Page 139 of Forever Dead

He moved on.

The coppery smell grew stronger. He knew what it was, but hoped he was wrong.

At the end of the hall, yellow light spilled across the floor from the kitchen. Connor approached the doorway slowly, keeping his weapon raised.

“Nora?”

No answer.

He reached the opening and turned into the room.

For a second, his mind refused to arrange what he was seeing.

Nora Ellison lay on the kitchen table.

Her body had been positioned lengthwise across it, arms spread wide and wrists hanging beyond the edges. One leg lay straight. The other had been turned outward at an unnatural angle, one slipper missing. Blood covered the front of her blouse and had run across the table before dripping onto the linoleum below.

An ear of corn protruded from her mouth.

Connor stopped breathing for a moment.

The husk had been stripped back. Pale leaves spread across her cheeks and chin. The cob had been forced so deeply into her mouth that only half of it remained visible and her jaw had been dislocated.

“Jesus Christ.”

He moved closer only far enough to confirm what the color of her skin and stillness already told him.

Nora was dead.

Another scene arranged for whoever found her.

Eleanor had been covered with pieces of her broken rocking chair. Patricia had been left hanging where the opening door would strike her body.

Nora lay across her own kitchen table, with corn from the fields below her house forced into her mouth. The choice was cruelly specific to this place.

Connor lifted his shoulder radio.

“Cheryl.”

Her answer came immediately. “Go ahead.”

“I’ve got a homicide. Nora Ellison. Confirmed deceased.”

A pause followed.

“Christ. All right.”

“Tell Arnold to hold at the house when he arrives. Nobody comes inside until I meet them. Get Blethan and Matt moving.”

“On it.”

“And have Chuck clear people away from the bottom of this hill. Nobody comes up the drive.”

“Notify the State Police investigator assigned to our case,” Connor added. “And contact Meg Calloway's field office. Tell them we've got a third homicide that may be connected to the other two. Ask for immediate assistance.”

“I'm on it.”

Connor lowered his radio.