Page 5 of Husband Missing

Douchebag was Josie’s personal nickname for Detective Kyle Turner who had joined their team roughly nine months ago. He’d replaced their beloved colleague, Detective Finn Mettner, who had been killed in the line of duty nearly two years earlier.

“I can’t get hold of him,” Gretchen grumbled. “As usual.”

Turner’s blatant disregard for their calls and texts when he was needed, despite the fact that his phone was permanently attached to his palm, as well as his chronic lateness, might have been the two things he was best at. They also had to contend with his bad attitude, sexist remarks, total lack of a filter, and inappropriate comments. Not to mention his shitty reports, always filed late. A smorgasbord of bad qualities.

Working with him had been an adjustment, to say the least.

“It’s fine,” said Josie. “I’m supposed to be on two hours from now. I’ll just come in early.”

She didn’t miss Noah’s scowl. Their jobs didn’t allow for much free time with one another, particularly when they had a stretch where they worked opposite shifts. Josie was due home at midnight, so they’d at least get to sleep together before Noah went in the next morning, but starting then, for the next week, their schedule would change again. They’d be coming and going at different times, making it nearly impossible to enjoytheir time off together. As if in solidarity, Trout whimpered unhappily.

“I just caught a shooting under the East Bridge,” Gretchen said. “Gonna be here awhile. Apparently, there’s been an incident at the children’s hospital site. Someone needs to get over there ASAP.”

Trepidation turned her stomach. “Another one?”

Months ago, developers had started building a children’s hospital in southwest Denton. It was meant to rival the larger children’s hospitals in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. City council had been salivating over the idea for nearly a year before the project began, dollar signs flashing obscenely in their eyes at the thought of the new jobs and thousands of visitors it would bring to the area.

Everything had been going well until about three weeks ago when a group of teenage boys snuck into the site during the night hoping to get drunk away from the prying eyes of adults. Naturally, they’d gone to the highest point in the place—what was meant to be the northern wing of the hospital. Seven stories of subfloors and steel beams. No walls. The two security guards on duty had discovered the boys and given chase. Three of them were caught but the fourth fell, plummeting to his death in one of the more gruesome scenes Josie had witnessed during her career. The memory still made her a little nauseated.

Gretchen sighed. “Yes, another one. Some kind of fight. But from what I’m told, this happened out front. Where the protestors were gathered.”

The boy who’d died, Nick Gates, happened to be Denton East High School’s star football player. He was the top-ranked quarterback among his class in all of Pennsylvania, twenty-seventh in the country, according to his parents, coaches, and everyone who followed his storied high school football career. He’d already secured a full ride to one of the most prestigiousuniversities in the nation. The tragedy had hit the city hard. With nowhere to put their grief, parents and Denton East students had started protesting outside the construction site, demanding that it be shut down altogether. City council had hoped the uproar would die down after a few days but that hadn’t happened. The protestors had been loud and persistent but not violent.

“What am I walking into, Gretchen?”

“There’s a fatality.”

“Shit.”

Although Josie had been on-scene the night Nick Gates died, she’d gotten called away to investigate a stabbing near the Denton University campus. Turner had taken the lead on the Gates case. His familiarity with the site and the staff would be useful right about now.

“That’s all I know,” Gretchen added. “Believe me, I’d be there already if I could. The Chief wants this dealt with immediately.”

Josie took one last look at her husband. He’d picked up the roller again, working with easy efficiency. Splotches of wet paint gleamed where he’d held her hand over his heart.

“I’ll be there in twenty.”

TWO

Cool September air brushed over the exposed skin of Josie’s forearms as she emerged from her vehicle. Broken glass crunched under her boots, vestiges of southwest Denton’s former life. For as long as she could remember, this particular area of the city had been seedy, rundown, and teeming with criminal activity. Real estate value had fallen so low, you could buy an entire apartment building for a song. The developers of the children’s hospital, Phelan Construction, had more or less done that; buying up nearly two city blocks of old, failing buildings—most of them condemned—and demolishing them to make way for the new project. Josie had heard the word “revitalization” on the news so many times, she was wondering if WYEP got some kind of special kickback from city council every time they said it on-air.

