“I’ve never been good at keeping up with the times. Too caught up in the day-to-day of keeping this place running. The bed and breakfast has been in my family for generations. It might take us that long to catch up with modern technology. My oldest daughter is always harping on it. Plus,” Edward gesturedaround them, “it looks fancy, but fancy don’t pay the bills. I gotta take what I can get so yeah, if some guy wants to pay cash for his dinner and a room, I accept it. I don’t condone affairs but I’m not the morality police either.”
“You didn’t need a name for the room?” Josie asked. “In case he trashed it or left something behind?”
“Oh yeah, we’ll have taken a name and number from him,” Edward said. “Probably not an address though, since there wasn’t the possibility of us having to track him down for payment. I’ll have to get someone to find it for you.”
Josie’s heartbeat thudded in her chest even as a small voice in the back of her head told her that it couldn’t be that easy. It was never easy. “We’ll need that as soon as possible. We’re looking for?—”
He held up a hand. “I know who you’re looking for. Saw it on the news. Didn’t realize until right now that it was related to that lady you just showed me. Don’t need to know the details. Just a minute.”
They waited while he picked up his cell phone from the bar and typed out a message before putting it back down. “That’s my younger daughter. She’s in charge of finances and records and all that. She’ll have something back to me in a few minutes.”
“Thank you,” said Gretchen, scanning the room. “Do you have cameras here or in the B&B?”
He shook his head, taking another sip of his whiskey. “No. Haven’t ever needed them, not even these days. Might be one of the reasons why your couple came here, come to think of it.”
Josie’s body had started to buzz with the possibility of finding Turner’s family the moment Edward said he had information about the man he’d seen here with Maxine. The feeling was so potent, she had to fight through it to stay in the present. “You saw the news reports about Dani Schwarber and Cassidy Turner being abducted. There were still photos of theman who took them. Did he look like the man you saw with Maxine Barnes?”
“Hard to say,” Edward told her. “In the pictures on TV, the guy looks pretty average. Nothing distinct about him. Could be a hundred guys. His build was the same, though. That’s about all I can say on that. What I can tell you is that he looked to be in his late thirties, early forties.”
“That’s helpful,” Josie said. “Did you ever speak to him?”
“Seeing as he was a regular and he was so distracting to my female staff, yes, I did. It was nothing more than pleasantries though. He was nice enough. Evasive. Didn’t tell me his name. It was pretty obvious that he didn’t appreciate a lot of questions, but I guess when you’re having an affair, that makes sense.”
“You said he brought flowers each time he met Maxine Barnes,” Gretchen said. “What did they look like?”
His forehead creased. “The flowers, right. Depended on what time of year it was, I suppose. Different colors, different kinds, but there was only ever one kind of flower in the bouquet. If he brought her pink flowers, that’s all that was there. No variety.”
Josie took out her phone and pulled up a photo of the unusual camellias she hadn’t been able to track down yet. “Did he ever bring these?”
She knew the answer was yes by the way his eyebrows shot up. “Those, yes. They were the ones he brought most often. Never saw them before. The colors, I mean. They were unique, that’s for sure.”
“Did you ever ask about them?” Gretchen said.
“Sure did. My wife would have liked those a great deal. She was on hospice then.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Josie offered.
“Appreciate that,” he said with a pained smile. “Your fellow said he couldn’t reveal where he’d gotten them but that if mywife would like them, he’d bring her some. Sure enough, the next week, he did.”
“Did he tell you anything else about them?” Josie asked. “What kind of flower they were? If they had a name?”
Greathouse ran a finger along the rim of his glass while he thought about it. “Something about it being a hybrid, whatever that means. Oh, but I remember this because I didn’t know flowers could have names like racehorses do. It was called the Crimson Bride.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
While Gretchen drove them back to Denton, Josie stared at the text message Edward Greathouse had forwarded her before they left the bed and breakfast. Before they’d even pulled out of the parking lot, Josie punched the information into the vehicle’s mobile data terminal. The man who had rented a room every Thursday for months for himself and Maxine Barnes was supposedly called James Smith. The number he’d given the B&B didn’t exist. It didn’t even belong to a burner phone. All the excitement that had fizzed through her veins only moments earlier was gone. Every beat of her heart felt slow and labored at the realization that another lead had turned out to be nothing. A dead end.
It was never that easy.
“There are over eleven hundred James Smiths in Pennsylvania,” Josie groused. “What if this guy is married or in a relationship and also cheating onhispartner? This has to be a fake name. Why give a real name but a fake number?”
“We can’t assume the name is fake just because it’s so common,” Gretchen said. “How many of them live in this area? Did any of them previously live in or near Alden?”
“Hang on. I’ll look.”
Josie began to search. They were surging into the thick of festival traffic after crossing back into Denton when she announced, “Six, although one of them is in his eighties so I think we can eliminate him.”
Gretchen rolled to a stop behind a long line of cars. “We’re going to have to talk to all of them.”
