Robert B. Parker’s Buried Secrets

Three

The Polaroid was aged and a little faded, but preserved from its time in the box. It showed a man in what appeared to be an alley. It was hard to see the background; it was a tight shot, focusing mainly on the bullet wound in the man’s forehead.

“What the hell?” Suit said.

Jesse stood.

“We should let the crime scene techs handle this. I don’t want to disturb anything else.”

But Jesse kept looking down at the floor, the Polaroid still in his hand.

There were dozens more among the papers and folders scattered on the floor. Suit was staring at them, too, breathing a little heavier in his mask.

From what Jesse could see, the pictures were all of dead men. Gunshot wounds. Blood. Some staring dead-eyed, some with their eyes closed as if they were blinking or sleeping. All starkly lit in the camera’s flash.

The house suddenly felt much smaller, as if all the junk was pressing in on the both of them. Before, it was just sad. Now it seemed haunted.

“Let’s go,” he told Suit.

Jesse got to the fence before he realized he still had the first picture.

He slipped it into his pocket and climbed over, back into the everyday world.

Jesse made some more calls. First to Molly, to let her know that he and Suit would be out here awhile, and then to Dev. Then he called the state’s crime scene technicians. They were going to need a lot of people for this one. The house was packed to the walls with junk, and all of it would have to be hauled out and cataloged.

He and Suit stood outside and waited. Dev showed up first. Jesse walked him, carefully, into the scene, leaving Suit outside.

“I don’t want to trigger an avalanche,” he told Suit.

“I’ll just enjoy the fresh air out here,” Suit said.

Even Dev, who spent most of his days up to his elbows in death, looked a little green when he saw the corpse.

“Damn, I hate these,” he said.

“Can’t blame you,” Jesse said. “Look, I need you to be careful.”

Dev made a face. “When am I not?”

“Sorry. Not what I meant. This isn’t just a dead body.”

He took the picture from his back pocket and showed it to Dev, then pointed to the others on the floor.

“My God,” Dev said. “What do you think this means?”

“No idea,” Jesse said. “There could be a lot of evidence buried around here. Any hope I have of getting answers is in all these boxes. That’s why I need you to do your best to get the body out without disturbing—”

At that moment, another cardboard box sagged, then slid over on the other side of the pile, vanishing into the gloom.

“So that’s what you meant by ‘avalanche,’ ” Dev said. “I get it now.”

“I know you’ve got to do your job,” Jesse said. “But I don’t want to lose anything in here, either.”

“I don’t think losing anything is the problem. I imagine it’s going to take months to go through all of this.”

“Probably,” Jesse said and sighed. He felt the need for something simple, like a traffic violation. And a drink, which bothered him. He shoved the thought down.

“Don’t worry,” Dev said. “I’ll be gentle. I don’t want to be buried in here, either.”

Dev picked his way through the photos, the piles, and the papers, stepping with the balance of an acrobat. He barely disturbed the dust on any of the surfaces. Jesse was legitimately impressed.

“Graceful,” he said.

“Ten years of gymnastics as a kid, plus twelve years of stepping over corpses,” Dev said.

Dev made a preliminary examination of the body, just looking, not touching. Then, clamping his jaw shut and putting his mask and gloves on, he gingerly reached out to the corpse.

“I think we’re in luck,” he said. “The body has mostly dried out. I think he’s been dead for at least two months.”

“You have a funny definition of luck.”

Dev carefully rolled the body to one side. The cloth of the shirt stuck to a blanket covering the couch, then peeled away, along with a layer of other stuff that Jesse didn’t really want to look at very closely. Dev made a frustrated noise.

“This is going to be ugly,” he said.

Jesse’s phone buzzed. A text from Suit, letting him know the State Police’s crime scene team had arrived. Jesse didn’t text back. He wasn’t a teenage girl. He didn’t text if he could possibly avoid it.

“What if we lift the blanket from the couch?” Jesse asked. “Move him to the floor?”

The blanket under the body extended from one end of the couch to the other. The body was on top of it. It seemed like it was all still in one piece.

“Worth a shot,” Dev said.

They each took a position, Dev at the body’s head, Jesse at its feet.

“Really wish I’d sent one of my assistants for this,” Dev said.

“Come on. Isn’t this why you went to med school?” Jesse grabbed his end of the blanket. Dev did the same. “On three.”

Jesse counted. They lifted. The body was surprisingly light. The blanket didn’t rip. Nothing else came loose.

They put it down on the floor.

Jesse spotted something under the couch cushions, which were flattened and thin from years of wear as well as sodden with dried fluids.

But there was definitely something underneath.

“Hey, Dev,” he said. “Take a picture of this, will you? I want to move these.”

Dev snapped a photo with his phone, then Jesse lifted one of the cushions carefully and set it aside.

Jesse and Dev both stared.

They didn’t speak. They didn’t have to.

Dev snapped another picture, preserving the scene. Jesse then moved the other cushions, exposing the bottom of the couch completely.

The photos, apparently, weren’t the only secrets hidden in this house.

In the couch, filling the hollow space of the frame, were stacks and stacks of cash.

Thousands of dollars, easily. Hundreds of thousands, even.

“Well, shit,” Dev said.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Jesse said.