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“The bells …?”

Frank’s words asked a question that Jenna was asking herself too. What could Zach mean by his accusation—that the then-sheriff and his deputy had heard the bells ring out a message about Caroline Weber’s death, and that they had ignored it?

Zach’s next words came slowly, each syllable laden with his long-time anger. “The church bells. They played the Angelus in the middle of the night. Never did that any other time.”

Jenna leaned forward, her elbows pressing into her knees, a gesture that anchored her to the present moment. “The carillon malfunctioned?” she asked, trying to understand.

Zach’s nod was vigorous, his eyes alight with an unwavering certainty. “That’s what they said. But it wasn’t just a malfunction. Because that wasn’t all —” he glared at Frank. “You know what else those bells played! Before it played the Angelus … that other song.”

Frank’s voice, when he spoke, sounded exhausted. “Zach, we went over this long ago. They just sounded like random notes to everybody except you, and—”

“They weren’t random!” The roar that erupted from Zach sent a jolt through the room, his fist connecting with the arm of his chair with a thud that seemed to reverberate through the floorboards. “I knew that song better than anyone. Caroline sang it every night. That’s what the bells played, I’m telling you!”

“You’re saying that the carillon played a song that Caroline used to sing?” Jenna asked. Her gaze didn’t waver from Zach’s face, her mind cataloging every flinch, every flash of emotion that crossed his features. There was something unsettling about the ferocity of his conviction, and she felt the weight of questions piling up, each demanding attention.

Zach nodded his head vigorously. “That’s what I’ve been telling you. Before the Angelus. it sputtered out a few notes from ‘Crossroad Blues’ - Caroline’s favorite song. I told them, but they didn’t want to pay attention. And now you’re telling me her body’s been found in that same church.”

Jenna was jolted by the name of the song she had heard in her dream. She observed Frank’s reaction closely, searching for any sign of truth in the allegations being hurled across the room.

“Zach, I promise you,” Frank said weakly. “Duke and I weren’t covering anything up. We didn’t know. We really didn’t.”

Zach let out a wordless growl of disbelief.

“Mr. Freelander, please,” Jenna said. “We’re here now to find out what happened to Caroline, and we need your help.”

Zach’s energy seemed to evaporate as suddenly as it had flared. His frame sank back into the armchair, shoulders hunched, the lines on his face deepening with defeat.

“Do you have any idea who might have wanted to harm her?” Jenna asked.

“No idea at all,” he muttered, the word barely audible. “And I got nothing more to say about that than I did back in ‘89.”

“Was Caroline connected with St. Michael’s?” Jake asked. “Was she a member of that congregation?”

“No,” Zach said flatly. “She wasn’t a religious person, not in that way. Her music … that was what meant most to her.”

“Zach, anything that happened that night, we need to know,” Jenna pressed, trying to bridge the chasm of years with her words.

He leaned forward, his voice edged with emotion. “All I know is that night was the last time anyone saw her.” Then he looked directly at Jenna, “And you’re sure it was her you found?”

Jenna thought of the bodies that were in the morgue now. The tattoo surely indicated that Caroline Weber was one of them. Jenna also knew that Caroline and her favorite song matched one of the women in her dream, but of course she couldn’t say anything about that.

“To be absolutely sure, we’d need something for a DNA match,” she told Zach. “Perhaps you have something …?”

He groaned and closed his eyes. “You say it would help you know for sure?”

“It would be a great help,” she told him.

The weary farmer pushed himself up from his chair and shuffled into an adjoining room. After a few moments, he emerged with something pinched between his fingers. Strands of hair, thin and wispy, glinted in the dim light. His grim expression spoke volumes as he held the hair out to Jenna.

“Caroline’s?” she asked, pulling out an evidence bag.

“She gave it to me,” he said glumly.

“Thank you, Zach,” she said softly, trying to offer some semblance of comfort as she sealed the strands in the bag. But he merely shrugged in response.

“That’s it,” he replied abruptly, “I want you all out of my house. Now.”

Jenna understood the finality in his tone; they would get no more from this farmer today.

“Thank you, Mr. Freelander,” she acknowledged. “I’m sorry that our visit was so hard for you.”

She gestured to Jake and Frank, signaling it was time to depart. As they exited the farmhouse, she could feel the tension slowly unraveling from her shoulders. Outside, the mid-July sun beat down mercilessly, the heat a tangible force as they walked back to the patrol car.

