“Wait a couple of months,” Kate said, as Josh grinned. “And lay in a supply of long-johns. Not to mention fire-wood. How’s the house?”
“Aunt Inga’s house? Fine.”
“Have Derek look it over,” Kate advised. Josh nodded. “Make sure it’s well insulated. Have him put weather-stripping around the doors and caulk around the windows to keep the wind out. Put storm windows and storm doors everywhere if you don’t have them already. Insulate your pipes so they don’t freeze. And buy an electric blanket.”
I felt myself pale. “It’s going to be that cold?”
Shannon was still bent over her work, but Kate and Josh exchanged a glance. “It gets pretty cold here, yes.”
“Colder than in New York?”
Kate shrugged. “The average lows are in the low teens. And then there are the ocean breezes.”
“It can get windy in New York, too,” I said, desperately trying to get them to tell me that it wouldn’t be much worse than what I was used to. Temperatures in New York City rarely dip into the teens, though. “When the cold air goes screaming down the streets, between the buildings…”
“I’m sure it can get freezing in New York,” Kate said kindly. “It’s colder here, though. And a lot more snow, too. You’d better prepare yourself.”
I shivered miserably, just thinking about it.
“So what are you guys doing here?” Shannon wanted to know, finally looking up. Josh explained that Kate and I had come to see what progress he’d made with his forensic facial approximation software.
“And?”
Josh’s voice turned frustrated. “And nothing. Dad’s right, a lot of it is guesswork, and the results are often less than accurate. Still, both Avery and I thought we had something there for a second.” He glanced at me. I nodded.
“How could you have something?” Shannon wanted to know, with the same logic her mother had displayed earlier. “Avery’s only been in town for a few months. The skeleton’s been in the ground for years. Avery can’t possibly have seen her before she died.”
“That’s true,” I admitted. “But maybe I’ve seen a picture of her? In the newspaper or on TV? Or even on the back of a milk carton? It could be a long time ago. She could have been a runaway, maybe. A teenager. The TV stations in New York could have shown her photo when she disappeared, and it’s still stuck in the back of my head somewhere. Or she could have been featured on one of those Unsolved Mysteries programs. I watch them once in a while.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Josh said. “You should suggest it to my dad. If the dental records don’t help, maybe he can have someone look through databases of runaways and missing teens. I’ll volunteer.”
“That’s very nice of you,” Kate said, “but I don’t think your dad would want you to take time away from your school work to work on his case.”
“So I’ll do it on my own time,” Josh said with a shrug. “Or maybe I can spin it into an extra credit assignment of some kind. Like this reconstruction thing. Professor Alexander is good that way.” He grinned.
We ended up staying in the cafeteria and eating lunch before heading back to the lab. On our way across the quad, we ran into Brandon Thomas on the same errand.
“What’s going on?” Josh wanted to know. Brandon ’s usually pristine uniform was wrinkled and dirty, and his usually open and friendly face wore a frown. If I sniffed deeply, I thought I detected the pungent odor of garbage. Or rubbish, as they say in Maine.
Brandon shrugged helplessly. “What isn’t? Skeletons, murder victims, car accidents… and now I’ve just had to crawl all over the dump looking for Avery’s old kitchen appliances!”
“How’s Wayne holding up?” Kate wanted to know. If Brandon was overwhelmed, Wayne must be equally so. Except Wayne Rasmussen never seemed overwhelmed.
Brandon seemed to agree with me. “He’s OK, I guess. Seems OK. But then he always seems OK, doesn’t he?”
“Haven’t you seen him?” I asked Kate. She shook her head.
“Not for a couple of days. These murders have really kept him hopping.”
“I’ve seen him,” Josh said, “and if it makes you feel any better, he’s worried, too. But he’s been through a lot more. After processing the Murphy crime scene all those years ago, I guess not much could be worse.”
“He wasn’t chief of police back then, was he?” I asked.
Josh shook his head. “Just an officer. But pretty much the whole force was involved in that case, from what he’s told me. It was a big mess.”
In more ways than one, I reflected.
“But at least they knew who did it!” Brandon said. “This could be anybody!”
“Not quite anybody,” Shannon said, flipping her mahogany red mane over her shoulder. Josh sent her an appreciative glance. “If the same person killed both people-Miss Rudolph and the dead woman in the crawlspace-then it’s someone who was here two, or four, or six, or eight years ago, whenever the skeleton was buried there, and who’s still here now.”
“But that’s most of Waterfield. People don’t leave here that often.”
“New people come in, though,” Shannon pointed out. “For instance, if the skeleton was put in the ground eight years ago, my mom can’t be the killer, because we weren’t here yet.”
“Why would your mom be the killer?” Brandon began, and then stopped when he saw Shannon ’s impish grin. “OK, so some people are exempt because they weren’t here. Or were too young. But it all depends on how long the skeleton’s been there, doesn’t it?”
We all nodded. “Once you know who she is-or was-you’ll know that, though,” Kate said. “And it’s someone who knew that the skeleton was discovered, and who knew that Venetia Rudolph knew, or might know, who the dead girl was and also who killed her.”
“How do you figure that?” Brandon wanted to know. We took him through the reasoning, and he nodded. “That makes sense. Although there may not be a connection. There could be two different killers. Someone who was at the site yesterday, and who noticed that Miss Rudolph lived alone, might have decided to take advantage of that to break in and rip her off.”
“Was anything missing from the house?” I asked. “Was there any evidence of a break-in?”
“Nothing we’ve discovered.” It seemed to answer both questions.
“If whoever it was didn’t break in,” Josh pointed out, “Miss Rudolph must have opened the door for him. Or her. That makes it seem like it was someone she knew. Or trusted.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?” Shannon said. Josh shook his head.
“Not always. There are people I know that I wouldn’t trust any farther than I could throw them, and there are people I don’t know but that I’d automatically trust, just because of who they are. Like cops.”
“I hope you’re not suggesting that I killed Miss Rudolph,” Brandon said after a beat. Josh rolled his eyes behind the glasses.
“Don’t be an idiot. But if you knocked on her door one night, in your uniform, and told her you needed to ask her a couple of questions, don’t you think she’d have opened the door for you?”
Brandon acknowledged that she probably would. “So it was either someone she knew or someone she didn’t know but thought she could trust anyway. Like me, or the chief, or Reverend Norton. I’m not sure you’re helping, Josh.”
“Sorry,” Josh said with a shrug.
I hid a smile. “I doubt either Wayne or Bartholomew Norton bashed Venetia Rudolph over the head,” I said. “But someone did, and it could have been someone she didn’t know but that she thought it would be safe to let in anyway. Someone in a uniform, maybe. It happens once in a while, that someone pretends to be a cop. Remember the guy who cruised around in what looked like an unmarked police car and pulled single women over at night and made them do him sexual favors instead of getting tickets?”