“Barbara,” Marcy hissed.
“Well, we did. He’s going to ask around and anybody’ll tell him it’s true.” Barbara looked back at Vito. “The party part and the not-nice part.”
“What did she do that wasn’t nice?”
“It was just her attitude,” Barbara answered wearily. “We wanted to like her, all of us did. But she was abrupt and rude. I’ve worked here for over twenty years. I’ve had employees with all kinds of abilities and disabilities. Claire wasn’t nasty because she was an amputee. She was nasty because she liked to be.”
“Was she into drugs or alcohol?”
Barbara looked appalled. “Not that I ever saw. Claire’s body was her temple. No, this was more a sense of entitlement. She’d come in late, leave early. Her work was always done, but only what I asked and nothing more. This was just a job for her.”
“She was a writer,” Marcy said. “She was working on her novel.”
“She was always working on that laptop,” Barbara agreed. “Her novel was about a paraolympian, semiautobiographical I guess.”
Marcy sighed. “Except that the protagonist was nice. Barbara’s right, Detective. Claire wasn’t that nice. Maybe I just wanted her to be.”
Vito frowned. “You say she had a laptop?”
The women looked at each other. “Yeah,” Barbara said. “A nice new one.”
Marcy bit her lip. “She got the new one about a month before she… died.”
“Her parents didn’t find a laptop,” Vito said. “They said she didn’t have one.”
Barbara made a face at that. “There were lots of things Claire didn’t tell her parents, Detective Ciccotelli.”
“Like?” Vito asked, but he thought he knew.
Marcy pursed her lips again. “Now, we weren’t judgmental, but-”
“Claire was a lesbian,” Barbara broke in, matter-of-factly.
“Her parents wouldn’t have approved?”
Barbara shook her head. “No. They were very conservative.”
“I see. Well, did she mention a partner or a girlfriend?”
“No, but there was this photograph,” Barbara said. “In the paper. It was a picture taken at one of the gay pride marches-Claire in a lip-lock with another woman. Claire got really upset. Figured her folks would see it and all hell would break loose and they’d stop paying her rent. She called the paper and complained.” She grimaced. “And now you’re going to ask me which paper it was, and I don’t remember. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay. Was it a local community paper, or big like the Philly Inquirer?”
“I’m thinking a local paper,” Marcy said uncertainly.
Barbara sighed. “I was thinking a big one. I’m sorry, Detective.”
“Don’t be. You’ve been a lot of help. If you remember anything else, please call me.”
Wednesday, January 17, 12:30
P.M.
Vito stopped his truck in front of the courthouse and Nick jumped in. “Well?”
Nick tugged at his tie. “It’s done. I was the last witness for the prosecution. Lopez wanted me to go last to paint the picture of the murdered girl so that the final thing the jury would remember that it wasn’t just the drugs, but that a girl had died at their hands.”
“Sounds like a good strategy. I know you have your issues with Lopez, but she’s a damn good DA. Sometimes you have to deal with a demon to bring down the devil. It’s not pretty, but it’s the big picture that counts. I hope the girl’s parents understood that.”
Nick pulled his palms down his face wearily. “Actually, they were the ones to tell me that very thing. I was ready to apologize for Lopez pleading their daughter’s killer down to manslaughter so she could get the drug dealer, and they said that the way Lopez handled it, both men would pay and the dope dealer would never touch anyone else’s child. They were very grateful.” He sighed. “And I felt about an inch tall. I owe Maggy Lopez an apology.”
“I’d just be happy to have her work this case. After we nail this sonofabitch, that is.”
”Speaking of,” Nick said, “where are we going?”
“To tell Bill Melville’s parents that he’s dead. You get to tell them.”
“Gee thanks, Chick.”
“Hey, I told the Bellamys. It’s only fair-” His cell buzzed. “It’s Liz,” he told Nick. He listened, then sighed. “We’re on our way.” Vito turned his truck around.
“Where are we going?”
“Not to the Melvilles’,” Vito said grimly. “We’re going back to Winchester’s field.”
“Number ten?”
“Number ten.”
Wednesday, January 17, 1:15
P.M.
Jen was already at the scene, coordinating. She walked over to Vito and Nick when they got out of the truck. “The officer on guard got the APB on the F150 and realized he’d stopped a truck just like it this morning. When he ran the plates, he saw the name the guy gave matched, but when he called the phone number listed for the address, it didn’t match. He drove down this road until he saw the tire tracks in the snow.” She pointed down at an opaque bag lying in the gully. “He saw that and called it in.”
“He knows we’re on to him,” Nick said. “Damn, I was hoping we’d have more time.”
Vito was shoving his feet into his boots. “Well, we don’t. You check it out yet, Jen?”
“It’s a man.” She started down the slope. “I haven’t opened the bag. He ain’t pretty.”
The sight that greeted them at the bottom of the slope would linger in Vito’s mind for a long, long time. The plastic had pulled taut over the man’s face, so that it appeared he was straining to break free. The opacity of the bag clouded everything but the man’s mouth which yawned grotesquely, as if frozen in a scream that no one would hear.
“Hell,” Nick whispered.
Vito shuddered out a breath. “Yeah.” He crouched by the body and did a quick visual. The body was not wrapped in a single bag, but two. “One bag for the head and torso, another for the feet and legs. Tied together.” He pulled at the knot with gloved fingers. “Simple knot. You want me to open him up?”
Jen crouched on the other side of the body with a knife and carefully sliced the plastic next to the knot so that the bags separated, but the knot itself was preserved. She then sliced up the front of the bag and drew a breath. “Grab an edge, Chick.”
Together they pulled the plastic apart and Vito had to swallow back bile. “Oh my God.” He dropped the plastic back down and turned his face away.
“Branded,” Nick said.
“And hanged,” Jen added. “Look at the ligature marks on his throat.”
Vito looked down. Jen still held her side of the plastic, exposing the left side of the victim’s body and face where the left cheek bore a brand of the letter T. Steeling himself, he pulled his side of the plastic back all the away, exposing the right side.
“His hand,” was all he could mutter. Or the lack thereof.
“Oh, my… Oh…” Jen sucked in a sharp breath between her teeth.
“Shit.” Nick lurched to his feet. “What the fuck is with this guy?”
Vito pursed his lips and glanced down the length of the bag, knowing it would get worse. “Cut the lower bag away, Jen. All the way down to his feet.”
She did, and then she and Vito stood up, each holding a piece of the plastic in one hand. “He cut off his foot, too,” she said quietly.
“Right hand, left foot.” Vito carefully lowered the bag. “It means something.”
She nodded. “Just like E. Munch means something.”
Sonny Holloman, Jen’s photographer, came skidding down the slope. “Hell.”
“Yeah, we got that,” she said wearily. “Get him from all angles, Sonny.”
For a few minutes the only sound was the clicking of Sonny’s shutter.
Jen turned her gaze to the dead man’s face. “Vito, I know this guy. I know I do.”