Read Online To Love and to Kill by M. William Phelps - Free Book Online Page A

block from Josh’s mobile home and then drove together. They parked in Josh’s driveway and walked up to his house. A third detective, stationed across the street, kept a close eye on Josh’s maroon Toyota, just in case Josh decided to head out the back door and flee. They kept in contact via radios.
    Buie couldn’t wash one important factor from his mind: an interview he had done earlier in the day with Josh and Heather’s eight-year-old child. Something she had told Buie stuck with the detective. She said that her daddy and mommy were together on that night Heather went missing. Daddy left the house with Mommy and returned many hours later.
    Alone.
    It was the last time the child had seen her mother.
    â€œDuring that interview with [Josh’s daughter],” Buie explained, “she puts Josh and her mother together on the night Heather is last seen. This was inconsistent with statements we had that indicated Heather was last seen at the Petro.”
    This didn’t mean Josh killed his wife; but still, the guy had some explaining to do.
    Buie knocked on Josh’s door at 6:04 P.M. Spivey was standing to his left.
    â€œCome on in,” said a man’s voice. They couldn’t see him.
    â€œAny dogs or anything in here?” Buie asked.
    There were no dogs.
    Josh stepped out from around a corner inside the house. They exchanged pleasantries. Josh told his kids to go into another section of the house and do their homework.
    Buie took in a deep breath through his nose and smelled a strong aroma of weed. Not as though someone in the house had sparked a joint and taken a few puffs. This was much more profound and pronounced, as if someone had been sucking on a bong for hours.
    Donald Buie approached Josh and asked him if he had “a wife or anything.” Josh said, “I do, but I don’t know where the hell she is.”
    â€œThat’s why we’re here,” Buie finally said.
    Buie got Josh to commit to some dates and information about Heather as Spivey, standing by, mentioned that he smelled pot smoke. They discussed where it was coming from as Spivey admitted the weed smell wasn’t all that important to them at this point or the reason for their visit.
    Josh said he’d fired up a doobie earlier, but that was it. It was just a little toke—nothing more.
    Buie asked Josh for a timeline.
    Josh said it was February 15 and Heather had called from the Petro. (There was a difference of opinion in who called whom, but phone records would later flesh out that it was Josh who actually called Heather twice at the Petro on that day.) “She told me she was fixin’ to get out of here . . . because she was fixin’ to get into trouble. . . .”
    Buie asked if there was more.
    Heather was tossing her boyfriend out of the house and she wanted Josh to come and get the kids, Josh explained. But he didn’t want to go over there for fear of being set up and arrested for something he didn’t do. So they met, Josh said, “at a little Subway store” near the Petro. As an afterthought, he then said after he got the kids from Heather, he brought them over to his mother’s. He was living there at the time.
    While he spoke, Josh seemed relaxed and calm.
    A little too much, perhaps.
    Probably the weed, Buie considered.
    â€œShe called me with the keys,” Josh continued, referring to something Heather had said to him on that same night. “She wanted me to come and get the keys from Petro.... She had two suitcases with her ... last time I seen her.” Josh said he gave her five hundred dollars in cash. It was all the money he had.
    They chitchatted a bit more, focusing on when Josh and Heather were married. Then Josh said he had a girlfriend now, “Emilia. But we just came to the conclusion that, you know, we don’t need to [argue anymore].... If we can’t get along, we’re not going to live together.”
    When they split