Broken Angels (21 page)

56

It was her third cigarette of the day. Her
third.
Three wasn’t bad. Three was like not smoking at all, right? Back when she was using she’d been up to two packs. Three was like she had already quit. Or whatever.

Who was she kidding? She knew she wasn’t going to quit for real until her life was in order. Sometime around her seventieth birthday.
Sa’mantha Fanning opened the back door, peeked into the store. Empty. She listened. Baby Jamie was quiet. She closed the door, pulled her coat tightly around her.
Man,
it was cold. She hated having to come outside to smoke, but at least she wasn’t one of those gargoyles you saw on Broad Street, standing in front of their buildings, hunched against the wall, sucking away on a butt. That was the reason she never smoked in front of the store, even though it was a lot easier to keep an eye on things from there. She refused to look like some criminal. Still, it was colder than a pocketful of penguin shit out here.
She thought about her plans for New Year’s Eve, or rather her nonplans. It would just be her and Jamie, maybe a bottle of wine. Such was the life of a single mother. A single broke mother. A single barely
employed
broke mother whose ex-boyfriend and father of her child was a lazy-ass pipehead who had yet to give her one friggin’ dime in child support. She was nineteen and her life story was already written.
She opened the door again, just to give a listen, and almost jumped out of her skin. A man stood right in the doorway
.
He had been alone in the store, all by himself. He could have stolen anything. She was definitely going to get fired, family or no.
“Man,” she said. “You scared the
crap
outta me.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
He was well dressed, had a nice face. He was not her typical cus- tomer.
“My name is Detective Byrne,” he said. “I’m with the Philadelphia Police Department. The homicide division.”
“Oh, okay,” she said.
“I was wondering if you might have a few minutes to talk.”
“Sure. No problem,” she said. “But I did already speak with a...”
“Detective Balzano?”
“Right. Detective Balzano. She had on this great leather coat.”
“That’s her.” He gestured to the inside of the store. “Would you like to go inside where it’s a little warmer?”
She held up her cigarette. “I can’t smoke in there. Ironic, huh?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I mean half the stuff in there already smells pretty funky,” she said. “Is it okay if we talk out here?”
“Sure,” the man replied. He stepped through the doorway, closed the door. “I just have a few more questions. I promise not to keep you too long.”
She almost laughed
. Keep me from what?
“I’ve got nowhere to be,” she said. “Fire away.”
“Actually, I have only one question.”
“Okay.”
“I was wondering about your son.”
The word caught her off guard. What did Jamie have to do with anything? “My son?”
“Yes. I was wondering why you are going to put him out. Is it because he isn’t pretty?”
At first she thought the man was making a joke—albeit a joke she didn’t get. But he wasn’t smiling. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” she said.
“The count’s son is not nearly as fair as you think.”
She looked into his eyes. He seemed to look right through her. Something was wrong here. Something was
way
wrong. And she was all by herself. “Do you think I might, like, see some identification or something?” she asked.
“No.” The man stepped toward her. He unbuttoned his coat. “That won’t be possible.”
Sa’mantha Fanning took a few steps backward. A few steps were all she had. Her back was already against the bricks. “Have...have we met before?” she asked.
“Yes, we have, Anne Lisbeth,” the man said. “Once upon a time.”

57

Jessica sat at her desk, worn out, the events of the day—the discovery of the third victim, coupled with the near miss with Kevin—having all but drained her.

Plus, the only thing worse than fighting Philly traffic was fighting Philly traffic on ice. It was physically exhausting. Her arms felt like she had gone ten rounds; her neck was stiff. On the way back to the Roundhouse she had narrowly avoided three accidents.

Roland Hannah had spent almost two hours with a book of mug shots. Jessica had also given him a sheet with five more recent photos, one of which was the visitor ID photograph of David Hornstrom. He had not recognized anyone.

The investigation into the murder of the victim found in the Southwest would soon be turned over to the task force, and new files would soon pile up on her desk.

Three victims. Three women strangled, left on a riverbank, all of them dressed in vintage dresses. One had been horribly mutilated. One had held a rare bird in her grasp. One had been found with a red plastic lily nearby.

Jessica turned to the evidence of the nightingale. There were three companies in New York, New Jersey, and Delaware that bred exotic birds. She decided not to wait for a call back. She picked up the phone. She got basically the same information from all three firms. She was told that with sufficient knowledge, and the proper conditions, a person could breed a nightingale. They gave her a list of books and publications. She hung up the phone, each time feeling she was at the foothills of a huge mountain of knowledge she did not have the energy to climb.

