Ben, riding in the passenger seat, looked out to the decaying houses and run-down low-rise apartments before Jurek stopped in front of a duplex with curled shingles and worn frame panels that cried out for paint.

“One of the girls lived here with her mother. The unit to the right.”

Ben got out, taking stock of the mournful-looking half of a house. Standing there, he considered the news stories he’d read on the case. He imagined the life of the young girl growing up here, breathing in the stink of the killing operation nearby, enduring the clunking and clanging of the trains, feeling trapped in a prairie prison, resentful of those more fortunate, all of it boiling under the surface until something exploded.

He took photos and made notes before returning to the SUV, his thoughts flashing to California.

Upon arriving in Eternity from Winnipeg earlier that day, he’d received a message from Kayla saying their home alarm had gone off; that maybe someone was in their backyard; how the security people dismissed it as an animal. Ben had sent a message to Emma, who’d assured him that everything was fine. But he considered Cecil May’s revelation about private investigators and was uncertain what to make of it all.

For a moment, he wished he was home. But he set his worry aside when he met with Jurek, who’d agreed to show him important locations in the case. “You bet, I’ll give you the twenty-five-cent tour of Eternity,” he’d said.

Now, after leaving the duplex where the first killer had lived, they didn’t go far before they rolled into a neighborhood of small houses and mature shade trees. The air was better here. Most of the homes had well-tended lawns, pretty flower beds. Then Jurek parked in front of a bungalow that had fallen into disrepair. It looked abandoned. Neglected, uncut grass and weeds grew wild in the front yard. A sun-faded For Rent sign peeked from the corner of a cracked picture window.

“Another one of the girls lived here with her parents,” Jurek said.

Ben got out. He stepped through the overgrowth around the property, surveying the house, the yard, gaining a sense of the desperation the young girl who’d lived here must’ve felt before succumbing to the evil in her troubled heart.

As he took photos and notes, he noticed the curtains move at a neighboring house and sensed he and Jurek were being watched.

Ben planned to come back later, to all the addresses, to talk to neighbors. Given that most people in small towns stayed put, he figured his chances were good that a lot of the same people were living here at the time of the murders.

“On to the next one,” Jurek said.

Jurek drove through several more streets, taking them south of the railyards to a group of apartment buildings.