Page 43 of A Song for the Dead

Shaking her head, Jenna stared at him, wishing they could cover him up. He resembled a blood-splattered corpse and the sight sickened her. “I don’t think so. I figure the paramedics will give you something. In the meantime, you could make your life easier by answering some questions.”

“When we found the graves at Bear Peak and the recordings, we knew that the moment you murdered Freya Richardson, you’d returned to Black Rock Falls.” Kane’s face held no compassion as he looked at the man at his feet. “An FBI agent is here. You know if you come clean about where you’ve buried their bodies, I might be able to persuade him to talk to the DA on your behalf. I could be real nice and go get a bucket of ice to preserve your hand so the hospital can reattach it. Right now, it’s just sitting there going bad.”

In the distance the sound of sirens blasted through the still night. Jenna looked at Warner. “You don’t have too much time. Once the paramedics arrive, the deal is off the table.”

“Cops are stupid.” Warner gritted his teeth in a grimace of pain. “If you knew about the rituals, you’d know they form triangles. How many triangles are in a circle? Everything fits into the circle of life. Work it out. It’s not brain surgery.”

Frowning, Jenna glanced at Kane and then back at Warner. “That’s not much help, is it? A circle contains an infinite number of triangles.”

“Unless you already know the size and angle of some the triangles within the circle, and I presume, they’re all the same size? In a ritual the size and placing are crucial.” Kane rubbed his chin. “We already have three triangles.”

Warner was trying to control the situation and had managed to confuse them in a few words. Refusing to be beguiled by a psychopath, Jenna lifted her chin. “Last chance. Where did you bury the bodies?”

“Directly under the bear.” Warner moaned and leaned back. “Satisfied? Now, at least cover me with a sheet before anyone else comes by.”

“Nah, I don’t think so.” Kane shook his head. “The paramedics will have something to cover you, but it’s going to be a cold ride to the hospital.”

Jenna turned as Carter walked into the room. “Ah, there you are.” She followed him into the hallway. “Kane is going to read Mr. Warner his rights. He’s under arrest for the attempted murder of Wendy and a ton of other offenses we witnessed, but he’s given us the place where he buried the other two victims. I’ll call the DA and get the paperwork underway for his arrest, but I figure he’s going to be in surgery for a time.”

“Once he’s officially charged and out of surgery, do you want me to arrange transport to County? You can interview him there.” Carter met her gaze. “Or they can send guards to watch over him in the security wing at the hospital?”

Thinking for a beat, Jenna nodded. “He’s not going anywhere anytime soon. We’ll keep him in the secure ward, and by all means, if they can spare prison guards to watch him around the clock, that would be good. I figure we need to discover the extent of the murders he’s committed. With Jo here, we might be able to get him to talk. If he lawyers up and refuses to give us any information, then County can have him. One thing for darn sure, he’s not spending time in our cells.”

“I sure hope he talks. It would be good to know the extent of his killing fields.” Carter glanced over one shoulder. “Wendy is in the kitchen. She seems okay. A little shaken, and she has a few nicks on her neck. We’ll get the paramedics to check her out. She wants to go and stay with relatives but needs some clothes.”

Jenna nodded. “Okay, thanks. I’ll make sure she packs a bag once the prisoner is out of here. Can you stay with Kane? I need to go and get some ice.”

FIFTY

SATURDAY

Jenna paced up and down outside the hospital room in the secure ward at Black Rock Falls General. They’d spent every minute since sunup using Duke to follow Warner’s scent from the fire road that ran to the forest below Bear Peak, hunting through the forest for the graves of Freya Richardson and Daisy Lyon. They’d finally found them directly under the craggy rockface depicting a bear that the peak had been named after. The bodies were well hidden and covered with dead branches and leaves, and Wolfe and his team had set to work exhuming them. Both were wrapped in the missing bedding from their rooms and buried along with a phone containing every second of their horrific deaths. They’d been taken with dignity back to the morgue and autopsies would follow, but as the bodies were so fresh and preserved at near freezing temperatures, Wolfe had completed an initial examination and considered they’d both died by the same means as all the others in the previous graves.

The seven years between the murders concerned Jenna. There had to be many more graves out there containing murdered women missed by their families. She needed to know where they were located, so that their loved ones could find closure. Right now, nothing was happening and the investigation had ground to a halt. Duane Warner wasn’t talking. He’d asked for a lawyer, which was his right, and Sam Cross had been called to defend him. Sam being one of the toughest defense lawyers around hadn’t been too pleased about Jenna offering a deal to his client without representation. When he stepped out of the hospital room, Jenna followed Kane over to speak with him. “Is he going to talk?”

“My advice is for him to say nothing.” Cross shrugged. “You do understand I must advise my client not to incriminate himself. Although, he does admit you did read him his rights and he’s unclear if this was before or after you questioned him.” He gave her a long look. “Which was it?”

Jenna shrugged. “You know I’m not going to answer a leading question like that. We read him his rights. He told us where he hid the bodies. He could hardly deny trying to murder Wendy, could he?” She sucked in a breath. “We really need to know about the other women. The six graves we found in the forest dating back seven years. We know it’s him. The MO matches exactly and now we have proof. There are more out there. We need information.”

“He’s refusing to talk.” Cross leaned against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. “End of story.”

“One question.” Kane looked at him. “You’ll be right there.”

“Okay, one question.” Cross pushed open the door and walked inside.

“What are they doing here?” Warner sat propped up on pillows, one leg suspended and his arm in a sling. “You said I didn’t need to speak with them.”

“You don’t.” Cross pulled up a chair beside the bed.

“We’ve found the graves of Josephine Wade, Lydia Ellis, Sadie Bonner, Cora Griffin, Daphne Cotter, and Esther Cary.” Kane stared at Warner. “What you don’t know is that we found a thumbprint on one of the phones you buried with the bodies and it’s a match. You’re going down for all six cold case murders. Up to now, we didn’t have a matching print and now we have yours.”

“Well, you can’t put me away for more than life, can you?” Warner grinned at them. “It’s not so bad in jail, I hear. Three squares a day and TV, what more could I want?”

Jenna kept her distance, although one of his legs was shackled to the bed, she didn’t trust him. “There will be more than one life sentence. The thing is, we know about the rituals now. We could persuade the next of kin to bury the remains but many have requested cremation and I know that would negate your offering. They have to be buried as far as I’m aware but before I ask them if they’d be willing to do this, I need to know what happened during the seven years between the last murders and these recent ones. How many did you kill and where?”

“You know, I can’t recall, and once they’re buried, the offering is complete. Lying to me doesn’t work because I can outsmart you, even lying here high on morphine.” Warner stared at her and a strange darkness crept over his expression. “I moved all over but one thing’s for sure: I enjoyed every minute.”

EPILOGUE

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