“I’m not sure about that, but I do enjoy my job.” She met the older woman’s curious gaze, suppressing a grimace as she thought about why she was there. “Most of the time.”

  “Does this have something to do with that dreadful business in the cemetery?”

  Rachel wasn’t surprised the older woman had heard about what had happened. And not just because Pike was a small town where news spread like wildfire. Even in a city the shocking discovery of a man being shot on top of his own grave would have people buzzing. Soon enough it would be replaced with rumors about the two dead women.

  “Yes, I work cold cases,” she said.

  Mrs. Wilkins tilted her head to the side, eyeing Rachel like a curious bird. “I’m not quite sure why you’re here to see me.”

  “A package was found in your mailbox earlier today.”

  “Mine?” The woman paused, as if waiting for Rachel to admit that it was a mistake. “Are you sure?”

  “According to the postman who works this route.”

  “Oh, you must mean that sweet Isaac.” The older woman smiled, obviously smitten with her mailman. “Such a handsome young man, don’t you think? And much nicer than that one before him. What was his name?” Mrs. Wilkins took a second to dredge up the memory from the depths of her mind. “Greg something or other. Barry? Yes, that was it. Greg Barry.”

  Rachel arched her brows in surprise. “The sheriff ’s deputy?”

  She waved a hand that was swollen with arthritis. “I don’t know what he does now, but when he was the mailman he never had time to chat.” She leaned forward. “And he was just rude when I asked him to bring me a roll of stamps even though I had the money in an envelope and very clear instructions of what I needed. He told me that it wasn’t his job to run errands for every old person in town.” She pursed her lips, as if she was thinking of all the nasty words she would like to use to describe her former mailman. “Isaac, on the other hand, is a proper young man who is willing to help a poor widow who lives on her own.”

  The information didn’t seem relevant to the current case, but Rachel pulled out a notepad and pencil from her satchel to jot down Greg’s name. He could at least tell her about the neighbors and perhaps if there were any empty houses in the area.

  For now, she turned the conversation back to the reason she’d come to this house. “Can you remember for certain that you didn’t place a padded envelope in your mailbox?” she asked in gentle tones.

  “I don’t think so. I haven’t started my Christmas shopping and I haven’t baked any cookies for Isaac lately.” She firmly shook her head. “I think he must be mistaken. There wasn’t any package. Perhaps it was Marjorie next door. She has a son who lives in Texas and she’s always sending him stuff. Between you and me, most of it the poor boy probably tosses as soon as it arrives. What young man wants old copies of Reader’s Digest or underpants she bought at the thrift store?”

  Rachel didn’t have an answer. Mrs. Wilkins offered a sage nod as if Rachel’s silence proved her point and continued.

  “You might talk to her. Or even Albert Convey across the road. He moved here from Grange a year or so ago. I’m not very well acquainted with him, but he might be the type of man to send out packages.”

  Rachel obediently jotted down the names, accepting that this woman hadn’t been responsible for the envelope. So why was it in her mailbox?

  “Did you know Jude Henley?” Rachel kept her tone casual, as if she was making conversation.

  “Of course. I knew most of the students in Pike back when Jude was in school.”

  “Were you a teacher?”

  “No, my husband, Bill, was the superintendent until the mid-eighties. I volunteered in the elementary school library.” She heaved a sigh. “Bill died a few years after he retired. We never did get to take that cruise we’d been planning.”

  Rachel set down her pencil and studied the older woman. She wasn’t sure what this might have to do with the tape left in Mrs. Wilkins’s mailbox, but she couldn’t miss this opportunity to discover more about Jude and who might have known he was a killer.

  “What can you tell me about Jude?”

  “I’m not sure what you want to know.”

  Rachel didn’t know either. She wasn’t sure if his past had any bearing on the current killer. Or if they’d recently crossed paths. “I heard he was a difficult kid,” she finally said.

  Surprisingly, the woman sent her a disapproving frown. “You sound like my husband. He was convinced that Jude was a bad seed.”

  “You didn’t agree?”

