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TWENTY-ONE
MONDAY
The early morning summer sunlight flashed through the trees as Jenna headed with Kane for the office. She had planned her entire day, rising early to make a list to delegate her deputies to specific investigations. This had been her way of rationalizing her situation. Having her dream honeymoon destroyed by a hurricane had disturbed her more than she had imagined. It was supposed to have been a special time with memories to carry with them into the future, but theirs had been cruelly snatched away. She shook her head in dismay. How many brides had a psychopath running around killing people on their wedding day? It seemed that Jenna’s life had become a pendulum swinging back and forth to the rhythm of an endless number of psychopaths’ insanity.
It had been difficult dragging herself out of bed this morning and concentrating on the case, rather than staying home to spend time alone with Kane, but as usual, her life had to be placed on hold when duty called. Leaning toward him, she squeezed his arm. “Is it always going to be like this? Short breaks and then weeks of craziness? How does Rowley cope, raising his twins with the threat of another serial killer moving into town? I want us to have a family too, but the worry of a constant stream of psychopaths walking the streets concerns me. What if our child becomes a target? Look at what’s happened to Wolfe’s daughters. No one is safe here.”
“Bad things happen in every town, no one can be one hundred percent sure nothing is going to happen to their kids. I’m afraid that’s the world we live in. We’ll take precautions like we do now. The ranch is like a fortress and the Beast could take a bomb blast.” Kane took his hand from the wheel and squeezed hers. “And then you have me and I’ll keep you safe. If or when we have kids, we’ll do exactly what we’ve always done and take it one day at a time. We have a great support team around us, and all of our friends are like family. You do trust them don’t you, Jenna?”
Since the trauma of surviving the hurricane, Jenna’s thoughts had centered on her time as sheriff. They were married now and that shouldn’t make a difference. They’d always been a team but suddenly the thought of losing Kane haunted her thoughts. He’d come close to dying so many times on her watch. How many lives did he have left? One? Twenty? As sheriff if anything happened to him, it would be her fault. He’d take a bullet for her without flinching and that was one heck of a responsibility to carry. She’d been seriously afraid during the storm, believing the happiness she’d yearned for would be snatched away from her in seconds. Trying to hide her concern, she turned to him. “You know, I trust you to look after me and the team will always have our backs, but it seems everything is against us.”
“Nothing has changed, Jenna. It’s been like this since the first day we met. You’re the sheriff and I’m your deputy. We’ll catch the killers same as always. I figure you’re seeing a problem where there isn’t one. We’ve been married for only a few days, and so far, it seems to be going just fine. We haven’t tried to kill each other yet anyway.” Kane chuckled and wiggled his eyebrows at her. “Please stop worrying, Jenna, and do what you do best and concentrate on catching this killer. Everyone on the team looks to you as their leader, so stop second-guessing yourself. You know instinctively what to do and we trust your judgement.” He squeezed her fingers. “Look what happened when we were out of town. Without you to point them in the right direction, they were chasing their tails.”
Although Rio’s handling of the case had been faultless, Jenna enjoyed the ego stroke and nodded. “Yeah, I guess they did miss us. Maybe you’re right and I should get my head back in the game and stop feeling sorry for myself.”
They had just turned onto Main when her phone chimed in her pocket. She checked her caller ID, put her phone on speaker, and accepted the call. It was Deputy Jake Rowley. “Hi, Jake. What’s up?”
“A call came in on the 911 line, a delivery driver spotted someone leaning against the welcome to black rock falls sign just outside town to the north. He could see it was a woman and pulled over to ask if she wanted a ride into town. Long story short, it’s another body. From what he described, it’s the same MO. I have the man’s details and he’ll be waiting on scene. I’m heading in that direction now, but you will probably beat me there if you’ve already left home.”
A sinking feeling filled Jenna’s gut and she glanced at Kane raising both eyebrows. Another murder so soon and they didn’t have any clues on the other two yet. She sighed. “Yeah, we’re heading down Main now and will be there in five. I’ll get Wolfe on scene, and Jo and Carter are right behind us. What’s the name of the man who discovered the body?”
“His name is Alan Woods. He is out of Louan and makes a regular delivery to the general store Monday through Friday.”Rowley sucked in a deep breath. “I wonder what number this one will have carved into her back? I hope this time he’s left some evidence behind so we can lock him up for a very long time.”
“So do I, Jake, so do I.” Jenna disconnected and then called Wolfe and Carter.
It would never be a normal day’s work for Jenna to deal with crime scenes. It took a toll on anyone having to constantly witness such carnage. Every case that she worked on she’d made her responsibility and cared for the victims. They were never faceless corpses and she remembered each and every one of them. Trying to gather her thoughts on how to proceed with yet another crime scene, she stared out of the window. The town was just waking up. As usual, Aunt Betty’s Café was open and delicious smells of baking pies wafted into the truck’s open window. She smiled when Kane’s stomach rumbled, glad of a little piece of normality in a day that promised to be traumatic. She’d cling to anything she could get right now to ease the burden of solving the current homicides. “Mmm, I smell cherry pies. Now those are my favorites too, so when you pick up your order make sure there’s enough for all of us.”
“I’ll see what I can do but I’m not making any promises.” Kane flashed her a smile. “Susie mentioned pecan pies, so I ordered them as well. I figured it was going to be a long day, so I’ve arranged to have a bunch of takeout delivered to the office at ten. I figured we’re gonna need a break by then.”
“We sure will.” Jenna pointed at a white delivery van with a logo on the side that read louan’s fresh meat pies. “There, can you see the guy spewing into the bushes?”
“Yeah, he’s hard to miss.” Kane pulled in behind the van. He slid out of the Beast. “I’ll grab the forensics kit.”
