Page 66 of The Couple's Secret
“Palmer?” the Chief said.
“We’re still working on some leads.”
All none of them. Josie kept the thought to herself.
“So nothing, then,” the Chief said.
Gretchen didn’t answer.
With a disgusted shake of his head, he turned his back on them, stomping toward his office. “Get something!” he shouted. “Fast!”
Once his door slammed, Noah spun in his chair to face Josie. “Let’s go over it then, while we’re all here.”
Their collective shifts would only overlap for another half hour.
Turner threw his foam basketball at its net and missed, as usual. “You know what’s missing from this investigation?”
“Leads,” Gretchen said flatly.
“My exceptional detective skills,” he said arrogantly.
At this point, Josie would take anything they could get, even if it came from Turner. Still, she couldn’t let his remark slide. “If they’re on par with your report-writing skills, then we’re well and truly screwed.”
Gretchen snickered.
Noah tapped a hand against his desk. “Come on. What’ve you got?”
Josie leaned back in her chair, rubbing her temples with her fingers. A headache was brewing. Had been since she left the boat ramp.
She and Gretchen walked them through the case, from all of Detective John Fanning’s findings to what little new information they’d uncovered: both Tobias and Cora had been shot in the head; Cora had had a mysterious skeleton key in her purse; Cora’s abusive ex, Dalton Stevens, now claimed Cora had been having an affair at the time the couple were killed; and Hollis had revealed that Cora had intended to leave Tobias.
Then they went over the uselessness of the new information. According to everyone closest to the couple, Cora hadn’t owned anything that required a skeleton key to open it. In fact, the key might not mean anything at all. Dalton Stevens was unreliable, which meant that the assertions that Cora was having an affair and that he’d seen her in the parking lot of the Majesty Motel were questionable. Hollis denied having an affair with Cora, claiming that any conversations they had before the murders were about her intention to break up with Tobias. Whether Cora truly intended to leave him was immaterial. He had been murdered, too.
“We’ve still got to talk to the private investigator that Riley hired,” Josie concluded. “He’s agreed to meet with us tomorrow. But I’m expecting more of the same.”
“Every person in their lives had an alibi,” Noah said.
“Correct.” Gretchen caught Turner’s foam basketball as it ricocheted off the tiny net in her direction. “Also, keep in mind that to have pulled off the murders and the disposal of the bodies inside the car, there had to be more than one person.”
Noah folded his hands over his stomach. “Which means you’re back to murder for hire.”
At this point, Josie was getting sick of hearing the words.
“We’ll start looking for anyone arrested for, charged with, or convicted of murder-for-hire plots in or around that area in the past ten years,” Noah suggested. “Murder for hire isn’t usually a one-off and like you said, this crime doesn’t seem like the work of amateurs.”
Turner waved at Gretchen, trying to get her attention and holding his palm up for her to throw back his ball. She ignored him, squeezing it in her hand like a stress toy.
“We can also start rechecking everyone’s alibis.” Josie yanked open the center drawer of her desk and fished around for ibuprofen. “Maybe we need to bring in associates of Dalton and Hollis, even if Fanning already interviewed them. Question witnesses again.”
They’d be retracing Fanning’s steps, but all they needed was one person to crack and tell them something that they hadn’t revealed before. Or one person remembering a detail they hadn’t when they were first interviewed. Or someone revealing something that hadn’t seemed important until now.
Someone always knew something.
“The diner might be a good place to start in terms of witnesses.” Without warning, Gretchen launched the basketball toward Turner, smiling smugly as it went over his head and he had to dive for it. “Cora worked there for years. Her boss organized the GoFundMe for Riley. Coworkers and patrons might have something to say that they didn’t tell Fanning.”
Josie kept pawing through her desk drawer for her elusive supply of painkillers. “With respect to the skeleton key, Hollis’s sister sent over the company records Hollis promised. A list of antiques and collectibles At Your Disposal sold on behalf of clients in the year before Cora and Tobias were killed. Nothing there.”
The sound of a can snapping open drew their attention to Turner. He guzzled some of the disgusting energy drink he loved so much. After letting out a loud belch, he said, “The skeleton key belonged to someone else.”
