“You think it’s more than one?” Molly said.
“A two-hundred-pound corpse is hard for one person to manhandle around and hoist over a limb,” Jesse said.
“But not impossible,” Molly said.
“No,” Jesse said.
They all sat quietly.
“Anyone reported missing?” Jesse said.
“No,” Molly said.
“Anyone else know anything?”
“Nobody I talked with,” Suitcase said.
Molly Crane and Peter Perkins both shook their heads.
“Even if you knew the guy,” Simpson said, “be kind of hard to recognize him now.”
9
R O B E R T B . P A R K E R
“Anyone want to speculate why you’d shoot some guy,”
Jesse said, “hold his body until it started to ripen, and then hang it on a tree?”
“Symbolic,” Molly said. “It must have some sort of symbolic meaning to the perps.”
Jesse waited.
“Obviously they wanted him found,” Suitcase said.
“But why hanging?” Peter Perkins said.
Suitcase shook his head. Jesse looked at Molly. She shook her head.
“Perk,” Jesse said. “Any theories?”
Perkins shook his head.
“Okay,” Jesse said. “It looks like, for now, we wait for the forensics report.”
“Unless something turns up,” Suitcase said.
“Unless that,” Jesse said.
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4
Dix was as shiny as he always was. His white shirt was crisp with starch. His slacks were sharply creased. His shoes were polished. His thick hands were clean. His nails were manicured. He was bald and clean shaven, and his head gleamed. The white walls of his office were bare except for a framed copy of his medical degree and one of his board certification in psychiatry. Jesse sat at one side of the desk, and Dix swiveled his chair to face him. After he swiveled, he was motionless, his hands resting interlaced on his flat stomach.
“I’m making progress on the booze,” Jesse said. Dix waited.
R O B E R T B . P A R K E R
“I quit for a while and it seemed to give me more control of it when I went back.”