She got up to get a cup of coffee. Her phone rang. She answered, punched the button.
“Homicide, Balzano.”
“Detective, my name is Ingrid Fanning.”
It was the voice of an older woman. Jessica didn’t recognize the name. “What can I do for you ma’am?”
“I’m the co-owner of TrueSew. My granddaughter spoke to you earlier.”
“Oh, right, yes,” Jessica said. The woman was talking about Sa’mantha.
“I’ve been looking at the photographs you left,” Ingrid said. “The photographs of the dresses?”
“What about them?”
“Well, for one thing, these are not vintage dresses.”
“They’re not?”
“No,” she said. “These are
reproductions
of vintage dresses. I would put the originals at around the second half of the nineteenth century. Closer to the end. Perhaps 1875 or so. Definitely a late Victorian silhouette.”
Jessica wrote down the information. “How do you know they are reproductions?”
“A few reasons. One, much of the detailing is missing. They don’t appear to be very well made. And two, if these were original, and in this kind of shape, they would sell for three to four thousand dollars each. Believe me, they would not be on the rack at a thrift store.”
“But reproductions might be?” Jessica asked.
“Oh, sure. There are a lot of reasons to reproduce clothing like this.”
“For instance?”

Merciless
263

“For instance someone might be producing a play or a film. Someone might be recreating a particular event at a museum, perhaps. We get calls all the time from local theater groups. Not for anything like these dresses, mind you, but rather for more recent period clothing. Lots of calls for 1950s and 1960s stuff these days.”

“Has clothing like this ever passed through your store?” “A few times. But what these dresses are is costuming, not vintage.” Jessica considered the fact that she had been looking in the wrong

places. She should have concentrated on theatrical supply. She would begin now.
“I appreciate the call,” Jessica said.
“It’s quite all right,” the woman replied.
“Say thanks to Sa’mantha for me.”
“Well, my granddaughter’s not here. When I came in the store was locked and my great-grandson was in his crib in the office.”
“Is everything all right?”
“I’m sure it is,” she said. “She probably ran out to the bank or something.”
Jessica hadn’t thought Sa’mantha the type to up and leave her son alone. On the other hand, she didn’t really know the young woman at all. “Thanks again for calling,” she said. “If you think of anything else, please give us a ring.”
“I will.”
Jessica thought about the date. The late 1800s. What was the reason? Was the killer obsessed with that time period? She made notes. She would look up important dates and events in Philadelphia around that time. Perhaps their psycho was fixated on some incident that took place on the river in that era.

byrne spent the late afternoon doing background checks on everyone even remotely connected with Stiletto—bartenders, parking attendants, night cleaners, delivery people. Although they were not the most savory lot, none of them had anything on their records to indicate the kind of violence unleashed in the river killings.

He walked over to Jessica’s desk, sat down.
“Guess who came up blank?” Byrne asked.
“Who?”
“Alasdair Blackburn,” Byrne said. “Unlike his father, he has no

record. And the odd thing is that he was born here. Chester County.”

This was a little surprising to Jessica. “He sure gives the impression he’s from the old country. ‘Aye’ and all that.”
“Exactly my point.”
“What do you want to do?” she asked.
“I think we should take a ride to his house. See if we can catch him out of his element.”
“Let’s go.” Before Jessica could grab her coat her phone rang. She answered. It was Ingrid Fanning again.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jessica said. “Did you remember something else?”
It wasn’t something else Ingrid Fanning had remembered. It was something else alto
gether
. Jessica listened for a few moments, a little incredulous, and said, “We’ll be there in ten minutes.” She hung up the phone.
“What’s up?” Byrne asked.
Jessica took a moment. She needed it to process what she’d just heard. “That was Ingrid Fanning,” she said. She gave Byrne a brief recap of her earlier conversation with the woman.
“Does she have something for us?”
“I’m not sure,” Jessica said. “She seems to think someone has her granddaughter.”
“What do you mean?” Byrne asked. He was on his feet now. “Who has her granddaughter?”
Jessica took another moment before responding. It wasn’t nearly enough time. “Somebody named Detective Byrne.”

58

Ingrid Fanning was a tough seventy—thin, wiry, vigorous, dangerous in her youth. Her cloud of white hair was tied into a ponytail. She wore a long blue wool skirt and cream cashmere turtleneck. The store was empty. Jessica noticed that the music had changed to Celtic. She also noticed that Ingrid Fanning’s hands were shaking.

