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TWO

Cool September air brushed over the exposed skin of Josie’s forearms as she emerged from her vehicle. Broken glass crunched under her boots, vestiges of southwest Denton’s former life. For as long as she could remember, this particular area of the city had been seedy, rundown, and teeming with criminal activity. Real estate value had fallen so low, you could buy an entire apartment building for a song. The developers of the children’s hospital, Phelan Construction, had more or less done that; buying up nearly two city blocks of old, failing buildings—most of them condemned—and demolishing them to make way for the new project. Josie had heard the word “revitalization” on the news so many times, she was wondering if WYEP got some kind of special kickback from city council every time they said it on-air.

Maybe the hospital would be shiny and new when it was finished, but the row of dilapidated buildings across the street from it flew in the face of revitalization. Most of them sported crumbling brick facades marred with graffiti. Several had ground-floor storefronts, their glass cracked and held together with duct tape. Dented rolling metal security grilles shuttered them at night. Despite the city installing public wastebins on every corner, small heaps of trash accumulated along the broken sidewalk. The construction site itself was surrounded by tall, chain-link fencing covered with blue vinyl privacy screens on which bold white letters declared the project was being undertaken by Phelan Construction.

Josie locked her SUV and threaded her way through the rows of police vehicles clustered around the site’s main entrance. From every direction, emergency beacons strobed red and blue. The small white pickup truck belonging to the city’s medical examiner, Dr. Anya Feist, looked out of place among the marked cruisers, SUVs and ambulances. A low susurrus hum filled the air. Hushed conversations among shocked people. Sorrow, fear, and disbelief quieted the scene like it was a funeral home and not a dirty street in the city’s shabbiest neighborhood. Among the vehicles, uniformed Denton PD officers moved from witness to witness, taking statements from each parent and student. Additional officers had separated four hulking security guards from the others, speaking quietly with them one-on-one.

One of the guards waved his hands angrily and raised his voice loud enough for Josie to hear. “These parents and their kids have been itching for a fight ever since that kid died. I don’t even know why they’re here other than to piss off the company. Those kids had no business being on the site.”

He was right. By law, Phelan Construction couldn’t be held criminally responsible for loss of life when the victim had broken the law in order to gain access to the premises. The quarterback’s parents could sue the company civilly, but they were extremely unlikely to succeed for the same reason. In the aftermath, Phelan had tripled its security, but it hadn’t made a public statement. From a legal standpoint, this made sense. Nick Gates’s death, while tragic, wasn’t the company’s fault. Any public statement could potentially be twisted or misconstrued to mean they accepted liability. At this juncture, saying nothing at all was the most prudent course of action.

Unfortunately, that only pissed off the residents of Denton more.

Josie knew better than anyone that grief wasn’t rational and often, doing something that made little practical sense held it at bay. Action was better than being smothered by pain. The parents and students who had cared for Nick Gates needed something to do. Here they were.

The Chief had been certain things would blow over soon but now Josie wasn’t so sure. Whatever happened today might just be gasoline on a fire.

Josie made her way to where Officer Brennan stood sentry outside a strip of crime scene tape. Behind it was a stretch of ground peppered with pieces of shattered sidewalk, gravel, and dirt where normally construction vehicles lumbered in and out of the building site. The rolling gate was partially open, but she couldn’t see much more than a boom lift and a row of porta-potties. The skeleton of the children’s hospital towered over everything, the dwindling rays of the day’s sunlight slicing through its frame. It was only four in the afternoon, but the evenings were already creeping up earlier than usual.

Just steps from the entrance, Denton’s Evidence Response Team had erected a pop-up tent. They only did that when it was necessary to shield a body from onlookers. Several of the ERT officers, dressed head to toe in white Tyvek suits, worked the cordoned-off area outside the tent, making sketches, placing evidence markers, and taking video and photos. Based on the debris, this section was where the fight had taken place. Scattered across the ground was a discarded sneaker, a bottle of water on its side, several empty camping chairs, a crumpled sweater, a walkie-talkie in pieces, and a brown purse turned upside down. A key chain was attached to its zipper. Craning her neck, Josie saw that it was a big pink pompom with a glittery red heart attached to it. Something in her chest tightened. That kind of sweet, colorful whimsy didn’t belong at a crime scene.

Then again, death didn’t care about the joy it stole. It took blindly.

Josie tore her eyes from the key chain. The crime scene tape stretched for several yards from the site entrance down the sidewalk adjacent to the chain-link fencing. Yellow evidence markers had been placed at uneven intervals. One of the ERT officers followed the trail of them back toward the tent, taking photos as he went.

“We’ve got a real shitshow,” Brennan informed her.

“Gretchen said there was some kind of fight. A fatality.”

He dragged a hand down his face. “Yes and yes. There was a brawl. We got a couple of different stories as to what started it, but it seems like the protestors got a little too close to the gate, one of the guards came out to ask them to back up, and that didn’t go over so well. They started fighting—four security guys against seventeen protestors. When the crowd cleared, there was a woman on the ground, bleeding. Already dead. Female, mid-fifties. Security tried stepping in to render aid at the same time several of the parents did and there was another scuffle.”

Josie shook her head. “None of them rendered aid.”

Brennan’s features twisted in disgust. “Like I said, a shitshow. By the time 911 was called and the EMTs got here, it was too late.”