“Actually, no,” Faith said, “it isn’t. Horace Greenwood didn’t start moving that quickly until he’d been active for years. If this killer is just starting, he might maintain this pace or quicken it.”

  “Or he could stop for years, then start again, like Dahmer or Bundy,” Michael said. “I thought you said hold off on speculation.”

  “You’re right,” Faith said. “Just the facts.”

  “Just the facts, ma’am,” Derek said in a clipped, professional tone.

  He grinned at Faith, and Travis said, “What’s with you? You see a pretty girl and suddenly you develop a sense of humor.”

  “Good for you recognizing one of those,” Derek said. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  They continued to banter while Michael and Faith exchanged bemused glances. “Remind you of anyone?” Michael whispered.

  “Yeah, the charming, funny, younger investigator and her grouchy, old man assistant.”

  Michael chuckled but didn’t offer a rebuttal.

  They reached the scene fifteen minutes later. “Husband’s still with his sister,” Travis explained. “He doesn’t want to come home until the place is clean.”

  “Well, we need to release the scene too,” Derek pointed out.

  “I know that,” Travis replied. “I’m just saying that he’s staying there until the place is clean.”

  He unlocked the door and led them inside. The moment they entered, Faith could smell the reek of old blood. Her nose wrinkled, and Turk sneezed.

  “Pretty ripe, I know,” Travis said. “We’ll probably let the cleaners in tomorrow now that you’ve had a chance to look at it. Bathroom’s upstairs, first door on the left. I hope you don’t mind if we wait downstairs. Derek and I have seen enough. If you absolutely feel you need to show us something, take a picture.”

  Faith and Michael headed upstairs. “Guy’s a real character, huh?” Michael said. “Should’ve been born in Boston.”

  Faith shook her head. “I’ll never understand your obsession with New England. You realize you’re from San Jose, right?”

  “Stockton,” Michael corrected. “San Jose’s where my parents live now.”

  “Somehow, that’s worse,” Faith said.

  “Oh, it’s way worse,” Michael said. “You know that old song about being stuck in Lodi? Well, he could have written it about Stockton too. Think Oakland, but dirtier. We were ranked the eighth-most miserable city in the U.S.”

  “Jesus, all right,” Faith said. “Sorry for asking.”

  They reached the bathroom, and the smell assaulted Faith so powerfully that she had to pause a moment to gather herself. Turk growled and shook his head. Michael wrinkled his nose and said, “Christ, they could at least have opened a window.”

  The body was gone, but a massive puddle of sticky, brown blood emanated waves of stench from the floor. A thick smear of blood crawled up one side of the tub and into the shower. Either Amanda Montgomery had been pushed out of the shower after she was stabbed, or she had tried to crawl out and hadn’t made it.

  “Well,” Michael said, “I suppose one of us should go in and look at what’s in the medicine cabinets.”

  “CSI will have inventoried that,” Faith said. “Turk. Find him.”

  Faith wasn’t entirely sure that Turk would pick up any useful scent considering how long it had been since the murder, but if he could smell the killer, then having the scent could prove handy when it came time to interview suspects.

  Turk growled his protest, but obeyed the command, trotting gingerly around the blood with his nose to the ground. He worked his way to the shower, stopping when he reached the back of the tub. He sniffed rapidly for several seconds, then barked and turned to Faith.

  “Good boy,” Faith said. “Good boy. All right. Come.”

  Turk eagerly left the bathroom, and the three of them returned downstairs.

  “Anything?” Travis asked.

  “My K9 caught a scent,” Faith said.

  “Really?” Derek said, eyes widening, impressed.

  “Yes,” Faith said.

  “Wow,” Derek said, nodding appreciatively at Turk.

  Even Travis looked impressed. “Well, good. We don’t have to waste our time sweating dead ends. Now, we just need to find a suspect.”

  “The husbands are ruled out?” Michael asked.

