11
In his capacity as police chief of the Paradise PD and as the catching detective on cases for the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division, Jesse Stone had done this sad Kabuki dozens of times. Sometimes he was forced to do it over the phone. More frequently, he performed the soul-crushing duty in person. Today it would be done face-to-face with Molly Crane at his side.
The O’Hara house wasn’t much. Like many of the older homes in that part of Paradise, it had started out as a simple, cedar-shingled cottage. Then, over the decades, rooms and dormers had been added to meet the owners’ needs or whims. The O’Hara place, with its split shingles gone almost black with age and a garage sagging with snow and neglect, was the poor relation on the street. The kind of place the old neighbors shook their heads at in pity and new neighbors shook their heads at in contempt.
Jesse, riding shotgun, flung open the cruiser door but didn’t get out of the cruiser.
“How long since you’ve been here, Molly?”
“Feels like forever.”
“You sure you’re up for this?”
Her jaw clenched. “No, I’m not sure, but I have to be here with you. It’s the right thing to do.”
“For the O’Haras or for you?”
“Both.”
Jesse had no intention of arguing with her. Of course Molly was here because she felt it was right. He sensed it was more than that. Way more. Guilt probably only a fraction of it. They got out of the cruiser. Molly came around and stood by Jesse.
“Both parents still alive?” Jesse asked.
“I think so. I know her mom is. Mary Kate’s parents split up about a year after she went missing. Mr. O’Hara, Mary Kate’s dad, couldn’t take staying here, being surrounded by reminders of his favorite girl. My mom told me he felt like he was drowning. Mom said she didn’t blame him for leaving. I don’t think anyone did. He was a great guy, Mr. O’Hara. We used to call him Johnny. He’d pile all of us girls into his big old station wagon with the fake wood on the sides and take us to the park or to the beach. He taught us how to play ball and catch frogs. How to fish. We all loved Johnny.”
There she is again, Jesse thought. Young Molly. There was something so happy and pure about her joy in speaking about the past, he couldn’t help wishing he had known her then.
“Johnny sounds like a pretty friendly guy,” Jesse said. “Ever get too friendly?”
Molly tilted her head in confusion, stepped away from him. “What?”
“Man surrounds himself with a bunch of pretty young girls. Spends a lot of time with them—”
“Johnny was a good man. He never did anything inappropriate with us.”
“No hugs that lasted a little too long? No pats on your ass when you got a hit? No special time or attention paid to any of you girls?”
“Nothing like that.”
“And Mary Kate, did she ever say anything about—”
Molly turned to Jesse, her face red with anger. “Nothing.”
“Sorry, Molly, but we have to know what we have to know.”
“I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it,” she said. “Without obvious suspects, we work from the family out.”
“The mom stayed.”
“Yeah, Tess — that’s Mary Kate’s mom — she stayed. Like Johnny couldn’t stay, Tess couldn’t leave.”
“Happens all the time,” Jesse said.
“What does?”
“Tragedy.”
“What about it, Jesse?”
“Blows families apart.”
“Or brings them closer together,” Molly said.
“Uh-huh. Tell me about the mother.”
“Tess, right. She was quieter than Johnny. More religious. I think Johnny would’ve been fine with his kids going to public school, but Tess wouldn’t stand for that. She used to go to Mass every morning and volunteered at the church. But she was — is, I guess — a very sweet person. I haven’t seen her in years. She was always nice to us, too. Just not in an outgoing way like Johnny was.”
“So Mary Kate was more like Johnny?” Jesse asked.
Molly nodded. “She was just like her dad,” she said. “She even looked like him. Her sisters were like their mom, in looks and temperament.”
As they took the short walk up to the front door, Molly nodded at a street-facing window on the second floor.
“See that, Jesse?”
“Electric candle in the window? Hard to miss.”
“That was Mary Kate’s room. I guess Tess was hoping Mary Kate would come home someday.”
Jesse shook his head. “Turns out she never really left.”
12
Molly rang the bell. As they waited, Jesse noticed the front shades were pulled down. They were frayed and sun-bleached as if they were always drawn. Several years’ worth of rotting leaves clogged the rain gutters, the gutters pulling away from the house under the weight of the leaves. A pane of glass in the front window was missing and had been replaced by cardboard and duct tape.
The door pulled back. A short, frail woman stood at the threshold. She was gaunt and ashen-skinned. She held a rosary in her hand, the cross dangling in the cold air like an unasked question and its unspoken answer. She was dressed in a pilled gray sweater and blue polyester pants, both long out of fashion and too large for her by several sizes. Her brown eyes were dull and unfocused. Jesse supposed she was sixty or so, but looked much older. Then a light seemed to snap on behind her eyes. A smile came across her bare lips.
“Little Molly Burke!” Her voice was surprisingly strong. “Is that you?”
“It’s Molly Crane now, Mrs. O’Hara. And as you can see, I’m all grown up. This is Chief Stone. He’ll want you to call him Jesse.”
Tess O’Hara nodded at Jesse, her smile fading. “Jesse.”
“We need to come in, Tess,” Molly said. “Would that be all right?”
Tess O’Hara didn’t speak. She simply walked into her living room, leaving the front door open behind her. They followed her in, Jesse closing the door. Tess had taken a seat in a big recliner in front of an old TV set. The recliner was a study in duct tape and the TV set was a big, bulky beast in a chipped wooden cabinet. The paneled walls were bowed and warped, but were covered in photos of children and grandchildren. At the center of the photo display was a large framed shot of Mary Kate at her tenth-grade graduation ceremony. There were crosses and/or crucifixes on every wall. There were religious sayings painted on wooden plaques, too. The kinds of things you might find at flea markets or church sales. One in particular caught Jesse’s attention.
Mrs. O’Hara noticed Jesse notice, but didn’t say anything.
Jesse and Molly sat on a lifeless sofa at an angle to Mrs. O’Hara. Molly recognized the sofa as the same one she’d sat and watched TV on a hundred times. When they were little, Mary Kate and Molly would play with their dolls together on that couch. Those memories made Molly smile. Remembering why they were here made it disappear.
The thing Jesse noticed most was the smell of the place. Beneath the overwhelming odor of the morning’s burnt coffee and overcooked eggs, there was a dank, musty scent. Colonies of black mold must have been thick beneath the carpeting and walls. Her daughter was dead, but it was Tess O’Hara who had entombed herself. Jesse wished he hadn’t seen the phenomenon before, but he had.
“Do you know why we’re here, Tess?” Molly asked.
Tess didn’t answer. She started to rock slightly, rolling the rosary in her fingers, mumbling a Hail Mary almost to herself.
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.