“We got a call from a Kevin O’Brien. He and his wife were out walking their dogs up at the Hallows when they noticed something in the ground that looked like a human leg. He got a thick branch and moved around some of the dirt and discovered it was a body. They immediately called the police, and a uniform was sent out. I got the call about half an hour later that it was a suspected homicide.”

“What happened then?”

“I went out to the scene and confirmed there was a body. I recognized her as Patty Winchester. I had known her father and had seen her on several occasions. I immediately called the station to get the forensic unit from the Washington County Sheriff’s Office down there and then took Kevin and his wife’s statements. While I waited for Forensics to arrive, I walked around the site to see if I could find anything relevant, and we found a small toy, a little monkey, that turned out to belong to Lyle Mallory, who’d lost it there. Nothing else was found that was relevant to this investigation.”

“Describe the body for us.”

He took a sip of his water. “The body wasn’t decomposed very much.”

“Objection,” Pritcher said. “He’s not a medical examiner, Your Honor.”

“He’s allowed to tell us what he saw, Judge.”

“I’ll allow it.”

I looked back to Howard. “Go on.”

“It was pretty bad. She had cuts all over her body, something a thin knife or maybe a piece of glass would do. And I noticed cigarette burns up and down her legs and torso. Her face and body were extremely bruised, indicating she’d taken quite a beating.”

“Objection, again, Your Honor, Mr. Howard is not a qualified witness to speak to injuries.”

“I’ll lay some foundation, Your Honor.”

“Go ahead.”

“Detective, you’ve seen dead bodies before, correct? Both in your time as a police officer and as a soldier in Iraq?”

“Correct.”

“You’ve seen victims of violent attacks?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“In my whole career? I guess over fifty.”

“You’ve seen bruising?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve seen mutilations?”

“Yes.”

“Was this body mutilated?”

“Beaten and mutilated, yes, quite severely.” He looked to the jury. “Honestly it’s the worst I’ve seen.”

I questioned him for over an hour about speaking with Patty’s father, which led them to Cecily, who led them to Anderson and Steven. Of course, I couldn’t talk about the boys’ confessions, which were nothing more than Howard aggressively getting them to say what he wanted anyway, so we glossed over that part, and then I said, “Thank you, Detective.”

Pritcher stood up silently and approached the detective. He didn’t stand at the lectern, but instead put his hands behind his back and stood a few feet from Howard.