Page 45 of Deathtoll

Before Betty died.

“This is crazy.” Kate was shaking her head. “You can’t seriously believe…”

“When I drove you home,” Murph told her, “after Bing called that Betty had an accident, while the two of you were talking in here, I checked out Betty’s house.”

“You should stop acting like you still work for the PD.”

“Bing already reminded me.” He shrugged, and the movement barely even hurt. Kate had worked a miracle. “The point is, I checked the garbage containers inside, because at the time, the theory was that Betty might have been taking out the garbage when she slipped. Except the bins inside weren’t empty.”

Kate frowned. “You took out the garbage when we started cleaning out the place on Thursday.”

Murph nodded. “And I noticed something in the kitchen garbage on Thursday that wasn’t in there on Monday.”

“The hamburger wrapper. That’s why you asked about it.”

“You sure it wasn’t yours?”

Both Kate and Emma shook their heads, so he asked, “Or Linda’s?”

“No. She didn’t bring food.”

“If someone pushed Betty, they might come back.” Murph voiced his new least favorite thought.

“Why?” Emma asked.

“Some murderers return to the scene of the crime. They get off on reliving the kill.”

Emma flashed him a skeptical look. “How much of a thrill can it be to push over an old woman? I doubt anyone would risk getting caught to relive that.”

“There could be other reasons to return. The killer might have been trying to rob her, then got interrupted. You sure you didn’t see anything that day? Any strange cars on the street?”

“I’ve only been here a few days,” Emma told him. “All the cars are strange. It’s not like I sit around memorizing what Kate’s neighbors drive.”

“Any car at all on the street near Betty’s house that you do remember from that morning?”

She thought about it. “A black SUV. A Chevy Trailblazer, I think? Don’t know. Sorry. I only remember it because it made me think how a black SUV automatically makes you look important. Like you have a bodyguard to drive it. That’s what I’m getting if I ever become an influencer.”

She’d clearly given a lot of thought to that particular daydream, whatever aninfluencerwas. Murph would have asked, but right then, having to ask would have made him feel even older, and he was feeling plenty old already from the realization that a night spent in his pickup could do him in.

“Was the SUV parked in front of Betty’s house?” he asked.

“Kind of between the next neighbor’s house and hers.”

Murph looked at Kate. “Anyone in the neighborhood?”

“No. Could have been the pastor’s wife, Amanda. She drives a black SUV. She needs a big car because she gives people rides to church all the time, and some of them have canes and walkers. I’ve seen her around when she’s come by to check on Betty.”

A lead.Okay. Maybe Amanda had seen something. “I’ll check with her.”

Kate flashed him a pointed look. “Or you could leave it to Captain Bing.”

He could have. If the suspicious death hadn’t happened right next to Kate.

* * *

Asael

Asael stood on top of the water tower in the woods off the Northeast Extension of the PA Turnpike and brooded in the slowly falling mist.