Page 50 of The Morning After (Savannah 2)

“Jesus H. Christ,” Morrisette whispered, her face ashen, her gaze riveted to the open casket. The crime scene had been cordoned off, swept over quickly by the crime scene investigators while a huge tent had been erected over the grave to preserve any evidence left at the scene. The tarp held a dual purpose. It protected the scene from the elements as well as from the prying eyes of photographers with long-lensed cameras or television stations with state-of-the-art equipment including low-flying helicopters. Until the next of kin were notified and the police had figured out if they had a serial killer on the loose, they would be careful giving out any information to the press that might panic the public or sabotage the investigation.

“We’d better check with Missing Persons and find out who she is. Call Rita and see if any reports have been filed on a missing white woman in her late fifties or early sixties.”

“Don’t need to.” Morrisette’s spiky hairdo was melting in the rain and she was shaking, visibly quaking as she stared into the grave. “Anyone got a smoke?” she demanded, yanking her gaze away and scanning the faces of her fellows.

“Right here.” Fletcher, one of the uniformed cops, reached into his pocket, found a crumpled pack of Camel Straights and shook out a cigarette. With trembling fingers, Morrisette tried to light up, her lighter clicking but refusing to spark.

“You know her?” Reed asked, taking the lighter and flicking it so that a steady flame appeared.

Morrisette drew hard on the Camel. Smoke streamed out her nostrils. “Mrs. Peters. Don’t know her first name but she was a volunteer at the library. Widow, I think, but I’m not sure.” Morrisette took another calming drag. Some of the color came back to her face. “Mrs. Peters helped out with story hour last summer. My kids went there every Thursday afternoon and listened to her read from one of the Harry Potter books.” Angrily she hissed, “Goddam it, who would do this? What kind of sicko jerk-off would stuff an old lady into an already occupied coffin and”—she leaned forward again, staring at the dead woman’s fingers—“and leave her in there alive? Shit!” She looked away and, holding her smoke in her left hand, made a quick sign of the cross with her right. It was the first time Reed had seen her do anything the least bit religious.

“The same son of a bitch who did Bobbi Jean.” Reed, too, noticed the faded coffin lining, shredded and bloodied, the manicured fingernails now broken and smeared with dried blood, a bruise on the forehead, all evidence that Mrs. Peters, part-time library volunteer, had gone through the same excruciating terror as had Barbara Jean Marx.

“Kinda rules out Jerome Marx,” Morrisette thought aloud. She plucked a piece of tobacco from her tongue as the wind caught against the sides of the tent, causing the plastic to flap.

“Unless it’s a copycat,” Fletcher offered.

“Let’s not go there.” Reed’s thoughts were dark as hell itself It was bad enough that Bobbi and the baby had been killed, but now, another murder? One that was too much the same to be dismissed as separate. Obviously, there was a psychotic on the loose. Again. His thoughts turned back to last summer when in the sweltering heat he’d tracked down a killer who was knocking off members of a prominent Savannah family. Now, this new horror. Barely six months later. “We’ll need to find out how, if at all, the victims were related,” he said to Morrisette. “Did they know each other? What about the people already in the coffin? Why were they chosen. Was it random or is there a connection?” Rubbing the back of his neck, he spied the microphone. “Hell. Look at this.” He squatted next to the casket and pointed to where a hole had been drilled through the rotting wood. The nearly invisible microphone was tucked inside.

“Yeah, we’ve already noted the make and model,” said the investigator who had been cleared to bag Mrs. Peters’s hands to preserve any evidence under her fingernails.

Diane Moses’s team had already carefully gone over the coffin in search of fingerprints, tool marks, fibers, hairs, any piece of evidence. Just as the crime scene team had in Lumpkin County.

This murder is identical t

o Bobbi Jean’s.

Except that you don’t know this woman.

The back of Reed’s neck tightened. “Did you find anything else? A note inside the coffin somewhere?”

“Note?” The investigator looked over his shoulder. His expression accused Reed of being a nutcase. “There was no note in here. Nothing besides two stiffs and the microphone. We’ve already searched.”

Reed relaxed a bit. At least the killer wasn’t contacting him.

He heard the whir of helicopter blades and stepped outside to look up at the cloud-swollen sky. A chopper was hovering above the trees not a hundred feet away and a cameraman was hanging out of the open door. The press was trying to get a bird’s-eye view of the scene. It rankled him as well as Diane Moses, who, dressed in a yellow slicker, walked to the outside of the tent, looked up and swore under her breath. “Goddamned newsmongers.”

News at eleven, Reed thought. He considered the note he’d received at the station this morning. It had indicated there would be more killings. Random? Specific? Did the creep know his victims? Play with them? A bad feeling settled deep in the pit of Reed’s stomach.

“What have you got so far?” he asked Moses.

“Not enough. This is all preliminary, but we’re thinking the perp parked over there”—she pointed to the access road—“and either climbed the fence or had a key. The lock was intact. He would have had to have carried her, so he’s a big guy or at least a strong guy. No drag marks, not even any real impressions that we can cast. The rain hasn’t helped, but it only makes sense as the main road would be too visible. We’ll know more later and I’ll fill you in.”

“Thanks,” Reed said.

“Don’t mention it.” They walked into the tent and she turned her attention to the department’s cameraman. “You get everything you need? I want shots of the entire area and the top of the coffin as well as what’s in it…”

“Let’s go,” Reed said to Morrisette, who seemed to have composed herself. “We’ll get all the reports, but I think I’d better take the note that came to Okano.”

“She’ll bust your ass for coming out here.”

“I was just along for the ride,” he said as they walked across the long grass.

“Like she’ll buy in to that.”

He lifted a shoulder and felt rain slide down his collar. The graveyard wasn’t overly tended, most of the graves a hundred years old, only a few, such as Thomas Massey’s final resting place, more recent. Weeds dotted the grass and some of the bushes were unkempt. Why had the killer used this cemetery? Was it significant or unplanned—by chance? What about the grave? Did the killer choose Thomas Massey for convenience or to make a point?

He glared at the threatening horizon, dark clouds scudding across the rooftops of church spires and highest branches of the palms and live oaks that lined the streets. Why was Roberta Peters, an elderly woman, about as far from Bobbi Jean as one could be, the second victim?

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