Thirty years later, what did she still have to hide?

“Can I take these?” I asked Superintendent McKinnon.

“Be my guest. Are you going to call the reporter?”

“I might.”

“And you’ll talk to Shana?”

“Would it be okay if I returned tomorrow?”

“Under the circumstances, yes.”

I nodded, picked up the batch of letters, my mind already racing ahead. But just as I went to stand, I felt, more than saw, the superintendent’s hesitation.

“Anything else?” I asked her.

“Maybe one last thing. Any chance you caught the morning’s paper?”

I shook my head. Given my own evening’s . . . activities, then the call from the prison, I hadn’t had the opportunity to catch up on current events.

Now Superintendent McKinnon slid the Boston Globe across the smooth surface of her desk, one finger tapping a headline in the lower right-hand corner, below the fold. A local woman had been murdered; I gathered that immediately from the headline. It wasn’t until my gaze skimmed down the next few paragraphs to the details of the crime, strips of skin, expertly removed . . .

I closed my eyes, feeling an unexpected shiver. But they couldn’t . . . I didn’t . . . I cut off the errant thought savagely. Now was not the time or place.

“If memory serves . . .” the superintendent began.

“You are correct,” I interrupted.

“If I could spot the similarities between this murder and your sister’s work, your father’s crimes, others will as well.”

“True.”

“Meaning things for you and your sister could get worse.”

“Oh yes,” I agreed, gaze still locked on the desk and not meeting the superintendent’s eyes at all. “Things are about to get much worse.”

Chapter 10

THE COAKLEY AND ASHTON FUNERAL HOME had been serving families in Greater Boston for more than seventy years. D.D. had visited the establishment, a graceful, white-painted Colonial, twice before. Once for the passing of a friend, and once to honor a fellow officer. On both occasions, she’d been struck by the powerful odors of fresh flowers and preserved flesh. It was probably not something a homicide detective should admit, but funeral parlors creeped her out.

Maybe she simply knew death too well, so to view it in this kind of carefully sanitized venue made it feel alien to her. Like meeting a long-lost lover who looked nothing like you remembered.

The funeral director, Daniel Coakley, was waiting for her arrival. An older gentleman with broad shoulders and a shock of thick white hair, he wore an impeccably tailored charcoal-gray suit and exuded the kind of calm demeanor meant to soothe distraught family members and encourage close confidence.