“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.”