They were met at the entrance by a short, heavyset policewoman who looked like a bulldog and was just as thickly muscled. She stuck out a meaty hand, and when Faith took it, she found her grip was as powerful as the rest of her.

  “Detective Sergeant Missy St. George,” she said in a thick Texas drawl. “I’m the lead on this case. Or I was until you two showed up.” She smiled to show there were no hard feelings, and when Turk barked, she looked down at him and said, “I’m sorry. Make that you three.”

  She removed her bearlike hand from Faith’s and held it out for Turk, who lifted his paw and formally placed it in her palm.

  She introduced herself to Michael and said, “Wow. You’re the pretty boy of the field office, aren’t you? You’re not looking to date, are you?”

  He chuckled politely. “Afraid not.”

  Missy shrugged. “Oh well. Can’t blame a girl for trying.”

  Her gregarious personality and feminine name contrasted with her wrestler’s build, an incongruity that Faith could tell hid a sharp and observant mind. She decided she liked the burly woman.

  The burly girly. Faith cracked a smile at that thought.

  “All right,” Missy said, dropping the smile and adopting a professional expression. “Let’s get this road on the show.”

  She led them to a grave just around the corner behind one of the manufactured hills. It was a good spot to bury someone alive, Faith thought. It was hidden from the road, and since the cemetery was at the top of a high, natural hill, it was a solid three miles between the grave and the rest of civilization. Faith could easily believe that the killer hadn’t been noticed.

  A moment later, Missy confirmed that thought. “Security didn’t hear a damned thing,” she said. “According to the owners, this is the first time anyone’s ever been harmed on their property. They only had one night watchman, an older guy named Gene. Good guy, but slow-moving and a little hard of hearing.”

  Faith watched Turk, who sniffed around the grave but didn’t seem to find anything of interest. “Have you interviewed the employees?”

  “We’re in process with that,” Missy said. “Nothing’s popped up so far.”

  “Where’s the body?” Michael asked.

  “Coroner’s. Both of them. We haven’t received an official report yet, but the COD is pretty clear. They ran out of air.”

  Michael nodded and gestured to a small bell attached to a length of wire that lay atop the pile of dirt that hours ago had covered the untimely grave of Marvin Prescott. “That the bell?”

  “That’s it,” Missy said, squatting down next to it. “Tiny little guy, isn’t it?”

  Faith agreed. It wasn’t an electronic bell either. Just a small brass bell with a tiny little clapper. It probably sounded like those bells they give mall Santas. Even at night, and even with a security guard with excellent hearing, he would have to be right up close to the bell to know it was being rung.

  Their killer definitely intended to torture his victims rather than give them an honest chance.

  “So he was messing with them,” Michael said, echoing her thoughts.

  “That’s what we think,” Missy replied.

  “Any footprints?” Faith replied. “Tire tracks?”

  Missy shook her head. “The killer did an excellent job cleaning up after himself. We didn’t find anything but signs that he’d covered his tracks.”

  “No vehicle noise?” Michael asked. “There’s no way one person dug a grave and buried a victim in one night.”

  “Could there be multiple killers?” Faith asked.

  “It’s possible,” Missy said. “It’s also possible there’s only one killer with an electric vehicle.”

  “An electric backhoe?” Faith asked.

  “Sure,” Missy said. “A lot of places are using them now. You don’t want to hear diesel engines interrupt your loved one’s funeral.”

  Faith wasn’t sure if engine noise was really a concern for a grieving family, but it didn’t matter. “Any vehicles found the next morning with low charge? Maybe dirt on them?”

  “They’re washed weekly, so the fact that one of them might have dirt doesn’t mean that it was used. As far as charge goes, their shed’s equipped with three hundred fifty kilowatt-hour ultrafast chargers. You could charge something from dead to full in less than an hour.”

  “Got it,” Faith said. “Anything else to note about the scene?”

