Briefly, her eyes lingered on the T-shirt Tito was wearing. It was a New York Mets 1986 World Series T-shirt, a shirt that she swore she’d seen Mitch wear. In fact, it was one of his prized possessions. Why on earth would Tito Molina be wearing it?
Now she tilted her head back and gazed up, up toward the top of the cliff, which loomed straight overhead. Rooted there in a fissure in the granite face, perhaps ten feet beneath the rock outcropping where they’d found the schnapps bottle, Des could make out a small, hardy cedar tree clinging for life. Tito’s fall had snapped off one of its limbs. The raw wood stood out like exposed bone against the darkness of the stone. She stared at the tree, transfixed, certain that itwas trying to whisper something crucial to the suffering artist deep inside of her. But whatever it was she couldn’t comprehend it. Didn’t speak the right language. Didn’t even know any of the words. Didn’t know. Didn’t know…
“I didn’t move him or anything,” Kathleen said, raising her voice. The roar of the falls was even louder down here. “I couldn’t bring myself to get near him.”
“You did right, Kathleen.”
“I have a tarp in my truck. Should we cover him?”
“We don’t want to go anywhere near him,” said Des. “That’s the medical examiner’s deal. What we do need to do is secure this scene. Are the other entrances to the park open yet?”
“No, I always open this gate first.”
“Well, that’s a help,” she said, knowing full well that once word of this got out the paparazzi would be coming over, around, and through any gate they could find. “I need for you to stand guard over the body while I radio in. No one, but no one, comes near it, okay?”
“I guess so,” she answered, visibly uncomfortable.
“You don’t have to look at him, Kathleen. Just stay here with your back toward him. Anyone gets close, you chase ’em off. I’ll be back with the cavalry just as soon as I can. Can you do that for me?”
The young ranger nodded at her gamely.
“You the man, Kathleen.”
Des hiked back up to her ride and radioed the Troop F Barracks in Westbrook for as many cruisers as they could spare, then the medical examiner’s office for a team of investigators. Based on her own observations, Des also made the decision to reach out to her old unit, the Central District headquarters of the Major Crime Squad in Meriden.
Then it was also up to her to notify the next of kin. As the morning sun broke bright and hot over the trees, she phoned Martine, figuring the news might go down easier if Esme heard it from her mother.
“Martine, we have a situation up here at the Hopyard,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “It’s Tito. We found him at the base of the falls.”
“He’s… dead?” Martine’s voice was a frightened whisper.
“He is. Can you inform Esme?”
“Absolutely. We’ll be up there right away.”
“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”
“She’ll need to see him, Des. She’ll insist. I won’t be able to stop her.”
“I understand. That being the case you might want to bring Chrissie along for the ride.”
“Why would we do that?” Martine asked, her voice turning chilly.
“It’s going to be a total zoo.”
“Yes, you’re absolutely right. I wasn’t even thinking. I’m just so
…” Martine sighed mournfully. “Why would Tito do such a thing? He was so talented and loved. That poor, beautiful boy.”
“Martine, you’d better prepare Esme for something else…”
“What is it, Des?”
“Tito’s not beautiful anymore.”
The first trooper to arrive on the scene established a perimeter by shutting down the narrow Hopyard Road all the way back at Route 82. More cruisers started arriving soon after that. Des directed them to the other park entrances, and sent a trooper down the path on foot to take over for Kathleen. A medical examiner’s van pulled up next and a pair of brisk, efficient investigators in blue jumpsuits hopped out. Des directed them to the body. Then the crime scene technicians started arriving in their cube vans, followed closely by a slicktop with two Major Crime Squad investigators in it.
The investigator behind the wheel was a woman of color. A short, muscle-bound man was riding shotgun. Des knew this man only too well-Rico “Soave” Tedone had been her sergeant back when she was a lieutenant on Major Crimes. Soave was one of the Brass City boys, kid brother of a capo in the state police’s so-called Waterbury mafia. When they’d knifed her, it was Soave who’d wielded the blade. At the time, she had hated him for it. Not that he was a bad person, just immature, a work in progress, a man. Now that Soave was a lieutenant and Des was Dorset’s resident trooper, their relationship had thawed considerably, so much so that when he’d finallygotten around to marrying his high school sweetheart, Tawny, Des had been invited and actually gone to the wedding.
