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With care, he lifted the flowing headdress from the mannequin sitting on the floor beside the empty straw-filled manger. The waxen features with expressionless painted eyes stared blankly ahead. He moved the long red hair to examine the back of the figure for explosives and a bolt of horror ripped through him. Not a bomb but a thick purple mark cutting deep into the neck. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled as he moved his gaze over the other figures: one older man, one younger and a boy, two women. Sickened, he stepped away, backing out of the pergola and waved Jo to his side. “Take a look in there but don’t touch anything. We’ll need to hold everyone who was working on this today for questioning.”
“Okay.” Jo frowned. “What am I looking at?”
Carter met her gaze. “You’ll see.” He pulled out his phone and called Jenna. “I’m at the pergola in the park where they’re building the Nativity scene. I’ve found the victims.”
“What all of them?”Jenna sounded astonished.
Carter nodded. “Yeah, all of them.
“Are they alive?”Jenna had the phone on speaker and he could hear the roar of the Beast’s engine in the background.
Trying to push the vacant staring eyes and pale faces from his mind, he shook his head and turned as Jo came out of the pergola. He stared at Jo’s horrified expression and swallowed the rising bile. “No, they’re very dead.” He cleared the lump in his throat. “The sick freak has turned them into wax figures. They’re part of the Nativity scene.”
THIRTY-NINE
Jenna couldn’t speak for a few moments as the horror of the situation hit home. She took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “Is there a baby in the manger?”
“Nope.”Carter sounded remote.“I figure he’d selected Rowley’s kid. He’d have been out tonight hunting down a replacement, if he’d missed the train.”
“Our ETA is ten minutes.” Kane flicked on lights and sirens to clear the road ahead. “Rowley should be back at the office by now, we’ll call him and get him down to your position to secure the scene. Wolfe was still at the trainwreck when we left him. We’ll need his team here to sort this out. This is way out of our league.”
Processing all the information, Jenna tried to ignore the overwhelming rush of grief toward everyone caught in this nightmare and swallowed hard. “Are the victims identifiable?”
“Yeah. Their eyes have been painted. So, I figure he closed them and painted the eyelids to make them look like mannequins. The features are very pale but it’s easy to see they’re the people on our missing persons list.”He blew out a long sigh.“I only got up close and personal with the figure kneeling beside the crib. She has to be the artist, Ginger Vaughn. Zorro went ballistic, so I was checking them for explosive devices and noticed ligature marks on the back of her neck. After I took a better look at the others it was pretty obvious who they were.”
Trying to force her mind through the procedure for a multiple homicide, Jenna’s training dropped into place. “Okay, if you can call Wolfe for me, I’ll get Rowley down there as soon as possible.”
“Copy that.”The line went dead.
Jenna turned to Kane. “Stop at Aunt Betty’s. I’ve ordered coffee and a box of takeout. We’re all dead on our feet. We won’t be searching Oakley’s house today. We’ll have enough to do writing this up.”
“You won’t get an argument from me.” Kane turned onto Main and slowed to park outside the diner. “I’ll go. You get Rowley on the job.”
Jenna nodded and made the call. She’d disconnected as Kane pushed the box of takeout onto the back seat. The aroma of coffee filled the Beast and her stomach growled. She turned to Kane. “I’ll ask Jo to go back to the office so that she can start Maisy’s interview with Rio.” She sighed. “Maybe we can drink the coffee on the run.”
“That sounds like a plan.” Kane sighed. “I’m sure glad that Wolfe has Norrell to assist him. She was a great choice and they seem to be getting along really well. I know Emily is at home, but I figure she’ll want to assist as well.”
Trying without success to analyze the mind of a psychopath, Jenna stared at the people gathering alongside the park. The word had already got out that something had happened. “I’m sure Wolfe will call her if he wants her involved. It’s going to be a horrific crime scene. Who could possibly have a mind so twisted that they would do something like this?”
“There must have been something from his past that triggered the episode.” Kane hit his siren to move people away from the path to the pergola. “Unless he left something in the house to give us a clue why he did something so disgusting, we’ll probably never know. From what Maisy Jones was saying, he didn’t discuss what he planned to do with the bodies. Maybe Jo will be able to give us an answer?”
Pulling on examination gloves, Jenna climbed out of the Beast and answered the tirade of questions from the townsfolk with a “no comment.” She followed Kane as he cleared the way ahead to where Carter was standing with Jo. “What have we got?”
“It’s not pretty.” Carter walked beside her to the pergola. “You’ll need to prepare yourself.”
Surprised the smell of death was missing, she walked inside. Throughout the pergola, incense burned in small pots, sending small streams of smoke curling into the air. Underfoot, the thick coating of fresh straw added a barnlike fragrance. Beside her, she heard Kane’s intake of breath as he moved along the display of mannequins. She turned to stare at them and using her flashlight examined each one carefully. “This must be about the most bizarre crime scene I’ve ever attended. There are no obvious causes of death. Well, apart from the fact that Ginger Vaughn appears to have been strangled.”
“Don’t y’all concern yourself with the cause of death.” Wolfe had walked in behind them without making a sound. “We’ll take photographs and then get these people back to the morgue.” He sighed. “I figured it’s going to be a long night and maybe drag into the next few days.” He glanced around. “Who was first on scene?”
“That would be me.” Carter hovered at the doorway. “I lifted the headdress of the red-haired woman. Zorro alerted me and I was searching for explosives. Darn near turned my stomach when I saw the ligature marks on her neck.” He frowned. “I didn’t touch anything else but there were people in here when we arrived. We have them waiting over yonder.”
Jenna turned to Wolfe. “Maisy Jones is in a holding cell at the office. I need Jo and Carter to go and interview her with Rio. Rowley is on his way to handle the crowd, but if we mention a possible bomb threat, they’ll hightail it out of here fast enough. Do you need us here to assist you with processing the scene?”
“Nope.” Wolfe smiled at her. “My team can handle it and Em is coming in to assist with the autopsies. I’ll leave the investigations to you guys.”
“Thanks.” She indicated to the Beast. “We have food and coffee in the truck if you need anything.”
“We’re fine.” Wolfe picked up his forensics kit and waved his team inside. “I’ll call when I have anything.” He glanced at the crowd. “Saying a potential bomb threat is a good idea. We’ll need to keep the truth of what happened under wraps. As the killer is dead, it won’t go to court and the details need to be suppressed to protect the families and those people who worked here. It’s better they don’t know the mannequins are corpses. A shock like this for all those good people must be avoided at all cost. I’ll be able to remove the bodies without anyone seeing us, but the sooner you disperse the crowd over there the better. You’ll need the details of the people working on the Nativity scene, but then let them go to save them any distress.”
