Find Her (Detective D.D. Warren #8)(82)
I hated Jacob then. Hated him as much as I had that very first day, regaining consciousness in a coffin-shaped box.
But I hated this girl even more.
Lindy. The girl who’d started it all. The girl who’d ultimately destroy me.
Unless, of course . . .
I killed her first.
Chapter 32
WE FOUND A BODY.”
“Don’t you mean bodies?” D.D. glanced up from her desk to find Phil standing in her doorway. He was shaking his head.
“No. Body. At one of the destinations listed on Goulding’s vehicle’s GPS.”
“Kristy Kilker or Natalie Draga?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out.”
D.D. automatically pushed back her chair, then caught herself. “Wait. Is this a test? Because I heard you, you know. I get that I’m headstrong and controlling, and I should trust my partners and have more faith in your abilities to get things done. Meaning, you get to go see the body. And I get to await your report like a good restricted duty supervisor? And then—” She caught herself, as surprised as anyone by the sudden thickening in her throat. “Then you won’t be mad at me anymore.”
“I’m not mad at you.”
“I do trust you,” she got out while she could. Because now she was remembering yesterday’s conversation with Phil and it stung. She’d never say it out loud, but Phil was the closest thing to a surrogate father figure that she had, especially given that her own father didn’t approve of her job. She didn’t miss her parents, who lived in Florida. She didn’t even mind anymore that they didn’t understand her job. But Phil, his clear disappointment in her . . . that hurt.
“I trust you, Phil. I trust Neil. And I miss you guys. Every day. I miss our squad, our partnership. I don’t like feeling like I let you down. Because you’re my team. You’ve always been my team, and let’s face it, not just anyone wants a team member as headstrong and controlling as I am. I know that. I definitely know that.”
“Are you done?”
“Maybe.”
“Because this isn’t a test. Though, for the record, you are headstrong and controlling.”
“I know.”
“And you should have more faith in us.”
“I know.”
“But you’re also you, and I know you, D.D. Most of the time, when I’m not completely exasperated or frustrated or scared out of my mind, I even like you. So now that we both agree that I’m right and you’re wrong, are you going to come along or not?”
“Come along?”
“To the crime scene. With the body. But I get to drive.”
D.D. didn’t need to be asked twice. “Okay!”
“You really are a lousy restricted duty supervisor.”
“Yeah. Been thinking that a lot myself.” Which still didn’t stop her from grabbing her leather jacket and walking away from her desk.
“So where are we headed?” she asked as she followed Phil out the door, world order officially restored.
“Mattapan.”
“Again? Why are the bodies always hidden in Mattapan?”
“Because some neighborhoods are just like that.”
*
MATTAPAN HAD A NATURE PARK run by the Mass Audubon society on acres of land that used to belong to an abandoned state mental hospital. Which Phil and D.D. were both very conscious of as they skirted the perimeter of the property, sticking close to the elaborate wrought iron fence that separated the unexpected expanse of leafy trees from the dense urban jungle that surrounded it.
They’d been to this park before. They’d walked these grounds when the skeletal remains of the abandoned mental facility had still winked shattered glass eyes from atop the hill. They knew all about the ghosts of this area’s past, and the mummified remains of six girls they’d excavated from an underground pit last time they’d been here.
Following Phil toward the first wooded trail, D.D. had a chill, and it wasn’t from the weather.
In theory, the Boston State Hospital was long gone. Half of the green space had become the Boston Nature Center, home to 150 species of birds and 350 species of plants in the midst of a densely packed neighborhood where the triple-deckers were jammed shoulder to shoulder and most looked worse for the wear.
Bostonians came from all over to walk through these trees, listen to the birds, admire the butterflies. That the park came up as a frequent destination in Devon Goulding’s GPS could just mean he was someone who enjoyed communing with nature.
Except, of course, the park also represented a decent chunk of tucked-away green space, which is exactly what a killer would need to bury a body.
According to Phil, they’d brought out dogs first thing this morning. It had taken them less than twenty minutes to make the find: a low mound of earth resting next to an equally long depression in the ground, both just starting to be reclaimed by the undergrowth.
Laypeople generally gravitated toward the mound when digging for a body. Experienced pros like Boston’s ME department, however, knew better. The mound was formed from all the displaced dirt the killer had excavated from the grave—digging down, dumping shovelfuls of soil to the side. The depression, that was the grave. Where the subject had interred the body, then covered it with enough soil to make it relatively level. Never once considering the effects of putrefaction. That flesh and muscle would eventually decay, slide off the bones, melt into the very ground. That if blowflies had found a way to lay eggs on the body before it was interred, this process would happen even faster—let alone critter activity as a new food source was introduced into the local area.