  “He was certainly in a lot of trouble,” Mrs. Wilkins conceded. “That boy was in the principal’s office every day. But he wasn’t born bad. He was made that way.” Her lips thinned to a tight line, as if she was recalling a specific incident.

  “Made that way?” Rachel repeated the words. “Do you mean that he was bullied?”

  Mrs. Wilkins glanced away, perhaps considering whether or not she wanted to answer the question.

  “Yes,” she eventually said. “But not by the other kids.”

  “His dad?”

  “His mother.”

  “Really?” Rachel blinked in surprise. Not that a mother couldn’t be capable of violence toward her children. It happened more often than most people wanted to admit. But that there hadn’t been whispers that Jude might have been abused.

  “Yes. Not that anyone would listen to me, not even my husband.” The woman clicked her tongue. “But I could see the bruises on him. Both physical and mental.”

  Unlike the dearly departed Mr. Wilkins, Rachel believed her. There was a genuine outrage in her voice despite the fact it must have occurred over forty years ago.

  “How do you know Mrs. Henley was responsible?” she asked.

  “I was helping with detention after school. Jude was in the library working on his homework and I’d stepped into my office to grab my coat and purse. I was in a hurry to leave as soon as the second bell rang. I think I had a hair appointment.” She pressed her hands flat against the table, but not before Rachel noticed the faint tremor. The memory had obviously haunted the poor woman. “When I came out I saw Mrs. Henley grab Jude by his hair and shake him so hard his head hit the wall.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I confronted her, of course. The poor kid had blood running down the side of his face.” The woman sounded offended that Rachel would even ask. “Mrs. Henley was furious. She threatened to tell everyone that I was responsible for hitting Jude and swore she would sue the school if I said a word. Back then there were no cameras in the library. It would have been her word against mine.”

  “So what happened?”

  The woman’s hands curled into tight balls. “While she was busy yelling at me I could smell the alcohol on her breath.”

  “She’d been drinking?” Rachel grimaced. Mrs. Henley sounded like a real piece of work.

  “Yes, I couldn’t physically stop her from leaving with Jude.” Mrs. Wilkins tilted her chin to a defiant angle. “Instead I called the sheriff as soon as she drove away. I hoped she would be arrested for drunk driving.”

  “Was she?”

  Mrs. Wilkins muttered something beneath her breath. Rachel thought it sounded like “snooty bitch,” but the woman’s expression was so prim it was hard to believe the words could have come from her pinched lips.

  “This was back in the seventies,” she said in a louder voice. “Before Rudolf was sheriff. At that time the Henleys had a lot of influence in Pike. Certainly more than me. The law officials didn’t want to hear what I was telling them. If they had, it might have prevented the woman from driving in front of a train a few years later.”

  “Mrs. Henley was driving?”

  “It was impossible to say for certain. There wasn’t much left of the car.” Mrs. Wilkins wrinkled her nose. “Or the Henleys.”

  Rachel made a soft sound of shock. She’d known that Jude’s parents had been killed in a car accident, but she hadn’t known they’d been hit by a train. It was a gruesome way to die.

  “I suppose not,” she muttered.

  There was a short silence before Mrs. Wilkins leaned forward, her dark eyes glittering with curiosity. “I try not to listen to gossip, but I did hear that they found Staci Gale’s body in Jude’s grave.”

  Rachel nodded. “Yes.”

  “Such a shame. We all assumed she’d left town. Of course, we also thought Jude was dead. Do you think he killed her?”

  The sudden question made Rachel hesitate. This woman might claim a distaste for gossip, but she was no doubt like everyone else in town. Eager to pass along any information whether it was right or wrong. Rachel didn’t want the killer knowing the direction the investigation was taking.

  “It’s one of a number of theories,” she vaguely admitted.

  The woman heaved a sigh. “My husband did warn me that I allowed my pity for Jude to blind me to his true nature. He was convinced that Jude was dangerous.”

  “Did he have a particular reason for thinking he was dangerous? Beyond his trouble at school?”

