Once they had disappeared from view, Rachel stepped toward him, her expression troubled. “Any theories on who might be responsible for the murders?”

  “A few.” Zac glanced toward the cooler. “Until this morning.”

  “Tell me.”

  Wondering if Rachel was simply attempting to distract him from the grinding sadness of Paige’s brutal death, Zac dredged up his earlier suspicions.

  “I did some research on Jacob Henley,” he said.

  “And?”

  “I discovered that this funeral parlor was facing bankruptcy twenty-eight years ago. It had obviously been struggling since Jacob’s parents had died. Then, Jacob received a nice payment from an insurance policy that he held on his brother and his most pressing bills disappeared.”

  Rachel’s brows lifted. “How much?”

  “Fifty thousand.”

  “A good number back then,” she said. “It wasn’t enough to be suspicious but handy if you’re in debt.”

  “That was my thought. It would explain Jacob’s willingness to go along with the scheme to fake Jude’s death. And it also made me wonder what would happen if his brother grew tired of his life on the run and decided to return to town.”

  “He’d probably panic,” Rachel said.

  “Exactly. No one wants to spend their golden years in jail for insurance fraud. And even if Jacob is occasionally confused, he’s still able to walk on his own. He had the physical strength to lure his brother to the graveyard and put a bullet in his head.” He glanced around the morgue, shaking his head. “But this . . .”

  Rachel shoved her hands into the pockets of her jacket. “Hard to believe he would be capable of committing a murder like this.”

  They fell silent, both contemplating who could possibly have a motive to kill both Jude and Paige, until Lindsay called out from the cooler.

  “Boss, there’s something here I think you’ll want to see.”

  Zac hurried into the cooler at the unmistakable edge in the woman’s voice. Lindsay was proving to be a damned fine deputy and he trusted her judgment without question. The other two deputies . . . not so much.

  Squeezing into the space, he discovered that Paige had been zipped into a black body bag and placed on the stretcher. But that wasn’t what had captured his deputies’ attention. Instead it was the black, square-shaped object that was on the steel gurney. It had been hidden beneath Paige’s corpse.

  “A VHS tape?” he muttered in confusion. Frowning he waved a hand toward the EMTs. “You guys can take off.” He waited for them to carry out Paige’s body before he returned his attention to his deputies. “Lindsay, get some pictures. Anthony, check it for prints and then bag it.”

  “It could have been here before Paige was murdered,” Rachel suggested as she moved to stand next to him. Zac sent her a glance of disbelief and she wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, I know. We should check it out. I have a VCR player at my office in Madison. I often have to deal with older technology in cold cases.”

  Zac shrugged. “We don’t have to go to Madison. I have one at the farm.”

  She blinked. “You’re kidding?”

  “It’s in my parents’ room.” Zac couldn’t keep the hint of defensiveness out of his voice. He didn’t know if it was because he was a thirty-year-old man living in his childhood home, or because that home hadn’t changed since he’d been a child. Probably both.

  Thankfully, Rachel merely nodded. “Okay. Let’s walk through what might have happened here.” She returned her attention to the murder. “It seems doubtful that Paige would have come here willingly.”

  “Unless she was meeting her lover,” he pointed out. “If she was married and trying to keep her affair secret, there’s not many places in Pike to get away from prying eyes.”

  Rachel snorted. “Trust me, no woman is going to agree to meet here, no matter how desperate she might be to keep it secret.”

  Zac paused before slowly nodding. There might be a few women who would be titillated by having sex in such a macabre setting, but none of them would be interested in stripping off their clothes in freezing temperatures.

  “Agreed,” he said, recalling when he’d first arrived at the funeral parlor. “And there weren’t any cars parked in the lot. I assume she was picked up or kidnapped by her killer and brought here.”

  “Any cameras?”

  “No. I have Greg canvassing the neighbors,” he said, referring to his third deputy. “Someone might have noticed something.”

