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Josie thought of her late first husband’s father, Victor Quinn. He’d been horribly abusive to both Ray and his mother. As a child, Josie had seen it first-hand. Even when there was an uneasy peace in the household, Victor resented having to show restraint and it built up over time until he could no longer control it. “Your husband held onto that anger though, didn’t he?”
Anya dabbed again at her eyes but this time the tears were too fast, spilling down her cheeks before she could stop them. “Yes. Again, I didn’t see it coming. He was so angry with me, though—for humiliating him in front of his family by ‘tattling’ on him and for making our personal business known. He thought I chose his father over him. One night, we were staying over at the farm. He got into a fight with Dermot about when exactly he could take over. Dermot did not spare his feelings. He had a long list of reasons why Vance might never be ready to take over. Later that night, Vance got drunk. I went out to his workshop to collect him. Honestly, I was tired of it all. The ugliness. His bruised ego that never seemed to heal no matter how much any of us poured into it.”
A sob rose in her throat. Josie watched her face go pink as she tried to swallow it back down.
Gretchen said, “Breathe, Anya. Nice and slow. It’s just us here and we can stop any time you want.”
“I don’t want to stop,” Anya said, wiping at her eyes again. “I want to get this over with. If I don’t get it out now, I’m not sure if I can do it.”
Josie touched her arm. “Okay. Then we’ll stay until you’ve told us everything. Take your time.”
Drawing in a deep breath, Anya straightened her spine and continued. “We argued. I told him the truth, finally, that I was unhappy, and I didn’t want to be married anymore. There was a lot of ugliness that I’ll spare you, including the fifteen hours he held me against my will. I’m not sure I want to relive it anyway. The end result was this.” She patted her hip where the mark hid beneath her scrubs. Looking at Josie, she said, “Like I said, Dermot did away with branding long before I even met Vance, but what I didn’t know was that as a child, Vance had developed a fascination with hot branding. He had been collecting different types of branding irons for years. He kept them in one of the old garages. He had tried most of them on the livestock even though it was not necessary, and Dermot forbade it.”
“I can see why Dermot didn’t want to give him the farm,” said Gretchen.
“I didn’t know until after. Vance came home to our little apartment each night and made his dad seem like the bad guy. He made Dermot sound so unreasonable, like this inflexible, crotchety old man who didn’t take Vance seriously. It was all bullshit.”
Josie said, “After that night, you left.”
She nodded. Josie took the paper towel from her, now sopping wet, and threw it away. Anya hugged herself and rubbed at her upper arms. “I was lucky. Believe me, I almost lost my nerve about a dozen times. It wasn’t easy. I felt tremendous guilt. He kept saying I ruined his life. It took years and a lot of distance for me to see the way things really were—how he manipulated and gaslit me to the point where he branded me like I was a piece of goddamn livestock, and I was the one who felt guilty.”
Gretchen said, “It’s more common than you know—the emotional coercion, gaslighting, and manipulation—not the branding.”
Josie asked, “You pressed charges. He pled down and ended up on house arrest. You left town. What happened to him?”
Anya shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t look back, especially once the divorce was finalized. I was constantly on edge thinking he was going to come for me one day, but I didn’t keep tabs on him. That was in my rearview.”
“Fair enough,” Josie said.
“It’s been ten years,” Gretchen said. “I understand why seeing the same brand on Sharon Eddy’s body would upset you so much, but why would your ex-husband brand and then kill a girl in your jurisdiction? That’s pretty brazen.”
“And not smart,” Josie said.
“True,” said Anya. “Vance was smart, for all his flaws. But what else could this be except some sign from him?”
“And why now?” said Gretchen. “After all this time, why do it now?”
“I have no idea,” said Anya. “I have no doubt he’s still holding a grudge against me, but if he hasn’t acted on it in almost a decade, I’m not sure what the catalyst is for him to start now.”
Josie asked, “Who else knew about the branding incident?”
“The doctors and nurses at the local ER. The police. The prosecutor. My father-in-law and sister-in-law.”
“No mother-in-law?” asked Gretchen.
Anya shook her head. “Mrs. Hadlee left when Vance was very young. Four or five, I think.”
“Did anyone else know about the branding?” Josie pressed.
“Garrick. Like I said, he was my boss at the county medical examiner’s office,” said Anya. “I couldn’t work for a while because of the pain.” Her face flushed with the memory. One of her hands pressed against her hip. “You think that someone else did this? The brand—it wasn’t a Hadlee family brand. Vance collected brands from all over the place. This was from his own—” she nearly choked on the words. “Personal collection.”
“We have to consider every possibility,” Josie said gently. “How many did he have in his personal collection?”
“Two dozen, maybe?” Anya said. “But that was ten years ago. God knows how many he’s got now.”
NINE
Two hours later, Josie and Gretchen had a warrant for any and all brands in the approximate shape of the marks found on Sharon Eddy’s body to be served on Vance Hadlee at his farm in Bly, which was his last known address. Given the fact that Sharon Eddy had been missing for approximately twelve hours before her death, and Vance Hadlee lived only an hour away, it was entirely possible that he could have come to Denton, abducted her, taken her to a secondary location where he branded and likely killed her, and then returned to Hempstead Trail to leave her body. The secondary location was still a big question mark. Vance would have needed a fire and enough privacy to carry out the act without anyone seeing or hearing anything.