“Yo, Des!” he called to her warmly as he climbed out of the slick-top, flexing his body-builder’s muscles inside of his shiny black suit. He always wore black. Thought it made him look classy. In truth, it made him look like a chauffeur.
“How are you, Rico?”
“Never better,” he said, grinning at her.
Marriage did seem to agree with him. He looked cheerful and relaxed. Possibly even a bit jowly. And he’d finally shaved off his dead caterpillar of a mustache, Des was happy to note, although he had not lost his nervous habit of smoothing it with his thumb and forefinger. Except now all he was smoothing was bare skin.
“What have you got for us, Des?”
“Got you one dead movie actor.”
“He jumped?”
“Very good question, wow man. Happily, I don’t have to answer that. You do.”
Soave’s partner started toward them now, dressed in a sleeveless lime green knit top, tan slacks, and chunky boots that gave her a couple of inches on Soave. She was a good five feet nine and built like a rottweiler with jugs. Huge jugs.
“Now, here’s a meeting I’ve been looking forward to,” Soave said eagerly. “Des Mitry, give it up for my new partner, Yolie Snipes.”
Des had heard about Yolie Snipes on the grapevine. The boys called her Boom Boom because of what she had going on inside of her shirt. She was half-Cuban, half-black, and all player-young, tough and street smart.
“God, this is just such a thrill for me,” Yolie exulted as she pumped Des’s hand. She wore her nails short and painted them purple. Her grip was like iron. “Where I come from you are a legend and it is such an honor to even be on the same investigation as you.” She talked extremely fast and her voice seemed to come all the way up from her diaphragm. “Word, girl, I have been wanting to meet you forever.”
“Glad to know you, Yolie,” Des said, a bit blown away by her motor. Yolie Snipes was a girl in a hurry. She had a latina’s creamy mocha skin and gleaming brown eyes, but her big lips and wide-bottomed bootay spelled sister all the way. So did the braids. She had a thin one-inch scar across her left cheek that looked as if it had been done by a razor, maybe a box cutter. She wore silver studs in her ears, no makeup or lipstick. She was bigged up-had a weight-lifter’s rippling arms. She wore the portrait of a woman’s face tattooed on her left biceps with the initials AC written underneath it.
“Walk this back for us, Des,” Soave said. “You have some concerns about the body?”
“I do, although we all know that this was a man with his share of personal problems. And it certainly plays suicide. Looks as if he drove his Jeep up here late last night, got himself drunk, and threw his bad self off a cliff.”
“Damned crazy fool,” Soave said disapprovingly. “Here’s a young guy pulling down millions, is married to a world-class hottie. Why go and do that?”
“It wasn’t making him happy, Rico.”
“Did you find a note?”
“No, I didn’t. But I did bag his cell.” She popped her trunk and handed it over. “He placed a call on it from right
here at around one-thirty.” They could learn the exact time from his cell phone record. “The words he used sounded an awful lot like good-bye.”
Soave glanced at her curiously. “You know who he called?”
“I do. It was Mitch.”
“Who, Berger?” Soave had always been bewildered by Mitch’s presence in her life. “Are you telling me he and Tito Molina were tight?”
“Not exactly. Tito went after him yesterday.”
“Sure, sure, I saw it on the news last night,” Yolie spoke up. “Tito whooped this movie critic’s ass on account of he gave him a bad review.”
“You’re not saying that’s why he killed himself, are you?” Soave asked. “Because Berger hurt his little feelings?”
“No, I don’t believe so,” Des replied, wondering if Mitch was thinking this.
“Well, what did he say to Berger?”
“You can get the exact words from him. He’s waiting to hear from you.”
