This was bothering Craig a lot. The use of the organs was the worst part. Methodical. Repulsive and methodical. Two murders, within twenty years, but more importantly within one hundred miles of each other, and the same bizarre, nauseating outrage. It had to be the same person. And it looked as if Joe might have died for being half-Indian. Only problem with that was why the Indian-hating killer would wait twenty years to strike again. It wasn’t as if there was a shortage of Native Canadians to tempt him to take one out. Why now? Why Joe?

Bob Cochrane interrupted Craig’s nightmarish thoughts. ‘You think there’s a connection?’

‘Of course.’

Cochrane leaned back on his chair, swinging on the two back legs. ‘Heck of a long time ago. You’d think if it was a serial killer, he’d have killed again before now.’

‘Maybe he has. But not here. Can we run this on the computer?’

Cochrane leaned forward, his chair coming back to earth with a thump. ‘Craig. I know how you feel but you know you’re not supposed to be doing this.’

‘I haven’t been told who’s going to be the investigating officer from Edmonton yet.’

‘But you will. Leave it for him. You were too close to Joe.’

Craig looked across at Bob Cochrane. He had known Joe too. Yet it would be deemed suitable for Cochrane to investigate and not Craig just because they were in different detachments. It was stupid.

‘So what would you do, Bob? Just leave it if you thought you had a lead?’

‘Yeah. I think you should. You don’t want your wrists slapped. This isn’t much of a lead anyhow.’

Craig laughed in a hollow sarcastic way. ‘You think an identical murder only a hundred miles away, albeit twenty years ago, is no lead?’

‘We came up with nothing last time.’

‘So we have a chance to nail the bastard this time. Joe’s body wasn’t lying there for twenty years. It’s fresh in the morgue, Bob.’

Daniel came back in with three coffees and a sad little plate of cookies.

‘Don’t like to hurry you sir, but the pass’ll be pretty much blocked when the ploughs stop.’

Craig snatched a cookie from the offered plate while still looking angrily at Cochrane. ‘Can I take this file, Bob?’

‘You know you can’t, Craig. It’s here for when the investigating officer needs it.’

Craig crunched his cookie and nodded. It wasn’t the investigating officer who was going to have to go back to Silver right now and fob off the press with maybes and don’t knows, while all the time knowing they had something that looked like an Indian-killer on their hands. An Indian-killer who’d got away with it maybe more than once and then made a big mistake. He’d killed a cop.