Page 6 of The Couple’s Secret (Detective Josie Quinn #23)
Josie’s lungs started to burn but she kept going, using her hands to map the shape of the object.
The flat edge of a roof, the seam along the tops of doors, then a crack a few inches wide, big enough for Josie to put her arm through, feeling only empty space.
Beneath that was the solid surface of what must be a window and under it, a metal lip.
Then a door handle. She didn’t attempt to open it.
With a coating of muck this thick, the car must have been in the water for some time.
If anyone was inside, they were long dead.
Josie kicked back to the surface, gulping air as soon as she broke through.
Treading water, she turned and saw that Gretchen and Dr. Slack had been joined on the bank by a uniformed officer.
Her nose caught a whiff of something rotten and putrid, something beyond the usual pungent, earthy smell of the river. Decomposition. It hovered over the top of the water, churned up by her exploration, there and gone in an instant. A familiar feeling of dread settled in her stomach.
“Shit.”
The car would need to be removed from the river, cleaned up and processed. It could take hours, days even, before they could begin to piece together where it had come from, how it ended up submerged and who had been inside it.
Josie glanced at the shore again where more officers gathered along with a pair of EMS workers and a couple of firefighters.
The press wouldn’t be far behind, particularly if it was a slow news day.
Years ago, any member of the public in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania could purchase a police scanner and tune in to their local department’s radio communications.
Now, anyone could livestream that same audio via a website called Broadcastify.
Like many departments across the country, Denton PD used a timed encryption with a fifteen-minute delay.
Someone from their local news station was always listening for calls that might lead to a big story.
With Denton’s police, fire department and EMS deployed, there was no way reporters would pass up a call like this one.
Josie sucked in a few more breaths and plunged back under.
Visibility was worse. Again, she used her hands, disturbing more of the sludge until she found the slope of what she hoped was the back windshield.
It was still intact. Then came the square expanse of a trunk.
With nothing to grab onto, her body slipped, buoyancy sending her upward until she slid across the roof.
Before the current carried her too far, she kicked away from the car, diving deeper, and swam around to the rear until she touched something that felt like the hollow under the wheel well.
She gripped the edge. More thick biofilm oozed in and around her fingers.
Her hands ached with the cold and the effort of keeping hold of the slippery car.
She worked her way around to the rear bumper until her fingertips brushed the slight depression in the center of it where the license plate was affixed.
There were too many layers of filth to claw away for her to get a look at the number, especially in the hazy brown all around her.
Instead, she slipped her fingertips underneath it, grabbing both sides, and started to bend and yank at it.
A pressure spread through her chest, lungs searing from lack of oxygen.
She brought her legs up to brace her feet against the bumper for leverage.
Muck squeezed between her toes as she struggled to find purchase.
Just as she reached her limit, needing more air, the license plate snapped off. Clutching it in one hand, she pushed off the back of the car, bursting out of the water. She swam toward the bank. By the time she was able to stand, Gretchen and two uniformed officers were wading into the water.
Officer Brennan held out his arm for her to take. Josie waved it away. “I’m fine,” she breathed. “There is a car. Been there a while.”
“What the hell is that?” asked Brennan, pointing at the bent license plate in her hand.
It was still covered in filth, reddish-brown mud and organic matter with an extra-special coating of something that felt jelly-like.
“The tag,” Josie explained. “We’ll have to find something to scrape all this off.”
Officer Dougherty reached them, shading his eyes with one hand. “Maybe a stick or something.”
Gretchen fell in beside Josie as they came to the dry part of the basin. “The ambulance will have something we can use.”
“I’ll go find out,” said Dougherty.
Noah’s shirt was long and heavy on Josie’s body. Without her belt, it had come loose from her waist, swinging as she walked, the hem slapping against her pants. Locks of her black hair stuck to her cheeks. The scent of the river clung to her and under it, that hint of decomposition again.
Josie scanned the ledge. At least a dozen people waited for them. “Gretchen,” she said. “Once we figure out how to bring the car up, this entire area will need to be cleared. If there’s anyone inside that car, I don’t want their loved ones finding out on the news.”
With a nod, Gretchen hoisted herself back up onto the ledge and then held the license plate while Josie did the same. Dougherty appeared at her side and draped a blanket over her shoulders.
“Ambulance had it,” he explained. “They’ve got some stuff we can use to clean up the tag.”
“Thanks. Take this. I want to see if we can get the number and run it.”
Dougherty grimaced but took the slimy license plate and disappeared along the same rocky path they’d used to get to the bank. Through the trees, Josie caught glimpses of emergency vehicles and what she guessed was a van from their local news station, WYEP.
“Let’s go,” said Gretchen, gesturing toward the spot where Josie had left her pile of belongings. Dr. Slack was still there as well, watching all the activity with curiosity.
Josie hugged the blanket tightly around her shoulders, grateful they’d been having an unusually warm June.
“I was right, wasn’t I?” asked Dr. Slack when they reached her.
Josie nodded and found the widest, flattest rock she could, sinking onto it and trying to get her socks over her damp feet. “Yeah. I’m not sure how long it’s been under there, but you might not have seen it if the water levels weren’t so low.”
A notepad and pen appeared in Gretchen’s hands. She put on her reading glasses. “What were you doing down here?”
Dr. Slack waved a slender arm in the direction of the basin. “Looking for fossils.”
Gretchen dipped her chin, looking over the top of her glasses, brows raised skeptically. “Fossils? In the Susquehanna?”
“Oh yes.” Dr. Slack clapped her hands together.
“You’d be surprised. With the water levels down for so long, I was hoping to get a better look in areas that are normally submerged.
There’s an old boat ramp upriver, not far from here at all.
That’s where I’m parked. I could show you what I’ve already found, if you’d like. ”
“Maybe some other time,” Gretchen said. She shot Josie a look, her unspoken question loud and clear in the air between them. Is this a real thing?
Josie fussed with her socks, trying to smooth the fabric over her feet but they just wouldn’t sit right on her moist skin.
“There are fossils in the Susquehanna,” she told Gretchen.
“In fact, back in the nineties, paleontologists discovered a 360-some million-year-old fossil up in Renovo. First of its kind. A ‘fish with fingers’ I think they called it.”
“That was exciting,” Dr. Slack said enthusiastically, her eyes widening. “The most I’ve ever found around here were trilobites and crinoid fragments.”
“Right,” Gretchen said. “Until today.”
“Oh, well, yes.”
Josie yanked her boots over the top of her crinkled socks while Gretchen took down the paleontologist’s personal information and sent her on her way. Moments later, Dougherty reappeared, hurrying toward them, phone in hand.
“You got something?” Gretchen asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “The tag is dead. Hasn’t been renewed since 2018.”
The dread in Josie’s stomach solidified into a hard mass. She buckled her belt and made sure her holster was securely in place. “What else?”
With the back of his hand, Dougherty rubbed at his forehead. “The license plate is from a 2015 Hyundai Accent. Owner was a man named Tobias Lachlan.”
“That sounds familiar,” said Gretchen.
“Yeah,” Dougherty replied. “I thought so, too, so I did a quick internet search. Seven years ago, Lachlan and his fiancée, Cora Stevens, went missing from Brighton Springs. No trace of them has ever been found.”