Page 4 of Close Her Eyes

“Yep,” said Mettner. “Not a robbery, then.” He shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, nearly losing his balance as his booties slid against a muddy rock. As he righted himself, a flush crept up his cheeks. He cleared his throat. “Nothing taken, no signs of injury, no external signs that she was sexually assaulted. I screwed this up, didn’t I? By bringing in the whole team. She slipped and fell, didn’t she?”

Josie moved closer and stared up at him. “What do you think?”

“I think if we find out later that this was a homicide and I had failed to secure the scene and have it processed, I’d be out of a job.”

Josie shook her head. She pointed back down at Sharon Eddy. “If we find out later that this was a homicide and you had failed to secure the scene and have it processed, someone she loves would get neither the closure nor the justice they deserve, Mett.”

He looked away. Josie patted his shoulder. “Has anyone gone to her home? Made contact?”

“Not yet.”

Josie panned the area, noting the position of the body, its distance from both the road and the riverbank, as well as its position relative to Sharon Eddy’s purse.

“What is it?” Mettner said.

“Her purse is standing straight up, like she set it down perfectly,” Josie said.

Mettner nodded. “The odds of it falling just like that are pretty slim.”

Josie gestured toward the road, where they could see the back of the uniformed officer and the fluttering crime scene tape. Other officers clad in white Tyvek moved along the slope, searching the brush for anything that might be important and bagging items they’d marked earlier with evidence flags. “If she fell hard enough to give herself a fatal head injury or to break her neck, it seems to me she would have had to tumble down this slope.”

“Sure,” said Mettner. A beat passed. His tone grew more urgent. “Her clothes aren’t dirty, though.”

Josie nodded. She began moving from one evidence flag to another while Mettner followed. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Looking for her other glove.”

“It’s not here,” Mettner said. “I already asked Hummel. They didn’t find it anywhere.”

Two EMTs worked their way toward the victim, carrying a backboard and body bag. Josie paused to watch them transfer Sharon from her deathbed of river stones inside the bag. She was glad for the care they took, treating the body as though it was made of something precious. To someone, somewhere, probably only blocks away, Sharon was extremely dear. Josie was sure of it, based on the initials lovingly sewn onto her remaining glove.

Mettner added, “You think someone brought her here after she was already dead.”

It wasn’t a question.

Josie turned back toward the road and started making her way up the incline. “This is the perfect place to leave a body. No cameras. No residences. Remote.”

Mettner trudged after her. “You think she was murdered?”

“Can’t make that determination yet,” Josie said.

“But you have a feeling.”

She stopped walking and turned back to him. “Yes. Come on, we’ll go to her residence and see if there’s anyone there.”

THREE

Sharon Eddy lived in a small, narrow rowhouse five blocks west of the Hempstead Trail. A thin elderly woman answered the door, looking Josie and Mettner up and down. Leaning heavily on a cane, she reached up and patted her curly white hair. “Who’re you?” she asked. “I’m not ready for company.”

Josie offered her police credentials. “I’m Detective Josie Quinn. This is Detective Finn Mettner. We’re from the Denton Police Department.”

The woman leaned forward. A pair of reading glasses appeared from the folds of her pink floral housecoat, attached to a chain around her neck. She settled them onto the bridge of her nose and studied the IDs they offered.

Mettner said, “We’re sorry to bother you, ma’am.”

She looked up at their faces. “It’s after dinner.”

Josie said, “We know. We were hoping to talk to you about Sharon Eddy. It’s our understanding that this is her residence.”

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