Page 20 of Her Dying Secret

He tossed the bottle back into his bag. “Right, right. He wore a hat, like a baseball cap, but I didn’t see what kind. Brownish-gray hair, I think. It was a little long and curly coming out from under the back of the hat. Looked like he had a beard. That’s all I could see.”

Gretchen scribbled in her notebook. “Tall? Short? Fat? Thin?”

“Average, I guess. Oh wait, you know what I remember? The one time I saw him, he had on a white T-shirt with cut-off sleeves and his arm had like this thick, gnarly scar on it. Right here.” He pointed to the outside of his upper left arm, a couple of inches below the shoulder.

Gretchen flipped another page in her notebook and thrust it at Todd, along with her pen. “Could you draw it?”

Todd stared at her offering. His meaty palm rubbed at the back of his neck, fingers digging into the muscle. “I’m not real good at drawing, and like I said, he wasn’t that close.”

The scar that ran down the side of Josie’s face from just below her ear to the center of her chin tingled. “But he was close enough for you to notice his scar, so it must have been pretty big.”

“Yeah, I guess.” With a sigh, he took Gretchen’s notebook and pen and slowly began to draw, speaking as he went. “I’m pretty sure it was on his left arm, but not positive. It was kind of like, diamond-shaped, sort of? Except it didn’t have straight lines. It was thick and white. He was real tan, that’s why the scar stood out so much. Also, it was really lumpy…” He paused.

Josie tried not to grimace when she saw what he’d drawn. It was just a diamond with a thick border. He started to draw small half-crescents in the middle of it to represent the lumpiness, she guessed. “See? It’s hard to show it but the scar looked raised. Like I said, it was gnarly.”

The white told Josie that the scar was old but the thickness and raised skin indicated that perhaps it had needed to be stitched but hadn’t been.

Gretchen took her notebook back, not doing much to hide her disappointment.

Todd chuckled. “Hey, I told you I couldn’t draw.”

“It’s fine,” Josie said. “Thanks for trying. Did you see this man speaking with Mira or interacting with her in any way?”

Todd opened his driver’s side door and tossed his bag inside the car, clearly done with this conversation. “Never saw ’em talking. Just saw her car and him and his truck there at the same time. At first I thought he was just dropping stuff off at the stand and she was picking up some things on her way home, but then after I saw them together a few times, I thought they must know one another, or if they didn’t before, they ought to by the third time they saw each other there.”

“Did you see any children with him?” Josie asked.

A line creased his forehead. “No. None that I could see. Hey, we about done yet? I gotta get home. I really need a shower.”

Gretchen took down his personal information and then gave him a business card before they watched him drive off. The second he was out of sight, they began to walk, following the curve in the driveway until the faded produce stand came into view. Driving past it earlier, Josie hadn’t paid too much attention but now, as they stood along the edge of the driveway, she could make out where faint tracks had tamped down the grass between the driveway and the stand. Two of the tracks were thin and came from the direction of the stables. The other two were much wider and came from the direction of the road.

Josie’s heart picked up its pace, hammering out a rapid beat. This had to be their crime scene.

Using her phone, she started taking photos. She and Gretchen took a wide berth, coming at the stand from an angle that avoided both sets of tracks. Josie was relieved that the rain they’d had in the last month had made parts of the terrain soft and muddy so that the wider tracks were sunk deep enough to make impressions. Hummel could make casts of the tire treads.

Up close, the stand was sturdier than it appeared from the road. The wood, though faded, was in good condition. Here, the mud and grass gave way to gravel. A breeze sighed through the tree branches overhead. For just a moment, Josie had a sense of the quiet and peace all around them. Away from the road, the house, and the parking lot, it felt private, even a bit secluded. The shade offered a cool refuge.

Then she rounded the other side of the stand, and the copious amounts of blood splattered and congealing across the small stones before her told a different story.

FOURTEEN

Gretchen waited near the produce stand, guarding the scene while Josie informed the Lees what they had found. They seemed shaken but had no objections to the police processing the scene and searching the premises. Despite that, Josie drove back to the stationhouse to prepare a warrant. It was still necessary in case the couple had a change of heart. Josie had seen that sort of thing happen before. Once she had the warrant, she contacted the ERT and called in a few more units to help with the search. By the time things were underway at Tranquil Trails, Josie estimated they had about two hours of daylight left.

While Hummel and his crew processed the crime scene, everyone else fanned out for a thorough search of the premises. Josie had checked the property records before returning. The place was far larger than they initially thought, extending south along Prout Road almost to the scene of the car accident. Their land included large tracts on the other side of Prout Road as well. It was a lot of ground to cover, but Josie didn’t want to risk missing anything—especially if there was a child at risk.

She and Gretchen started at the house. Both Lees were in the kitchen. Jon paced back and forth in front of the long, rectangular oak table that spanned nearly the length of the entire room. His movements were frenetic. The wooden floorboards creaked beneath his boots. His mouth moved, as if he was mumbling, but no words came out. Rebecca sat calmly at one end of the table, sipping tea. The only sign of strain was a tightness at the corners of her eyes. She said, “How long will this take?”

Josie’s gaze caught on the warrant spread out in front of Rebecca. “Probably several hours.”

“Do you think you’ll be finished by tomorrow?” Rebecca pressed. “I’m concerned that our clients will get upset if they see all this.”

Gretchen tracked Jon’s movements. “We’ll be finished by tomorrow. There are a few more things we’re hoping you can help with.”

Rebecca wrapped her hands around her teacup and took a small sip. “Anything.”

Jon paused to stare at his wife. Josie waited for him to speak, to object, as he seemed to grow more agitated the longer they were there, but he said nothing. It was almost like he was waiting for Rebecca to do it. However, she didn’t even glance his way. With a huff, he stomped out of the room. Rebecca didn’t acknowledge this either.

“We’ll need to take a more thorough look around the house,” Gretchen said.

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