: skull.”
Adrenaline surged through Josie’s veins. “Let’s go find him.”
Forty
Silas Murphy’s apartment was in a six-story building in West Denton. The area was flooded, with a couple of inches of water in the streets, but the level wasn’t high enough to reach people’s homes. Now that the rain had stopped, patrol units had let traffic back into the area. Josie parked out front of Silas’s building. It had seen better days. Its brick face crumbled in several areas. Where the brick had worn away near the windows, birds had burrowed inside the walls. A set of double glass doors were centered on the first floor of the building. One of them had been broken and boarded up with plywood and duct tape. Inside was a small room filled with dented metal mailboxes, each one bearing an apartment number. Silas’s number was 612, which meant he was on the sixth floor.
Gretchen looked around. “There’s no elevator.”
Josie shook her head. “Figures.”
Josie led the way, trudging up six flights of stairs, trying to ignore the pain in her leg. She was glad for all the early morning jogs she, Noah, and Trout took. Even though she was in good shape, she felt beads of perspiration along her hairline. The stagnant air in the stairwell was hot and cloying. By the time they reached the sixth floor, sweat ran down the sides of Gretchen’s face. The hallway was at least twenty degrees cooler. Josie and Gretchen took a moment to suck in the air before they searched out Apartment 612.