11th Hour (Women's Murder Club 11)

Where had these heads come from?

Why were they placed here in plain sight?

If this was a homicide, where were the bodies?

I tore my gaze away from the heads to look into Janet Worley’s face. She covered her mouth with both hands and tears sprang to her eyes.

I saw a meltdown coming. I had to question her. Now.

“Who do these remains belong to? Where are the bodies? Tell us about it, Mrs. Worley.”

“Me? All I know is what I just told you. I’m the one who called the police.”

“Then who did this?”

“I have no idea. None at all.”

“You understand that lying would make you an accessory to the crime.”

“My God. I know nothing.”

Conklin said, “We need the names of everyone who has been inside this house since last Friday.”

“Of course, but it’s only been my husband, my daughter, and me.”

“And Mr. Chandler?”

“Heavens, no. I haven’t seen him in three months.”

“Have you handled these heads or disturbed anything on the patio?”

“No, no, no. I opened the door to air out the room at about seven this morning. I saw this. I called my husband. Then I called nine-one-one.”

Janet Worley went inside the house, and Conklin and I were left to consider the nature of “this.”

Was it Satanism? Terrorism? Drug-related homicide? Who were these victims? What had happened to them?

I wanted to start looking around, but Conklin and I had to stay on the bricks and focus on what we could see without contaminating evidence.

Brady had told us to do the prelim.

That was the job: scope out the crime and tell our lieutenant whether this was a double homicide or a freak show that should be handed off to Major Crimes.

“I don’t know what the hell we’re looking at,” I said to Conklin.

Truly, I’d never seen anything like it in my life.

Chapter 8

THE BACK GARDEN was a dark, three-quarter-acre triangular plot that looked as though a slice of woodland had been dropped down in one piece behind the Ellsworth house.

The parcel was shadowed by buildings and mature trees, crossed with mulched paths, bounded by the house on one side and by two ten-foot-high brick walls that met at a toolshed at the farthest end of the garden.

Looking for entrances, I saw, in addition to the front gate with its broken lock, five doors that opened to the garden from the main house and a gate in the wall next to the toolshed.

“There’s a multipurpose tool,” Conklin said.

He was pointing to a shovel half hidden by a shrub, and beyond the shovel was a mound of soil and a hole dug in the dirt. The hole was about two feet across, the right size for potted chrysanthemums — and also just right for disembodied heads.