  “I always assumed it was because of Destiny.”

  Rachel frowned in confusion. “Fate?”

  “No, Destiny Sykes. Our foster daughter.”

  “Ah.” Mrs. Wilkins was referring to an actual person.

  “I wasn’t blessed with children, so when Destiny’s mother died when she was sixteen we took her in. She didn’t have a father, and her grandparents weren’t willing to take on the responsibility of a troubled teenager. I suppose I could understand. They had a business in town that kept them busy and we were happy to help.”

  Rachel impulsively reached across the table to touch the woman’s hand. “That was very generous of you.”

  A sadness swept over the narrow face. “I tried to help. I’m not sure how successful I was.”

  Regretting the need to dredge up painful memories, Rachel forced herself to continue with her questioning. “Why did you say something about your husband thinking Jude was dangerous? Did he bully your foster daughter?”

  “Oh no. Just the opposite,” Mrs. Wilkins corrected her. “Although Jude was a year younger than Destiny, the two of them dated her senior year.”

  Rachel grabbed her pencil and made a note. She should have guessed that Jude hadn’t been openly violent. He was far too clever for that. His most potent weapon had been his charm, which he’d obviously honed during his youth.

  The fact that he could form an intimate connection with the women before beating them to death with a crowbar only made his murders more horrifying. It was one thing to stalk and kill a stranger, but to woo and seduce a victim before he struck . . . That took a true psychopath.

  “Your husband didn’t approve of their relationship?” She prompted the older woman to continue her story.

  “He was livid.” Mrs. Wilkins shivered. “I don’t think I’d ever seen him so angry.”

  “What happened?”

  “One night Destiny came home after her curfew. My husband was waiting at the door. There was a terrible argument and Destiny packed a bag and left the house.” Mrs. Wilkins heaved a sad sigh. “I don’t know where she went, but a couple days later she was back here and never mentioned Jude’s name again. I assume he found someone else to date. He was never without at least one girlfriend.”

  Rachel stilled. Had Destiny gone to Jude after storming away from the protection of the Wilkinses? And if she had, why had she come back? Had she seen something she shouldn’t have? Maybe Jude had revealed the monster that lurked behind the alluring bad boy?

  There was only one way to find out.

  “Does Destiny still live in Pike?”

  Mrs. Wilkins flinched, as if Rachel’s words had caused her physical pain. “She died.”

  “Oh. I’m so sorry.” Rachel gave the woman’s fingers a small squeeze. “Can I ask what happened?”

  “A few weeks after she graduated she got a job at the old drive-in theater working in the food shack. I was so happy for her, but then—” The words broke off on a soft sob. “Then she was gone.”

  Rachel’s mild curiosity was replaced with a sickening sense of premonition. The food shack. That could easily be the background they’d seen in the tape that had arrived that day, couldn’t it? Plus, it couldn’t be a coincidence that Mrs. Wilkins’s dead foster daughter had dated Jude and then just weeks or maybe months after they broke up she was dead.

  “What happened?”

  “No one knows for sure.” Mrs. Wilkins was forced to halt and clear her throat. Her grief for the tragic young Destiny was still raw. “The movie was over and she was there cleaning up for the night when the shack caught fire. The officials said that it was probably an electrical issue, but there were rumors that the owner of the drive-in set the place on fire for the insurance money and something went terribly wrong.”

  Rachel dismissed both the accident theory as well as the owner torching the place. When there was a fire people always speculated it was done for the insurance money. “What do you believe?”

  “Honestly?” There was a long pause, as if the woman didn’t want to say the words out loud. “I fear that Destiny was there with friends doing drugs and that she overdosed. If her friends panicked, they would have done something stupid like burning down the shack.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Just a week or so before she died I was cleaning her room and I found a glass pipe between the mattress and box springs.” The woman clicked her tongue in disgust. “I knew what it meant. Such a shame. We tried our best.”

  Rachel gave the gnarled fingers another squeeze. “I don’t doubt that for a second.”

