“Good afternoon, Mrs. Osborne,” the chief acknowledged her coldly. “Taking some time off from your gardening?”
“I prefer Ms. Osborne,” Harriett corrected him.
He replied with a lazy, lizardlike blink and returned his attention to Franklin. “This the locker where the photo was found?”
“Yes,” Franklin confirmed, as Rocca squatted down in front of the locker. “Ms. Levison is the owner of the gym. She believes that the locker was being used by Rosamund Harding.”
Rocca’s head spun around to face Jo. “Do you have a record of Mrs. Harding renting the locker?”
“No,” Jo said. “It was being used without a rental agreement.”
“Were any of Mrs. Harding’s belongings discovered inside the locker?”
“No,” Franklin answered this time.
Rocca stood up. “Then how do we know that Rosamund Harding ever laid a finger on this locker?”
“The lock’s combination was F-A-I-T-H,” Jo said. “The only reason I was able to crack it was because Rosamund tossed an apple to Harriett and me with that word carved into it.”
Chief Rocca responded with a snort. “I’m sorry, she what?”
“She—”
“No, no.” Rocca cut her off, as though he had no time to spare and no interest in anything else she might say. “I heard you the first time—and once was more than enough. Let’s just hope someone left some prints on that photo.”
“But—”
“It’s not that I don’t believe you, Mrs. Levison,” the chief said, making it perfectly clear that he didn’t. “But I don’t want to be the one who tells that story to the D.A. without some forensic evidence to back it up. Until we have fingerprints, I recommend you not breathe a word about any of this. Otherwise, you could have a very costly lawsuit on your hands. Some people are willing to do almost anything to protect their reputations.”
“Yeah, the law does a great job of protecting rich criminals,” Jo said. “What are you doing to protect the girls they kill?”
“The young woman in the photo was a prostitute who chose a high-risk lifestyle,” Chief Rocca said. “She abused her body and died of a fentanyl overdose. The medical examiner declared that she alone was responsible for her untimely death, and we’ve found no proof to the contrary.”
“You know what I find most remarkable?” Harriett chimed in. “How the girl wrapped her own body in a trash bag, tied the string in a neat little bow, and then disposed of herself in a patch of scrub. That takes real talent.”
Chief Rocca turned his attention to the tall woman on the other side of the changing room. The gap-toothed smile that Harriett offered him seemed like a challenge. Whether he held his tongue out of contempt or decided it was best not to mess with her, the chief of police said nothing in return.
The results came in the next afternoon. Nessa and Jo were in the middle of their workout routine when Franklin stopped by Furious Fitness with the news. The lab had found no fingerprints on the photo. The partial prints inside the locker didn’t belong to Rosamund Harding. There was zero evidence she’d ever used the locker—aside from the bizarre story of the apple with the word FAITH whittled into its skin. There was also nothing, Franklin informed the three of them, to connect Spencer Harding to the girl in the photo. Even the lilies he’d sent couldn’t be traced. The deliveries had been paid for in cash by an unidentified man the heavily tattooed florist could only describe as “painfully normal.”
“Isn’t it obvious what happened?” Jo demanded. “Rosamund found the photo and suspected her husband of murdering the girl. She hid the photo at the gym for safekeeping, but he knew she was onto him, so he killed her to keep her quiet.”