“We have a big Thanksgiving dinner planned. The boys are coming. Stan said I should buy a new dress. Judy took me. She knows I don’t like to drive in Huntsville.” She exhaled a shaky breath. “We were a little later than we expected so she dropped me off and headed into town to pick up her kids.”

  He was relatively certain he’d never seen Wanda behind the wheel even though she had a car and was licensed to drive. “Any trouble between you and Stan lately?”

  She made a face and shook her head. “Of course not. We’ve always gotten along.”

  “Any trouble with friends or coworkers? Maybe someone from the congregation?”

  “Nothing that I know of. Stan wasn’t the sort of man to stir trouble.” She gave her head a firm shake. “He liked solving troubles. That’s why they made him a deacon at church. He was a good peacemaker, my Stan.”

  “If you think of anyone who’d had words with Stan or any trouble at all, I want you to call me right away.” Verifying Wanda and her sister were shopping would be fairly simple. At this point he saw no reason not to be confident in her version of events.

  “I sure will.” Her voice warbled.

  “Can you stay with your sister tonight? We’ll need to collect any evidence and thoroughly go over the house before you stay here again. We might need two or three days.”

  Hand over her mouth, she managed a single nod. It wasn’t easy to grasp the reality that one’s home had become a crime scene.

  “Would you like me to call the boys for you?”

  “It would be better if they heard this from me,” she said wearily. “But I appreciate the offer.”

  “All right, then. We’ll find your sister and get her over here to pick you up.”

  Burt arrived. The evidence techs were right behind him. Within minutes the house was marked as an official crime scene. Two more officers arrived to search the perimeter of the property. Billy followed Burt to the kitchen.

  After a preliminary examination, Burt sat back on his heels. “He’s been dead a good four or five hours. I don’t see any marks on his body beyond those made in securing him.”

  “Do you think he suffocated, or was he dead before the pages were stuffed into his mouth?”

  “We’ll need an autopsy to know for sure but I’m leaning toward suffocation. It’s possible he had a heart attack first.” Burt turned to Billy. “But the person who did this wanted him to feel the fear.”

  “What do you mean?” Billy studied the body nailed to the floor. “You think he was awake while this was going on?”

  “Awake but helpless. The killer took his time.” He gestured to the victim’s ankles. “You see those ligature marks? And the way his hands were nailed down more than once? And he soiled himself at least once. My guess is the killer tore those pages out one at a time and stuffed them into his mouth, probably deep into his throat. Stan squirmed and he did this for long enough to make those marks.”

  Billy leaned down and studied the marks the shoelaces had made. “I see that.”

  “Whoever did this enjoyed the torture.”

  Damn. “Thanks, Burt. See if you can get a rush on the autopsy and tox screens. I need to know what I’m dealing with here.”

  “Will do, Chief.”

  Billy pushed to his feet and went in search of Lincoln. They were going to be here for a while. If the perpetrator was in the house for as much as an hour, hopefully he screwed up and left some sort of evidence. There weren’t any neighbors close enough to hope for witnesses to any vehicles that might have passed on the road.

  For Billy, that was the biggest obstacle staring him in the face. Without any witnesses they were relying solely on physical evidence. A single hair or fingerprint, a shoeprint or tire print could make all the difference.

  Too bad it hadn’t rained in more than a week.

  Eight

  Knight Street

  Bell View

  Rowan left the Harvey visitation early. Charlotte had everything under control. No need for both of them to stay. After the meeting with Dressler, it was clear the FBI still wasn’t completely convinced Rowan wasn’t in contact with Julian. It was also fairly obvious that this Sanchez—or Santos—person was somehow connected to her mother. How could she have grown up in that funeral home and not recognized that her parents were not like other parents?

  Living in a funeral home had made her an oddball, a sort of outcast among the other children. Perhaps that was why she hadn’t recognized how different things were on other levels. Growing up, it wasn’t like she’d had any close friends other than Billy. He came to the funeral home often, but she could only recall rare instances of being at his home. A Christmas dinner once, his birthday a couple of times. With no other adults to observe on a regular basis, she’d had no firm, consistent measure of what was normal. What she lived was her normal.

  Her teenage years had been filled with uncertainty and depression and self-loathing, all suffered in silence. She hadn’t wanted to burden her father by sharing those dark feelings with him. It was bad enough she’d tried to take her life after the deaths of her twin sister and her mother. She felt certain that act had hurt her father far worse than anything else she could have done. But he’d taken care of her. Patched up her sliced wrists to avoid the world knowing what she’d done. He’d taken good care of her. And Billy had been there, too. Billy had been her only light during those days of darkness.

  But Billy hadn’t been there in college. He’d been at the University of Tennessee, far away from Nashville. She’d drifted deep into the darkness her freshman year and ended up attempting suicide a second time, with pills that go-around. She’d done her time in the psych ward and while there Dr. Julian Addington, esteemed psychiatrist and beloved member of the community, had taken a special interest in her. Over time, he’d taken her under his wing. Under his guidance she had chosen to go into psychiatry rather than returning to Winchester to take over the family funeral home the way DuPonts had for a century and a half. Once again, she had devastated her father.