  Mrs. Wilkins sniffed back her tears, firmly squaring her shoulders. “You know, it’s odd.”

  “What’s odd?”

  “Destiny died around this time of year. I used to visit her grave, but I just can’t get around anymore.”

  Rachel sat back in her seat. She would bet good money that Destiny died either on this date or tomorrow.

  “Forgive me for prying into such a painful subject, but do you have a picture of Destiny?”

  “Yes.” Mrs. Wilkins rose to her feet with a quickness that revealed she was eager to share the memory of Destiny. “I’ll be right back.”

  She was as good as her word. In less than a minute she’d returned to the kitchen clutching a framed eight-by-ten photo that she handed to Rachel.

  Studying the picture, Rachel easily identified Mrs. Wilkins in front of the old school building. Her hair was a darker shade of red, and there were fewer lines on her face, but she was wearing a similar pantsuit and clutching the arm of a tall, slender man with a thick mane of dark hair combed from his stern, unsmiling face. Rachel assumed that was Mr. Wilkins. To one side there was a girl dressed in a robe and square cap as if she’d just graduated. She kept several inches between her and the Wilkinses as if to subtly reveal she didn’t consider herself a part of the family, and there was a sulky expression on her face.

  A face that Rachel instantly recognized.

  The premonition was now an absolute certainty as Rachel carefully placed the picture on the table and rose to her feet.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Wilkins, you’ve been very helpful.” With a tense nod, she turned to hurry out of the kitchen, her hand already reaching into her satchel to pull out her phone.

  Surprisingly, the older woman managed to keep pace with her as she headed down the narrow hallway. “I’ve enjoyed the chat. I spend too much time alone these days,” she said breathlessly. “Be sure and tell your mother that I said hello.”

  “I will.” Too distracted to do more than offer a vague smile, Rachel pushed open the front door and pressed a number on her phone. She was still on the porch when Zac answered. “Hey, I need you to meet me at the old drive-in,” she said in grim tones. “As soon as you can get there.”

  Chapter 19

  Risa Murphy was standing in the center of the cramped two-room apartment above the hair salon. She’d just walked through the door after a ten-hour shift at the diner and she wasn’t in the mood for her boyfriend’s shit. Gerry Sims had been her on-again, off-again partner since they’d graduated high school eight years ago. She was never quite sure why. He’d never held down a real job. He drank, he was addicted to gambling, and he sold prescription pills.

  She supposed she kept him around because he was easy. Like an old, comfortable pair of slippers. She didn’t have to worry if her bleached-blond hair was hanging in a limp ponytail, or if she’d remembered to put on lipstick, or if she’d packed on enough pounds to go from curvy to plump. She didn’t have to try.

  Not the most romantic love story, she silently acknowledged, watching as he moved toward her.

  Gerry was only a couple inches taller, maybe five-foot-eight, with a thin frame that was just a breath from gaunt. He never wore anything but faded jeans and a white T-shirt. He even wore them to her sister’s wedding, despite her protest. His dark hair was long enough to brush his shoulders and his face was thin. Her mother said he looked like a rat, and she couldn’t argue. But then again, he had amazing eyes that were so dark they appeared black and a smile that still made her heart flutter.

  He flashed that charming smile as he reached to give her ponytail a small tug. “Come on, Risa. What’s the big deal?”

  She stepped back, her blue eyes narrowing with a silent warning. Her feet hurt, her back ached, and she smelled like stale onion rings. All she wanted was a hot shower and a cold beer before she climbed into bed. Instead, she’d been greeted the moment she’d walked through the door with a demand that she meet with some stranger to deliver a bunch of illegal pills.

  “I told you, I don’t want to be involved in your crap,” she snapped.

  The dark eyes flashed with a quick temper. It didn’t take much to set off the man. “My crap pays the bills.”

  Risa snorted. She paid the rent, the utilities, and bought the groceries. Gerry’s money went to the massive gambling debt that hung over him like a ticking time bomb.

  “I pay my own bills,” she reminded him tartly. “And I do it legally.”