Robert B. Parker’s Buried Secrets

Two

Phil Burton — Jesse assumed that’s who this was — had been there awhile.

It was like he’d built a nest in the living room, the one open space in the house that Jesse could observe.

The decomposition wasn’t too bad. The house was dry, and it had been cold until recently. The skin had drawn back from the face, but there was still something recognizably human there. He’d been an old man, his hair strawlike and fried from multiple dye jobs. His eyes were sunken behind tinted aviator glasses, and he wore a button-down shirt with epaulets. He looked deflated, half melted.

Around him on the floor were paper plates and more fast-food containers. This was apparently his dining room as well as his bedroom.

In truth, this wasn’t the first time he’d found a body like this in Paradise. Older men, living alone, with no close friends or family nearby, occasionally ended up like this. Waiting for someone to discover them.

But Jesse had never seen a house this far gone before. He’d heard of hoarders, obviously, but he’d never seen one here. He wondered how it started — how you went from hanging on to an old phone book to living like this. What was the tipping point? When did you stop seeing the mess, start seeing it as your life?

Burton clearly wasn’t going to tell him. Jesse took another look at the body. No obvious sign of foul play.

Apparently, he went to sleep here and never woke up.

There were worse ways to go.

Jesse carefully picked his way out of the house again, easing among the piles and stacks of junk. It had been years since Jesse was a prospect with a Major League career ahead of him, but he still moved with an athlete’s grace.

In his mind, he was already making a list of everything that would need to be done. Notifying the coroner, a search for the next of kin, finding someone to come and excavate all the layers of garbage.

As he climbed back over the gate, he wondered how Matthew Peebles was going to take the death of his family friend. He seemed high-strung.

As it turned out, Jesse didn’t have to worry about that.

When he got back out of the house, Peebles was gone.

Jesse called Molly to report what he’d found, then Dev Chada, the medical examiner. Then he waited, leaning against a low stone wall that separated the property from the road. The air was better out here, and the day was cooling down nicely as the sun set.

Suit showed up before anyone else.

Luther “Suitcase” Simpson did not appear at all damaged, or even wrinkled, by his recent call to break up an argument between a couple of drunks. He was a big guy, one of the most solid cops — and friends — Jesse had ever known. Still, he’d always be a kid to Jesse. Seeing Suit in his plainclothes blazer, Jesse couldn’t help thinking of a boy wearing his dad’s clothes.

“You look pretty fresh for someone who just got out of a bar fight,” Jesse said.

“Ah, it barely qualified as a fight,” Suit said. “Two guys who could hardly stand up, getting angry over a woman. She didn’t want either of them. Once they realized that, they began crying on each other’s shoulders. I got them each a ride home.”

“The path of true love never did run smooth,” Jesse said.

“Especially when booze is involved.”

“Don’t have to tell me,” Jesse said. He’d spent a few too many nights looking for answers at the bottom of a glass, and far too many years searching for love with the wrong woman.

Suit, at the heart of him, wanted only to do good. He was driven to help people, which is why he became a cop.

Jesse, on the other hand, was driven to make things right, which was not exactly the same thing.

Suit looked around. “Where’s the good citizen who reported this?”

“Not so good would be my guess,” Jesse said. “He scampered.”

“ ‘Scampered’?”

“That’s a technical term. Look it up in your detective handbook.”

“You call the crime scene people?” Suit asked.

“We might need an archaeologist,” Jesse said. “Maybe a whole team of them. Come on. I’ll show you.”

Jesse got over the fence first.

“Pretty spry for a guy your age,” Suit said.

Jesse waited until Suit came down on the piles of trash and slipped, nearly falling on his ass. “Careful there, Junior,” Jesse said. “Wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

Suit regained his balance and put on his own pair of nitrile gloves. They went in through the open sliding door.

Suit went red, then pale, as the scent hit him.

“Jesus,” he said, taking in the view. “How does somebody live like this?”

“Well, in this case, he doesn’t. Not anymore.”

They made their way through the narrow path to the living room, Suit turning sideways in places to avoid touching anything. For someone his size, it was like navigating a maze of spring-loaded traps, like something out of an Indiana Jones movie.

Burton was right where Jesse had left him.

“Ugh,” Suit said.

“ ‘Ugh’? Is that your professional opinion, Detective?”

“Well, what would you say? Can you imagine? Just being left like this until someone remembers you exist?”

“Not everyone has someone who cares about them,” Jesse said.

Suit took a KN95 out of his pocket and put it on. As his arm came up, he accidentally nudged one of the towers of file boxes stacked around the room. The tower shifted, and the old cardboard suddenly split open, sending a cascade of papers and folders to the floor.

“Ah, shoot,” Suit said. “Sorry.”

He tried to find a safe place to stand and took a step forward, and again nearly fell on his ass as a stack of magazines slid out from under his foot.

“It’s like watching Baryshnikov dance,” Jesse said.

“You watch a lot of ballet?”

“Sorry, I meant one of those dancing bears.”

Then something caught Jesse’s eye in the pile of papers released from the box. He kneeled down to take a closer look.

Suit was still staring at Burton’s corpse on the couch.

“Well,” Suit said. “At least he didn’t suffer.”

Jesse carefully picked up a Polaroid photo. He looked at the image, then showed it to Suit.

Suit went pale again.

“Maybe he should have,” Jesse said.