David tugged his sweat-soaked T-shirt over his head and used it to wipe his neck and chest. 'You think he may have been accidentally cremated?'
'Seems logical, doesn't it?'
Isobel circled Elise's legs. She bent to pet her.
She was doing it wrong. Isobel didn't like to be lightly stroked down the middle of the back.
'Since when has anything about this case been logical?' He headed for the shower. 'Give me five minutes,' he said over his shoulder. 'You can entertain Isobel. She likes to be scratched on the stomach.'
'Yankee idiom, my ass,' Elise said once she and Isobel were alone.
Had he been lying about the stomach petting too? Elise was a little afraid to try it. Every cat she knew clawed the hell out of you if you touched its stomach.
She scratched Isobel's chin.
Liked that.
Behind the ear.
Didn't much like that.
Down the spine.
Seemed to hate that.
Stomach.
Isobel dropped heavily to the floor, purring and stretching for more.
The cat was every bit as strange as its owner.
'It's not safe to jog in the middle of the night,' Elise told David when he returned from the shower, his hair wet. 'Your being a cop doesn't mean anything. A jogger, male or female, alone at night is a tar-get.'
He ignored her and looked down, buttoning his shirt. 'What'd I tell you?' He pointed to Isobel, who was purring madly. 'She likes it on the stomach.'
Elise straightened away from the cat. ' Savannah is a port city. It has a long history of street crimes against the unwary and the foolish, going back to pirate days. Are you listening to me?'
He tucked his shirttail into his pants. 'I'm listening.'
'I don't want you jogging at night anymore.' It wasn't an order; it was a plea.
'I won't promise you that.'
'Why do you do it? You have to know it's dangerous. Do you get some kind of thrill out of it? Or do you just not care about yourself?'
For an instant, something seemed to fall away from him. She saw a bleakness in his eyes, and despair.
Then it was gone.
'I have trouble sleeping,' he said, sitting down on the couch, pulling on socks and shoes. 'Running helps.'
'How long have you had this sleeping problem?'
He tied his shoes and stood up. 'Ever since I got here, but it's been a lot worse lately.'
'How many nights a week?'
'Every night.'
He grabbed his apartment key and stuck it in his pocket. He shrugged into his black jacket. 'All night.' Before she could respond, he pushed the conversation away.
'Come on,' he said. 'We can talk about this later.'
The streets were deserted, and it took Elise and David only a few minutes to get from his apartment to the funeral home. When they arrived, two police cars were parked in front of the green, arched awning above a wide walkway.
Officer Eve Salazar was guarding the door.
'What's the story?' Elise asked.
'The guy who does the embalming came in to get the body ready for the service. I guess dress it and stuff.' She pressed her lips together and fatalistically shook her head. 'Couldn't find the body.'
'Any sign of a break-in?' David asked.
'Nope. The building has a top-of-the-line security alarm that wasn't tripped. No sign of anything. Nothing knocked over. Nothing out of place. Just a missing dead guy.'
'What about the crime scene team?'
'We're holding off.' She leaned closer. 'Until you verify that a crime has been committed and we're not dealing with just a misplaced body.'
'Good call.'
'Everybody else is downstairs where they keep the bodies.'
Officer Salazar pointed across a deep red carpet. 'Take the steps to the basement. Then make a right. You can't miss it.'
'These places certainly have a distinctive odor, don't they?' David whispered as they headed downstairs. 'Kind of heavy. Kind of sweet.'
'Like a rich dessert, only deader?' Elise asked.
'Exactly.'
There were three uniformed police officers in the room, along with the owner of the funeral home and the mortician who'd alerted everyone to the missing body. The funeral director, a man named Simms, had managed to throw on the obligatory dark suit.
The partners introduced themselves.
'I can't explain it.' The director's frantic gaze went from Elise to David, and back again.
The detectives perused the room. 'Anything out of place?' Elise asked.
'Nothing.'
They interviewed the mortician, an earnest little man named Benjamin Ming. He didn't have much to tell them that they didn't already know.
Elise strolled into the adjoining crematorium. David and the director followed.
The room temperature was cool. She examined the heat gauges on the machine.
Nothing registered anything.
'How long does it take for the oven to cool down after use?'
'Hours,' the director told her. 'The oven hasn't been used in days. The police officers already asked me about it. Why are you trying to point the finger at me? Ever since the ugly business with the funeral home that had uncremated bodies stuck in every corner, we're all suspect. I resent it. I'm the one who's the victim here. Along with poor Mr. Turello.'
'Nobody's trying to accuse you of anything,' David said. 'We have to consider every angle so we know what to rule out. Once we've eliminated accidental cremation, then we can focus our investigation on other possible scenarios.'
The director grabbed a tissue from a nearby box and wiped it down both sides of his face. 'Sorry. We pride ourselves in having an impeccable reputation. I'm the third generation in this establishment, and we've never had this kind of thing happen. Ever.'
Elise felt sorry for him. Normally he was the one who remained calm and collected, who soothed the upset patrons. 'Mr. Simms,' she said in a voice that was soft and serious, 'have you ever had any employees who seemed particularly…fond of the dead?'
He frowned. 'What are you talking about?'
'We're talking about necrophilia,' David said. 'Being in this line of business, you've surely heard of it.'
'Of course.' The director was flustered. Angry. 'But I'm here to emphatically tell you that no one- NO ONE-in my employ has ever…' His words trailed off. He seemed unable to continue.
'We will need a list of everyone who now works for you,' David said. 'Plus everyone who's worked here in the past three years. Cleaning people. Lawn care. Everybody.'
Elise called in a crime scene team to collect evidence, then moved on to the more traditional questions.
Anybody suspicious around?
Anybody who might be doing it to make Hartzell, Tate, and Hartzell look bad?
That was followed by an exchange of cards and phone numbers. 'Call us if you think of anything,' Elise told Simms. 'We'll be checking back.'
'You know what people are going to be saying about this, don't you?' David asked once they were outside,