  She and her father had eventually moved past that disappointment. He had respected her decision and admired her work. How many times had he told her how very proud of her he was? Hundreds of times.

  For the past nineteen years she had believed she was an independent woman who made her own choices in life and who had built a highly respected career.

  But she had been wrong.

  Julian Addington had been watching her since she was a child. He was somehow a part of the reason her twin sister had died. He was in all likelihood a part of her mother’s motive for taking her own life mere months later. Rowan had spent a lifetime feeling damaged by the idea that her mother had preferred to follow her sister into death rather than to keep living with her surviving daughter. Julian was responsible for those years of agony. He had taken her mother away from her long ago and tainted any memories Rowan had of her. She would not allow him to damage the memory of her father, too. No matter the ups and downs, she and her father had experienced over the years, they had loved each other. He had been a good father. Julian would not touch those memories. He wanted her to believe that her father had killed his daughter after she murdered Raven. Rowan would never believe her father capable of such an act.

  Admittedly, there were questions about the day Raven and Alisha died. One way or another Rowan intended to find the answers before someone else discovered those inconsistencies. Like Julian’s ex-wife, Anna Addington. She had been in Winchester since her daughter’s remains were discovered. More than once she had stated that she would stay in Winchester until her daughter’s killer was found.

  Maybe Sanchez had killed the seventeen-year-old who killed his lover Norah’s daughter. The scenario was feasible. Rowan had worked numerous cases where a lover or close family member had killed in an act of revenge. Sanchez had been a killer. Rowan’s father had not.

  Rowan climbed out of her SUV and touched the car handle to lock it. Her first stop was the neighbor who had found Sanchez’s body. Billy had interviewed him and, most likely, one of Dressler’s people—if not Dressler himself—had done so today. But Rowan wasn’t a member of law enforcement. She hadn’t been since resigning from the homicide division five months ago. Quite often a person would speak more freely to someone not a part of law enforcement. People were at times intimidated by a badge. Fear that an old mistake he or she might have made would be discovered prompted him or her to maintain a low profile, including keeping mouths shut.

  No one wanted to inadvertently end up incarcerated.

  The block structure with the number five posted on the door was her destination. Number six, where Sanchez had resided, was still marked with crime-scene tape and a warning was posted on the door, effectively covering the 6 painted there. Rowan walked up to the door of number five and knocked. Beyond the slats of the blinds a dim light glowed, which hopefully meant someone was home and up. It was only a few minutes past eight. The man would likely still be up.

  The rattle of a security chain and the slide of the dead bolt echoed in the darkness. Rowan stiffened her spine. She had her pepper spray and her handgun in her bag. She’d never carried a weapon, not in all the years she worked at Metro or before, until a few months ago. The compromise was the only way to prevent Billy from using up department resources by keeping a security detail assigned to her 24/7. She did not want her issues to create problems for him. Though the community respected him and she couldn’t see the city hierarchy wanting anyone else in the position he held, money often swayed even the highest opinions. She didn’t want him wasting department funds on her protection.

  She could take care of herself.

  A short man, presumably Owen Utter, who appeared to be in his mid-to late sixties, squinted out at her. His gray hair was mussed, his T-shirt and sweatpants worn, his feet bare. “I don’t believe in God,” he announced.

  Rowan smiled. A reasonable mistake. She stood at his door dressed in a suit. She hadn’t bothered to change into anything more comfortable when she left the visitation. “I’m not from any of the local churches, sir. I’m here to talk to you about your neighbor, Mr. Sanchez. You are Mr. Utter?”

  “That’s right.” His gaze narrowed. “Are you another one of them federal agents? I already talked to them today. I got nothing else to say. The dead should rest in peace. Whatever old Carlos did, it doesn’t matter now. He’s dead. One thing I know about the Bible is that it says the wages of sin is death. Well, he cashed in his chips. Paid up. Settled his account. Whatever you want to call it.”

  She moved closer, getting one foot on the threshold. “I’m not from the FBI, sir. And I’m not from local law enforcement. My name is Rowan DuPont. I’m from—”

  “The undertaker’s daughter!” He pointed at her. “I know you. You’re the one that didn’t die.” He nodded. “I heard you were back to take over for your daddy.” He frowned. “Poor son of a bitch. I hated to hear about him dying. He was a fine man. Took care of my Suzy when she died. Sucks that your friend killed him.”

  Rowan took a breath, then let it out slowly to give herself time to ensure she spoke calmly. “I appreciate your kind words about my father.”

  “Come on in.” Utter backed up a few steps, opened the door wide. “You’ll have to overlook the mess. I wasn’t expecting company.”

  “Thank you.” Rowan followed him beyond the door. Waited while he closed it. “Have you lived here long?”

  She had done her research. The old motel had been turned into apartments about twenty-five years ago after a decade of being empty and abandoned. A local had bought the property at a tax auction and turned the former motel rooms into “studio” apartments. Based on what Rowan had seen, the term was being used in its vaguest and most rustic definition.

