“I don’t know,” he admitted.
Augustin leaned forward and, with gloved fingers, carefully pulleddown the waistband low enough to show the edge of a polished stone, gleaming under the light from the chandelier suspended above.
Reed’s gut tightened as she took a quick picture of the item in place; he nodded to Augustin and watched as she extracted the rock. A number was clearly visible.
“Five?” she murmured. “Or … or possibly an S.” Turning the stone over, she straightened, then held the rock out for Reed’s inspection. “Marked on the other side.”
“Just like the other one found at Billy Huber’s,” he thought aloud. “So it’s probably a number, not a letter. A five in Hebrew and the other side a five in Arabic.”
Her eyes slitted as she studied the stone. “It looks like we’ve got ourselves a serial killer. Right here in genteel Savannah.”
Reed didn’t like the thought, but he didn’t disagree.
She replaced the stone and stood. “Random victims?”
“Unlikely.”
Reed looked around the opulent house, with its neatly arranged furniture, polished antiques, and gleaming surfaces. Nothing out of place.
Except for a dead woman.
“What the hell do Billy Huber and Mavis Greenlee have in common?” he muttered.
“A killer,” she said, following his gaze and most likely his thoughts. “But who?”
“That’s what we have to figure out.”
Her eyes scanned the rest of the foyer, her gaze running up the carpeted stairs to the landing. Had it not been for the grizzly gash in Mavis’s neck and the gun on the stairs, one might have assumed she’d tripped near the top step and tumbled head over heels to her resting spot at the base of the stairs. But her slashed throat and the polished stone told another story.
His phone buzzed, and he expected the caller to be Nikki. Instead, he saw Jamison Kittle’s number on the screen. Reed stepped onto the porch to take the call and felt the cool of the night against his skin. “I take it you heard,” he said as he answered.
“Yeah. But I can’t believe it. Another one?” Jamison sounded gobsmacked. “Are you kidding me?”
“Not kidding.”
There was a pause before Kittle said, “I know Mavis Greenlee. I play golf with her husband. And Naomi—she’ll be devastated. She knew Mavis from the country club and church. God, I think the Greenlees were supposed to be at the Honeywells’ party tonight. We were there, and Naomi mentioned it was odd that Mavis and Archer didn’t show, then she said something about them having some marital problems, but I didn’t think much about it. I mean, who doesn’t? Then I got the call, and I phoned you to confirm. I don’t want my wife to hear it on the news. She’ll … God knows what she’ll do.”
“I can confirm. It’s Mavis Greenlee.”
“Damn,” Kittle muttered, barely loud enough for Reed to hear over the conversation going on between two firefighters and a deputy standing near the collection of vehicles in the drive. “Same killer?” Kittle asked.
“Looks like. It won’t be confirmed for a while, but yeah, I’m guessing.”
“Keep me posted,” Jamison said. Then he added, “Better yet, I’ll be there.”
“We’ve got it handled.”
“I know. But as I said, this is personal.”
The forensic team arrived and ushered everyone out of the house and into the night. Augustin joined Reed at the top of the circular drive, and when one of the team came out with the cat in a carrier, Augustin said, “I’ll handle this” and caught up with the deputy.
Reed watched as she took the carrier and hauled it down the drive and past the open gate to her truck, which was parked across the street, its front grill just visible past one of the gateposts.
As she was returning, the van from the coroner’s office arrived and was waved through the gates so that it could be parked close to the house. A few curious neighbors tried to follow, but deputies kept them at bay on the other side of the barrier cordoning off the Greenlee house.
Within minutes, Jamison Kittle showed up, leaving his car outside the police barricade and walking up to the house. For once, he wasn’t dressed in a suit and tie, but showed up in slacks and a long-sleeved, black T-shirt, his hair slicked back and still damp as if he’d just stepped out of the shower.
On the steps of the house, he greeted Reed, who asked, “You tell Naomi?”
