“I need you to answer some questions,” she said evenly.
“Right, right. Fine.” Another tug at his beard. “You need my phone. Here, take it. I-I’ll get dressed and we can?—”
“No,” Josie said, stroking the dog’s head. “Right now I need you to sit down. Have the drink I brought. We’re going to talk.”
She was certain he’d registered her instructions, but he didn’t sit. Instead, he threw his phone onto the coffee table and started pacing the room, large palms yanking at his beard and pulling at his hair while a stream of obscenities spewed from his lips.
“Turner,” she finally snapped. “Sit. Down.”
The dog pushed its octopus against her leg, his tail wagging furiously now. “It’s okay,” she reassured him. “You’re a good dog.”
Turner collapsed onto his couch and put his head in his hands. “He’s actually not. In fact, he’s kind of an asshole. Never listens. Spot, go lay down.”
The dog continued to offer Josie his slobbery octopus.
“See?”
“He puts up with you,” Josie said. “He can’t be that much of an asshole.”
When he lifted his head, he wouldn’t look at her, even when she moved around the coffee table and perched on the edge of it, leaving only a couple of feet between them. His hands shook as he rubbed them on his bare knees. Spot meandered into the space between the table and sofa, octopus swinging back and forth. Josie wondered if he used it to help him find his way around.
“Quinn,” Turner croaked. “The flowers. Those damn flowers. What if?—”
“No,” Josie said sharply enough to jolt the old dog. “No, Turner. We’re going to hit the ground running on this and for that, I need you to focus. Let’s get started.”
NINETEEN
Turner didn’t give her a chance to launch into her questions, instead starting with one of his own. “Did you get anything from NCIC?”
“Not yet,” Josie said. Searches for things like warrants, stolen property, and firearms usually came back within minutes. Anything more complicated than that took more time. “I’m still trying to track down what type of camellias this guy left so maybe we can find him that way.”
“Right.” He reached past her and picked up his phone again. “You need to take this and look through it. Wait, no state police?”
It was the same question that she and Gretchen had posed to the Chief when they got back to the stationhouse. When Noah had been abducted last year, their department had had no choice but to hand the case over to the state police. They couldn’t investigate cases involving one of their own. When the victim or victims were family members, best practices dictated they do the same but technically, they didn’t have to turn the case over to the state police. Noah’s mother had been murdered in their jurisdiction seven years earlier and the Chief had kept the case in-house.
“No state police,” Josie echoed. “Chief wants us to handle it.”
“Right, okay.” He stood and began pacing again.
“But if you want me to push the issue, I will. The state police have resources that?—”
“No.” He shook his head. “No. I want you guys on this. Not a bunch of strangers.”
“There’s a good chance Heather Loughlin could get the case,” Josie pointed out, referring to a state police investigator they worked with often. “She’s excellent.”
“No.” His tone was firmer this time. “Loughlin’s fine but she’s not you.”
Josie’s breath stalled. Under any other circumstances, she would tease the hell out of him for accidentally complimenting her but the situation and the weight of the trust he was placing in her was too heavy for her to say anything but, “Okay.”
Forcing herself to move past the moment, Josie took out her own phone and cued up her recording app before setting it on the table. “I’m going to record this.”
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” he said.
He waited for her to list their names, location, the date and time. Then he started speaking before she could ask her first question.
“What do you need to know? The last time I saw them, right? I haven’t physically seen Dani in two weeks. Ish. You can check my texts. We had a blowout after that.”
“Where did you see her?” Josie rubbed behind one of Spot’s ears as he pushed his octopus onto her thigh.
