Chapter 12
TWELVE
Josie leaned back in her seat with a contented sigh.
Turner’s old Impala left a lot to be desired, but its AC was running at full capacity.
Letting him drive to Maxine’s former employer had been a struggle.
She hated not being in control but not as much as she hated sweating profusely.
At least for today. The drive from Denton PD headquarters to the medical office building where Maxine had worked was forty minutes long with the festival traffic, and Turner hadn’t said a word.
No teasing. No goading. No inappropriate comments or annoying questions.
Last night, after finishing up with Charles Barnes, Josie had worked on warrants while Turner scrolled on his phone.
When she called him out on it, he stood up and walked out of the room, never once looking up from his screen.
This morning, she found him in the stationhouse break room.
On his phone again. When she suggested they go have a talk with Maxine’s former employer, he’d grunted his agreement before mumbling, “But we’re taking my car. ”
Every street they turned onto was backed up.
Taillights for days. They slowly rolled down three residential lanes and a commercial area with a strip mall.
Everywhere they looked, people were standing outside, watching the sky.
It could only mean one thing. The weather had been just right for the morning balloon launch.
For the next few hours, hot air balloons would drift through the skies over Denton and land in yards and fields, roads and parking lots, and wait for their chase crews to find them.
The car lurched to a sudden stop and Turner muttered a bunch of curses under his breath along with something about rubberneckers.
Josie kept her face near the AC vent but turned her head slowly so she could watch him. After several minutes, he said, “Stop staring, Quinn. Nobody likes a creeper.”
She said nothing. Kept looking.
“What are you doing, Quinn?”
“Trying to decide.”
“Decide what?”
“If I want to know what crawled up your ass or not.”
“You don’t.” Turner’s voice was robotic.
Finally, the row of medical office buildings appeared. Turner made a left into the parking lot of the one where Maxine Barnes had worked. It was a four-story brick building with large, tinted windows that reflected the blue of the sky.
“I thought you said we were getting along,” Josie pointed out as he parked his car. It was something he’d said during the Polaroid Killer case.
“You said we weren’t.”
“But you want to.”
He turned the car off and met her eyes. They were devoid of all emotion. The real Turner, whoever the hell he was—a guy worthy of her sister’s respect or a total douchebag—was gone, tucked away in some mental hiding place.
“I don’t want to get along, Quinn.”
Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting in the office of Dr. Royston Jones.
The room wasn’t much bigger than a closet, affording space for only a desk and two guest chairs.
Its only redeeming quality was the windows.
They overlooked the bustling streets below and today, in the distance, a purple and white hot air balloon hung on the horizon.
Turner spent the five minutes they waited for Dr. Jones staring at it.
His fingers moved against his knee but more slowly than usual.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, officers,” Dr. Jones said as he ambled inside, squeezing past Turner’s chair to get around it and behind his desk.
He lowered himself into his chair gingerly, gnarled hands clutching the armrests.
He had to be pushing eighty. Wrinkles creased his face.
The sunlight slanting into the room reflected off his shiny pate.
A halo of coarse white hair surrounded it.
He pushed a pair of glasses up his nose.
“My office manager said you’re here about Maxine Barnes.
I don’t know what you heard but Maxi’s termination is between me and her.
Pennsylvania is a fire-at-will state, as I’m sure you know. ”
Fire at will meant that an employer could terminate an employee at any time without giving a reason.
They didn’t even need one. As long as there was no contract in place and no discriminatory intent behind the termination, they were within their legal rights to let an employee go whenever they pleased.
“We’re aware of the law,” Josie said. She’d always been a big fan of ripping off the Band-Aid, so she did just that. “Dr. Jones, I’m very sorry to tell you this but Maxine and her daughter were murdered early Sunday morning.”
“Oh God.” He bent forward and froze. A few seconds later, his face crumpled. One of his hands dug in the pocket of his white coat, coming up with a tissue which he lifted to his face with trembling fingers just as a tear slid down his cheek. “Oh God.”
When he regained some of his composure, Turner said, “Maxine’s husband told us that she quit a few months ago.”
Dr. Jones held up a hand as he took a few labored breaths. Josie hoped he wasn’t having a heart attack. “Oh my. Oh dear. That’s not what happened. I’m not sure if I should say.”
“We can get a warrant for Maxine’s employment records,” Josie said. “We will, in fact, and can have that to you later today, if that helps.”
“Yes, okay. Though, I suppose it doesn’t matter now that she’s gone.” Dr. Jones blotted another tear. “Maxi didn’t quit. That would have been so much simpler. Unfortunately, I had to let her go.”
Josie stared at him. “You fired her?”
He winced. “Yes. I had to. Believe me, it was a very tough decision. She’d been on my staff for over ten years, starting out as a secretary and working her way up to office manager.
She was always very good, but the last couple of months she was here, she made a lot of mistakes. Too many to ignore.”
“What kinds of mistakes?” asked Josie.
