As she moved toward the hole, she was careful not to walk on evidence, the dirt, so she could stare down into the hole. The lid was open on the casket, and inside, there was a headless body, fully clothed with some dirt that had fallen in.
Oh, she gave this nut credit.
He’d found a way to pop the lid, and access the body, all the while the body stayed in the hole. Someone was smarter than the average cuckoo.
That was for damn sure.
Checking out the remains, she saw one thing that alarmed her. This person’s skirt was askew.
“Elizabeth?” Chris asked, wondering if they’d been disconnected.
“I’m here. I was just looking at the mess we have. We’re at the cemetery, and we have a body.”
Well, sort of.
He sighed.
Honestly, at least it wasn’t anyone hurt. He knew there’d be more fallout, but it had come a little too quickly for his liking.
“I’ll be right there.”
Yeah, that said it all.
While he was mentally preparing himself, she explained the scene because in twenty-two years, she’d never seen someone break into a casket quite like this.
And on day one.
“There’s a skull along with a body, so bring Tony,” she said, not quite sure how to explain this one.
It was crazy.
“He skinned someone’s face, just the eye portion, and placed the eyes back in the holes. This is nightmare behavior,” she admitted. “Also, bring half of the techs. We have a body in an open casket. From what we suspect, this may be Steph Lewis. She was the last one buried. Now, we have to figure out if the body is hers. This killer likes to move shit around.”
Chris got it.
Well, it looked like he was going to give Elizabeth her present early. Thank God he’d managed to get Chrissy to take his offer. This was one hell of a case, and it was getting weirder.
He clued her in.
“We have two more IDs,” he said. “One eyeball came back as the same DNA as Alina Mussen. The other one is Lory Vanbruggen.”
Well, that was a familiar name.
It had come up earlier.
That had been the grave that didn’t have grass growing on it, despite it being two weeks. Now, she was pretty sure she knew why.
“Okay, Christopher. Get here. Be careful. We’ll hold the scene. Oh, and the skull has horns. Like devil ones. Yay us. This is about to be wild.”
He wasn’t liking this.
Not.
At.
All.
Immediately, he went there because this wasn’t his first scene, nor his thousandth.