  “Actually, yes,” Missy said. “We found a recording device.”

  Faith’s ears perked up. “The killer?”

  “Yep. It’s at the station. You guys want a ride or do you want to follow me?”

  They elected to follow. The station was bustling the way all big city police stations were, but it wasn’t unusually hectic. The cemetery was in a nice neighborhood and other than the occasional property crime, there was little business of note.

  And, of course, the man who was buried alive.

  Missy led them to her desk and offered them coffee, which they accepted. While she went to retrieve the evidence, Faith turned to Michael. “First impressions?”

  “Of Missy or the case?”

  “The case,” she replied, “but nice to know where your mind is.”

  Michael rolled his eyes and said, “Whatever it is, it’s personal or this guy is very crazy. We either have a Demon or we have a revenge killer.”

  “Why not both?” Faith asked.

  Michael shrugged. “That’s a possibility too.”

  Missy returned with a small digital recorder, which she set down on the desk. “Take a listen,” she said.

  She pressed play and a tinny voice said, “Good evening. By now you’ve figured out you’re in a coffin.”

  They listened to the message, and when it was over, Missy stopped the recording. “It plays on an endless loop. Doesn’t stop until the battery runs out.”

  “So we know our killer wasn’t at the scene for the whole length of time it took them to die,” Faith said.

  “Most likely not, no.”

  “We know he’s male too,” Michael said. “The voice was disguised, but not enough to hide the killer’s gender.”

  “Most likely male, yes.”

  “And now that I’ve heard it, I’m leaning toward revenge,” Michael replied.

  “I don’t know,” Faith said. “If it was revenge, I feel like the killer would want to see the victim die.”

  “If he was a crazy, I feel like he would want to stick around for kicks,” Michael retorted. “This guy seems too well put-together. It takes a lot of planning to make something like this happen.”

  “Kenneth Langeveldt wasn’t well put-together, and his killings were even more intricate than this,” Faith reminded him.

  Langeveldt had used a cocktail of powerful narcotics to paralyze people and keep them at his home as stand-ins for his real family, whom he had also murdered. When his victims eventually died of dehydration or heart failure, he would replace them with random people he would stalk and kidnap near his place of business, the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore. He was, as Michael had pointed out, very far from put-together, but had eluded multiple law enforcement agencies before Faith and Michael had stopped him.

  “Who found the body?” Faith asked.

  “A Ms. Henrietta Eckersley,” Missy replied. “Ms., not Miss. She was very particular about that.”

  “Can we talk to her?” Michael asked.

  “Be my guest,” Missy said. “I’ll let you handle that on your own. I’m drowning in paperwork from another case a few miles away. Kid robbed a convenience store. Owner got spooked and pulled a gun, but his wasn’t loaded. The kid’s was.”

  “Oof,” Michael said.

  “Yep. I guess since you guys are taking lead on the burials, the captain wants me to focus on the convenience store killing. Anyway, I’m available if you need anything, but I’ll stay out of your way otherwise. When it’s over, I’m treating you all to Texas barbecue, so don’t head out without saying goodbye.”

  “Thanks very much,” Michael replied.

  They headed to the residence of Ms., not Miss, Henrietta Eckersley. It was a well-manicured Victorian home on a half-acre lot that held a well-manicured garden and a nice but not overly fancy marble fountain. Everything was just so. Faith smiled slightly and imagined a perfectly prim and perfectly proper elderly woman in a well-tailored sundress with silk slippers, a shawl, and a wide sunhat nodding curtly in approval of the landscaping.

  Ms. Henrietta Eckersley was exactly that, and wore an almost identical outfit except for the shawl, which was replaced by a surprisingly youthful cardigan that nonetheless seemed only to accentuate the Victorian primness of Ms. Eckersley herself. She greeted the investigators formally and invited them to join her on her porch for sweet tea. Her accent was probably once as thick as Missy’s but had softened considerably after years of rich living, a privilege she was not ashamed to admit she gained through marriage.