Jessica, Byrne, and Ingrid stood behind the counter. Beneath the counter was an older model Panasonic VHS machine and a small blackand-white monitor.

“After I called you the first time I began to straighten up a bit behind here, and I noticed that the videotape had stopped,” Ingrid said. “It’s an old machine. It’s always doing that. I rewound it some, and I accidentally hit play instead of record. I saw this.”

Ingrid played the tape. When the high-angle image appeared on the screen it showed an empty hallway leading to the back of the store. Unlike most surveillance systems, this was nothing very sophisticated, just an ordinary VHS cassette machine, set on SLP. It probably provided six hours of real-time coverage. There was also audio. The view of the empty hallway was underscored by the faint sounds of traffic passing on South Street, the occasional car horn, the same music Jessica recalled from her visit.

After a minute or so a figure walked up the hallway, peering briefly through a doorway to the right. Jessica immediately recognized the woman as Sa’mantha Fanning.

“That’s my granddaughter,” Ingrid said. Her voice was trembling. “The room on the right is where Jamie was.”
Byrne glanced at Jessica, shrugged.
Jamie?
Jessica pointed to the baby in the crib behind the counter. The baby was fine, fast asleep. Byrne nodded.
“She would go out back to smoke a cigarette,” Ingrid continued. She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. Whatever was coming was not good, Jessica thought. “She told me she quit, but I knew.”
On the tape, Sa’mantha continued down the hallway to the door at the end. She opened it, allowing a wedge of gray daylight to spill down the corridor. She closed it behind her. The hallway remained empty, silent. The door stayed closed for forty-five seconds or so. It then opened about a foot. Sa’mantha poked her head in, listening. She closed the door once more.
The image remained static for thirty more seconds. Then the camera shook slightly, and changed positions, as if someone had tilted the lens downward. Now all they could see was the bottom half of the door, and the last few feet of the hallway. A few seconds later they heard footsteps, saw a figure. It appeared to be a man, but it was impossible to tell. The viewpoint showed the back of a dark coat from the waist down. They saw him reach into his pocket, retrieve a light colored rope.
An icy hand grabbed Jessica’s heart.
Was this their killer?
The man put the rope back into his coat pocket. A few moments later the door opened wide. It appeared that Sa’mantha was checking on her son again. She was a step lower than the level of the store, visible only from the neck down. She appeared startled to see someone standing there. She said something that was garbled on the tape. The man spoke in response.
“Could you play that again?” Jessica asked.
Ingrid Fanning hit rewind, stop, play. Byrne turned up the volume on the monitor. On tape, the door opened again. A few moments later the man said,
“My name is Detective Byrne.”
Jessica saw Kevin Byrne’s fists clench, his jaw tighten.
Shortly after, the man stepped through the doorway, closed the door behind him. There were twenty or thirty seconds of agonizing silence. Just the sound of the passing traffic and the thump of the music.
Then they heard a scream.
Jessica and Byrne both looked at Ingrid Fanning. “Is there anything else on the tape?” Jessica asked.
Ingrid shook her head, dabbed at her eyes. “They never came back in.”
Jessica and Byrne walked down the hallway. Jessica looked at the camera. It was still pointed downward. They opened the door, stepped through. Behind the shop was a small area, perhaps eight by ten feet, bordered by a wooden fence at the back. The fence had a gate that opened onto an alley that cut behind the buildings. Byrne called in a request for officers to begin a canvass of the area. They would dust the camera and the door, but neither detective believed they would find fingerprints belonging to anyone other than an employee of TrueSew.
Jessica tried to construct a scenario in her mind in which Sa’mantha had not been drawn into this madness. She could not.
The killer had visited the store, perhaps looking for a Victorian dress.
The killer knew the name of the detective who was chasing him.
And now he had Sa’mantha Fanning.

Anne Lisbeth sits in the boat, wearing her dress—a midnight blue. She has stopped struggling against the ropes.
It is time.
Moon pushes the boat down the tunnel that leads to the main canal—the ØSTTUNNELEN, as his grandmother used to call it. He dashes out of the boathouse, past the Elfin Hill, past the Old Church Bell, all the way to the schoolhouse. He loves to watch the boats.
Soon he sees Anne Lisbeth’s boat come into view, floating past the Tinder Box, then beneath the Great Belt Bridge. He recalls the days when the boats passed by all day—yellow and red and green and blue.
The Snow Man’s house is empty now.
It will soon be occupied.
Moon stands with the rope in his hands. He waits at the end of the last canal, by the little schoolhouse, surveying the village. So much to do, so many repairs to make. He wishes his grandfather were there. He recalls those cold mornings, the smell of the old wooden toolbox, the damp sawdust, the way his grandfather would hum “I Danmark er jeg fodt
,”
the glorious aroma of his pipe.
Anne Lisbeth will now take her place on the river, and they all will come. Soon. But not before the last two stories.
First, Moon will bring the Snow Man.
Then he will meet his princess.

