“Helton PD’s case or yours?” Jesse asked.
“Mine.”
“Good. I want to spend as little time in this town as possible.”
Lundquist was going to ask why and then thought better of it. “Come on, let’s have a look.”
People say the anticipation of bad things is always worse than the real thing. Not always. And this was one of those “not always” occasions. Jesse, who had seen bodies in all manner of disrepair, was surprised at the level of brutality that showed on the kid’s body.
“Are those entrance wounds?” Jesse asked the local ME, pointing to where dirt had caked around spots on the boy’s hair and on his chest.
“Looks that way,” the ME said.
Jesse said, “You think they were the COD?”
“If they were, they saved the boy from an incredible amount of pain. I haven’t even had a very close look at him and I can tell you he was thoroughly tortured premortem.” The ME pointed with his gloved finger. “There are visible burn marks on his neck, face, and hands. There are an array of broken bones. Teeth are missing, and some fingers. And if those bullets were postmortem, then the person or persons who did this to him were even more twisted than I would care to imagine.”
Jesse walked around the body. “He wasn’t murdered here.”
“No,” Lundquist answered. “And rigor has come and gone. He’s been here several days.”
The ME asked, “Is this your missing boy?”
Jesse asked Lundquist for the photos and handed them to the ME.
“I think so. It looks like him. His clothing is a match for the footage we took from cameras at a local park on the day he disappeared.” Jesse waved at the ME and then pointed at a spot where no one was standing. The ME followed Jesse. “Doc, I noticed the kid’s missing fingers look as if they were sawn off. Do you think he was mutilated in any other way?”
The ME was confused. Then, understanding the implication, nodded. “I see your point.”
“Yeah, when I break the news to his mother and she comes to identify him, I need to prepare her. And God help us if she needs to see more than his face.”
“I understand, Chief Stone. Give me a moment.”
The ME went back to the body and asked everyone standing around the shallow grave to move away and to give him some privacy. A minute later, he came back to where Jesse was standing.
“Until I get him on the table I can’t be one hundred percent sure, but I think he’s... intact.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
Lundquist came over to Jesse as the ME went back to his business. “What was that about?”
“I needed to know some things before informing the mother.”
“My case now, Jesse. My job, but if you want to come...”
“I think it would be a good idea. So tell me how he was found.”
“Marathoner was training before dawn. She tripped over the hand. Used her cell phone flashlight to see what she tripped over. Called nine-one-one.”
“And the Helton PD called you. Any ID on the body?”
“Nothing obvious. No wallet. No phone. When they get him to the morgue, they’ll be able to do a more thorough search.”
Jesse gave Lundquist the Walterses’ address in Paradise and filled him in on the recent domestic abuse situation.
“We have to be careful when we enter. The husband is the kid’s stepfather and he’s a handful. We had him on an illegal weapons charge, but the wife claimed the gun was hers.”
“Like that, huh?”
“Just like that.”
Lundquist said, “I’ll take her to identify the body. Maybe she’ll let her guard down around me.”
Jesse agreed. He went back to the shallow grave with Lundquist and took one more look at Chris Grimm. As far as he was concerned, Grimm was Paradise’s second drug casualty. He may have been the one to supply Heather with the drugs, but Jesse believed not even Patti and Steve Mackey would have wanted the Grimm kid to die the way he had.
Fifty-three
Jesse got to the Walters house before Lundquist. As Lundquist had pointed out, it was his case, so Jesse waited in his Explorer for the state homicide man to arrive. Jesse had already called Molly and given her a heads-up about Chris Grimm’s body.
“No official ID yet,” he’d said. “But you can alert everyone to stop looking and asking. Until we notify the mother, nobody says a word.”
“I got it, Jesse. Remember you told me to check for cases like Heather’s?”
“I do.”
“Well, I’ve come across several in and around Boston. I made a few calls and found two doctors whose names came up more times than made me comfortable.”
“Good work, Molly. I’ll have a look when I get back to the station.”
Jesse decided to finally Google Swingline Sue’s while he killed time waiting for Lundquist to show. He typed it into his phone, hit enter, and it popped right up. The first entry didn’t show anything unusual. It was a bar restaurant in Tipton, a few towns north of Paradise. It had a pretty run-of-the-mill menu: wings, salads, burgers, cheesecake. The place featured live music, karaoke, dancing, and cabaret. Jesse didn’t get the point until the next entry.
Every night is ladies’ night at this Tipton, Massachusetts, club. The 1940s-inspired décor is to die for and the place rocks. Rosie the Riveter, hang on to your hard hat. Whether it’s karaoke, disco with tunes spun by DJ Femmebot, or a campy cabaret experience you’re looking for, this is the venue. It’s mostly a girls’-night-out kind of place, but all are welcome. Cover charge after 11:00.
Although Jesse wasn’t getting the full picture of what the issue was between Maryglenn and Daisy, he had some idea of where whatever it was between them had its roots. But before he could get too invested in figuring it out, Lundquist rapped his knuckles against the glass of the driver’s-side window. Jesse rolled the window down.
“Let’s get this over with,” Lundquist said.
“Let’s.”
It had been Jesse’s experience that people understood what was going on even before a single syllable was uttered. When someone is missing and the police come to your door, there are a limited number of reasons for their presence. Although Jesse could not step outside himself to see the looks on his face and on Lundquist’s, he knew what their expressions must’ve telegraphed to Kathy Walters. And he was right.
While she didn’t collapse to the front hallway floor in hysterics, she took one look at Lundquist and Jesse and fell against the wall.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” she said, hoping to be contradicted.
No one delivered on her hope.
“Kathy, this is Captain Brian Lundquist of the state police,” Jesse said. “It’s his case now.”
“I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, Mrs. Walters, but we believe your son has been murdered.”
Kathy Walters gasped and fell to her knees. There were no tears, not yet. Jesse got on his knees beside her. “Captain Lundquist has some important things to say to you. Try to listen.”
“I know you have questions, Mrs. Walters, but I won’t be able to answer them until the body has been officially identified. Are you up to it, or is there someone else, your husband—”
She glared at Lundquist. “Never!”
Jesse put his arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay, but I have to warn you, he’s in rough shape. Do you have anyone else?”
She was indignant. “I wasn’t there for him much when he was alive. I’m not going to leave this to nobody else now.”
Jesse helped stand her up. “Can I call anyone for you? Someone to be here for you when you get back?”