A breeze brushed Jenna’s face, bringing with it the stench of rotting flesh and vomit. She walked over to the witness. “Did you see who dumped the body or anyone in the vicinity when you arrived?”
“No, ma’am.” The man turned a shade of gray. “I’m gonna spew.” He headed for the bushes.
Jenna turned to speak to Jo and Carter. “I’ll go and check the victim with Kane, if you don’t mind interviewing the witness? He didn’t see anything, but we’ll need his statement. Wolfe is on his way.”
“Sure.” Carter looked over her shoulder to the man spewing in the bushes. “I figure I’ll give him a few moments to catch his breath.” He wrinkled his nose and pulled a mask out of his pocket. “Man, it sure stinks around here.”
Jenna nodded. “It sure does. I know the witness used his vehicle to conceal the body, and it saved us worrying about bystanders showing up and contaminating the scene, but can you ask him to move it back aways? Wolfe will need direct access.”
“Yeah, no worries.” Carter headed for the witness.
Taking the face mask and gloves from Kane, Jenna headed toward the victim. It was exactly the same as the previous two. A battered woman wearing a mask and a flimsy negligee with skewers down her spine and a number carved into her flesh. There was no doubt now they had a very dangerous psychopath in town. From the smell, this woman hadn’t been washed in formaldehyde. The distinctive odor didn’t linger on the corpse and the position of the body was also different from the other two. The two prior victims had been discovered lying face down, sprawled with arms and legs in disarray, but this one was sitting up, propped against the sign. Her head was facing down, which made her hair fall over her face, concealing the mask. She turned to Kane. “Do you figure that positioning the corpse this way was done to make it look as if she were waiting for someone?”
“No.” Kane crouched down to view the body. “In my opinion, placing her on the side of the road so everyone could see her as they drive past is degrading. He has discarded her like trash. This is the final insult for someone he despises.”
“He’s escalating.” Jo walked up beside Jenna and peered at the body. “And he’s getting careless. The other two victims were meticulously presented, their hair brushed, and this one is untidy in comparison. It will be interesting to see what Wolfe discovers. Killers always make a mistake sooner or later, and by looking at this poor woman, she was a rush job. Maybe he had to leave town in a hurry.”
“Which would confirm he moves around in his occupation. It’s Monday morning and it makes sense that if this man is working out of town. He could have dropped her here on the way to work.” Kane straightened and pushed back his Stetson as he scanned the dirt alongside Stanton. “I can’t see any tire tracks close to the side of the road. So, he stopped some ways away and carried her here. He wouldn’t risk doing that in daylight, so we must assume he is an early riser and usually leaves home before dawn.”
Listening with interest, Jenna walked beside Kane around the perimeter of the murder scene, searching for footprints or any other evidence a person might leave behind. The rancid smell of death followed them, leaking through her mask as they walked away. Jenna lifted her face to the breeze coming from the mountains, seeking some respite. Finding nothing but a few animal tracks, she turned to look at her own footprints, clearly visible in the soft dirt alongside the highway. “This is a waste of time. The man responsible for doing this obviously parked on the road and carried her along the blacktop.”
“Yeah, I figure he stopped just about there. This is a typical oil leak from a stationary vehicle. If it were a continuous leak, we’d see a line of small droplets, not a pool like this. Which would suggest the vehicle was stationary for a time.” Kane went to the edge of the highway and squatted down peering at a patch of oil staining the blacktop. “It looks fresh, and I can’t see anything floating on the top of it. There’s no dust or pine needles from the forest. I figure it’s only been here a few hours.” He searched in the forensics kit for what he needed. “I’ll take a few samples and mark it in case Wolfe wants to take a look.”
As a truck came barreling along the highway in their direction, Jenna stepped out onto the blacktop. Her jacket with the fluorescent insignia of sheriff written in bright yellow six-inch-high lettering across the front was easily recognizable. She held up her arms, making slowing-down motions to the eighteen-wheeler as it came close to where Kane was working. The truck continued on by in a rush of wind that lifted the hair of the victim, exposing her grotesque mask and moving her negligee as if she were alive. Jenna swallowed hard and kept her attention fixed on the oncoming traffic. Most of the vehicles had slowed at the sight of the Beast and her cruiser parked on the side of the road with their blue and red lights flashing. Drivers hung out of their windows staring in morbid fascination at the victim, each one trying to catch a glimpse of what had happened. Jenna waved them on. “There’s nothing to see here, move on.”
“I’m done here.” Kane stood and came to her side, pushing the swabs he’d taken into clear plastic cylinders and sealing them. He stared into the distance. “Ah, there’s Wolfe, and Rowley is right behind him.”
After making a particularly careful examination of the area around the oil spill and all along the blacktop on the way back to the body, Jenna greeted Wolfe and his team as they climbed from the ME’s van. She was glad to see Wolfe had used his van to conceal the body from the road. Standing to one side, she waited for him to complete his preliminary examination of the corpse. When he straightened, she moved to his side. “What have we got?”
“This one is fresh.” Wolfe narrowed his gaze at her over the top of his face mask. “She is in only the first stages of rigor. I’ve taken the body temperature and I’ll be able to give you a reasonable time of death. There’s no indication of formaldehyde on this body but all the signs are there that this is the same killer. Something else is screaming out at me. The other victims had been scrupulously washed but I can clearly see this woman has something under one of her nails. It looks to me as if our killer is getting careless. I’ll be able to tell you more when I get her back to the lab.” He waved his assistant over. “Webber, bag her hands and feet, and we’ll get her into a body bag. “Emily, I want you to search every inch of the ground beneath her to make sure the killer hasn’t left any evidence behind.”
