“If my tail were the prize, I’d have hit the jackpot.” I glance toward the hall, where a puddle is taking form on the tile floor. “I have a Tupperware container in my office,” I tell her.

“I’ll take it.”

“Make sure the computer equipment and phone systems don’t get wet.”

“Got it covered, Chief.” She grins. “Literally.”

Ten minutes later, my computer is booted and I’ve got the technician from the crime lab on the phone. “The coroner says Dale Michaels sustained a through-and-through gunshot wound,” I tell him. “Did you guys find a slug at the scene?”

“Metal detector found one that had penetrated the soil,” he tells me.

“Caliber?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Intact?”

“Enough for us to analyze striations, which we’re working on now. If we’ve got matching striations in the database, we’ll know by tomorrow.”

“Anything else?”

“We found a long hair on the victim’s clothing that doesn’t belong to the victim.”

I think of Belinda Harrington. “The daughter found the body. It could be hers.”

“Interestingly, this hair was naturally blond, but dyed brown.”

“That’s a switch.” And it rules out Harrington as the donor, since her hair is red. “You get enough root for DNA?”

“Working on it. Again, it’s going to be a few days. We’re a little jammed up here.”

“Keep me posted.”

“You know it.”

After thanking the technician, I end the call. I grab a yellow legal pad from my drawer and take a few minutes to write down everything I know about the cases, which isn’t much—at least in terms of concrete information. I have no viable suspects. No motive. No murder weapon. In terms of physical evidence, I have two Amish peg dolls, that link Dale Michaels’s murder to the murder of Julia Rutledge—and may or may not tie both murders to a thirty-five-year-old unsolved cold case. I have the notes, which tie the Rutledge case to Norm Johnston. I also have the data from Dale Michaels’s iPhone—the list of incoming and outgoing calls he made before his murder. And the text to Blue Branson. But how does it all tie together?

I go to a second page and write down what I remember from my conversation with a dying Julia Rutledge: When I asked, “Who did this to you?” she replied with: “We didn’t mean to.” I pressed and she responded with: “Kill her.” When I asked who, she said, “Ghost.”

I’m staring down at my notes, trying to decide how to put all of it into meaningful order when Lois peeks her head in. “Everyone’s here, Chief.”