  “Okay.” She folded her arms over her chest, her expression pensive. “We assume Paige encountered her killer and was forced down here.”

  Zac nodded. “I’m guessing she was already unconscious or maybe he held her at gunpoint. There were no signs of a struggle either outside or in here.”

  Rachel pointed toward the door. “He forces her downstairs and into this cooler and ties her to the gurney.” Her lips twisted in disgust. “He probably abused her and then kills her. Next, he lights a fire to attract your attention.”

  Zac attempted to put himself in the mind of the killer. Starting with the truck left running outside the cemetery so they would find Jude’s body displayed on his grave. And the fire to lead the officials to Paige’s shattered body. “This is a person who wants to be noticed. A narcissist.”

  “Dangerous,” Rachel whispered.

  “Really dangerous.”

  They exchanged a worried glance. The deaths of Jude and Paige were tragic. But they both feared that this wasn’t the end of the horror. In fact, it might very well be the beginning.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  Zac hid a smile. Although Rachel was the more seasoned investigator, she was being careful not to step on his toes. That was why she’d always been destined to climb the ranks, he acknowledged. She was not only a great detective, but she understood the politics of every situation. He wasn’t as willing to compromise. He liked to take time to consider a situation, and he rarely spoke without thinking through his words. But once he’d come to a decision, he didn’t mind stepping on toes.

  “I need to interview Paige’s husband. He’ll have to go to Madison to make the ID. Plus, I want him to give a statement before he has a chance to consider his answer,” he decided, considering the most pressing issues he needed to tackle. “You want to meet at the farm around noon?”

  She hesitated. “Are you cooking?”

  He chuckled. “No, I’ll swing by Bella’s and pick up a pizza,” he promised.

  “Sounds good.”

  They moved out of the cooler and Rachel headed up the stairs while Zac waited for Lindsay and Anthony to join him. A minute later the deputies were entering the embalming room. Anthony moved toward Zac, but glancing at something over Zac’s shoulder, he abruptly stumbled over his feet. Instinctively, Zac reached out to steady the younger man, grabbing the bag from his hand before the fool could drop it on the cement floor and shatter the tape inside.

  “What the hell, Anthony?”

  The deputy straightened, his round face flushed. “There was someone peeking through the window. It startled me.”

  Zac turned toward the window over the sink, which had been wedged open. “I’ll check it out. You guys mark off the building as a crime scene and return to the office.”

  “It’s Saturday. . . .” Anthony started to protest, only to have his words die away as Zac sent him a warning glare. “Fine.”

  Indifferent to his deputy’s petulant expression, Zac bounded up the staircase and out of the building. He wasn’t as fast as he had been when he was on the track team, but he was still quick enough to catch sight of the man who was trying to scurry toward the back fence.

  “Stop,” Zac commanded, running behind the man. “I said stop or I’ll shoot,” he bluffed loudly. He wasn’t going to shoot anyone in the back, but the threat had the desired outcome.

  Coming to a sharp halt, the young man slowly turned to face Zac.

  Keeping his hand near his weapon as he cautiously approached, Zac studied the trespasser. If this guy proved to be a threat, he wouldn’t hesitate to retaliate. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  The man was wearing heavy coveralls that were stained with grease and grime and there was a thick stocking hat on his head. All Zac could make out was that he was young, probably in his late twenties, with muddy brown eyes and a scraggly beard.

  “Curly Bolton,” the man muttered, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coveralls. “I ain’t doing nothing wrong.”

  “You’re trespassing on private property.”

  Curly hunched his thin shoulders. “I was passing by and noticed the fire truck. I wanted to see what was going on.”

  “Passing by on the way to where?”

  He waved a hand toward the street. “I work at Sykes Automotive on the corner.”

  “The shop is opened on Saturdays?”

  Curly’s jaw tightened. He didn’t like being questioned. “A part of my salary includes the apartment above the place. I’m headed home.”

  “That doesn’t explain why you were peeking through the window.”