“Okay, good,” Soave said. “What else have we got?”
“Tito’s ride.” Des pointed out the Jeep’s freshly scraped paint job.
“Could be this happened earlier in the day,” Yolie suggested, kneeling for a better look. “If they phoned in an accident report then the car rental people will have a record of it. Then again, he might have sideswiped somebody on his way up here last night. I’ll see if anyone reported it, maybe canvass those farmhouses down the road. Could be somebody heard him hit a tree or something.”
This was a sharp one, Des observed. Her mind broke down all of the angles in a flash. “There’s an empty bottle of peppermint schnapps up at the top of the cliff. Also some spent matches. I didn’t see anything else.”
“Yolie, why don’t you go have a look?” Soave said. “I’ll check out the body with Des.”
“I’m on it.” Yolie immediately went charging off.
“It’s real slippery up there,” Des called after her. “Watch your step.”
“I always do,” Yolie Snipes responded, smiling at her over her shoulder.
“She’s an eager one, isn’t she?” Des said as she watched her make her way across the parking lot, big bottom shake-shake-shaking. Des could only imagine what was happening to the girl’s front end.
“Twenty-four-seven,” Soave agreed, smoothing his former mustache. “You slap her down, she bounces right back up. That’s Boom Boom. She makes me feel middle-aged, you want to know the truth.”
“Rico, you are middle aged,” Des informed him as they started their way down the footpath to the base of the falls.
“Between us, the wife can’t stand her. Thinks she’s a scheming slut bomb. Not true. This is a good kid. Tawny’s just jealous, you ask me.”
“Does Tawny have any reason to be?”
“Hell no,” Soave said indignantly. “I’m a happily married man. Me and Tawny just put in an offer on our first house. Besides, Boom Boom’s hooked up with my cousin Richie.”
“The one who works Narcotics?”
“The two of them are real tight. You know what they’re calling her up at the Headmaster’s House?” Soave glanced at her slyly. “The next Des Mitry. How do you like that?”
She didn’t. It made her feel like she’d retired to Boca Raton or died.
“I’m telling you, Boom Boom’s the complete package,” he said, stepping his way carefully over the bare roots in the path. “Plus I never have to worry about her drowning.”
Des shot a cold look at him in response.
He immediately reddened. “Sorry, Des, you know how I backslide when I’ve been away from you.”
“I do know that, Rico. But I still keep hoping for a miracle.”
Tito was in the middle of his final photo shoot as they scampered down onto the rocks. The assistant ME was photographing the star from every possible angle before they transported his body to Farmington for the autopsy, which was automatic whenever there was an accidental or unexplained death.
“What a stupid waste,” Soave said, shaking his head at the dead actor disgustedly. “Okay, what are you selling, Des?”
“I’m not selling anything, Rico. I just wanted to point out something about the way he landed.”
“What about it?
“The back of his head took the brunt of the impact. That’s not consistent with a swan dive. He should have landed facedown, not up.”
Soave considered this for a moment, his wheels starting to turn. “So he somersaulted in the air, end over end.”
“If that were the case then his head would be where his feet are. He’s turned completely the wrong way around, Rico.”
“You’re right, he is.” Soave furrowed his brow thoughtfully. “Maybe the water shifted him around after he landed.”
“The man’s dry, and there’s no blood anywhere else. He’s lying right where he hit.”
“So he spiraled in the air. That would explain it. The wind can do that.”
“There was no wind last night.”
“What are you saying, Des?”
“That the position of his body is consistent with someone who was standing with his back to the edge of the cliff and then pitched over backwards. Or got pushed.”
He peered at her, his eyes narrowing. “Still can’t get used to the slow lane, can you? You want back in the game.”
“I am totally fine right where I am, Rico. I just thought I’d share my professional concerns with you before you call it. But if you want to blow me off that’s totally fine by me.”
“Come on, don’t get all huffy.”