  “My Henry was an austere man, but he was very kind to me.” She dabbed very politely at her eyes with a silk handkerchief that probably cost more than Faith’s entire outfit. “I miss him so.”

  “Ms. Eckersley,” Michael began.

  “Oh please,” she replied. “It’s Henrietta.”

  Michael offered her the dazzling movie star smile that women of all ages melted for. Henrietta was no exception, blushing furiously even before Michael replied, “In that case, I’m Michael. Henrietta, can you tell us what you saw yesterday morning?”

  “Of course,” she replied. “I was visiting my Henry as I always do on Friday mornings, and I noticed that there was a fresh grave nearby. I went over to see if it was someone I knew, but there was no headstone. That struck me as quite odd, so I called management, and when they informed me that there had been no scheduled burials for a week, I immediately called the police. With the blessing of management, of course.”

  “Did you notice anyone else at the cemetery when you visited?”

  “A few,” she replied. “Perhaps a dozen. The cemetery is far busier on weekends than on weekdays, of course.”

  “Anyone seem out of place? Like they didn’t belong?”

  Henrietta fixed a frank stare on Michael. “Does anyone really belong in a cemetery, Michael?”

  We’re all heading there one day, Faith thought.

  She kept that thought to herself, though, and Michael clarified. “Anyone who seemed suspicious, I mean.”

  “No, no one suspicious. Not that I could tell anyway. My Henry was always a far better judge of human nature than I was, however.” She dabbed at her eyes again. “I miss him so.”

  They asked a few more questions, but Henrietta seemed more interested in talking about her dearly departed husband than about the case, and when she did talk about the case, she had very little to contribute.

  They finished their tea and then left, Michael narrowly avoiding a commitment to return for supper.

  They stopped for an early lunch at a burger place and over their meal, they discussed the case.

  “Whoever the killer is, he must have access to the cemetery at night,” Faith said. “Like you pointed out, he would have to have access to heavy equipment to be able to dig that grave in one night.”

  “Either that, or he had accomplices,” Michael suggested.

  Faith shook her head. “I doubt it. The more people involved the more tracks to cover, and the greater likelihood they would have missed something. The greater likelihood they would have made noise too and been noticed.” She shook her head again. “No, I think we’re dealing with a lone wolf.”

  “So an employee,” Michael said.

  “Possibly,” Faith replied. “Probably.”

  “We should get a list of the employees scheduled at night,” Michael said. “Actually, anyone who could have access.”

  “Good idea,” Faith said, “but we should look at the other gravesite first and see if we might find any more info that could narrow things down.”

  “Works for me,” Michael said. “You want me to drive?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Humble was a rapidly growing suburb about thirty minutes outside of Houston but growing rapidly for the wrong reasons. As Houston attempted to gentrify, lower-income families were pushed out to the surrounding communities faster than affordable housing could be built. The homeless problem here wasn’t as bad as in cities like San Francisco or Los Angeles, but it was heading that way.

  The cemetery, like the town, was several steps down from the pristine marble and manicured lawns of Houston. Faith looked at the dirt paths and patchy brown grass of the Humble Memorial Lawn and decided that there was something to be said about the polish and pomp of the Houston graveyard. This place looked less like a cemetery and more like a dump.

  The officer who met them there was a dispassionate, bored-looking man with the unlikely name of Artemis Baxter. The name was the most exciting thing about him. He gave them a rundown of the case in a clipped voice like an auctioneer rattling off the bullet points of an item.

  It was essentially the same except this time, it was the morning manager who called the police when he noticed the unmarked and freshly dug grave. Everything else was the same as the first case. There was a bell that was far too small to be heard and a listening device that played the same message as the one in Houston.

  When they finished questioning Baxter, Faith asked if he would lead them to the grave. Baxter pointed to his right and said, “Left side, eighth row from the back, fifth plot. You can’t miss it. It’s the only one without a headstone.”