  “I told ya. I wanted to see what was going on,” he groused. “And I knew Jacob wouldn’t mind.”

  Zac arched a brow. He knew Jacob Henley. And well enough to call him by his first name. “Are you a friend?”

  “Friend?” The man’s lips twisted. Not in amusement, but in mockery. As if the thought of being friends with Jacob was unthinkable. “No. But my dad worked for him.”

  “He worked at the funeral parlor?”

  “Yep.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Everything.” Curly sucked air through a gap in his front teeth, nodding toward the nearby garage. “He took care of the buildings, he drove the hearse, and dug the graves.”

  Zac narrowed his eyes. “What years was he employed?”

  Curly shrugged. “I don’t know. He was working there before I was born and stopped when the place closed down.”

  Perfect. It sounded as if the older man had been around during the years that Jude was still living in Pike, and when he was supposedly buried.

  “Is he around here?” Zac barely dared to breathe until Curly nodded. It would be his luck to have discovered someone who could tell him about the Henleys’ past only to find out he was living across the country. Or dead.

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Curly.”

  Of course it was. Zac resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Where does he live?”

  The man hesitated, clearly reluctant to share the address. Then no doubt realizing that Zac could easily discover it, he grudgingly forced himself to answer.

  “Pike Trailer Park,” he spit the words out. “Number sixteen.”

  Zac stiffened. His interest had gone from mild to off the charts. Pike Trailer Park was where Paige had lived. Which meant that Curly Senior would have been a close neighbor. That seemed more than a vague coincidence. It also made him wonder how often Curly Junior visited his father. Glancing over his shoulder, he studied the spot where the man had been peeking into the basement. It was nearly hidden by the bushes that framed the back of the building. Only someone who was familiar with the place would have known where to find a perfect spot to spy into the basement. “What about you?” he demanded, turning back toward the younger man.

  Curly looked confused. “Me.”

  “Did you ever work for Jacob Henley?”

  “Not really. I mowed the grass during the summer and sometimes washed the hearse, but that’s it.”

  That was enough, as far as Zac was concerned. This man would have a familiarity with Jacob and the funeral parlor. Which meant he would have had the opportunity to discover that Jude wasn’t as dead as he was pretending to be. Plus, he could have seen Paige whenever he visited his dad. For now he was Zac’s most likely suspect.

  “Do you have a key to this place?” he asked.

  Curly looked genuinely puzzled. “Why would I have a key?”

  “What about your dad?”

  Curly frowned, as if belatedly realizing the direction of Zac’s questions. Holding up his hands, he backed away. “Look, I don’t want any trouble. Neither does my dad. Just leave us alone.”

  With that, Curly turned to hurry away, his head bent down as he picked up speed.

  Zac let him go. He knew where to find him.

  And right now, he had something more important to do.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, Zac was uncomfortably seated on a sagging sofa in a narrow living space that was littered with toys, stacks of laundry, and empty beer bottles. This was his first death notification, and it was just as awful as he’d expected it to be.

  Joe Carr looked unbearably young and lost as he paced from one end of the carpet to the other. His hair was standing upright and he was wearing wrinkled jeans and a shirt that was hanging open. As if he’d slept in his clothes. Or maybe he never went to bed.

  “Murdered,” he muttered, dry washing his hands as he struggled to accept what Zac had just told him. “I don’t believe it.”

  “I’m sorry, Joe.” Zac didn’t have to pretend his soul-deep regret. What had happened to Paige would haunt his dreams for years.

  Joe came to a halt to stare at Zac with a hopeless expression. “I mean . . .” He glanced toward the corner where a small child was sleeping in a crib. He lowered his voice to a harsh whisper. “You’re sure it’s Paige?”

  “I’m sure, but you’ll have to make the formal ID at the medical examiner’s office in Madison.”

  Joe winced. Was he going to be sick? “Now?”

  Zac wanted to assure the poor man that he could take his time, but this wasn’t a tragic accident. It was a murder. The quicker things could get taken care of, the quicker the investigation could get moving. “As soon as you can get there.”