The crime-scene unit had fingerprinted the third victim at the scene and was rushing the prints through processing. So far the tiny woman found in the Southwest had not been identified. Josh Bontrager worked the missing-person angle. Tony Park was walking the plastic lily through the lab.

The woman also had the same “moon” drawing on her stomach. The DNA reports on the semen and blood found on the first two victims had concluded that the samples were identical. No one expected a different result this time. It was being fast-tracked nonetheless.

A pair of techs at the document section of the crime lab had now been exclusively assigned to the case to track down the origin of the moon drawing.

The Philadelphia field office of the FBI had been contacted regarding the abduction of Sa’mantha Fanning. They were analyzing the tape and processing the scene. For the time being, the case was out of the hands of the PPD. Everyone expected the case to become a homicide. As always, everyone hoped they were wrong.

“Where are we on the fairy-tale angle?” Buchanan asked. It was just after six o’clock. Everyone was exhausted, hungry, ill-tempered. Lives were being put on hold, plans cancelled. Some holiday season. They were waiting on the preliminary report from the medical examiner’s office. Jessica and Byrne were among the handful of detectives in the duty room. “Working on it,” Jessica said.

“You might want to look into this,” Buchanan said.

He handed Jessica a section of a page from that morning’s
Inquirer
. It was a brief article about a man named Trevor Bridgwood. Bridgwood was a traveling storyteller and troubadour, the article said. Whatever that was.

Buchanan had given them more than a suggestion, it seemed. He had dug up the lead, and they
would
follow up.
“We’re on it, Sarge,” Byrne said.

they met in a hotel room at the Sofitel on Seventeenth Street. Later that evening, Trevor Bridgwood was doing a reading and signing at Joseph Fox Bookshop, an independent bookstore on Sansom Street.

