Page 28

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A service was underway as Stella strode into Chris Murray’s funeral parlor with Hagen on her heels.

Darwin Rhodell’s victims had not been lucky enough to end up in a place like this. Open caskets hadn’t been possible once Rhodell finished with them. After the team had captured him, his grotesque artwork had soared in value. Like John Wayne Gacy’s clown portraits.

Stella remembered Rhodell’s basement. The damp smell. The groans of his most-recent victim tied to the chair. The sight of Chloe bleeding from a gunshot wound and unconscious on Rhodell’s office floor. The “art” he was creating in his studio, a peace sign made up of dismembered body parts.

If Chris Murray was friends with Darwin Rhodell, then Chris Murray was capable of anything.

Someone was delivering a eulogy in the chapel, and Stella heard a round of laughter more polite than heartfelt, but still, it was nice. She didn’t slow down to listen in, though.

She’d sat through too many of those services, accepting the condolences of family members she’d rarely met and hadn’t seen since, listening to people who’d barely known her father or brother and, yet, needed to inform her how kind they were and how much they’d be missed.

The funeral services had helped Stella’s mother. She’d been busy making the arrangements. Talking to family and friends before and after the service had brought her mother back to life. The color returned to her face. She even smiled occasionally.

For Stella, after the deaths of her father and brother, the days of the funerals was the worst. All she’d wanted to do was climb into bed, pull the covers over her head, and dream of a time when they’d both been alive. She hadn’t wanted to see or speak to anyone. She just wanted her grief to sink into her bones and hibernate so she could function again.

Stella held her badge at arm’s length to the attendant at the chapel door. “We need to speak to Chris Murray.”

The attendant’s gaze slid to the door. “I’m afraid he’s busy right now. Perhaps you’d like to wait. He shouldn’t be more than fifteen minutes.”

Stella could imagine herself yanking the chapel door open, telling Murray to get his ass outside, and braving the stares of the mourners.

Chris Murray had associated himself with a serial killer, a sadistic murderer who’d shot her friend and taken Stella herself captive. A friend of Darwin Rhodell was no friend of hers.

Hagen headed to one of the chairs by the wall. He was ready to wait.

Stella cocked her head toward the door. “Go and get him, will you?”

The woman hesitated, then slipped into the chapel. At the opening of the door, a woman’s voice flowed out, barely intelligible above her tears. The gentle closing of the door cut her off.

Stella waited. By the wall of the lobby, Hagen took a place in the middle of a row of three seats. He sat with his elbows on his knees and his head down. Stella leaned on the attendant’s lectern.

The door opened. The attendant returned, closely followed by a man with a long chin and a slow, ambling gait on legs that could’ve been made of rubber. He eased the door shut without making a sound. When he spoke, his voice was little more than a whisper dragged out of him with a long rope. “Hello again. How…can I help you?”

Hagen rose from his chair and joined Stella. “You didn’t tell us you were friends with Darwin Rhodell.”

“With…Darwin? Oh.” He took a deep breath and straightened his back. “I see. Yes, I can understand how the FBI might find my connection to Darwin…interesting.”

Stella folded her arms. “Yeah, Mr. Murray. We do find that interesting.”

The attendant watched them closely. Murray said nothing to her. Instead, he pointed toward the end of the hallway and led Stella and Hagen to the top of the stairs. They were less than ten yards from the attendant at the door to the chapel. But the trip was unnecessary.

Murray’s voice was so soft that no one farther than a couple of yards away could’ve heard him anyway. “I was…friends with Darwin. He was a…a gifted artist.”

Stella’s jaw tensed. Praise for Rhodell grated like nails on a board, but Murray wasn’t wrong. Rhodell’s gallery had been filled with beautiful paintings of sunsets and nature, all vibrant colors and deep impressions. He kept the horror in the back.

“And you didn’t know what he was doing?”

Murray rubbed his chin. He thought before he answered, but his words still dropped slowly. “No, no. We weren’t close like that. I paint in my spare time. Just a little. Nothing like Darwin, of course. I’m not so talented. And his style is very different from my own. Much more vibrant.”

Stella scanned the funeral home’s lobby. Three paintings hung on the wall, all reproductions of nineteenth century pastorals, dark and brooding. Rhodell’s more dramatic pieces would fit right in.

“How did you come to meet him?”

“I took one of his classes. He became interested in my work, and we became friends. Of a sort.”

Hagen lifted an eyebrow. “How do you mean?”

“We’d meet sometimes. Take walks. Paint together on occasion. But I stopped speaking to him about a month before his arrest.”