Maybe the hospital would be shiny and new when it was finished, but the row of dilapidated buildings across the street from it flew in the face of revitalization. Most of them sported crumbling brick façades marred with graffiti. Several had ground-floor storefronts, their glass cracked and held together with duct tape. Dented rolling metal security grilles shuttered them at night. Despite the city installing public wastebinson every corner, small heaps of trash accumulated along the broken sidewalk. The construction site itself was surrounded by tall, chain-link fencing covered with blue vinyl privacy screens on which bold white letters declared the project was being undertaken by Phelan Construction.

Josie locked her SUV and threaded her way through the rows of police vehicles clustered around the site’s main entrance. From every direction, emergency beacons strobed red and blue. The small white pickup truck belonging to the city’s medical examiner, Dr. Anya Feist, looked out of place among the marked cruisers, SUVs and ambulances. A low susurrus hum filled the air. Hushed conversations among shocked people. Sorrow, fear, and disbelief quieted the scene like it was a funeral home and not a dirty street in the city’s shabbiest neighborhood. Among the vehicles, uniformed Denton PD officers moved from witness to witness, taking statements from each parent and student. Additional officers had separated four hulking security guards from the others, speaking quietly with them one-on-one.

One of the guards waved his hands angrily and raised his voice loud enough for Josie to hear. “These parents and their kids have been itching for a fight ever since that kid died. I don’t even know why they’re here other than to piss off the company. Those kids had no business being on the site.”

He was right. By law, Phelan Construction couldn’t be held criminally responsible for loss of life when the victim had broken the law in order to gain access to the premises. The quarterback’s parents could sue the company civilly, but they were extremely unlikely to succeed for the same reason. In the aftermath, Phelan had tripled its security, but it hadn’t made a public statement. From a legal standpoint, this made sense. Nick Gates’s death, while tragic, wasn’t the company’s fault. Any public statement could potentially be twisted or misconstrued tomean they accepted liability. At this juncture, saying nothing at all was the most prudent course of action.

Unfortunately, that only pissed off the residents of Denton more.

Josie knew better than anyone that grief wasn’t rational and often, doing something that made little practical sense held it at bay. Action was better than being smothered by pain. The parents and students who had cared for Nick Gates needed something to do. Here they were.

The Chief had been certain things would blow over soon but now Josie wasn’t so sure. Whatever happened today might just be gasoline on a fire.

Josie made her way to where Officer Brennan stood sentry outside a strip of crime scene tape. Behind it was a stretch of ground peppered with pieces of shattered sidewalk, gravel, and dirt where normally construction vehicles lumbered in and out of the building site. The rolling gate was partially open, but she couldn’t see much more than a boom lift and a row of porta-potties. The skeleton of the children’s hospital towered over everything, the dwindling rays of the day’s sunlight slicing through its frame. It was only four in the afternoon, but the evenings were already creeping up earlier than usual.

Just steps from the entrance, Denton’s Evidence Response Team had erected a pop-up tent. They only did that when it was necessary to shield a body from onlookers. Several of the ERT officers, dressed head to toe in white Tyvek suits, worked the cordoned-off area outside the tent, making sketches, placing evidence markers, and taking video and photos. Based on the debris, this section was where the fight had taken place. Scattered across the ground was a discarded sneaker, a bottle of water on its side, several empty camping chairs, a crumpled sweater, a walkie-talkie in pieces, and a brown purse turned upside down. A key chain was attached to its zipper. Craning herneck, Josie saw that it was a big pink pompom with a glittery red heart attached to it. Something in her chest tightened. That kind of sweet, colorful whimsy didn’t belong at a crime scene.

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