There must be money in the fairy-tale business,
Jessica thought. The Sofitel was far from cheap.
Trevor Bridgwood was in his early thirties, slender and graceful, decorous. He had a sharp nose and a receding hairline, a theatrical manner.
“This is all rather new to me,” he said. “More than a little unnerving, I might add.”
“We’re just looking for some information,” Jessica said. “We appreciate you meeting with us on such short notice.
“I hope I can assist.”
“Can I ask what it is you do exactly?” Jessica asked.
“I am a storyteller,” Bridgwood replied. “I spend nine or ten months of the year on the road. I appear all over the world, performing in the United States, Great Britain, Australia, Canada. Anywhere English is spoken.”
“In front of live audiences?”
“Mostly. But I also perform on radio and television.”
“And your main focus is fairy tales?”
“Fairy tales, folk tales, fables.”
“What can you tell us about them?” Byrne asked.
Bridgwood stood, walked to the window. He moved like a dancer. “There’s an awful lot to know,” he said. “It’s an old form of storytelling, encompassing many different styles and traditions.”
“Just the primer then, I guess,” Byrne said.
“We can begin with ‘Cupid and Psyche,’ if you wish, which was written around a.d. 150 or so.”
“Maybe something a little more recent,” Byrne said.
“Of course.” Bridgwood smiled. “There are many touchstones in between Apuleius and
Edward Scissorhands
.”
“Such as?” Byrne asked.
“Where to begin. Well, Charles Perrault’s
Histoires ou Contes du temps passé
was important. That collection contained ‘Cinderella,’ ‘The Sleeping Beauty,’ ‘Little Red Riding Hood,’ and others.”
“When was this?” Jessica asked.
“It was 1697, or thereabouts,” Bridgwood said. “Then of course in the early 1800s the Brothers Grimm published two volumes of collected stories titled
Kinder und Hausmärchen
. These are some of the best known fairy tales, of course—‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin,’ ‘Tom Thumb,’ ‘Rapunzel,’ ‘Rumpelstiltskin.’ ”
Jessica took the best notes she could. Her German and French were sorely lacking.
“After that, Hans Christian Andersen published his
Fairy Tales Told for Children
in 1835. Ten years later two men named Asbjornsen and Moe released a collection called
Norwegian Folk Tales,
from which we read ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff ’ and others.
“Arguably, as we approach the twentieth century, there are really no major new works or new collections to be found. Much of it is retelling of classics as we move into Humperdinck’s opera of
Hansel and Gretel
. Then Disney released
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
in 1937, the form was revived, and it has flourished ever since.”
“Flourished?” Byrne asked. “Flourished how?”
“Ballet, theater, television, movies. Even the film
Shrek
owes the form. And, to a certain extent,
The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien himself published ‘On Fairy Stories,’ an essay on the subject that he expanded from a lecture he gave in 1939. It is still widely read and discussed in college-level fairy-tale studies.”
Byrne looked at Jessica, back at Bridgwood. “There are college courses in this?” she asked.
“Oh yes.” Bridgwood smiled, a little sadly. He crossed the room, sat at the desk. “You probably have the notion that fairy tales are rather sweet little morality tales for children.”
“I guess I do,” Byrne said.
“Some are. Many are much darker than that. In fact, a book called
The Uses of Enchantment
by Bruno Bettelheim explored the psychology of fairy tales and children. It won the National Book Award.
“There are, of course, many other important figures. You asked for an overview, and that’s what I’m giving you.”
“If you could sum up what they all have in common, it might make it easier for us,” Byrne said. “What is the common thread?”
“Essentially, a fairy tale is a story that arises out of myth and legend. Written tales probably grew out of the oral folk-tale tradition. They tend to involve the mysterious or supernatural, they tend not to be tied to any specific moment in history. Hence the phrase ‘once upon a time.’ ”
“Are they tied to any religion?” Byrne asked.
“Not usually,” Bridgwood said. “They can be quite spiritual, however. They usually involve a humble hero, a perilous quest, a vile villain. Folks are usually all good or all bad in fairy tales. Many times the conflict is resolved by using, to some extent, magic. But this is terribly broad.
Terribly
broad.”
Bridgwood sounded apologetic now, like a man who had shortchanged an entire field of academic study.
“I don’t want to leave you with the impression that fairy tales are all alike,” he added. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
“Can you think of any specific stories or collections that focus on the moon as its subject?” Jessica asked.
Bridgwood thought for a few moments. “One that springs to mind is a rather long story that is really a series of very short sketches. It is a narrative that tells of a young painter and the moon.”
Jessica flashed on the “paintings” found on their victims. “What happens in the stories?” she asked.
“Well, this painter is very lonely, you see.” Bridgwood suddenly became quite animated. It appeared that he was shifting into a theatrical mode—better posture, hand gestures, lively tone. “He lives in a small town and has no friends. One night he is sitting in his window and the moon comes to him. They talk for a while. Before long the moon makes the painter a promise that every night he will return and tell the painter what he has witnessed all over the world. In this way, the painter, without leaving his home, could imagine these scenes, render them to canvas, and perhaps become famous. Or maybe just make a few friends. It is a marvelous story.”
“You say the moon comes to him every night?” Jessica asked.
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“The moon comes thirty-two times.”
Thirty-two times,
Jessica thought. “And this was a Grimms’ tale?” she asked.
“No, this was written by Hans Christian Andersen. The story is called ‘What the Moon Saw.’ ”
“And when did Hans Christian Andersen live?” she asked.
“From 1805 to 1875,” Bridgwood said.
I would put the originals at around the second half of the nineteenth century,
Ingrid Fanning had said about the dresses.
Closer to the end. Perhaps 1875 or so.
