“I want to give you the lay of the land around here. St. Dennis is split pretty much in two by Charles Street, which is the main road you came in on. Half of the town faces the water, the other half faces the farms on the opposite side of town. Along Charles, we have shops where you can find just about everything. Eateries that run the gamut from pretty damned posh to a storefront with tables on the sidewalk where you can sit barefoot and eat hot dogs. We have an art gallery and an antiques shop and a bookstore where you can find comic books and first editions as well as the latest best sellers. There’s a marina where you can dock your boat and a boatyard where you can buy one if you don’t already have one.” He paused. “We have a population of about fifteen hundred.”

She slowed down. She got it.

“That big a commercial district plus a low population equals a tourist town.”

“Mostly on the weekends, yeah. And we have several old inns, bed-and-breakfasts, that sort of thing, so we get a lot of people staying around in the summer months. We had our Harbor Festival last weekend. Close as we can figure, our population just about tripled.”

“That’s a lot of people coming and going, some staying,” she said. “So you have to wonder…”

“Yeah. Was he one of them?” Beck turned back toward the municipal building. “Let’s walk up to town.”

He was tempted to add If you’re up to it, in those shoes.

What was it with women and high heels? He’d seen Vanessa teettering on heels that had to be four inches. And Steffie, too, whenever they’d gone out to dinner. Agent Shields’s weren’t that bad, and she didn’t seem to have a problem keeping up with him, but still. It was one of those things men just didn’t get.

“Of course, he could just as easily be a local, living in any one of these small towns. Until we can learn a little more about him, we’re all just speculating. One of the reasons I wanted the FBI involved was to have access to your profilers. Maybe help us get a handle on what type of person we’re dealing with.”

“We can do that. Let’s try to get a handle on the whole picture first. We’ll start with the victims, see what they have to tell us.”

“But they’ll send someone, right?” They reached the end of the walk that led to Charles Street and stopped at the corner. “They’ll send us someone who can do all that?”

“They did.”

He stared at her for a long moment.

“You mean you-”

“I’m trained to do it all.” She tried to smile good-naturedly, but a weak grin was the best she could come up with.

“Sorry. I thought you were just here as an investigator.”

“That’s all part of it. However, if I feel we need someone with more experience, I won’t hesitate to call in one of the big guns.”

Someone in a passing Buick slowed down to yell a greeting at Beck.

“How’s your wife feeling, Tony?” He called back.

“Doin’ better, thanks!”

“Tell her I was asking for her.”

“Will do!” The driver of the car waved and continued on his way.

“Nice shops.” Mia glanced across the street to the row of storefronts.

“Like I said, a little something for everyone.” Beck gestured toward the place on the corner. “Let’s grab something cold, then I’ll give you a short tour.”

He held open the door to Sips, a narrow one-room affair that sold only drinks. After a chat with Sam, the owner, about the body in Beck’s Jeep while he poured them each a large drink, Beck cut the conversation short.

“Won’t take much to feed that fire,” Beck said after he and Mia stepped back outside. “It’s all anyone wants to talk about.”

“How many homicides do you have in the average year?” she asked.

“Average?” He pretended to think it over. “Maybe one. Most I recall was one year when a couple of runaways from Baltimore holed up in one of the abandoned shacks down near the river. One of them flipped out and beat the other one to death with a shovel while he was passed out. We also had a shooting that same year, so that was two. Hal might know of others. You can ask.”

“Hal?”

“He was the chief of police before me. He still works part-time when we need extra hands, which we always seem to, this time of the year.”

“He was the chief and now he’s a part-timer? That sits okay with him?”

“I haven’t heard any complaints. Actually, it was his idea.”

“Hey, you.”

Mia turned to see a pretty young woman step out from the doorway of the shop they just passed.

“You’re just going to walk by and not even poke your head in to say good morning?” The woman walked toward them, not bothering to mask the fact that she was appraising Mia from head to toe.

“Good morning,” Beck said. “ Ness, this is Special Agent Mia Shields, from the FBI. She’s here to help out with the investigation. Agent Shields, my sister, Vanessa.”

“Oh. Wow. FBI.” Vanessa looked impressed.

“Good to meet you.” Mia smiled and looked past Vanessa to something that caught her eye in the shop window. The sign over the door read Bling in stylized letters. “You work in this shop?”

“Actually, I own it,” Vanessa told her proudly. “My little piece of the world.”

Mia stepped closer to the window. “You have some lovely things. That’s an interesting bag there…”

“It’s a fabulous bag. Stop in sometime and take a look while you’re here.”

“ Ness, Agent Shields isn’t here to shop,” Beck stage-whispered.

“True, but that doesn’t mean she can’t come by when she has a spare minute.” Vanessa smiled broadly at Mia. “Just to look.”

“Maybe I’ll do that before I leave town,” Mia nodded. “Just to look.”

“Good.” Vanessa turned to Beck. “So where are you off to?”

“Just showing Agent Shields around. I want her to have a feel for the town.”

“Don’t forget to show her the houses down around the square. And the old church. Oh, and the Breakstone Inn.” Vanessa turned to Mia. “It’s just gorgeous. We have so many beautiful homes that are totally restored, it’s one of the-”

“I don’t think Agent Shields is interested in an architectural tour,” Beck said.

“Actually, I am,” Mia told him. “It helps get a feel for the town and the type of people who live here. I’d like to see-”

She was interrupted by the sound of Beck’s ringing phone.

“Excuse me,” he said to both women as he took the phone from his pocket and answered. “Beck.”

He listened for several minutes, then said, “Thanks. I’ll get back to you.”

“Problem?” Vanessa asked.

“I’d say so.” He turned to Mia. “The body that was found in my car, the one we believed to be the missing woman from Cameron?”

“Yes?”

“It isn’t.”

“Isn’t…” Mia looked confused.

“It isn’t Mindy Kenneher.”

“So who is it?”

“That’s a damned good question.” He started to cross the street, motioning for Mia to follow.

“I guess if you had a report of a missing local woman you’d have mentioned it by now.” Mia caught up with him on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street.

“Good guess.”

“So it isn’t the woman you knew about, the one from the neighboring town.” She quickened her pace. “And you haven’t gotten word of anyone else missing?”

“None.”

“Which means he brought her here from somewhere else just to jab at you a little, or someone’s missing who hasn’t been reported.”

“Judging by the appearance of the corpse, this one’s been missing for a while. The flesh was pretty soupy.”

“What’s your guess, weeks?”

“Tough to tell. Even the ME wasn’t sure she’d be able to pinpoint how long the vic’s been dead. Given the heat and the temperature that would have built up inside that plastic wrapping, I don’t know that we’ll ever know for sure how long she’s been dead. Unless, of course, we’re able to identify her and figure out how long she’s been missing.”

“I’ll call someone back at the Bureau, see if he can shoot over a list of women who have been reported missing over the past, let’s say six months in a fifty mile radius. We’ll see if any of them match the vital stats of your vic.” They reached the municipal building and headed for the door.