“Special Agent Hewitt, what are you doing at my crime scene?”
He stared at her. “Looking,” he said after a moment.
“For anything in particular?”
“I’m on a task force that deals with organized crime. I heard there was a murder down here at the Body Shop.”
“Do you have any specific reason to believe that this case is federal in nature?”
The agent sucked slowly at his teeth. “Murphy was a well-known gang leader. He was involved in everything from guns to drugs to prostitution to extortion. I don’t have any reason to believe that this wasn’t related to his racketeering activities.”
Sanchez folded her arms. “Let me ask the question a different way, Special Agent Hewitt: are you asserting federal jurisdiction here? Because if you are, I’ll have our people out of here in about five minutes and you can take over. Then if something goes wrong, it’s your ass in a sling, not mine.”
It took him a moment to answer. “No, I’m not asserting jurisdiction,” he said.
“Good,” Sanchez said. “In that case, I’d appreciate it if you’d clear out until my people are done. I’ll get you a report as soon as one is ready, but until then, I have control over the crime scene, and I can’t have my people working with someone looking over their shoulders.”
“Detective Sanchez, I’m a special agent with the FBI,” Hewitt began in protest. She cut him off.
“So was John Connolly, and he’s still got three years left in supermax out at Allenwood for tipping off Whitey Bulger and his mob, right? For years, your federal boys ran interference for these guys whenever we tried to put them away, so you’ll pardon me if the ‘Special Agent’ mystique doesn’t cut a whole lot of shit with me. I’ll keep you informed as appropriate, but I need you out so we can do our job. Either that or you take the lead yourself. Which is it gonna be?”
Hewitt put his glasses back on. “I’ll expect a full report, complete with pictures, by the end of the day,” he said.
“You can expect whatever you want,” Sanchez replied. “No skin off my nose.”
Hewitt stood there for a moment, then walked past them, out toward the front door to the garage.
“Cocksucker,” McAfee said under his breath as he watched Hewitt walk out of the Body Shop.
“Maybe he’s just doing his job,” Stone offered.
“Maybe,” Sanchez said. “I’m not taking any chances, though. We have a job to do, too. And I don’t want the feds fucking up one of my cases.” She looked at McAfee. “Let’s get to it. What are we looking at?”
“You want to look at Bags first?” he asked.
“Should we?”
McAfee gave a gesture falling somewhere between a nod and a shrug. “He’s a good warm-up. He’s in better shape than Vinny.” He pointed over into a corner behind a tool rack. Sanchez moved in that direction and Stone followed.
John Smith was known to most as “Johnny Bags.” The nickname came from his early career ferrying loads of cash to local political bosses. His body was crumpled in a corner of the garage, tucked behind a rack of utility drawers. In life he’d been a fearsome man, six-five with an angry face and a disposition devoid of humanity’s finer traits. In death he looked almost peaceful, curled into a fetal position, his head resting on his left hand. Only the angle at which his right arm was twisted-straight out from the shoulder, its palm turned upward in an impossible feat of contortion-suggested that the man was anything other than resting. A closer look revealed the two holes in his forehead, and stepping over the body, Sanchez could see flies buzzing around a dark pool of congealed blood spread out from his black hair.
“Not much left of the back of his skull,” McAfee commented. “Looks like they used shredders. Pretty much blew off the back half of his head.”
“Nasty,” Stone said with a frown.
“Effective,” Sanchez replied. “Any other points of entry?”
McAfee shook his head. “Just the head, from what we can tell. Doc’ll confirm it with the autopsy.”
“Anything else? Cuts? Contusions? Anything?”
“Just the arm,” McAfee said. “Looks like it was pulled out of the socket. Could’ve happened when he fell after he got popped.”
Sanchez lingered over Smith’s body for another minute or two, drinking in the scene. Other than the body and the stagnant, well-defined mat of blood underneath the head, the area was neat and tidy, with tools stacked in an orderly fashion on top of the utility cabinets. She pulled back the jacket and patted it down. There was nothing in the pockets. A shoulder holster was strapped to his torso, and a gun was tucked into it.
“Okay,” Sanchez said at last. “Let’s see Murphy.”
McAfee nodded. “The main attraction. If either of you have a weak stomach…”
“Just show us the body, Sergeant,” Sanchez said.
McAfee said nothing, but led them to a mechanics’ bay at the very rear of the building. It shot off from the main space, and was concealed from view. They rounded the corner, and Sanchez heard Stone suck in his breath.
Murphy’s body was there. At least, she assumed it was Murphy’s body. It was difficult to tell given the amount of damage. It looked more to her like two hundred pounds of ground beef covered in torn clothing than what she remembered of Vinny Murphy. It didn’t appear that any spot on the body had escaped violence.
“Holy shit,” Stone whispered softly.
“Nothing holy about it,” Sanchez said. “An impressive piece of work, though.” She moved slowly toward the body, being careful not to disturb the scene. “Are the pictures done?” she asked.
“All done,” McAfee replied. “The whole lovely scene has been recorded for posterity.”
“Crime scene?”
“They’ve done all they can do until the body is moved out. Prints, scrapings, the works. They’ll do it all again once we’ve cleared out, but they think the place is pretty clean.” He tossed her a box of latex gloves. “He’s all yours.”
She took two gloves out of the box and passed it to Stone, who did the same. They both pulled the gloves on and advanced toward the body.
“Jesus,” Stone said as he looked at the area that had once been Vince Murphy’s face. “What did they use?” Sanchez said nothing.
“Not sure,” McAfee said after a moment. “Could have been chains. There were a bunch of them hanging over in the corner, and it looked like there could’ve been blood on them. The crime scene boys bagged ’em and we’ll know soon enough. Doc should also be able to get us a read on any patterns to the abrasion, which may tell us something.”
Stone moved slowly around the corpse. Sanchez watched him out of the corner of her eye. She was annoyed at the distraction of having him there, but said nothing. He was her partner, after all, at least for the moment, and there was no way to prevent his participation. As long as he was careful to stay out of her way, she could live with it. “Shit, they even got the bottoms of his feet,” Stone said.
“Yup,” McAfee said, using a fingernail to pick some of his breakfast free from his teeth. He pointed to a hook hanging from a hydraulic lift used to get engine blocks into and out of cars. “Looks like they had him strapped to that for at least part of the time. They found a couple of torn pieces from his shirt on the hook.”
“Why?” Stone said to no one in particular.
“I guess that’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it?” McAfee said. “My guess is that he pissed off one of the goombahs in the North End, or maybe one of the Salvadoran gangbangers over in Eastie. Who knows, could have even been one of his own boys looking to move up in the world.”
“Doc give any thoughts on the extent of the injuries?” Sanchez asked.
“Just that the gunshots to the head were pretty clearly the cause of death. And the external injuries are mainly superficial. There may be some broken bones, and he won’t know about any internal injuries until he splits him open to look inside. The only other thing that sticks out is the hands.”
“The hands?” Stone said.