She nodded. “I’d rather not speculate too much until I get them all on the table, especially the apparent suicide victim I haven’t seen yet, but it all looked pretty clear to me at the Gardner house that the victims either were subdued by fairly lethal blows before they were mutilated and killed, or else—as seems the case with Mr. Gardner—were taken by surprise. No sign of defensive wounds.”
Archer looked toward the end of the driveway behind the ME’s white van at the dark hearse parked there. They had never needed a coroner’s wagon in Prosperity, so one or the other of the local funeral homes generally transported bodies to the hospital morgue—or directly to their own, if victims had died naturally and there was no suspicion attached to their deaths.
Which had virtually always been the case. Until today.
The sheriff sighed. “A couple of my deputies will help load the bodies as soon as they’re in body bags. They’ll be taken to the hospital morgue, like the others.”
Jill Easton nodded. “Good. Sheriff, the chances are I’ll only be able to get one of the posts done tonight. I’d like to start with the apparent suicide, since that was the first scene you were called to. I’ll get you that report ASAP, then start on the other posts first thing in the morning.”
“Long day for you,” he murmured. “Today and tomorrow.”
“I’m used to it.”
Katie Cole spoke up then to say, “We’ve reserved rooms for you and your assistant at the largest hotel in town, the Jameson. It’s about halfway between the sheriff’s department and the hospital, just off Main Street. Very comfortable, good service and food.”
“Thanks,” Jill said. “It’ll probably be midnight before we can get checked in, but I definitely want a good night’s sleep before tomorrow.”
Katie nodded. “They have room service until midnight; if you think you’ll be later, call the front desk and they’ll be happy to leave meals in your rooms. Sandwiches, salads, soup—whatever will keep best if you’re delayed longer.”
“Appreciate that.” Jill looked at the two feds. “Are you guys staying there?”
Hollis nodded. “Bishop called ahead and arranged for us to have the entire top floor. Since the team is larger than normal, we’ll need the space. Apparently, most of the rooms on that floor have connecting doors, plus there’s a comfortable lounge common space we can use if we need to.”
“Thinks of everything, our Bishop, doesn’t he.” It wasn’t a question. Jill smiled faintly, then said to the sheriff, “You can send your deputies inside for the body bags in about five minutes, Sheriff.” She went back inside the house.
“She knows Agent Bishop too?”
Casual, Hollis said, “Bishop knows a lot of people, especially in and associated with law enforcement and support services. Jill was part of the last case Reese and I worked on, and Bishop joined us at one point.”
“Does he often show up himself?”
“No, not very. He’s a field unit chief, so he tends to be out working cases just like his teams are.”
Nodding an acceptance of that without much interest, Archer looked at his watch and grimaced slightly. “Hardly later than suppertime. Christ, this has been the longest day of my life.” He rubbed his face with both hands wearily, then looked at Hollis and DeMarco. “We still don’t have much in the way of reports or evidence for your team to get started on tonight. I say we go back to the station long enough for me to meet the two team members arriving tonight, toss around a few ideas if anybody has ’em, and then we all should try to get some rest. I don’t know about you, but I’m not looking forward to tomorrow. Just going over autopsy reports takes a lot out of me.”
“Same here,” Hollis murmured.
He’s forgotten about the other potential killer you felt struggling.
Yeah. But no need to remind him right now—he’s got enough on his mind. Especially since I can’t even point him in a specific direction toward that person, far less give him a name. Let’s find out what Victoria and Logan have sensed. If anything.
Probably best.
Oblivious of the mind talk, Archer said to the agents, “I’m assuming we keep Weston in a cell tonight. Should I call a doc to take a closer look at him?”
“I sort of doubt any of your doctors would find much,” Hollis said. “But he needs to be kept under someone’s eye all the time; we should try talking to him again tomorrow. And, if you don’t mind, Sheriff, could you have the deputy with Leslie Gardner notify either you or one of us when she wakes up? Even if it’s the middle of the night? We’ll definitely need to talk to her.”
He looked at her with mild curiosity. “What do you expect her to tell us, assuming she says anything at all?”
Prompt, Hollis replied, “If anything at all, I expect some version of what we got from Elliot Weston. No memory of what happened to her family and no awareness that she did anything at all. I don’t see how she could have just gone to sleep otherwise. I think her own mind put her to sleep to protect her from the horror of what she’d done.”
The sheriff winced. “I was afraid you were going to say that. Dammit. Okay. Gabby was due to rotate off shift hours ago; I’ll send somebody to relieve her.”
“Sounds good. Meet you at the station,” Hollis said.
Archer nodded again, following them far enough off the porch to beckon to two more of his deputies to come to the house.
Hollis caught a slightly wary, slightly surprised glimpse from one of them as she and DeMarco walked past headed for their SUV, and murmured, “Feds holding hands. That’s what they’re thinking, right?”
Calmly, her partner said, “One of them is thinking it must be nice to not have to pretend there’s no personal involvement between partners.”
“I thought I was picking up a little envy from someone close.”
“So you can sense emotions even through my shield?”
“Just the people really nearby, I think. And probably not many of them. You know, we’ve never discussed whether our personal relationship will affect how we’re viewed and treated by any of the law enforcement people we’ll have to work with.”
DeMarco opened the passenger door of the SUV and helped her in without releasing her hand. “Do you care?” he asked politely.
Hollis grinned faintly. “Nope. The married couples in the SCU don’t seem to have any problem, so I don’t see why we would. Will. You’re planning on keeping me inside your shield all night, aren’t you?”
“I am. You need whatever break I can give you from all this energy trapped with us, and you need to sleep tonight. You’ll have more than enough to deal with tomorrow.” He released her hand finally and went around to the driver’s-side door.
The loss of physical contact, however brief, brought Hollis’s abilities back into sharp focus, and as DeMarco got behind the wheel, he both saw and felt that she was picking up something she did not like.
“What?” He frowned slightly as he looked at her.
“Don’t shield me for a minute,” she murmured, staring straight ahead. “I think . . . whoever was struggling is . . . terrified almost out of his mind. Maybe out of his mind. All I’m getting is a sort of desperate terror.”
“Then maybe he can resist.”
“I dunno, maybe.” She turned her head and looked at her partner. “I can tell you he’s not where he was before. Feels like he’s closer. And still moving. Let’s get back to the sheriff’s department. If something happens or has already happened, that’s probably where we should be.”
“Agreed.” DeMarco started the SUV and put it in gear, only then reaching for his partner’s hand. “Between here and there, take a break.”
“Do I have a choice?” she asked dryly.
“No,” DeMarco said, and headed for the sheriff’s station.
TEN
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8
They found Galen, as expected, in the conference room at the sheriff’s department, seated at the far end of the big table, slumped and apparently sleepy as he watched the two other people sitting along one side of the table, Victoria Stark and Logan Alexander.
As Hollis and DeMarco walked into the room—not holding hands any longer—they came in on what had apparently been a rather tense discussion.
“All I’m saying,” Victoria told Logan, “is that maybe you need to try to see them.”