  “Got a hot date or something?” Michael said cattily.

  Baxter met his eyes. “Double homicide. Nineteen-year-old-kid killed his mother and grandmother. Dad caught him and pulled the gun away before he could use it on himself.”

  Michael nodded once and averted his eyes. Baxter left without another word and the two special agents exchanged a glance.

  “That’s the second detective who had to leave us to our own devices to handle a murder committed by a teenager,” Faith pointed out. “Something in the water here?”

  “It happens all the time when there’s massive inequality,” Michael said. “People feel trapped, and they lash out. It’s not always kids, but it usually is. There’s a reason most street gangsters are under twenty-five.”

  “Sheesh,” Faith said. “You’d think they’d do something about that.”

  Michael shrugged. “If you say so.”

  They reached the grave and once more, Faith watched as Turk sniffed around. The bell and recording device were gone, and there was no police tape cordoning off the scene. The only reason the grave remained open and the dirt untouched was that the cemetery’s owners hadn’t bothered to fill it in yet.

  The contrast between these scenes was striking but not relevant to the case. In both places, there were no tracks, and while this cemetery was flat and not at all hidden from the road, Faith had no trouble believing that people in a town like this would see someone digging a grave and push it from their minds.

  Not their business.

  They started to leave, but Faith stopped when she caught a glance at a nearby headstone. She looked closer and saw the name Carly Ames, born 1937, died 2023. Barbara’s mother or grandmother perhaps.

  Interesting. She called Missy, and the detective, as promised, answered immediately. “Hey, Missy,” Faith said, “got a minute?”

  “For you, sugar, I have all the time in the world.”

  Faith had to smile at that. “We’re at the cemetery in Humble, and I noticed something interesting.”

  “You don’t say?”

  “It looks like our killer buried Barbara near a relative’s grave.”

  “And you want me to see if there’s a Prescott somewhere in the cemetery here.”

  Faith’s admiration for the amiable detective grew. “You got it.”

  “Right on. I’ll make some calls and let you know what I dig up.”

  “Thank you,” she replied. “In the meantime, I’d like to talk to the coroner.”

  “I’ll text you the address.”

  ***

  “Both victims were buried alive and died of asphyxiation within four hours of burial,” the coroner explained. “Aside from the petechial hemorrhaging and darkening of the skin consistent with such a death, there are defensive wounds on both victims’ hands and legs, particularly the fingers and palms. Most of the defensive injuries were sustained in the moments prior to death.”

  “They panicked,” Michael summarized.

  “Yes,” the coroner replied.

  Dr. Frank Richmond was a softspoken bookish man of maybe forty-five with wire-rimmed glasses and a short goatee. Faith thought he looked like a villain from an old spy movie, but he had a ready smile and kind eyes, and she decided she liked him well enough.

  “Have the families been notified?” Faith asked.

  “Yes,” Dr. Richmond replied. “They were notified yesterday and informed that they should expect a call from investigators.”

  “We’ll talk to them,” Michael said. “Any sign of intoxication? Any needle or ligature marks?”

  Faith knew Michael was thinking about how the victims were transported to the graves. If the killer was working alone, and Faith believed he was, then the victims would have had to be unconscious until they were brought to the grave.

  “There were traces of gamma hydroxybutyrate and flunitrazepam in both their systems. GHB and Rohypnol in English.”

  “Date-rape drugs,” Faith commented.

  “Yes.”

  “Administered orally, I’m guessing?” Michael asked.

  Dr. Richmond nodded. “That’s correct. Of note is the fact that the dosing appeared to be tailored to the victims’ weight.”

  “He wanted them to remain alive until he could bury them,” Faith surmised.

  “Could he have a medical background?” Michael asked.

  “Possibly,” Dr. Richmond said, “but I personally feel he would have chosen one drug or the other in that case, not both.”