Jesse opened his mouth to speak. Molly shook her head. Jesse closed his mouth. When Tess repeated the prayer, Molly joined in.
“...full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women. Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”
“Amen,” Jesse said loudly with the two women.
The women crossed themselves.
Molly repeated the question.
“You’ve found my Mary Kate.”
“We have,” Jesse said. “I have some hard things to say, Mrs. O’Hara, but I have to say them. Do you want us to call anyone for you? Would you like anyone to be here with you while we talk? One of your daughters? A neighbor?”
Tess reached out and took Molly’s hand.
“Molly was my Mary Kate’s best friend in the world. Who else could I want here? So say your hard words, Jesse. Ask your questions.”
“I’ve read the police reports from back when Mary Kate went missing,” Jesse said. “At the time you said you had no idea where she might have gone or who she might have gone off with.”
Tess nodded.
Jesse nodded, too. “Okay, but it happens that with the passage of time things come to us. We think of things or we hear something that makes us rethink what we thought we knew for sure.”
“Sorry, Jesse,” she said. “I have searched my mind every day since that July fourth. I have prayed on it, but nothing has come to me. I’ve asked my other girls so many times they won’t even talk to me about it anymore.”
“Did you ever suspect anyone in your own family of having anything to do with Mary Kate’s disappearance?”
Tess O’Hara looked up and stared into Jesse’s eyes as if he had asked the question in a foreign language.
Molly said, “What he means is—”
“I know what he means, Molly,” said Tess. “I know what he’s really asking and the answer is no.”
Jesse didn’t push her. Not out of delicacy, but because he knew it would be a waste of time.
“You said back then that Mary Kate had no boyfriends. Is that right?” Jesse asked.
“That’s right.” There was an air of proud defiance in Tess’s voice.
This time Jesse didn’t surrender quite as quickly. He was silent for nearly a minute, hoping the discomfort would work on Tess, but clearly this was a woman used to long silences.
Then he said, “I don’t know, Tess. She was an awfully cute girl with beautiful eyes. Sometimes girls don’t tell their moms things, but moms know better.”
“Not my Mary Kate. Just ask Molly. She’ll tell you.”
It went on like that for another half hour. After the conversation, Molly and Jesse knew nothing more about the circumstances surrounding Mary Kate O’Hara’s disappearance and subsequent homicide than they had when they’d entered the house. In her years of grief and unanswered prayers, Tess had turned her daughter from a cute and mischievous sixteen-year-old girl into a saint. No surprise there. The human heart is an amazing editor. Jesse had witnessed it before. He’d seen murdered gangbangers, men who had themselves tortured rival gang members to death, turned into innocent lambs by their grieving families. Why not Mary Kate O’Hara? Molly and Jesse did get the addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses for the rest of the family. Tess hadn’t granted her husband a divorce, but it hadn’t stopped him from abandoning his family. She had no idea where he was, nor did she seem to care.
Before they left, Jesse told Molly to show Tess O’Hara the photograph they’d brought along.
“What’s this?” she asked, staring at the photo.
“It’s a tattoo,” Jesse said.
“I can see that, but what’s it mean?”
“We were hoping you might recognize it, Tess,” Molly said. “It was on the chest of the man we found alongside Mary Kate and Ginny.”
“Looks like a two-headed snake twisted around a cross. Blasphemy!” She threw the picture onto the floor.
Molly picked it up. “So you don’t recognize it?”
Tess O’Hara shook her head violently.
Jesse nodded that it was time to leave. They may have been done with Tess, but she wasn’t done with them.
“How was Mary Kate killed?” Tess asked, swallowing hard.
Molly went pale.
“I’m afraid Mary Kate’s remains were skeletal, Mrs. O’Hara,” Jesse said. “So while the medical examiner is fairly certain of her findings, they are not—”
“How?”
“Multiple stab wounds. I saw the evidence myself last night.”
Jesse could see Tess wondering if she should ask for specifics. She decided against it, though she did ask another question.
“You’re certain it’s her?”
“It’s her,” Molly said, kneeling down by Tess’s side. “But she wasn’t alone, Tess. Ginny Connolly has been with her this whole time.”
Molly’s words didn’t seem to register.
“The medical examiner has released Mary Kate,” Jesse said. “If you tell us where you’d like her taken, we can arrange that for you.”
Again, nothing.
“Give us a minute, Jesse,” Molly said.
Pacing as he waited for Molly to finish up, Jesse thought about how someone like Tess O’Hara reconciled her faith with her daughter’s murder. He knew that if it had been Jenn or any of the children he’d never had found murdered and left to rot in the floor of an abandoned factory building, chalking it up to God’s plan wouldn’t have been answer enough for him. But his curiosity or satisfaction wasn’t the point. Those two girls found down there needed a voice, and he meant to give it to them.
13
That night Jesse found he didn’t have much appetite for anything but amber liquid swirling around two clear ice cubes. Ritual was part of the joy, sure, but so, too, was the beauty of it. The sound of the cubes tinkling against the glass, against each other. The smoky aroma. The earthy hints of peat. Then there was the heat. The pleasant burn on the back of his tongue. The burn in his throat going down. The warmth in his belly. The electricity on the surface of his skin as the warmth spread over him. There had been a time in his life when he’d been able to enjoy the full experience of it, the permission Johnnie Walker granted him to surrender to his lesser angels. He had once been able to drink without hearing Dix’s voice in his head. No more.
They had been round and round about Jesse’s drinking so many times that he was dizzy from it. They had dissected the reasons, tossed the pieces up into the air, reassembled them a hundred different ways, but there was Jesse with another scotch in his hand. And there was Ozzie Smith on the wall. And the world spinning around in its own good time. One reason Jesse convinced himself that he drank was that it helped him with his silence. Silence was a great asset for a cop. He had learned that early on. If you keep quiet, the people you’re interviewing can’t bear it. They will fill up the empty space with their own chatter and sometimes, if you’re lucky, they fill it up with answers. When they would yammer, Jesse would think of drinking. Of course his drinking had helped him to an early retirement from the LAPD. He wasn’t thinking about that now.
There had been many instances over the course of his time in Paradise that he had given up drinking for weeks, even months, at a time. During those times, was he a better chief? Worse? He couldn’t say. He was certainly an unhappier one. Because during those weeks or months it was just a show, to prove something either to himself or to someone else. When he realized no one was applauding or handing out cash rewards for his efforts, he went right back to it. But there were nights that he knew exactly why he was drinking. Nights like this night.
The case was getting to him in a way that few cases did. He wasn’t a man to let things get under his skin. He prided himself on it, but this case had gotten under his skin, deep under it. And it wasn’t just one thing. It was everything. It was that he had been blindsided by it. That neither Molly nor Suit nor anyone on his own force had ever bothered mentioning it to him. It was Tess O’Hara burying herself alive. It was that they still didn’t have an ID on the guy in the blue tarp. It was the sight of the skeletons juxtaposed with the photos of the girls. It was that these girls had known Molly. That Molly had been part of their lives and now part of their deaths. It was what the case was doing to Molly.