“Scheduling, to start with. There were days we didn’t have staff at the front desk at all because she forgot to do the schedule or didn’t fill time slots.
Or everyone was in on the same day. Then she made errors in payroll that took days to iron out and almost made our accountant’s head explode.
I could have forgiven any one of those things once or even twice, but they kept happening.
She just wasn’t herself. She’d lost weight and she was very jumpy.
Withdrawn. Usually she was very sunny, coming to work in a good mood, smiling, making everyone else laugh.
She used to try to keep things loose around here.
It can be very hectic, very stressful. Maxi had instituted Fun Time Fridays.
Every week was a different theme and then she’d make some kind of food or baked good to go with it.
Staff could dress up sometimes. Everyone looked forward to it.
It really boosted morale. She stopped doing that altogether. ”
“Did you speak to her about the change in her behavior?” asked Josie.
“Yes, of course. A few times. I had hoped that it would either get her back on track or that I could help her in some way. I thought perhaps she had developed a substance abuse problem but of course she denied that.”
“Did she give you a reason as to why she was acting weird and screwing up so much?” Turner said.
Dr. Jones laced his fingers together and rested his joined hands on the desk. He sighed heavily. “She said that she was scared. She thought that she had a stalker.”
“A stalker,” Turner repeated slowly.
Dr. Jones motioned toward his office door. “Apparently she told a couple of members of the staff the same thing.”
“Did she have any idea who might be stalking her?” asked Josie.
“According to her, no. All I know is that she seemed as though she was afraid for her life, and yet she refused to go to the police.”
“Why not?” asked Josie.
“She said the police wouldn’t be able to help her.”
There were some cases in which police couldn’t help very much but those usually involved cyberstalking.
Denton PD had a long-standing stalking case where the victim repeatedly received frequent messages and emails which they collected each time.
It had been years, and they’d never been able to track the stalker through anything he left.
Electronic evidence was more difficult to follow than it seemed.
For all Denton PD knew, the stalker could live halfway across the world.
“Did Maxine ever have any personal visitors at work?” Josie said. “Friends? Someone she met for lunch? Anything like that?”
“Not that I’m aware of but you’re welcome to ask the staff.”
“There was nothing on her phone,” Turner said, voicing Josie’s next thought, almost to himself. That wasn’t something Dr. Jones needed to know.
“I’m not surprised,” said the doctor. “Oh, I just hate to say this. I hated even thinking it. Firing Maxi was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in decades of running this practice, but I don’t think she had a stalker.”
“What makes you say that?” Josie said.
“The lack of evidence, for one thing,” he said.
“Her not wanting to do anything about it. That wasn’t Maxi.
She was a problem solver. Very proactive.
That’s why I promoted her to office manager at a very young age.
She had become so jumpy. Paranoid. The way she was acting seemed more indicative of illicit drug use—amphetamines, most likely. ”
“You think she was on something,” said Turner.
“Sadly, yes. She denied it but I doubt she would have told me the truth anyway.”
Toxicology on Maxine’s body would take many more weeks to come back, but no illegal substances had been found among her things when the ERT processed the tent.
Her body hadn’t shown any visible evidence of drug use.
There had been no indication of it on her phone—no calls or messages that could be connected to any known drug dealers or even anyone who might have access to drugs.
That didn’t mean Maxine hadn’t been using something.
It was possible she’d stopped after being fired.
“There is no possibility, in your mind, that she was telling the truth about being stalked?” asked Josie.
“I didn’t say that. Drugs just seemed more likely.”
Josie wondered if the reality had been a bit of both. Perhaps Maxine had developed a habit and been unable to pay for it. Maybe the person stalking her was her supplier. Although the scene at the glamping tent wasn’t what she’d expect if the murders had been motivated by unpaid debts to a dealer.
“If she was being stalked, can you think of anyone who might have been following her?” Turner asked. “An old coworker, maybe. A patient who fixated on her? Anyone?”
“No,” the doctor began but stopped himself, as if considering how much to say. “Well, maybe… this is going to sound crazy.”
“Lay it on us,” Turner told him.
“Her husband.”
“You think her husband was stalking her but making her think it was a stranger?” asked Josie. Even as she asked the question, she could imagine Charles Barnes doing something like that. It was another way to exert control, especially after he’d relinquished the house to her.
“Maxi always denied that he was physically abusive, but it was clear to me early on from when she started working here that he was emotionally abusive. Recently, things had deteriorated between them to the point where Maxi thought they were going to get a divorce, but he’s always been petty and controlling.
He’d get a kick out of making her squirm even if he wasn’t directly benefitting from it. ”
It would also act as retribution for her wanting to leave him.
Josie suspected he’d only agreed to leave the house because he’d met someone else.
Even if that woman had stayed with him and they’d lived happily ever after, there was no way that Barnes would stop trying to make Maxine’s life miserable.
Dr. Jones was right. Where was the fun in that?
“Noted, Doc,” Turner said. “One last question. Did Maxine ever receive flowers while she was at work?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”