  “Not officially,” Travis said, “but they’re low on the list. We wanted to wait for you to interview them in case there’s something we missed.”

  “We appreciate that,” Faith said. “We will talk to them. You said Mr. Montgomery is with his sister?”

  “Yes,” Derek said. “The sister’s house is twenty minutes away. In the city. Should I call and say we’re on our way?”

  “Is he a flight risk?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Then yes.”

  Travis made the phone call while once again, Derek drove. When he was finished, he said, “I should mention that you two will get your own car tomorrow. We didn’t have one available today. The Department is notorious for not maintaining their vehicles. I wanted them to give you a junker, so you could embarrass them to your superiors and maybe motivate them to buy us new cars, but they decided to send one of the old cruisers in for a full workup instead. Congratulations to you two.”

  “I feel so honored,” Michael said drily.

  Faith kept silent. As nearly as she could tell, the SUV they rode in was less than two years old. Maybe Travis just liked to complain. Well, that was all right with Faith as long as he did his job.

  As they cruised toward the residence of Alice Montgomery, Faith tried to drum up the usual excitement she felt for the job, but all she could manage was relief that she could delay having her head shrunk.

  She was getting tired of looking at death all the time. Maybe that was something she could bring up to Doctor West when the inevitable day came that she couldn’t avoid him anymore.

  Derek pulled her from his thoughts. “I called Benjamin Montgomery three times, but no answer. I left a message, but I think it’s a safe bet he’s not calling back.”

  Faith and Michael shared a glance. This didn’t necessarily mean that the husband was guilty, but she could always hope. Maybe this time, a case would finally turn out to be open and shut.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  That hope was shattered the moment they reached the sister’s house. Benjamin Montgomery was a broken man. His Department of Transportation record listed him as thirty-four years old, but the circles under his eyes and the lines on his face made him appear ten years older. Faith was reminded of Dominic Gonzalez, whose wife, Ariana, was the thirteenth and final victim of the Weed Killer, Horace Greenwood. He might one day smile again, but behind that smile would forever be the pain of his loss.

  His sister, Alice, was in the living room with Travis and Derek. It had taken nearly twenty minutes for the detectives to convince her that her brother’s alibi was solid, and he was not a suspect in his wife’s murder, so she didn’t need to monitor the agents’ conversation to make sure they weren’t trying to trip him into a confession. Finally, though, she had acquiesced, thanks mostly to what Faith suspected was a growing attraction to Derek that predisposed her to trust the younger, less abrasive police officer.

  Michael and Faith sat across from Benjamin around the kitchen table. None of the three touched the coffee Alice made for them when they arrived, but Benjamin clung to his mug like a lifeline. Perhaps it was. Faith wouldn’t be surprised to learn it was Alice’s idea for him to stay here to keep him from doing something drastic in an attempt to join his wife.

  Faith broke the silence. “Mr. Montgomery, I am so sorry for your loss.”

  Benjamin didn’t reply right away. After a moment, Turk walked over to him and laid his head on his lap. Benjamin began absently stroking his fur and finally spoke. “You don’t have to say that. I know you think it’s your job, but you don’t have to pretend you loved her like I did.”

  Faith’s heart broke a little more at the pain in his voice. “I didn’t know her,” she said, “and I didn’t love her, but I can see how much you loved her, and I genuinely hate that you’ve lost her. No one should suffer this kind of pain."

  "But we do," Benjamin said.

  He offered a slight smile as he said it, but there was no joy in that smile. There was, however, a sizable helping of anger, and that encouraged Faith. If he had enough strength left to be angry, then he could muster the strength to recover.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “We do.”

  “Mr. Montgomery,” Michael said, “I know you’ve already been cleared by the police department, so I’m not asking you this because you’re a suspect, but can you please tell me where you were the night your wife died, leading up to your discovery of her body.”

