When he got to the front door, he could feel the adrenaline kicking in. Even though he would pay a big price for it later, he was glad for the rush. It helped with the hangover. The only other thing that got his juices flowing like this was playing baseball on a big stage, and that part of his life had ended many years ago on a crappy infield in Pueblo, Colorado. Still, as much as he was energized, he never lost sight of the fact that someone had to die, often violently, for him to get this rush. He would have gladly traded in this feeling for there to never be another homicide within the confines of Paradise, but the universe didn’t work that way. There was no one out there to bargain with, except maybe the devil. And Jesse knew how those deals usually turned out.
The front door was ajar and Jesse was careful not to use his hand to push it open or to grab the knob, though it looked like it had already been dusted. He nudged it open with his elbow and saw Molly standing in the hallway, scribbling notes on the pad she carried with her. He also saw the trail of dried blood Alisha had warned him about leading from the vestibule, down the hallway, and around the corner to where, he guessed, the stairs to the basement were located. There were smudged footprints and two different shoeprints in the blood, partials, but enough to make out size and manufacturer. Jesse didn’t assume that the two shoeprints were from two suspects. For all he knew, one of the prints came from the MassExpress guy. It would be foolish to draw any conclusions.
“What do we have?” Jesse asked, getting Molly’s attention.
“Peter’s already taken samples, photos, and done the preliminaries upstairs and on this level. He’s in the basement now, but Lundquist and the state forensics team will be here soon enough.”
Jesse felt the heat rising under his skin. It was his call whether or not to bring in the staties. Ever since Healy had retired, he was less apt to rush to ask for help from the state police. He liked Lundquist, Healy’s acting replacement, well enough. Healy had given Lundquist his full backing. It was just that Jesse was slow to give his trust. He’d found that trust given slowly was like a smart investment. It paid dividends over a long period and when it went wrong, the damages were minimized.
“Who told you to call in the staties?”
“C’mon, Jesse,” she said. “Do you have any idea of how out of it you were yesterday after Suit and Elena left the reception? I’m surprised you can even stand up. And for goodness’ sakes, we tried calling you for a long time there. What would you have done? I was covering for you in case the mayor got wind of it. This way I could tell her you instructed me to get the state cops right on it.”
He knew she was right, that he owed her his thanks, not his anger, which should have been reserved for himself. Molly had covered for him over the years on the few occasions he had lost control of his drinking. Beyond that, she had made the right call. If the rest of the crime scene looked anything like the hallway, Peter Perkins would be overwhelmed.
“Where’s the body?”
“Upstairs.” Molly pointed with her pen. “The ME is still up there with her.”
“ID?”
“Maude Cain, ninety-one. She’s lived here her whole life.”
Jesse put up his palm. “Wait. Cain... Cain. Cain as in Zachariah Cain?”
“That’s right. Cain as in the man the library is named for. They go back to before Paradise was Paradise.”
Jesse knew some of the local history, but not as much as lifetime residents like Molly. Sometimes, as he had learned when the bodies of Ginny Connolly and Mary Kate O’Hara were found in a collapsed building on Trench Alley, small towns hid their pasts from outsiders. That’s why Molly, besides being the best cop he had, was invaluable.
“Why didn’t the Cains build up on the Bluffs like the Salters and Rutherfords?”
“They gave a lot of their fortune away to do good works. Their money was pretty much gone by the time Maude inherited this place from her mother.”
“I see she was selling the house.”
“She was old. I don’t think she could handle the upkeep anymore.”
“Okay, I’m going up. And, Molly...”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
As he walked to the staircase, he noticed the broken shards of porcelain, a few caked with dried blood, and the general destruction of the house. It didn’t take a seasoned homicide detective to figure out that whoever killed Maude Cain had come looking for something. The question was what had they come looking for? And had it been found?