AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Just a minute,” said Noah. “We keep changes of clothes in the backs of our cars. I’ll grab your back-up boots.”
Gamble glowered at Noah as he ran past the cruiser, down the road to their vehicle. When he returned carrying a pair of boots, a slow grin spread across Gamble’s face. He turned toward Josie, teeth gleaming, looking very satisfied with himself. Josie met his leer head-on and grinned right back at him until his smile faltered and the expression on his face turned to uncertainty. The uniformed officer said something, drawing Gamble’s attention away from her. Gamble didn’t look back again.
Once the sample had been stowed and Josie outfitted with a clean pair of boots, she and Noah also put on gloves and walked onto the property. While Mettner began searching the truck, using a flashlight, Josie and Noah went inside the house. Gretchen had gone home to sleep. The smell hit Josie first, an eye-watering combination of nicotine, sweat, and spoiled food. Behind her, Noah gagged. “Good God,” he said.
Josie wrinkled her nose. “Let’s get through this as quickly as possible.”
“It won’t be fast enough. Look at this place.”
The living and dining room areas were contained in one large, open room. Along one wall was a doorway that appeared to lead to a hall. Toward the back of the house, Josie could see a portion of the kitchen. Every surface, including most of the floors, was covered with stuff. Her mind tried to process it, but she didn’t know where to look first. To one side was a couch-shaped pile of pillows, clothes, and magazines. As Josie walked closer, she saw they were all pornographic magazines. Naked women in all manner of poses were splayed before her on the open pages. A small area in one corner of the couch about the size of Archie Gamble’s rear end was free from any detritus. Ashtrays, beer cans, empty, crushed cigarette packs, and old food containers covered the coffee table. Three televisions leaned against one wall. Only one of them was plugged in. Coffee cans filled with bolts, nails, washers, and drill bits littered the floor. Josie catalogued other items that seemed to be randomly strewn about: a bike seat, a bent lawn chair, a cane, a tackle box, a bowling ball, and a dresser drawer filled with Allen wrenches. Everywhere she looked was more of the same.
Noah said, “This guy is a hoarder. I mean, look at this.” He pointed to a long table in the dining area filled with more stuff that seemed completely random: a microwave, a metal bedpan filled with remote controls, a pile of worn leather work gloves, an old neon sign advertising Black Label beer, and a plastic lawn decoration in the shape of a snowman. “How the hell are we supposed to find anything in here?”
The front door squealed. Mettner appeared. His eyes widened. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I wish we were,” said Josie.
“The smell,” Mettner complained. “That’s why this guy was on his porch at night. Who could sleep in here?”
Noah picked his way toward the hall. “Maybe the bedrooms aren’t so bad.”
“Doubtful,” Mettner mumbled. “How are we even going to do this?”
“Thoroughly,” Josie said. “You start in here. I’ll start in the kitchen and Noah will take…whatever rooms are back there.”
The smell in the kitchen was stronger. A tower of dirty dishes in the sink threatened to topple. Half-eaten, moldy microwave meals were strewn across the countertop. More empty cans of beer and ashtrays brimming with crushed cigarette butts covered the small Formica table. More magazines featuring naked women were spread across the rest of it. A couple of folded newspapers peeked from beneath them. The only clear surface in the room was a chair tucked under the table. Its vinyl seat was pristine. Josie stood behind it and took a photo to preserve exactly how she had found the table. Then she carefully moved the magazines and newspapers aside. She found a fork crusted over with some substance. Another full ashtray. A lighter. A pair of glasses. A pen.
A small, lined notebook with handwritten notes taken in careful block letters.
The top of the first page bore the initials “C.C.” Beneath it were columns headed with dates. Beneath each date were times and what appeared to be locations. The entries started a more than a month earlier. The first date was 11/13 and under it the notations read:
7a studio (alone)
1030a office
1p the grotto
213p office
5p home (alone)
The combination of the initials C.C. and the notations about “studio” and “office” were enough to convince Josie that Archie Gamble had been following Claudia Collins for at least the two months before her murder. He had even noted when she was alone.
“Noah? Mett?” she called.
She flipped more pages. It was more and more of the same, documenting where C.C. was at any given time of day, when she arrived and left, and whether she traveled alone. Some of the notations were strange combinations of numbers and letters: 4342SSRD appeared twice, but Josie couldn’t figure out what it meant. She snapped some photos and called for Noah and Mettner again. “I think I’ve got something!”
Mettner appeared in the entrance to the kitchen. Noah followed a few seconds later. Josie showed them what she had found.
“We need to comb every last inch of the rest of this place,” Noah said. “And take Gamble in for questioning.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
Hours later, after midnight, Archie Gamble strolled out of Denton Police headquarters, whistling a jaunty tune and smiling at anyone who glanced at him, including the crush of reporters surrounding the building, hungry for any news on the murder of Claudia Collins. He ignored them as he got into his truck and drove away. The moment Gamble had been taken into custody for questioning, he had demanded to contact an attorney. Shortly after that, Denton’s premier criminal defense attorney, Andrew Bowen, arrived to represent Gamble. Josie and Bowen went back several years, and it was not a pleasant history. He shot daggers at her while she explained the situation as well as what they had found on Gamble’s property. Unfortunately for the Denton PD, Claudia Collins and Eve Bowers, the only evidence they had retrieved was the notebook. Despite an exhaustive search, Claudia’s phone was not located. The contents of the burn barrel would take days, if not weeks, to process. In addition, among the myriad possessions in Archie Gamble’s home, they didn’t find anything that might have been used to strangle Eve Bowers.
Bowen advised Gamble not to speak to them at all. Without verification that the book belonged to Gamble or that it was his handwriting in it or irrefutable proof that C.C. was Claudia Collins, and without any other evidence pertaining to Claudia Collins found anywhere on his property, they had to let him go. A notebook with the initials C.C. written inside with a schedule that was suspiciously close to Claudia’s would not be enough to charge Gamble with the murder of Claudia Collins. They had even less to justify charging him with the murder of Eve Bowers. Other than finding his name written down in her home, there was no discernible connection between them. They didn’t have enough to charge him with anything.
Bowen knew it. Gamble knew it. Josie and the team knew it.