  “About twenty years.” He shrugged. “The wife and I moved here after we lost our house. We were both on disability and couldn’t afford nothing else.” He glanced around the room. “It turned out not to be so bad.” His attention settled on Rowan once more. “You want to sit down?”

  “That would be nice.”

  He cleared a space for her on a worn-out upholstered chair. “This was my wife’s favorite chair. It’s the only thing we were able to take from our house.”

  Rowan took the offered seat. “It’s very comfortable.”

  He smiled broadly at her compliment as he settled onto the couch. “Would you like a beer?”

  “No, thank you. I was wondering if you knew of any other friends or family Mr. Sanchez had.”

  His expression shifted back into a frown. “Did the insurance company not pay you for the embalming? He told me they would.”

  “I’m not here about money, Mr. Utter. I’m trying to find out more about Mr. Sanchez. If he has any family, I’m certain they would like to know about his passing.”

  Utter leaned back and relaxed. “Told me he didn’t have no family and I can tell you right now I was the only friend he had. He wasn’t exactly the sort folks got attached to, if you know what I mean. Quiet and sullen for the most part.”

  “Had you known him for very long?”

  Ten seconds of silence elapsed before the man decided to answer. “He only moved in next door a couple of months ago. But, yeah, I knew him before that.” He shrugged. “I didn’t mention that part to the cops or them feds. I didn’t want to be disrespectful or anything but some things just don’t need to be told.”

  “You can tell me, Mr. Utter. I want to help Mr. Sanchez. He deserves the same treatment from me that I would give anyone else.”

  Billy had not released the news about the man’s body disappearing. Apparently, Dressler’s people hadn’t, either. This could work to her advantage.

  Utter nodded. “See, I knew you’d be a kind soul just like your daddy. He never judged nobody. Treated everyone the same.”

  Rowan thanked him again and held her breath as she waited for an answer.

  “He lived in a lean-to in the woods. There’s a few homeless folks that do that, you know. It’s not so bad in the summer but it’s tough in the winter. I used to invite him to my place when it was really cold. He always brought a big bowl of stew he’d made himself. Best I ever ate.”

  Rowan’s stomach churned at the idea of what might have been in that stew, considering what they had found next door. “How long were you and Mr. Sanchez friends?”

  “About ten years. We ran into each other at the hospital when my wife was dying. He came to her room, brought her some flowers he’d picked on the side of the road. He knew her from before we lost everything when she waitressed at the steak house.”

  “You and Mr. Sanchez were friends for a long time.”

  He nodded. “I don’t think I would have made it after she died if not for him.”

  “Did Mr. Sanchez have a wife or girlfriend?” Rowan held her breath again. All she needed was a starting place, a direction, something to start her on the right path.

  Utter shook his head. “He said the only woman he’d ever loved died a long time ago. He had her name tattooed on his back. He never showed it to me, but he talked about her all the time.”

  “He never mentioned her name?”

  “Never did. He was a mysterious man like that. Liked his privacy when it came to personal stuff. But he was a good friend. He kept me fed when I would have starved.”

  “Did he ever tell you what he did for a living or where he lived before he moved to the Winchester area?”

  “No.” Utter laughed. “He always said if he told me any of that stuff he’d have to kill me.”

  The man probably didn’t realize Sanchez had not been kidding.

  “One last question, Mr. Utter.”

  He held his hands out, palms up. “Anything I know I’ll tell you.”

  “Could you take me to that lean-to where he lived before?”

  He hesitated. “I guess so. Don’t know if it’s still there but we can have a look. I don’t have no wheels.”

  “No worries—I do. I’ll come by in the morning, if that’s all right.”

  “Sure. I got nothing else to do. A road trip would be nice.”

  * * *

  Rowan hurried back to the funeral home. She barely contained the urge to go into those woods tonight. But she doubted Mr. Utter would have agreed to an excursion in the dark. Besides, there were preparations she needed to make. The cautious side of her warned that she shouldn’t go into the woods with a stranger—even an elderly one—without Billy.

  Speaking of whom, his truck was in the lot when she arrived at the funeral home. Her headlights flashed across his face behind the steering wheel. Maybe there was news on Sanchez. Perhaps something Dressler had told him that he wouldn’t tell her. She was, after all, a person of interest in the case, in the agent’s opinion.

  Billy met her at the front entrance. “Charlotte just left. She said she took care of everything for the night.”

  Which meant she had put Mr. Harvey back into refrigeration and the flowers into the cooler. She’d ensured the viewing room was tidied and the funeral home was emptied of visitors and secured. Rowan was immensely grateful.

  “Good. You want to come in?” She unlocked the door and hurried to the keypad to deactivate the alarm. He hadn’t asked where she’d been yet, but she knew him well enough to understand he wanted to do so. Part of that need was the lawman in him, the other was that overprotective big-brother thing.

  Billy had a key and knew the alarm code if he’d wanted to go in before she arrived. He was far too much of a gentleman to do that. He preferred to wait for her in the parking lot and walk her inside. Some part of him likely wanted to see from which way she came. Being a cop trailed close behind being a gentleman.

  He closed the door behind him and flipped the lock, then removed his hat. “You up for a couple of beers and some talk about work?”