“Really?” That timing was suspiciously convenient. Coincidental, even. There was little in Stella’s world that was convenient or coincidental. “Why was that?”

“He asked me if I could…give him some body parts. From the morgue.”

Stella stared at him. “He asked for body parts. And you didn’t think to tell anyone?”

“I…” Murray rubbed the side of his chin again. Stella wanted to smack his hand down. “The request was disrespectful. But I didn’t think he was serious. I just thought it was a bad joke.”

“A bad joke. Right.” Arms and legs joined in a circle of different skin tones. There had been nothing of a bad joke in what Darwin Rhodell had tried to do. Just evil kitsch. “Where were you on Friday evening?”

Murray leaned closer. He had a long, thin body, and he towered over Stella like a stork. “On Friday, I would’ve still been at the National Funeral Directors Association Convention in Columbus. I’m sure you can find a record of my presence there.”

Stella took a step back. Despite his height, Murray’s closeness wasn’t intimidating. Just unpleasant. “In Ohio?”

“That’s right. I stayed at a Radisson.”

She took a note of this. “When did you leave?”

“Saturday morning. Friday was the last day. There was a dinner in the evening. I checked out shortly after breakfast and arrived home around four.”

Stella took a slow, deep breath. She’d check that. She’d check it thoroughly. But a presence at a convention would be a difficult thing to fake. If Murray had been involved in Patrick Marrion’s murder, he’d surely have thought of an easier alibi.

“And on Tuesday morning?”

“Do you mean when Otto went home sick? I was here. Mrs. Osgood’s funeral. Lovely family. Such a loss.” Murray lowered his head and appeared to drop back into mourning.

Stella ignored his apparent grief. Her sympathy for Rhodell’s painting pal was stretched thin. “How convenient.”

“Not for Mrs. Osgood,” Murray countered.

Hagen nudged Stella and cocked his head toward the door. “I think that’s it for now, Mr. Murray. Thanks for your help.”

Murray’s hand shot out. “There is one thing…”

He had a strange look on his face.

Stella had to see where this was going. “Yes?”

He rocked on his heels. “Well, it’s odd, you know. I wonder if this will even be of interest to you.”

“Go on, Mr. Murray.” She tried to tell herself to be patient and listen.

“I know you weren’t really asking about Otto just now, so maybe it’s not pertinent. But you two aren’t the first people to ask about him this morning.”

Stella narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”

Murray folded his hands together, then unfolded them. “A young man came through here right after we opened at nine. He was only here for a few minutes. But he said he was a friend of Otto’s.”

“I thought you said Otto didn’t have any friends that you knew of?”

“This was the first time I’d seen this person. I’d never heard of him before.”

Hagen pulled out his notebook. “Did you get a name?”

“He didn’t say. I don’t think I even asked.”

“So what did this young man want?”

“That’s the thing. I’m not quite sure what he wanted. He was asking a bunch of questions. It was almost like he was fishing for information or something.”

Stella toyed with the stud in her ear. “Why do you say that?”

“I don’t know, really. It was just my sense of it. But he asked about you.”

That was a surprise. “What do you mean?”

“At first, he asked about the investigation into Otto in a sort of general way. He was wondering if I’d heard anything, had I spoken to the police, that sort of thing. I have to say, it made me feel a little uncomfortable. But I answered him. Then, right before he left, he asked if I’d spoken to a female agent with long dark hair and a tanned complexion, and a tall, buff male agent with short wavy brown hair.” He gestured to them both. “And here you both are. It’s remarkable.”

“But what did you say to him?”

He looked at Stella. “I’d never met you before.” Then he nodded at Hagen. “But I did tell him I’d spoken to a male agent who matched that description.”

“So what happened then?”

“Nothing. He left right after that. The whole interaction took five minutes. Maybe less.”

Hagen finished scratching out a note. “Can you give us a description of the young man?”

Murray looked up, as if pulling his image to mind. “He was a white guy. And young. I’d say late teens or early twenties. Not quite as tall as you, but almost. Maybe six-foot? Athletic build. He was wearing these dirty clothes. A black hoodie. Jeans, I think. Short brown hair.”

“What about any distinguishing characteristics? Did he have a tattoo or scars or something like that?”

Murray shook his head. “No tattoos. At least, I couldn’t see them if he did. I didn’t see any scars either. Basically, he was a pleasant looking guy, if a little plain. And there was something almost charming about him. He looked down on his luck, though.”

“Did you see where he went? Or what kind of vehicle he was driving?”

Once again, Murray shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t go outside with him, so I have no idea if he walked, ran, or used a pogo stick. There was one more thing, actually, though. It also made me uncomfortable. Right before he left, he asked me what time I got off work. I told him five. He seemed upset by this. Then he left.”