  Benjamin took a deep, steadying breath, then a deep, steadying sip of his coffee. “I was at a poker game with friends. I would play poker every Sunday night after church. Amanda hated it. She said it was a devil’s game. She would purse her lips and give me the silent treatment all day. I still played. I thought I needed something to do that didn’t involve her or I’d go crazy. I wish to God I had never touched the game. Can’t imagine I’ll ever play again.”

  “Did you and your wife fight over the game?” Faith asked.

  “No, we never fought. Amanda never fought with anything. She would express her disapproval and leave it at that. Most of the time, that was enough. Poker was the only thing I put my foot down on. I would always stop by the convenience store on my way home for a chocolate bar to placate her.” He chuckled. “It never worked, of course. It’s funny the things you do to make up for those little transgressions. You know they won’t work, but you do them anyway because it makes you feel better even if it doesn’t make them feel better.”

  “I’m sure she appreciated the gesture,” Michael said, “even if she didn’t let on.”

  “Yeah,” Benjamin said, nodding. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

  “What time did you arrive home?” Faith asked.

  “Uh, that night, umm … I think it was after midnight. Yeah, it was. Close to one in the morning, I think. I drank a little more than normal, and I had to wait a while to drive home. It was bad enough I was spending every Sunday gambling. If I had come home smelling like booze, I would have had real hell to pay.”

  He smiled, no doubt imagining his wife’s reaction if she had caught him driving drunk. His smile faded as he remembered once again that his wife would never react to anything ever again.

  “I just don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head in a confusion that was devoid of anger. “Why would someone kill her? I just don’t get it. I don’t know what reason they would have had to just kill her like that.”

  “If you feel comfortable,” Faith said, “can you tell me what exactly you found when you walked into the house?”

  “I’ll never feel comfortable,” he said, “but I can tell you exactly what I found. I’ll never forget it. If I live to be as old as Methuselah, I’ll never forget the sight of it. The smell.”

  He folded his hands in front of him and gripped them tightly until his knuckles turned white. Having experienced the smell, Faith could relate. She couldn’t relate to that smell belonging to someone she loved. An unpleasant image of David’s body lying in a pool of blood came to her. She blinked, and the image changed to Michael’s body. She took a breath and said, “Did you realize right away that she was dead?”

  “I think so,” he said. “I didn’t admit it to myself right away, but that smell is unmistakable. My uncle was a butcher back in the day. When I was seven years old, my parents thought it would be fun for me to see him work, so they brought me to his butcher shop and had me watch him slaughter a pig. When I was a kid, I thought the squealing was the worst part. It’s a different sound, you know, when a living thing dies. It’s different from anger, from grief, from shock, even from fear. I’ll never forget that sound, but the smell … the smell is worse.”

  Faith and Michael remained silent, allowing Benjamin to ramble. They knew he was talking slowly to give himself a chance to recount the events without collapsing.

  After a moment, Benjamin took a shuddering breath and continued, “I walked in, smelled that smell, and knew right away what it was, but I couldn’t allow myself to believe it. I walked through the whole house, calling her name. I called and called and searched every room but the bathroom.” He laughed bitterly. “That’s how badly I didn’t want to believe it. I knew right away where the smell was coming from, but I didn’t want to believe it. I walked through every room calling her name. I even checked the garage and the backyard before heading to the bathroom.”

  He took another breath and said, “Well, eventually, I had to go check the bathroom. The door was open, and I remember being angry about that, because I couldn't even allow myself a moment to keep hoping before I opened the door. I remember, I walked upstairs, and I thought, ‘Seriously? You have to have the door open, and the goddamn red carpet rolled out for me?’”

  He fell silent again, and then said, “Then I found her. She was sprawled across the floor with her foot—her right foot, I remember—hooked over the edge of the bathtub. She had one hand stretched out in front of her and the other crooked at the elbow next to her. They think—the police—that she was trying to lift herself up and reach for the door handle, probably so she could reach the phone and call 911.”

