Page 31 of Her Dying Secret

Although Heather had been working April Carlson’s disappearance, since her body was found in their jurisdiction, the homicide case was theirs. “You’ll wish we hadn’t,” Noah grumbled. “But of course.”

A woman walking a corgi approached. Instead of crossing the street to avoid them, she walked right into their path, her curious gaze sweeping over the insignias on their shirts and the firearms on their waists. Josie made a point not to smile. She didn’t want to invite conversation. The dog, at least, was too busy chasing a scent to even notice them.

Once she was out of earshot, Heather said, “Just give me the highlights.”

Josie took her through everything Anya had told them earlier that day, drawing uncharacteristic gasps from Heather. “Now,” Josie said. “We need to know everything you know.”

“Come on. No one is living here right now. Landlord gave me the keys so we can have a look around.” Heather started up the walk, waving for them to follow her. “Quinn, remember when you and I met at the truck stop last year?”

Josie said, “About the Woodsman case? Yes. You were looking for a woman. That was April Carlson?”

Heather nodded as they took the steps onto the porch. “Yes. April was an elementary school teacher at a school a few blocks from here. Single, no kids. Her parents and siblings live in Hillcrest in Bucks County, which is where she took her first teaching job. They were pretty sad when she moved here but understood that she was after better pay—except that when I was digging up everything I could about her, I found out that she actually took a pay cut to teach in Newsham.”

Even up on the porch, the smell of roses was overwhelming. Josie still didn’t mind. “Why would she lie to her family about that?”

Heather fished a set of keys from one of her pockets. “I don’t know, but that wasn’t the only thing that she didn’t tell them. She had only been living here for about a year before she went missing. She hadn’t made any connections. Had some drinks with a couple of coworkers now and then but no new friends. However, she was being stalked by someone.”

Noah held open the screen door while Heather fit the key into the lock on the front entry door. “After she moved here? Or in Bucks County as well?”

After a brief struggle, the lock gave way and Heather pushed the door open. “It started after she moved. I talked with Hillcrest PD. They had no record of any harassment or stalking so it started here. She rented this house and about a month after she moved in, she started having issues. First, it was break-ins. Nothing would be taken but something would always be destroyed.”

Josie followed Heather across the threshold with Noah in tow. A musty smell greeted them. “Like what?”

Heather shrugged, glancing around the empty living room. “I’ll send you the file but from what I remember, her couch was slashed. Her dishes were destroyed. Her mattress was knifed. Her clothing was shredded. Her, uh, feminine hygiene products were jammed down her toilet, causing a clog that cost the landlord thousands of dollars.”

Noah walked the perimeter of the room, testing the windows. “All this went on and nobody saw anything?”

Heather led them deeper into the house, into another empty room that, given the chandelier in the center of the ceiling, was probably a dining room. “April and her closest neighbors worked days and that’s when these things happened. Eventually she decided to put cameras out front and back and then the stalker just came in the side windows.” She pointed to the two windows along the wall. Josie joined Noah, noting that they overlooked a sizable side yard with a high privacy fence that would have prevented the next-door neighbor from seeing someone break in.

Noah said, “I don’t see any pry marks outside. These locks are intact.”

“Right,” Heather said. “He tore the screens and broke the glass every time. The landlord gave her additional cameras for all angles on the exterior of her building. They did catch a man climbing in here, but they had no luck identifying him.”

“Fingerprints?” Noah suggested.

“Too smart for that. In the video we have, he wore gloves. He was covered head to toe. Hoodie, jeans, even a gaiter up to his eyes. No way to identify him. The local PD wasn’t equipped to pull DNA, not that there would have been any, I’m sure.”

“They didn’t call you guys in? Sounds like it was escalating,” Noah said.

Heather led them into the kitchen. This room, at least, had a table and chairs. From the back windows, Josie saw a yard with more roses and behind that, an empty driveway. A dirt path, rutted by tire tracks, separated the row of houses on April’s street from the backs of houses on the next street over. It was secluded.

“It was escalating,” Heather answered, leaning her hip against the countertop. “And no, local PD didn’t ask us for assistance. It only got worse. April’s tires were destroyed so many times that she could no longer afford to replace them. She started using a rideshare. The guy was caught twice on surveillance slashing her tires out back. Once while she was at work, he walked right onto the faculty lot and did it, and once while she was at Walmart. Problem was that he kept covered up. He knew where the cameras were, never looked toward them, but we think he was a white male, about five foot ten to six foot. Maybe one hundred eighty pounds. Couldn’t tell much other than that, unfortunately. Followed the cameras but were never able to link him to a vehicle.”

“Geofence?” asked Josie.

Before Heather could answer, Noah said, “Let me guess: local PD didn’t do it.”

“You’d think so—they’re small and not used to crimes that go beyond a stolen car or shoplifting—but no, they did the geofences. Nothing came of them.”

The description, vague as it was, matched Seth Lee, and the fact that the vandal either hadn’t been carrying a device of any kind or that he’d turned off any devices on his person sounded like the type of behavior Rebecca Lee had described when talking about her brother-in-law. Josie said, “Anything else?”

Heather motioned for them to follow her. “He left her a message.”

TWENTY-THREE

They took the steps to the second floor, this time Noah directly behind Heather. “What kind of message?” he asked.

Heather didn’t answer until they were inside the barren master bedroom. Ghostly imprints of the message were still visible along one of the white walls where the letters had been spackled and painted over. “He used some kind of knife or other sharp object to carve it into the drywall of her bedroom.”

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