Hagen finished writing and placed the notebook in his pocket. “Thank you for that. Just before we go, do you have any security cameras? Any sort of surveillance?”

“No, I’ve never seen the point. But maybe I’ll invest now.”

Stella took out her business card and handed it to the mortician. “Might be a good idea. If you see him again, please call us immediately. We’re going to get someone to escort you home tonight.”

They left, with Hagen placing a call to local MNPD for that escort.

When he hung up, they were barely out of the building before Stella grabbed Hagen’s upper arm, stopping him. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Hagen smiled. “I think we just got a description of Marrion and Walker’s mysterious friend Trevor.”

“Me too.” She took her phone out of her pocket and called Mac. After filling her in on the new development, Stella continued. “I need you to check an alibi for me. Chris Murray. Says he was at the National Funeral Directors Association Convention in Columbus, Ohio the night of Patrick Marrion’s death. He stayed at a Radisson hotel right next to it, I’m assuming. Can you look into that?”

“Should Anja call the hotel?”

“No. But it’s not all that far of a drive from Nashville. He could’ve checked in, come back, killed Patrick Marrion, and been back in time to check out again. I want to know if he was there. Track his car.”

“Right. It’ll take a few minutes. Let you know when I’m done.”

They were down the front steps by the time Stella hung up. Hagen sat at one end of the steps that led to the funeral home.

“We should wait. If he’s lying, we’ll take him in now.”

Stella took a seat next to him. The stone step was cold through her pants, and her breath hung in the air. But being outside in the cold was better than being inside the funeral home.

“You don’t think he’s lying, do you?”

“No.”

“He is kinda creepy.”

“He’s a mortician. We expect him to be creepy, so we see him as creepy. If he was a florist, we’d put his slow, mournful ways down to idiosyncrasy.”

“No, we’d think he was a weirdo.”

“Yes, like everyone else we meet.” Hagen smiled slightly.

“And he was a friend of Darwin Rhodell.”

“I think we’d find that Darwin Rhodell was a friend of Chris Murray’s.” Hagen adjusted his tie.

Stella regretted choosing the butterflies for him. It was too jolly for this place. “Making pals with someone who works with dead bodies would’ve given Rhodell easy access to the materials he wanted. Better than the killing and chopping he ended up doing.” She rubbed her hands along her legs. The cold was getting through. “If we rule out Murray, what does that leave us? The person Patrick was mysteriously visiting?”

“At least we’ll have ruled one out. But if Murray’s out, we’ve only got one more option…and it’s looking like the tall, young, charming, down-on-his-luck psychopath. We might have a description. But we don’t have a full name or an address or anything else.”

“Let’s get some locals to canvass the area to see if other homes or businesses might have caught the Tacoma coming or going.”

While Hagen typed on his phone, Stella swore quietly under her breath. There’d be another murder tonight if they weren’t fast enough. She could feel it. And they weren’t moving fast enough.

Her phone rang. Mac. Stella put her on speaker and placed the phone next to Hagen.

“Murray’s car was at the hotel all Friday night. I figured he might’ve left it there and rented something in case anyone looked, so I checked his phone too. That stayed in Columbus as well.”

Hagen picked up the phone and talked into the speaker. “If he was smart enough to change cars, he’d be smart enough to leave his phone behind. Use a burner if need be.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too. So I called the hotel’s security team. Murray’s got a chin like a plank of wood, right?”

Stella nodded. “Pretty much.”

“They think they’ve got him in the hotel bar at nine o’clock Friday night. They’re checking more recordings, but it’s looking like he didn’t do away with Patrick Marrion.”

Stella sat back. Her hands landed on the stone step behind her, the chill caught in them freezing the tips of her fingers. She didn’t care. “It’s a shame we can’t do this with Patrick Marrion. Track his car and his phone, I mean. If we knew where he went the night he died, we might be able to find his ‘friend from out of town.’ Right now, that friend is by far the most likely suspect, I reckon.”

Mac tittered a little and cut it off. “Wait a minute. His phone isn’t the only way to track his movements.”

Stella glanced at Hagen. Hope was rising. She didn’t know what Mac was thinking, but she sounded like she had something.

From the other end of the line came the sound of a laptop opening. After thirty seconds, Mac returned. “I’m checking his computer. Let’s see…”

Stella eyed Hagen as they both fell silent. Behind them, a smattering of voices told them the service had ended.

Mac’s voice came back. “There’s one address here in his search history that doesn’t match any of the other places Patrick Marrion’s been. I’m patching it through.”