  He grimaced, but he didn’t argue. “You said she was at the old funeral parlor?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why would she be there?”

  A good question, Zac silently acknowledged. Once he answered that, he would have an insight on who killed her and why.

  “It’s possible she was taken there by her killer,” he admitted.

  “Dammit.” Without warning, Joe smacked a fist into his open palm. “I told her not to go out last night.”

  “Go where?”

  “To the Bait and Tackle.”

  Zac leaned forward, surprised by the answer. In the past few months the bar had been refurbished and cleaned up, but it was still a dive. Not the sort of place for a young, married mother to hang out.

  “Was she meeting someone?”

  “Her friend Pam Haas.”

  Zac recognized the name, but he didn’t personally know Pam. He’d give her a call after he finished with Joe. “Did she drive there?”

  “Yes. She took our old Ford Focus.”

  Zac pulled out a small pad and pencil from the pocket of his jacket to take notes. “What color?”

  “White.”

  Zac glanced up. “Did she go out at night a lot?”

  “No, never. That’s why she . . .” Tears formed in Joe’s eyes.

  “Why she what?”

  The man blinked, clearing a lump from his throat. “That’s why she went. Lately I’ve been running around with the guys from work, and she was sick of staying home with Zoe.” His hands clenched into tight balls, his face paling to a sickly shade of gray. “This is my fault.”

  Zac rose to his feet. The younger man could be putting on an act. After all, the significant other was always the most likely killer. And Joe could have been smart enough to use the recent discovery of Jude Henley’s body to convince them the two murders were connected. But it seemed unlikely. At least for now.

  “Joe, you can’t think like that,” he insisted.

  “How else can I think?” he rasped, lifting his hands to shove them through his disheveled hair. “I didn’t even call to report her missing.”

  Zac narrowed his gaze. It was a question he’d intended to ask. Joe just made it easy. “Why not?”

  “Because we’d been in a stupid fight.” Joe made a sound of disgust. “I thought she got drunk and stayed at Pam’s just to piss me off.”

  Zac paused, holding the younger man’s gaze. “Where were you last night?”

  Joe waved a vague hand. “Here with Zoe.”

  “Was anyone else here?”

  “Nope. I had a few beers and went to bed.”

  The empty bottles on the coffee table seemed to confirm the man’s alibi. Zac would have his deputies canvas the trailer park to see if anyone had noticed Joe leaving during the evening.

  Zac’s thoughts were interrupted when the door to the trailer was thrust open and a crowd of people rushed in, including Joe’s mother, his aunt and uncle, and what seemed to be a dozen cousins.

  “Joe, I just heard.” His mother moved to wrap Joe in her arms. Instantly Joe burst into tears, sobbing uncontrollably as the older woman patted his back.

  “I’ll be back later,” Zac said, weaving his way through the gathered family and stepping out of the trailer.

  He paused to take a deep breath, glancing around at the nearby trailers. They were crammed close together, as if the owner of the park was determined to get as many trailers as possible squeezed in. It gave the feeling of living on top of one another. An impression that was intensified by the screaming kids playing on the swing set next door, and the rev of a loud engine from the man across the narrow street who was tinkering on an old truck. Zac leaned forward to see the end of the cul-de-sac, noting the postman who was busy filling the metal mailboxes.

  It would be difficult to have any privacy in this place.

  As he walked down the steps, his gaze was suddenly captured by the trailer that was catty-corner from Joe and Paige. It wasn’t just that it was in better repair than the others with a recently painted porch and trimmed hedges. It was the large silver numbers on the front of the trailer.

  A one and a six.

  This trailer belonged to Curly Bolton Senior.

  With long strides, Zac was across the street and climbing onto the porch. He rapped his knuckles on the screen door. No answer. He rapped again. Nothing. Turning, he leaned over the railing to peer through the nearest window. He could see the outlines of a couch and a recliner as well as a television that was turned off.