Page 60 of The Couple's Secret
Josie glanced at the name of the crossroads at the next intersection they drove through. They were still a good twenty minutes away. “Great.”
Ten minutes later, the call came over the radio. Riley Stevens had been found at the boat ramp. Unresponsive. An ambulance was dispatched. An ache bloomed in Josie’s chest.
The rest of the drive passed in thick silence. Josie doubled the speed limit. By the time they flew past the remnants of the old state mental hospital and turned onto the road running parallel to the river, there were two patrol cars and an ambulance, which was slanted across the entrance to the boat ramp.
No reporters, although Josie was certain some would arrive within the hour.
Officer Dougherty stood near the entrance to the boat ramp, ensuring that no one crossed the threshold. He shook his head as they approached. Josie’s heart sank.
“She’s gone,” he said. “When I got here, she was already showing signs of livor mortis.”
“The ambulance is for transporting her to the morgue then,” Gretchen said.
“Yeah. I secured the scene and called Hummel and Dr. Feist. They’ll be here as soon as possible.”
Josie stepped to the side, peering through a gap between Dougherty’s tall frame and the ambulance where a sliver of the boat ramp was visible. The back of a red Subaru Crosstrek obscured the river beyond.
“Where is she?”
“On the ground near the front of the vehicle. From what I can tell, she parked and got out to look at the water. I’m not sure if she was sitting on the hood and slid off or if she just collapsed where she was standing.”
“Signs of a struggle?” Gretchen asked. “Trauma?”
Dougherty shook his head. “None that I could see. There’s a bottle of vodka next to her. Not much left in it. I found her on her stomach, turned her over so I could get a pulse, maybe do CPR, but like I said, she was already showing lividity.”
Lividity, which was a sign of livor mortis, occurred when the heart stopped pumping blood. Gravity pulled all the blood in the body to the lowest point, causing the skin to be discolored a deep reddish-purple. Once lividity became fixed, the discoloration was permanent. However, assuming that Hollis, Zane and Jackson had all told the truth, that meant that Riley had left Hollis’s home sometime between seven and nine a.m. If she had come right here, she would have arrived within twenty to twenty-five minutes. They’d be able to retrace her steps via the GPS in her vehicle’s infotainment center.
Lividity could begin anywhere between twenty minutes to four hours postmortem. The time at which it became fixed, or permanent, was much later and spanned a much wider range, but they already knew that Riley had died before twelve thirty, which was roughly the time that the first Denton PD units showed up. Since Dougherty had rolled her over, the discoloration would now be on the back of her body.
“It’s like she just laid down and passed,” Dougherty added.
Hummel’s team would provide more insight, as would Dr. Feist. Without knowing Riley’s cause of death—even if all signs indicated she’d had some sort of medical event—they had to operate under the assumption that there was foul play. In the event that her death was ruled a homicide after the autopsy, they had to preserve any and all evidence that might be present. Police only got one opportunity to process a crime scene properly. The fact that Dougherty had moved Riley’s body was a disadvantage but not a problem. He’d been right to evaluate whether she needed medical aid or not.
A news van barreled down the road, followed by another and another. Reporters poured out of the vehicles, camera crews in tow. Josie’s stomach dropped. Patrol officers moved in, waving them back and quickly setting a perimeter.
“So it begins,” Officer Dougherty muttered.
Another tragedy. A legacy of death and heartache.
“We need to tell Jackson,” Josie said. “He’s Riley’s next of kin.”
Gretchen put her reading glasses on and took out her phone, thumbs tapping out a message. “Brennan’s with them now. He’ll handle it.”
More Denton PD vehicles appeared. The ERT arrived, Hummel and his second-in-command, Officer Jenny Chan, lugging their equipment toward the cordoned-off crime scene. It would be hours before Josie and Gretchen could get onto the boat ramp to see the scene for themselves. Dr. Feist followed, setting up her equipment and waiting on the sidelines with them until they had permission to enter.
An hour later, Josie and Gretchen were still waiting for Hummel’s team to finish their work when shouting erupted from behind the press vehicles. Josie turned her head to see Jackson muscle his way past the crowd of them and toward the patrol officers. He charged down the road, stark fury blanketing his features. Zane jogged behind him, followed by Hollis, moving much more slowly. His body shook and tears rolled down his ruddy cheeks. It was the most emotion Josie had seen him show.
“Jacks, Zane, wait!” he called feebly.
Officer Conlen stepped in front of Jackson. “You can’t go beyond this point.”
The distance between the entrance to the boat ramp, where Josie and Gretchen loitered, and the cruisers parked sideways to keep the public at bay was nearly a quarter mile. They walked toward the burgeoning confrontation, watching with rapt attention.
“Where is my wife?” Jackson yelled. His eyes were wild. “I want to see my wife.”
“Sir, I’m going to need you to go back to your vehicle.”
Jackson didn’t look at Conlen. His gaze was focused beyond the officer, to the crime scene tape that had been erected across the entrance to the boat ramp. “What happened to her? Where is she?”
