Hollis winced and exchanged glances with her partner. “A cross that might have been symbolic?”

“Maybe. Though I’d guess it was more likely the simplest, strongest frame he could construct and use without much effort and using tools ready to hand. No special knowledge or skills required, and judging by the splinters the wood was likely from some old woodpile or tumbledown building.”

“Okay. And Megan?”

“Died sometime last summer, approximate.”

Hollis nodded. “Fits our time frame.”

Jill looked at her thoughtfully. “You saw her, right? Her spirit?”

“Yeah, yesterday morning. Why?”

“She happen to tell you she was pregnant?”

With another glance at DeMarco, Hollis said, “No. How far along?”

“Six, eight weeks. She may not have known herself, but chances are she at least suspected.”

Hollis was thinking about Paul Ainsworth and that very sudden jilting of his fiancée, thinking about how an unexpected pregnancy would have compounded the misery of that hellish situation for Megan, but all she said was “Okay. Can you tell how she died?”

“Hyoid bone is fractured, pretty nearly crushed, so I’m thinking she was strangled by someone with very powerful hands. With so little flesh remaining it’s hard to be sure of bruising around the throat, but I am.” She didn’t have to explain to them how she was.

Hollis merely nodded.

“I don’t believe he tortured her,” Jill went on. “In fact, he appears to have buried her with care. And possibly caring. We found enough to be certain there were flowers placed in the grave. Not held in her hands, but spread all around her, under her, like a bed. And one more thing. I don’t believe that diamond ring went in the ground with her. Best guess, it was placed on her finger within the last couple of weeks.”

“But it was hers.”

“The report I got is that it was traced to the jewelry store where Paul Ainsworth purchased it just before they got engaged. Anything over a carat is traceable, and the setting was custom. It was her engagement ring.”

“That’s interesting,” Hollis said slowly.

“I thought you’d like that.”

“Any idea why he would have put the ring back on her finger sometime after she was originally buried?”

“Maybe as simple as he didn’t want to be caught with it in his possession.”

“Or as complicated as—?”

“Well, we can safely infer at least one thing. I can tell you she’d been uncovered and then reburied numerous times since she was originally buried.”

Hollis drew a breath and exchanged glances with her partner. “Did you find any foreign DNA?”

“Yes. Some pretty degraded, some not so much. A good defense attorney might make mincemeat of it, but I know what I know.”

“Semen?”

“Semen. He visited her. A lot.”

NINETEEN

Hollis had been at this too long to feel sickened. Much. She was even able to hold on to professional detachment, outwardly at least. Steadily, she asked, “I gather you didn’t get enough for a positive ID?”