“I do not get huffy. I get riled. I get pissed. I get-”
“Whoa, I agree with you, okay?” Soave said, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “It don’t read right. That makes it a suspicious death. And that’s how we’re going to play it.” He ordered the crime scene technicians to proceed with maximum care, and to relay that up top to Yolie. Then they started their way back up the path toward the gate. It was becoming very hot out. Soave was perspiring heavily. “Good catch, Des,” he said, swiping at his face with a handkerchief. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
“You’re very welcome,” she said crisply.
“You’re in a lousy mood this morning, know that?”
“I don’t mean to be, Rico. These are my people. I know them.”
“There’s going to be a major media feeding frenzy, am I right?” he asked, his voice filling with dread.
“There is,” she said, thinking that this was a new sign of maturity on his part. Earlier in his career, he’d been supremely hyped at the prospect of getting his face on television. But now that he’d gonebefore the bright lights a couple of times, he knew just how hot they could get. And had the burn marks to prove it.
“I’m giving them no labels on this one,” he said, steeling himself out loud. “I don’t say suicide. And I for damned sure don’t say murder. Neither of those words comes out of this man’s hole. Not once. All I say is it’s an unexplained death and that we’re still gathering information.”
“They’ll try to get you to confirm that it’s an ‘apparent’ suicide,” Des said. “You say-”
“I say that nothing is ‘apparent’ at this time.”
“Even though they’ll go right ahead and call it that anyway.”
“Damned straight.”
By the time they got back up to the gate the TV news vans were already stacked ten-deep on the shoulder of the road. Cameramen and reporters had swarmed the entrance to the park, shouting questions and demanding answers. The uniformed troopers could barely hold them back.
“How did they get past that roadblock?” Soave wondered.
“They’re like mice, Rico. All they need is a quarter-inch crack of daylight and they’re in.”
Now they heard a car horn blaring. It was Martine’s VW Beetle convertible. She was trying desperately to get through the horde, but couldn’t. Esme finally leaped out of the car a hundred yards short of the gate and ran barefoot the rest of the way. Chris
sie Huberman jumped out in hot pursuit. The press people let out a shout. Their cameras rolled.
“I want to see him!” Esme sobbed as she reached Des, the tears streaming down her porcelain cheeks. “I have to!”
“I really wouldn’t do that, honey,” Des said, as Soave stood there gaping at the beautiful young actress.
“Tito, why did you do this?!” she cried out, her stage-trained voice carrying over the roar of the waterfall. “Tito, where are you? TITO?!…” Esme fell to her knees, sobbing hysterically.
Chrissie knelt beside her, tears streaming down her own face, Des noticed.
And that wasn’t all Des noticed. Something new about Esme’s look caught her eye: The actress was sporting a great big fat swollen lip this morning.
Somebody had recently punched Esme Crockett in the mouth.
“Girl, I heard so much about you when I was coming up,” Yolie Snipes gushed from the seat next to her as Des piloted her cruiser back down the narrow Hopyard Road. “First sister to investigate homicides in state history, cover of Connecticut magazine when you were twenty-three-I can’t believe I’m riding in the same car with you.”
“You’re being too kind,” said Des, who was never comfortable with flattery. “Where’d you grow up, Yolie?”
“The Hollow,” she grunted. Frog Hollow was Hartford’s most burned-out ghetto. It was nowhere. “My mom died of an overdose a year after I was born.”
“And your dad?”
“Never even knew who he was. Everyone I came up with was inmate-bound, me included, but my aunt Celia made sure I got out.”
“AC?” asked Des, referring to the portrait on her arm.
Yolie’s face lit up. “That’s right. She kept me together, body and soul, until I got me my four-year ride to Rutgers.”
“You played ball, am I right?”
“It’s all that,” she acknowledged. “My total dream was to play the point for Coach Geno at Storrs. He scouted me, too, but there was no way I was going to beat out Suzy Bird for playing time. Not in this life. So I moved on down the road to Piscataway, played for Coach Vivian. And we scratched and we clawed and we won us a few. Got my degree in criminal justice. Came back home, took the test, and here I am.”
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