Chapter 2

After taking it, Jake asked, “How did you find out about Chris being identified?”

“I’ve kept in touch with Chris’s brother, Mike. He called me after the cops notified him. Chris had been buried in an unmarked grave in the Collingswood cemetery. That’s the town where he was murdered. Mike claimed Chris’s remains, had them cremated and brought the ashes home with him. They’re in the family plot now.”

“That’s the memorial you went out of town for a couple of years ago?”

“Yeah,” Teague replied, remembering.

* * * *

“Mike.” Teague hugged Chris’s brother briefly once they were inside Mike’s house. “I’m…”

“Sorry?” Mike smiled tightly. “If nothing else, now we know what happened to him. But damn.” He sighed as he led Teague into the living room. “Thanks for coming.”

“It was the least I could do since it was my—”

“It wasn’tyour fault, Teague. Even if Aunt Belle hadn’t caught the two of you together, he still would have left. He wasn’t any happier here than he had been with Uncle Tom, when it came right down to it. You’re the only reason he stuck around until the end of the school year.”

“I suppose.” Teague looked at the woman who had just entered the room.

“Teague, this is my wife, Alice,” Mike said by way of introduction.

Teague smiled, saying, “It’s nice to meet you. Mike’s told me…well not a lot but some about you.”

“That puts us in the same boat,” she replied. “I know something about you, too. Like the fact you were Chris’s best friend.”

Nodding, Teague told her, “Not that it did any good at the end. I couldn’t convince him not to leave. If I had he’d still be alive.”

“You don’t know that,” Mike put in. “He was always a restless kid with a big wanderlust.”

“Mike’s right,” a man who vaguely resembled Mike said as he and a second man came into the room. “You probably don’t recognize us anymore. I’m Steve and this is Paul. We’re Mike, and Chris’s, younger brothers, although I suspect you’re aware of that.”

When Steve held out his hand, Teague shook it, replying, “You’re right, I don’t really remember you except as kids before your mom died.”

“Yeah,” Paul said tightly. “You were only interested in Chris from what I recall.”

Teague winced. “Yeah, I guess I was.”

“If it hadn’t been for you…”

“Enough,” Mike said sharply. “What happened, happened, and it was notTeague’s fault. We’ve already discussed this, Paul.”

Scowling, Paul started toward one of the chairs opposite the sofa then obviously changed his mind and left the room.

“Sorry about that,” Mike said. “I’m afraid Paul takes after Aunt Belle in some ways.”

“In other words he’s got no use for anyone who’s gay,” Teague replied.

“Pretty much. Whether you realized it at the time or not, he adored Chris when we were kids. Then after mom died and we were separated, he got sent to live with our other aunt.” Mike grimaced. “She made Aunt Belle look like a flag-waver for gay rights. And then, when he found out that Chris was gay…”

“Oh boy. Okay, I’ll steer clear of Paul as best I can while I’m here. That shouldn’t be too hard since the memorial service is tomorrow morning.”

“I for one am glad you came,” Steve said. “At least it means there’ll be someone at it besides us and the few ghouls who will show up because of the way Chris died.”

“That was horrible,” Alice murmured.

“Calling them ghouls?” Steve asked.

“No. The way he was killed.” She shuddered.

All the men nodded sadly. According to what Mike had told Teague when he asked, the coroner had determined that each victim had been sodomized repeatedly with a foreign object and then strangled, while hogtied, in such a way that their deaths were very slow and painful.

* * * *

“And now someone is doing it again,” Teague said, only realizing he spoken aloud when Jake asked what he meant. He explained the details of how the serial killer had murdered the three boys almost thirty years ago.

“Damn.”

“Yeah. I can’t begin to imagine what they went through at the hands of that son-of-a-bitch.”

“There was nothing to give the cops at the time any clue who it might have been?’’

“Not that I know about. But then, as the detective pointed out, I’m not a cop so he wasn’t about to reveal details even though they are cold cases.”

“You talked to him?”

“Two years ago. Right after I got back from the memorial service. Mike gave me his name. Detective Slater. He sounded like a decent man but not about to give out information despite my telling him that I’d gotten his name from Mike, I had known Chris, and I ran my own private detective agency.”

Jake chuckled. “That last probably turned him off big time.”

“Actually it didn’t seem to bother him in the least, but then I wasn’t there watching him talk. His body language could have told a totally different story and he was just being polite.”

“Did the murders all take place in or around Collingswood?”

“They were all in Grande County, but that covers a large area—partly mountain, partly flatland. Collingswood is the county seat.”

“When and where was this newest killing?”

“Two days ago, in Faircrest. It’s about four hundred miles south and west of Collingswood, on the other side of the Continental Divide. Here, let me show you.” Teague got his laptop from his desk, setting it on the coffee table so they could both see the screen. Then he booted it up and went online to a map site.