Robert B. Parker’s The Devil Wins

5

Jesse was wrong. It was Friday morning before the body in the blue tarp could be retrieved. The nor’easter had blown in Monday evening. The building had gone down Tuesday morning. It was late Thursday afternoon before the building inspector gave the go-ahead for the site to be cleared. Whoever said that there was less red tape to deal with in small towns was wrong. It had taken a full-court press by Jesse, the medical examiner, and Captain Healy to get the village selectmen to push the building inspector into action. As usual, it was Bill Marchand who did the last bit of persuading.

Now Jesse, Molly Crane, Captain Healy, Chief Wilson, and the medical examiner’s crew stood on the corner of Algonquin Street and Trench Alley, just beyond the safety barrier set up by the demolition crew. Technically, there was no reason for Molly’s presence, but Jesse knew she would have found an excuse to be there anyway. For all the ass-covering Molly had done for him over the years, for how she looked out for him, he owed her more than he could say. Allowing her to be there was the least he could do, though he was ambivalent about her being back on the street.

Most of it was selfishness. He liked having her at the station with him. They were good together. More than that, he trusted her. She was organized. Unlike Suit and the other guys who worked the desk and dispatch, Molly could do her job and brew a pot of coffee without being overwhelmed. Having her at the station house also made dealing with female suspects much easier. But the truth was that when it came to Molly, Jesse’s attitudes were a little old-fashioned. Although she was as good a cop as there was on the Paradise PD, Molly had four kids and a husband at home. Jesse had too many officers killed in the line of duty during his tenure. He had almost lost two more in the last six months and he didn’t think he could face Molly’s family if anything happened to her on his watch.

Molly had been willing to trade off her desire to be on patrol for a job with a regular schedule, one that allowed her to cook dinner for her family and participate in some of the kids’ after-school activities. Now that the kids were older, Molly had been itching to get on the street again. With Suit and Gabe out and no money in the budget for new hires, Jesse had no choice but to let Molly scratch that itch. He only hoped she wouldn’t develop a taste for the street.

“Come on, come on,” Molly said aloud without meaning to.

“Relax,” Jesse said, looking at his watch. “Your pal in the blue tarp isn’t going anywhere. Should only be a few more minutes.”

“What’s your girl even doing here, Chief?” Robbie Wilson wanted to know.

“She’s not my girl, Robbie. She’s the best cop I’ve got. Maybe you want to start showing her some respect.”

Wilson threw up his hands. “Jeez, so sensitive. All right. All right. I’m sorry, Mol — Officer Crane.”

She didn’t answer.

“You realize any crime scene evidence is probably screwed beyond hope,” Healy said to Jesse. “And what hasn’t been tainted has been carted away with the line of dump trucks that have been passing us for the last hour.”

Jesse nodded. “That’s why I asked your forensics team to handle the crime scene. If there’s anything left, your team is better equipped to find it.”

A heavyset man in a blue hard hat and reflective lime-green vest over a dust-covered Carhartt jacket came running up Trench Alley. He nearly slipped on the slick pavement. He yammered into a black microphone as he ran. It squawked back at him. By the time he got to the barrier, the fat man was sweating and panting. There was a shocked look on his face.

“Which one of... you... is Chief... Stone?” he asked, bending over, gasping for breath.

Jesse stepped forward. “I’m Chief Stone.”

“You... gotta come... quick... There’s... there’s...” He was too out of breath to finish.

“Healy, Molly, you’re with me. The rest of you stay put.”

Robbie Wilson didn’t like it. “But I’m—”

“Stay put. This is a police matter now,” Jesse said.

The three cops hurried down Trench Alley, around the crooked elbow in the street, and up toward the site of the demolished building. They didn’t have their weapons drawn, but kept their hands close to their holsters. The fat man hadn’t indicated there was any immediate threat. They hadn’t heard any shots. No one was screaming. No one was running in their direction. When they got to where the abandoned building had stood, all the workmen wore the same shocked expression on their faces. The debris from the old factory building was completely gone: bricks, rebar, tar, plywood, glass, steel columns, all of it. All that remained was the cracked concrete slab, though a fine cloud of dust hung in the air. Thirty feet beyond the slab, Sawtooth Creek, swelled with melted snow, flowed by.

“Who’s in charge here?” Jesse asked.

A lanky, middle-aged black man in an orange reflective vest walked up to Jesse. FOREMAN was written neatly in permanent marker across the front of his blue hard hat. PETTIGREW was written in the same marker in the same block lettering across the name strip on his vest. He held a radio in his left hand.

“That’d be me, James Pettigrew.”

“Jesse Stone. You wanted me?”

Pettigrew removed his glove and shook Jesse’s hand.

“We got a situation here, Chief. I think you better come have a look.”

Jesse pointed at Healy and Molly. “Is it safe for all of us?”

“Not a problem,” Pettigrew said. “The slab is damaged but stable. This way.”

“What’s the problem?” Jesse asked.

“You better just see for yourself.”

The metal plate that had been dislodged during Tuesday morning’s partial collapse had been removed. Bent and twisted by the debris, it sat close off to the side. The body in the blue tarp was clear to see in the morning light. It smelled, too, though not nearly as bad as it would if the temperatures had gotten above the week’s high of thirty-seven degrees. Molly was right. Whoever the man in the tarp was, he’d been tall and broad across the chest and shoulders. Loops of red-and-white synthetic rope were tied tightly around the ankles, knees, waist, chest, and neck of the body. But Jesse didn’t see what the fuss was about.

“I’m confused,” Jesse said, turning to Pettigrew. “Everybody knows about the body.”

Pettigrew shook his head. He put his radio in a vest pocket, moved to his left, and pointed at another metal plate a few feet away from the blue tarp. “That’s not it. Here, Chief, give me a hand. Help me lift this up.”

Jesse and Healy went around to the other side of the plate. Molly helped Pettigrew.

The foreman said, “Ready? Now!”

And with that, they lifted and slid the second metal plate up and back, resting it on the slab next to the other damaged metal plate. Then they looked down into the hole it had covered and saw a frayed, filthy blanket. Jesse knelt down and slowly pulled back the blanket, pieces of it disintegrating in his fingers.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Healy crossed himself.

Molly dropped to her knees, crossing herself, too. “Oh my God.” She clamped her hand over her mouth.

“You think it’s them, Officer Crane?” Healy asked.

She did not answer. He wasn’t sure she’d even heard him.

“Them who?” Jesse asked, peering down at the two skeletons.

“Mary Kate O’Hara and Ginny Connolly,” Healy said.

Molly pulled the small flashlight off her belt and laid flat on her stomach. She shined it down into the hole. The skeletons were different sizes. One was about five feet in length. The other five-six or — seven. Then Molly gasped. She pushed herself up and ran. She stumbled, fell forward, ripping the knees of her uniform pants. Got up again, limped outside, fell to her knees, and vomited.

When Jesse reached Molly, tears were pouring out of her. He got down beside her, threw his arm around her shoulders.

Healy came and stood over the both of them.

“What is it, Officer Crane?”

“It’s them, Captain. It’s Mary Kate and Ginny.”

“How can you be sure?”

“The ring,” she said. “Look at the ring.”