Jenna slid behind the wheel, adjusting the rearview mirror to steal a glance at Frank. His face was ashen, a visual testament to the gravity of this day. Looking back at the farmhouse, she saw Zach standing at his door watching them leave.

“Do you think there’s any chance that Zach killed Caroline?” Jake asked.

Jenna fell silent for a moment. That question had been in the back of her mind during their whole conversation about him. But now …

Frank spoke up, voicing exactly the same conclusion that Jenna had come to.

“There’s no way that man’s a murderer. He’s grieving, he’s angry, and I don’t blame him.”

There wasn’t a doubt in Jenna’s mind that Frank was right. Which left them no closer to catching the killer—or killers—than they’d been before.

The drive continued in silence for a few moments. Jenna kept her focus on the road, yet her thoughts churned with the pieces of a puzzle that refused to fit neatly together. The carillon playing at an odd time, perhaps sounding out the haunting notes of ‘Crossroad Blues’; the bodies found in the walls; the autoharp player who had appeared in her dream but not as a corpse—they were all fragments of a larger mystery she couldn’t get her mind around yet. If the carillon really had inexplicably played the notes of ‘Crossroad Blues’ the night before Caroline vanished, that could be no mere coincidence.

“Do you want me to call Melissa Stark?” Jake asked.

“Yes, please bring her up to date,” Jenna replied.

Jake dialed the familiar number for Dr. Melissa Stark and the line clicked into life after a few rings.

“Stark here,” came the coroner’s brisk voice.

“Melissa, it’s Jake Hawkins,” he responded, his tone steady and professional. “We’ve got some information suggesting that one of the bodies was that of a young woman who went missing back in 1989. Her name was Caroline Weber.”

“Go ahead.”

“Zach Freelander confirmed that she had a tattoo of a butterfly on her left shoulder,” Jake relayed succinctly.

A pause on the other end of the line indicated that Melissa was making notes. “That sounds like a match,” she said.

“We’ve lock of Caroline’s hair for DNA testing,” Jake added. “We’ll have it delivered to you.”

“Good work, Jake,” Melissa responded appreciatively. “I’ll get my team ready to process it as soon as it gets here.”

Soon after Jake ended the call, they passed the faded signs for Trentville, the town’s boundaries marking the return to their usual reality.

“Where to next?” Jake asked Jenna.

“We’d better stop by the church and check in on Colonel Spelling and his team,” she said.

“Good idea,” he replied. “Maybe they’ve found something there by now.”

“Frank, how about you?” Jenna asked. “I can drive you home first.”

“No, Jenna, I don’t want to go home,” Frank replied from the back seat. “Now that I know about Caroline... well, it’s all I’ll be able to think about. Just take me on into town with you. There must be some way I can help.”

Jenna understood Frank’s response. Trentville, with its veneer of small-town charm, held secrets that were gradually coming to light—and those cases dated back to Frank’s early days as a lawman here. She appreciated his need to help finish those stories.

She too had a multitude of reasons to pursue the case harder than ever. It wasn’t just that she was the Sheriff now; her determination was also rooted in what she had seen in that dream. The blight that had hung over this town would not win; she would see to that. Caroline’s tragic fate, now confirmed by their meeting with Zach Freelander, was a wound upon the whole community’s conscience.

And of course Caroline wasn’t the only victim. The other body in the morgue remained unidentified, but Jenna was sure she had met that victim in her dream, when she’d been wearing a choir robe. There was also the question of what had become of the autoharp player who had charmed everybody so long ago. There was a reason those three spirits still haunted St. Michael’s Church in her dream, and Jenna still had to track that question to its end.

She brought the squad car to a gentle stop outside St. Michael’s and stepped out, surveying the scene. Jake followed suit, and they waited while Frank unfolded himself from the back seat with a grunt, the years slowing his movements.

The church loomed solemnly against the bright afternoon sky, its stone facade offering no hints of what might still be hidden within. They all ducked under the yellow police tape strung between them and old building.

As they entered the front doors of the church, Jenna paused mid-stride, listening to the faint strains of piano music that seeped out from the adjoining Parish Hall. The melody that wound its way through the air was one that she had heard before, but never in waking reality.

She recognized the hymn, the one that had haunted her sleep—and somebody was playing that melody right here…right now.