Page 3 of Their Haunted Hearts (Detectives Kane and Alton #27)

Two

Jenna laid a hand on the woman’s arm. “Take a deep breath and tell me what’s happened. Are you sure it’s a body?”

“Yeah, it’s real.” The first woman looked over her shoulder, her eyes wild. “It’s not a mannequin; I can see her teeth where a bullet damaged her face.”

“I’ll need your names and contact details.” Kane pulled out his notebook. “We’ll need to talk to you when we’re done here. I want you to go into the grocery store and wait for us there.”

“Okay. I’m Christine McEntire.” The first woman moved closer to Kane. “This is my friend, Terry Bauman.” They both gave their details.

Jenna looked at them. “I know this has been a shock but we’ll need your statements. You should grab a cup of coffee and something from the deli. It might be a while before we get back to you.”

“Does this mean we have another serial killer in town?” Christine McEntire searched Jenna’s face. “That vampire had a stake in her chest.”

“Give us time to look at it, okay?” Kane pushed his notebook back inside his pocket. “People go to crazy extents to make things look real. Don’t worry until we know for sure.” He turned to Jenna. “Ready, Sheriff?”

Nodding, Jenna stepped around a pile of shot-up pumpkins and picked her way along the sidewalk to Aunt Betty’s Café.

A crowd had gathered around the shot-up coffin.

A figure of a young woman with long black hair and dressed in a white nightgown hung from the door, head down and arms hanging loose.

A garden stake protruded from the chest and two red puncture marks stood out on the pure white neck.

The odor of death drifted toward her on the breeze.

She reached for her phone and called Wolfe. “Are you at my office?”

“Guilty as charged.” Wolfe chuckled. “Your prisoner is fine. He’s sleeping right now.”

Jenna stared at the coffin. “Just a minute, I need to look at something.”

Pushing a hand through her hair, Jenna took a few steps closer.

She had no doubt by the discoloration of the skin and the ruby stud earrings that this was a person.

She moved away to preserve the evidence and looked at Kane’s stony expression.

“Create a perimeter around the body.” She lifted her phone to speak to Wolfe as Kane ordered the onlookers away.

“We have a homicide. Outside Aunt Betty’s. A female in a coffin.”

“On my way.” Wolfe disconnected.

A sheriff’s department vehicle stopped outside Aunt Betty’s and Jenna turned as Deputy Johnny Raven slid out to greet her. His K-9, Ben, hung out of the window, his mouth open in a doggy smile, tail wagging. “Raven, you have great timing.”

“Rio called me.” Raven scanned the scene. “He mentioned the gunman but that smells like a corpse to me.”

Jenna nodded. “Yeah, I figure it is too. Wolfe is on the way but you take a look.” As a medical doctor, Raven flew a medivac helicopter in the service.

After being wounded, he retired to a cabin in the forest to train K-9s and personal protection dogs.

When he’d stepped in to help them with a case, Jenna had talked him into becoming a part-time deputy.

“No one in the crowd saw anyone dumping her here.” Kane stepped closer to Jenna. “I’ve contacted Bobby Kalo. He’ll search the CCTV cameras in town and see if he can find anything suspicious.”

Jenna nodded. “It’s great to have an FBI computer whiz kid on hand when we need him, isn’t it? Then again, Agent Beth Katz out of Rattlesnake Creek is good too.”

“Kalo is always in the office.” Kane shrugged. “I really don’t like to drag Beth from a case to do us a favor when she’s not involved.”

A white van drew up at the curb and Wolfe jumped out along with his daughter and new medical examiner, Emily, along with Colt Webber, Wolfe’s assistant and badge-holding deputy. He looked at Jenna.

“What have we got?” Wolfe’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the crime scene. “Is the shooter responsible for this?”

Shrugging, Jenna looked at him. “Right now, I have no idea. He shot up the coffin. Who put her in there is another matter.”

“White female, eighteen to twenty. She has sharp force trauma to her neck and a wooden stake through her chest pinning her to the coffin.” Raven pulled off examination gloves with a snap. “Good luck working out this one, Shane.”

Everyone stood back as Wolfe moved around the coffin. He examined the body and then turned to his team.

“Webber, record the crime scene. I’ll need to take her back to the lab in situ.

” Wolfe looked from Kane to Raven. “When Webber has recorded the scene, if y’all give me a hand to get her and the coffin into my van, I’ll do the preliminary examination at the morgue.

” He leaned toward Jenna. “She’s been dead for at least twelve or more hours by the state of rigor. ” He looked at Emily. “Do you concur?”

“Yeah.” Emily frowned. “The marks on her neck, are they supposed to resemble a vampire bite? That’s pushing the Halloween theme a little far, don’t you agree?”

Nodding, Jenna glanced at her watch. “Nothing surprises me any longer.” She turned to Wolfe. “When will you do the autopsy?”

“Two o’clock suit you?” Wolfe frowned. “Or do you need to be home for the boys?”

Jenna smiled. “No, they’re fine. Jackson is okay with us leaving him with Nanny Raya.

He’s a big boy now, fifteen months, walking and talking.

Tauri dotes on him.” She sighed. “I know you haven’t seen him for a month or so.

We’ve just been so busy. I had no idea the extent of the catch-up we needed after taking a year away from the office. ”

“I’ve been busy myself.” Wolfe smiled at her. “Getting the medical examiner registration documents in order for Emily to work with me and organizing an office for her has kept us busy too.”

Surprised Wolfe didn’t have his new wife and forensic anthropologist, Norrell, with him, Jenna frowned. “How is Norrell? Is she well?”

“She’s great.” Wolfe smiled. “She has a case. A couple renovating an old house in Helena discovered a mummified body inside a wall. She’s working on identifying it, is all.”

After Wolfe loaded the coffin and body into his van, Jenna turned to Kane and Raven.

“I’ll go and speak to the women who discovered the body.

As we’re short-staffed, I’ll take them back to the office to interview them and get their statements.

If you can go talk to everyone and ask if they’ve seen anyone hanging around and then follow up on the damage, it will save time.

When we’re done, Raven, you take lunch. I’ll be heading out to the autopsy with Dave.

” She looked at Raven. “Unless you want to come too? We can eat later.”

“Wouldn’t miss it.” Raven indicated to the damage to the town and shook his head. “Another day in paradise, huh?”

Jenna grimaced. “Yeah. Paradise lost.” She headed for the grocery store.