The Night Killer

executed his investigative philosophy was that all strangers were suspicious, because he knew everyone in the county and what they were capable of. If Diane were being kind, she would say he used more psychology than forensics to solve crimes. Truthfully, she didn’t think he knew his neighbors as well as he thought he did.
    Still, Diane had no choice but to contact him. There were two things about that prospect that nagged at her. The sheriff would not do a good job of working the crime scene, and when she told him about the stranger in the woods, he would jump on that as a solution. If the mysterious stranger was the murderer, fine, but if not, the real killer would still be out there, and the man, whoever he was, would be in deep trouble.
    How long had they been dead? Diane traced her steps back to where she had stood looking into the dining room. Ozella Barre was facing her, sitting at the end of the table. Her hands were secured with duct tape to the wooden arms of the upholstered host chair. Her head was against the back of the chair. Her eyes were open and covered with a milky film. So—she had been dead over three hours, at least. Not before seven thirty, because that was when they were standing on their steps waving good-bye to her.
    Diane did the math. They were killed between seven thirty and nine p.m. Small window for a terrible murder like that. If he’d gotten there right after I left, it would only be less than an hour and a half. She had been walking around in the woods for a little over five and a half hours. It seemed much longer. When, during that time, had she seen the stranger? How long had she been walking before she encountered him, and how long was it after they parted that she found the house? Shit. She didn’t know. Why hadn’t she been keeping track of time? She may not have had service, but the phone displayed the time. Then again, why should she have? Her primary concern had been survival, not punching a clock.
    There was the other stranger—the one who was chasing her. He could have come here looking for her and killed the Barres. But why? What reason would he have? Then, what reason did he have to keep a skeleton in a tree?
    The Barres were nice people. Who would come in the night and kill them in such a horrible way?
    Diane turned her attention to Roy Barre. He sat at a right angle to his wife. She couldn’t see his eyes. She didn’t dare move around more than she had already. Even if Sheriff Conrad didn’t do much in the way of crime scene investigation, she would still leave him a virtually untouched scene. Roy’s head leaned sideways toward his wife. Blood pooled in front of them both on the dark Victorian table. Diane noticed that both their hair was roughed up on top of their heads. Possibly the killer held their hair to pull their heads back in order to cut their throats.
    Diane had barely noticed the condition of the rooms when she had entered. She let her gaze drift around the room. The Barres had a comfortable home. The living room was furnished with stuffed chairs, a sofa, and throw pillows with floral designs in subtle shades of blue and green. The chairs and sofa were positioned near the fireplace with the sofa facing it. There was a large blue-and-white rag rug on the floor under a dark-wood coffee table. Several hutches lined the walls with Mrs. Barre’s collections of porcelain figurines. Mr. Barre’s collection of things he’d found on his land—rocks, antique padlocks, old horseshoes, and some of the smaller antique tools—sat on a series of shelves on one wall. The arrangement told her they liked looking at the things they had collected. Two of the hutches’ doors were ajar. Nothing else looked amiss.
    Diane turned her attention to the dining room. The dining room furniture was Victorian, like much of the furniture in the house. A mahogany breakfront hutch holding ornate dishes stood against one wall. Here too, the doors were ajar, but the hutch was not ransacked. Diane would like to have seen the rest of the house.
    She took out her cell phone and began taking pictures of the crime scene and of the environment 360 degrees around where she stood. When she finished she put her phone back in its case on her belt. That was as much as she could do.
    Diane listened again to the sounds of the house. Virtually quiet except for normal house sounds. She retraced her steps out the door and walked down the long steps that led to the road she’d left by not six