The nave was dimly lit. Temperature on the cool side but positively balmy after standing in the woods at minus a gazillion for an hour. Signy spotted Sergeant Allan Robertson, who was taking the lead at every crime scene lately, talking to Pastor Regis whom she recognized from community work. The pastor looked shellshocked.

She took her time getting ready. Taking off her parka and draping it over a large metal box one of the Evidence Team had brought along, before pulling on the familiar white Tyvek overalls for the second time that day. Sitting down to cover her heavy boots with another protective layer.

Needless to say, she hadn’t made it back home to check on Aiden, although she’d texted him and told him not to be up late playing video games when he had school in the morning. He’d replied with the snooze emoji which could be interpreted in two different ways.

She sighed and climbed to her feet.

Two stabbings in twenty-four hours weren’t that unusual. The fact they were both fatal was.

The department was stretched thin, especially with the Detectives Ross and Leatherbook working a big multi-national, multi-agency case that was time sensitive and couldn’t wait. She’d originally been pissed to have been left out of that bust. Now she was slightly gleeful. The other detectives would be annoyed they’d missed out on a high-profile double homicide.

She wanted to solve this case. She hated the fact Eban Winters had spotted those footprints rather than someone from Fairbanks, PD. It suggested she hadn’t expanded the crime scene perimeter as far as they had needed to go, which felt like a mistake even though it was always a balance between gathering useable evidence and civil hindrance.

The tracks Winters had found showed someone unknown had come down from the road between the neighbors to the south and the Carstairs residence. Unfortunately, the long line of emergency vehicles that had attended the scene this morning had obliterated the potential of isolating any tire track impressions.

An alternate possibility was the tracks belonged to Darby O’Roarke and she had for some reason headed into the forest from the road to stare into Martin’s living room window. As her boots were in evidence it wouldn’t take long to determine if the tracks belonged to her or not.

Darby’s convenient amnesia meant she couldn’t or wouldn’t be able to verify either way.

Now Signy had this new murder to investigate, which was possibly unrelated although her gut was telling her otherwise. Firefighters had broken in through the door into the annex and found a woman suffering from multiple stab wounds. The victim had been alive when they’d gotten here but dead on arrival at the hospital.

Allan finished up with the pastor and headed over to where she stood.

The scene was so fresh she could smell a hint of warm wax hanging in the air even though no candles were lit. An evidence tech with a camera came through from the annex and started taking photos from every angle, pausing briefly to log each shot. Another officer was doing a rough sketch of the scene. All the members of the department were maxed out and pulling overtime.