Page 111 of Forever Dead

He opened the file without commenting on her injuries, and Selena was grateful for it.

Selena turned toward the evidence board. It had become crowded.

Eleanor Marsh’s photograph occupied the upper left, Patricia Vanes’s on the right. Beneath them were photographs of both farmhouses, maps, notes, timelines, and names. Deacon Blair. Curtis Halle. Ray Cutler. A photocopy of the old Cutler property records sat pinned between the location photographs.

Connor picked up a marker. “Let's see what we've actually got.”

He turned toward Eleanor's photograph.

“Seventy-nine. Retired teacher. Lived alone. No obvious theft. Her phone line was cut before somebody forced the rear door.”

“Someone made sure she couldn't call for help,” Selena said.

“Blethan found bruising around her throat and multiple cervical fractures. Considerable rotational force.”

Selena studied the photograph of Eleanor's dining room.

“The rocking chair came from the living room. Blethan thinks it was broken and the pieces placed over her after she died.”

“Which you thought suggested anger.”

“I still do. But that's an interpretation, not evidence of a personal grudge.”

Connor nodded toward the black fragments listed beneath Eleanor's photograph.

“And now we've got those.”

“Material beneath both victims' fingernails. Foss thinks the samples have a common source and could be human skin, but we need the laboratory to establish what they actually are.”

Connor wrote POSSIBLE COMMON SOURCE beneath the photographs.

He moved to Patricia's side of the board.

“Thirty-six. Registered nurse. Found at the Tully farmhouse. Stabbed in the abdomen and hanged while she was still alive.”

“Different method,” Selena said. “And a different kind of staging. Eleanor's chair was destroyed after her death. Patricia was positioned so whoever opened that laundry-room door would be struck by her body.”

Connor studied the two photographs.

“Someone wanted those scenes found.”

“Yes. But we still don't know what they were trying to tell us.”

Connor capped the marker and turned toward the list of suspects.

“Where does that leave Deacon Blair?”

“Eleanor's neighbor. The rat dispute, the money he claimed he'd lost, and the threat that county employee remembers.”

“Not to mention he was watching her property the night she died.”

“He says he saw a dark vehicle. We need to establish what else he was doing that evening.”

Connor glanced toward Patricia's photograph. “Nothing connecting him to her so far.”

“Then we keep checking. Maybe he only had something to do with Eleanor. Maybe he had nothing to do with either murder.”

Connor nodded. “I'll have Arnold follow up on his movements and the county employee's account. We still need something firmer than an argument about rats.”