Widow Town by Joe Hart Page A

pity in the community and went somewhere new.”
    Gray finished his coffee and swirled the dregs around in the bottom. “Is there a nything else you can remember?”
    Rachel reached over to a nearly empty cigarette pack and p ulled one of its long contents out, rolled it between her fingers. “Yeah, but I told the last sheriff and he almost laughed at me.”
    Gray leaned forward and touched the young woman’s hand with the tips of his fingers. “Rachel, he and I are two very diff erent people. You can tell me.”
    He thought she might cry again , but instead she clenched the cigarette in one fist, crushing it in her grip. “There was a smell in the house when I went in there that day. At first it didn’t register fully, but after I came outside and went back in to make sure, I knew.”
    “Knew what?”
    Rachel released the broken cigarette and let it fall to the table in pieces of paper and tobacco. “That there had been someone else in the house with Joslyn the night before, and the only way I know that is they had on the same cologne Ken used to wear.”

Chapter 14
     
     
    “Do you think she was telling the truth?” Ruthers said.
    The deputy sat in the chair Mark Sheldon occupied that morning, his face creased with thought, one leg crossed over the other.
    “I do,” Gray said, tapping the digital keyboard to bring his computer screen to life. His shirt was a wet skin over his own, the heat in the office almost unbearable. He glanced at the immovable pane of glass in the wall and wished once again he could open it, at least to gain some moving air through the office.
    “So someone came and took Joslyn from her home in the middle of the night and carri ed out all her belongings too?”
    “That ’s what it appears like, Joseph, and the one thing that makes me think that’s the way it happened is because Mitchel was headed in the opposite direction. The difference between wise men and fools is that fools learn from their own mistakes and wise men learn from other people’s.”
    “Do you want to take a scanner out there and comb the whole place again, s ee if we can pick anything up?”
    Gray shook his head. “No. If they were careful enough to make the whole thing look like she left under her own accord, they wouldn’t leave anything behind. Technology is wonderful, Joseph, but it’ll never rival an inquisitive mind.” Gray tapped his temple once. “ So now that we’ve established an idea of how, we ask why.”
    Ruthers frowned and rubbed a scuff on the toe of his boot. “There’d be no one to ransom but maybe she had a bunch of money stored away from the settlement or li fe insurance from her husband?”
    “Possible,” Gray said, bringing up his email. “ But I saw in the report that her beneficiaries were her in-laws. Just two months ago they had her declared legally dead. Why don’t you give them a call and see if her accounts were transferred to them also.”
    “Okay. Did the coro ner’s report come through yet?”
    “It did an d I’m looking at it right now.”
    “Anything?”
    “All three victims died of lacerations to various parts of their bodies but we already knew that. No fingerprints, no traces of saliva or sweat other than the victim’s.” Gray reread the last part of the paragraph, his brow drawing down. “Bite marks appear to be nonorganic.”
    Ruthers s at forward. “What?”
    “Bite marks found on two out of three victims were not concurrent with any known organic bite pattern, nor was there any animal saliva found within the wounds. Digital rendering of the wounds show nearly perfect symmetrical configuration of teeth marks.”
    “Sir, what the hell does that mean?”
    Gray read the passage again. “It means an animal probably didn’t do it. It was something manmade.” He glanced across the desk at Ruthers and watched disgust darken his features.
    “Like a machine to take bites out of someone?”
    “Something like that.”
    Ruthers sat back in his chair. “My