  A thought struck Faith suddenly. “Did you notice any footprints?” she asked. “Inside the house, I mean?”

  He shook his head. “Cops think the killer escaped through the window. I found it open, I forgot to mention. They checked for footprints outside, but there weren’t any, at least, not any that were recognizable. They think he covered his shoes with plastic bags and made them thick enough that they couldn’t even guess what size shoes he wore.”

  “I’m so sorry to have to ask this,” Faith said, “but can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt your wife?”

  “You mean kill her?” Benjamin said. “That’s what happened. It doesn’t help to try to pretend it was any less than that.”

  “No, I really do mean hurt,” Faith explained gently. “Oftentimes, murders are accidental. The perpetrator only means to hurt the victim and things go too far.”

  That wasn’t the case in this instance. Amanda Montgomery was the second victim, and the perpetrator had lain in wait with a knife. This wasn’t in any way an accident, but she needed him to give her as much information as possible.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Everyone loved her. She was so sweet and kind and giving. She was never angry; I think I told you that. Fifteen years together, I never once heard her raise her voice. Not to me or anyone.”

  “Did your friends know that she disapproved of your weekly poker game?”

  Benjamin blinked. “You don’t think one of the guys did this, do you?”

  “We’re just trying to understand who might have had a reason to resent your wife,” Faith replied.

  He nodded. “Well, yes, they knew, and yes, I think they resented it a little bit. No one likes to know that their friend’s wife thinks they’re a bad influence on her husband, but they didn’t hate her for it. They … well … I think part of the reason Amanda didn’t like them is that they’re kind of immature.”

  “How do you mean?” Faith said.

  “Well, you know,” he said. “They used to tease me about her. Make jokes like, ‘Hey, the old ball-and-chain let you play outside today,’ or ‘Just tell Mandy it was apple juice.’ You know, stupid stuff.”

  “Is that how they would express their resentment?” Faith asked.

  Benjamin nodded. “Yeah, it was all fun, you know. I think … I guess we kind of took for granted that that’s how women are. No offense.”

  Faith smiled softly. “I’m very hard to offend, Mr. Montgomery. I appreciate the truth.”

  “Right,” he said. “Well, I reacted pretty much how you expect. I screamed her name, begged her to wake up, wept while I held her. Finally, I called the police on my cell phone. They told me to wait where I was. They didn’t want me tracking blood all over the house. Said I would contaminate the evidence.”

  His face screwed up in anger again. “That’s all she was to them. Evidence. There was no, ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ no, ‘We’ll catch this bastard, I promise you.’ Just, ‘Please don’t contaminate the evidence further.’ Like I was some kind of moron for crying over my dead wife. Can you believe that?”

  Faith said nothing. She would have advocated for more compassion in that instance, but she was an investigator herself, and she knew the police were right to instruct him not to contaminate the evidence any further. She also knew that at the time, he would have been the prime suspect, and part of the reason for their instruction was intended to keep him from cleaning up the scene. If they saw evidence of him disregarding their instruction, it would have looked very bad for him.

  “She always believed that people were basically good,” he said. “She believed in sin, obviously, but she didn’t believe that people were naturally evil. She thought that if you lived a good, loving life, you’d receive love in return. Well, that didn’t help her much, did it?”

  Faith didn’t answer that. “Have you found your wife’s wedding ring?” she asked.

  “Her wedding ring?” Benjamin seemed genuinely surprised that Faith brought it up. “I didn’t notice it was missing. I guess I assumed she took it off when she was about to shower.”

  “We believe the killer may have taken it,” Michael said.

  “Like what, as a trophy?”

  Michael lowered his eyes and nodded.

  “Well, he can keep it,” Benjamin said, “for all the good it will do him.”

  “You don’t want it back if we find it?” Faith asked.

  He scoffed. “I want my wife back, Special Agent. I don’t care about the ring. That was always more important to Amanda anyway. If I get that ring back, I’ll just smell that damned smell all over again.”