Her Shallow Grave (Detectives Kane and Alton)

Jenna smiled. “Home please. I need to get out of these clothes and eat. We don’t have to rush into the office unless something comes up. We’ll head back later. I called Rowley earlier, he has everything under control in the drug bust case. He obtained the warrants and statements. He’s turned over everything to the DA. All the men apart from Dean James are going to county for processing. James is undergoing surgery on his knee this morning.” She gave Kane a long look. “But he’s not our problem anymore either, the DA is calling in the Feds to deal with him. The package under the bed was uncut cocaine and Wolfe said it weighed two pounds.”

“Any comeback on me?” Kane started the engine and frowned when he turned to look at her. “I was expecting some noise about police brutality.”

Jenna wondered why he’d been so distant all morning and shook her head. “No, the woman they kidnapped and my statement puts you in the clear.” She smiled. “The DA couldn’t believe you came out of a six-on-one fight with only a small bruise on your cheek.”

“Hmm.” Kane swung the truck around and headed down the mountain. “I’ll have to practice ducking some more.”

Jenna leaned over the back to rub Duke’s ears. “Maybe, but your actions looked just fine to me. If you’re that fast now, I can’t imagine what you’d have been in your prime.”

“I am in my prime.” Kane chuckled. “Although the cold slowed me down some.” He waved at the snow building up on the windshield. “It’s snowing again and this makes it perfect for a killer. By the lack of evidence at the scene, I’d say it was snowing when he arranged the body parts.”

“It seems so.” Jenna turned back in her seat. “I wonder where he dumped the rest of the bodies. In this weather it won’t show before the melt.”

“We had a good look around the scene and didn’t find a trace.” Kane’s lips flattened into a thin line.

Jenna stared at him. “Well, come on, put on your profiler hat. I can see this killer is different from the usual kill and dump. He is exhibiting his work. What do you think?”

“Yeah, but I would have thought he’d make a show of the torsos as well.” Kane slowed to maneuver around a fallen branch. “He could be keeping them for another display. I agree, I figure this macabre presentation is a sculpture.”

“The mind never ceases to intrigue me.” Jenna leaned back in her seat. “All the psychopaths we have encountered are different, well, apart from being killers.”

Her phone chimed. She looked at the caller ID. “It’s Wolfe. I’ll put him on speaker.”

“Hi Jenna. I’

ve examined the body parts, and they are from two different people. The killer severed the limbs post-mortem and from the pattern on the ice, the killer used a chainsaw or similar. I believe this points to the killer keeping the bodies frozen prior to dismemberment, rather than leaving them to freeze in situ. I’ll have to wait for them to thaw and examine tissue samples to determine how long they’ve been frozen.”

Jenna glanced at Kane and raised an eyebrow. “Any idea of the victims’ sex? I noticed one had nail polish.”

“Not yet. They are different blood types but nail polish doesn’t necessarily mean a person is female. I’m running a DNA profile on each one and the chromosome analysis will give me gender. I’ll get back to you in a couple of hours with the results.”

“Okay thanks.” Jenna disconnected and stared at the blinding white lowlands dropping away in the distance. It was so beautiful, and reminded her of the untouched frosting on a cake. “Two people murdered and not one call about a missing person.” She cast a look at Kane. “Don’t tell me Black Rock Falls has become a dumping ground for bodies now?”

“I sure hope not.” Kane turned onto the highway. “Maybe we should call Jo? Having a behavioral analyst to consult would be an advantage. She might have heard about a similar case.”

Jenna rubbed her temples. Her feet hurt as they warmed and her head throbbed from dehydration and hunger. “I will, if the killer shows himself again but we have handled worse cases than this one.” She glanced at him. “Unless you need her help to profile this guy?”

“I figure, we need all the help we can get, Jenna.” Kane shrugged and looked back at the road.

She liked Special Agent Jo Wells, formally Blake. Recently divorced, Jo had reverted to her maiden name. Jo had set up an FBI CSI field office in Snakeskin Gully, some three hours’ drive from Black Rock Falls. After Wolfe had contacted her, she’d assisted Jenna with a recent case, along with detective, Agent Ty Carter. She’d gotten along with Jo and considered her a friend but didn’t want to run to her with every problem she encountered. After all, she had Kane. His profiling skills hadn’t let her down yet and it surprised her he’d mention calling Jo. It wasn’t like him to be uncertain about a case. “Is there something about this killer that’s worrying you?”

“Nope.” Kane flicked her a glance. “It’s that we have an FBI contact who would be sifting through bulletins daily and might have come across a similar case, is all. With no one apparently missing, we have zip to go on.” He turned onto Stanton. “I can offer you a small insight into this type of behavior but without evidence it’s difficult to profile.”

Jenna nodded. “We have had no clues before and still caught the killer.” She looked at the familiar buildings as they reached the outskirts of town. People milled around, clearing snow from their driveways. Woodsmoke curled upward from some of the houses adding to the picturesque scene. “Will you stop at Aunt Betty’s Café please? The last thing I want to do when I get home is cook.”

“I was going to go pick up the horses.” Kane looked in her direction. “It’s only a short detour.”

Jenna huffed out a sigh. “That’s not a good idea, Dave. We’re both famished and cold but if you insist, we’ll drop by on the way home from the office tomorrow.” She glanced at him. “It really isn’t a priority, is it? We’re paid up until the end of the week and the horses are in a heated stable. We on the other hand have been working in subzero temperatures for hours and late into the night, we don’t need to be getting up at five in the morning to feed the horses.”

“Okay.” Kane flicked her a worried glance. “I’m happy to leave them another day or so, it will give us more time to concentrate on the case.” He pulled up a short distance from Aunt Betty’s Café. “I’m ordering two stacks of pancakes. I need the carbs.”

“If I survive the walk to the café, I’ll do the same.” Jenna wrapped her scarf around her face and pulled up the hood of her jacket.

The blast of icy wind cut through her clothes; the temperature had dropped so fast this year, her body hadn’t had time to acclimatize. She slipped and slid along the sidewalk, frowning. The cleared path had a coating of ice but as they got closer to Aunt Betty’s she noticed someone had sprinkled a liberal amount of salt and sand on the sidewalk. She turned to Kane. “I know murderers kill at any time but why would anyone come out willingly in this weather to decorate a tree with body parts?”

“This is one of the reasons I wanted to talk to Jo.” Kane pushed open the door to the café and went inside. “She might have some insight into this kind of mind.”

Jenna followed him to their reserved table at the back of the store. She sat down and looked at him with curiosity. “I trust your judgment, Dave, but if you want to speak to her, that’s fine. It just seems a bit early into the investigation to be calling in the Feds.”