Page 26 of In Her Prayers

“Do you have any idea who might have wanted to harm her?”Jenna asked.

“No idea at all,” he muttered, the word barely audible.“And I got nothing more to say about that than I did back in ‘89.”

“Was Caroline connected with St.Michael’s?”Jake asked.“Was she a member of that congregation?”

“No,” Zach said flatly.“She wasn’t a religious person, not in that way.Her music … that was what meant most to her.”

“Zach, anything that happened that night, we need to know,” Jenna pressed, trying to bridge the chasm of years with her words.

He leaned forward, his voice edged with emotion.“All I know is that night was the last time anyone saw her.”Then he looked directly at Jenna, “And you’re sure it was her you found?”

Jenna thought of the bodies that were in the morgue now.The tattoo surely indicated that Caroline Weber was one of them.Jenna also knew that Caroline and her favorite song matched one of the women in her dream, but of course she couldn’t say anything about that.

“To be absolutely sure, we’d need something for a DNA match,” she told Zach.“Perhaps you have something …?”

He groaned and closed his eyes.“You say it would help you know for sure?”

“It would be a great help,” she told him.

The weary farmer pushed himself up from his chair and shuffled into an adjoining room.After a few moments, he emerged with something pinched between his fingers.Strands of hair, thin and wispy, glinted in the dim light.His grim expression spoke volumes as he held the hair out to Jenna.

“Caroline’s?”she asked, pulling out an evidence bag.

“She gave it to me,” he said glumly.

“Thank you, Zach,” she said softly, trying to offer some semblance of comfort as she sealed the strands in the bag.But he merely shrugged in response.

“That’s it,” he replied abruptly, “I want you all out of my house.Now.”

Jenna understood the finality in his tone; they would get no more from this farmer today.

“Thank you, Mr.Freelander,” she acknowledged.“I’m sorry that our visit was so hard for you.”

She gestured to Jake and Frank, signaling it was time to depart.As they exited the farmhouse, she could feel the tension slowly unraveling from her shoulders.Outside, the mid-July sun beat down mercilessly, the heat a tangible force as they walked back to the patrol car.

Jenna slid behind the wheel, adjusting the rearview mirror to steal a glance at Frank.His face was ashen, a visual testament to the gravity of this day.Looking back at the farmhouse, she saw Zach standing at his door watching them leave.

“Do you think there’s any chance that Zach killed Caroline?”Jake asked.

Jenna fell silent for a moment.That question had been in the back of her mind during their whole conversation about him.But now …

Frank spoke up, voicing exactly the same conclusion that Jenna had come to.

“There’s no way that man’s a murderer.He’s grieving, he’s angry, and I don’t blame him.”

There wasn’t a doubt in Jenna’s mind that Frank was right.Which left them no closer to catching the killer—or killers—than they’d been before.

The drive continued in silence for a few moments.Jenna kept her focus on the road, yet her thoughts churned with the pieces of a puzzle that refused to fit neatly together.The carillon playing at an odd time, perhaps sounding out the haunting notes of ‘Crossroad Blues’; the bodies found in the walls; the autoharp player who had appeared in her dream but not as a corpse—they were all fragments of a larger mystery she couldn’t get her mind around yet.If the carillon really had inexplicably played the notes of ‘Crossroad Blues’ the night before Caroline vanished, that could be no mere coincidence.

“Do you want me to call Melissa Stark?”Jake asked.

“Yes, please bring her up to date,” Jenna replied.

Jake dialed the familiar number for Dr.Melissa Stark and the line clicked into life after a few rings.

“Stark here,” came the coroner’s brisk voice.

“Melissa, it’s Jake Hawkins,” he responded, his tone steady and professional.“We’ve got some information suggesting that one of the bodies was that of a young woman who went missing back in 1989.Her name was Caroline Weber.”

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