Bridgwood reached into a suitcase on the table. He extracted a leather-bound book. “This is not by any means the complete works of Andersen, nor despite its weathered appearance, is it particularly valuable. You are welcome to borrow it.” He slipped a card into the book. “Return it to this address whenever you are finished. Take as long as you like.”
“That would be helpful,” Jessica said. “We’ll get it back to you as soon as possible.”
“Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
Jessica and Byrne stood, slipped on their coats.
“I’m sorry I have to rush,” Bridgwood said. “I have a performance in twenty minutes. Can’t keep the little wizards and princesses waiting.”
“Of course,” Byrne said. “We thank you for your time.”
At this, Bridgwood crossed the room, reached into a closet, pulled out a very old-looking black tuxedo. He hung it on the back of the door.
Byrne asked, “Is there anything else you can think of that might help us?”
“Only this: To understand magic, you have to believe.” Bridgwood slid into the old tuxedo coat. Suddenly he was a denizen of the late nineteenth century—slender, aristocratic, somewhat peculiar. Trevor Bridgwood turned, winked. “At least a little bit.”
It was all in Trevor Bridgwood’s book. And the knowledge was horrifying.
“The Red Shoes” was a fable about a girl named Karen, a dancer who has her feet amputated.
“The Nightingale” was about a bird that captivated an emperor with its song.
“Thumbelina” was about a tiny woman who lived on a lily pad.
Detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano, along with four other detectives, stood speechless in the suddenly quiet duty room, looking at pen and ink illustrations from a children’s book, the realization of what they were facing a raging stream beneath their thoughts. The anger in the air was palpable. The feeling of frustration was worse.
Someone was killing the citizens of Philadelphia in a series of murders based on the stories of Hans Christian Andersen. The killer had struck three times that they knew of, and now there was a good chance that he had Sa’mantha Fanning. Which fable would she be? Where was he going to place her on the river? Would they be able to find her in time?
All these questions paled in the light of one other gruesome fact contained between the covers of the book they had borrowed from Trevor Bridgwood.
Hans Christian Andersen wrote nearly two hundred stories. The details surrounding the strangulation murders of the three victims found along the banks of the Schuylkill River had leaked, and every newspaper in the city, the region, and the state was carrying the story of a compulsive killer in Philadelphia. The headlines, as expected, were lurid.
A Fairy Tale Murderer in Philadelphia?
A Fabled Killer?
Who is the Schuylkiller?
Hansel and Regrettable?
trumpeted the
Record,
a tabloid rag of the lowest order.
The usually jaded Philadelphia media were off and running. There were news crews up and down the Schuylkill River, doing stand-up shots on the bridges, on the banks. A news helicopter had flown the entire length of the river, taking footage as it did so. The bookstores and libraries could not keep books on Hans Christian Andersen on the shelves, nor the works of the Brothers Grimm and Mother Goose. It was close enough for the sensationalists.
Calls were coming into the department every few minutes about ogres and monsters and trolls following children throughout the city. One woman called and said she had seen a man in a wolf costume in Fairmount Park. A sector car followed up and found it to be true. The man was currently in the drunk tank at the Roundhouse.
By the morning of December 30 there were a total of five detectives and six crime-scene officers assigned to investigate the crimes.
Sa’mantha Fanning had not yet been found.
There were no suspects.
At just after three o’clock on December 30 Ike Buchanan stepped out of his office, got Jessica’s attention. She had been collating rope suppliers, trying to track down retail outlets that carried the specific brand of swim lane rope. Trace evidence of the rope had been found on the third victim. The bad news was that, in this day and age of Internet shopping, you could buy just about anything without face-to-face contact. The good news was that Internet shopping generally required a credit card or PayPal. That was Jessica’s next line of inquiry.
Nick Palladino and Tony Park were off to Norristown to interview people at the Centre Theater, looking into anyone there who might have been connected to Tara Grendel. Kevin Byrne and Josh Bontrager were canvassing the area near where the third victim had been found.
“Can I see you a minute?” Buchanan asked.
Jessica welcomed the break. She stepped into his office. Buchanan motioned for her to close the door. She did.
“What’s up, boss?”
“I’m pulling you off the multiple. Just for a few days.”
The statement took her by surprise, to say the least. No, it was more like a hook to the gut. It was almost as if he had said she was
fired
. He hadn’t, of course, but she had never been pulled from an investigation before. She didn’t like it. She didn’t know a cop who did.
“Why?”
“Because I’m putting Eric on that gang hit. He’s got the contacts, it’s his old patch, and he speaks the language.”
There had been a triple homicide the day before, a Latino couple and their ten-year-old son had been killed, execution-style, while sleeping in their beds. The theory was that it was gang retaliation, and Eric Chavez, before joining the homicide unit, had worked antigang.
“So you want me to—”
“Work the Walt Brigham case,” Buchanan said. “You’ll be partnered with Nicci.”
Jessica felt a strange mixture of emotions. She had worked one detail with Nicci, and she looked forward to the chance of working with her again, but Kevin Byrne was her partner, and they had a bond that transcended gender and age and time on the job.
Buchanan held out a notebook. Jessica took it from him. “These are Eric’s notes on the case. It should get you up to speed. He said to call him if you had any questions.”
“Thanks, Sarge,” Jessica said. “Does Kevin know?”
“I just talked to him.”
Jessica wondered why her cell phone hadn’t yet rung. “Is he partnering up?” As soon as she said it, she identified the feeling spiking through her: jealousy. If Byrne picked up another partner, even on a temporary basis, it would feel like she was being cheated on.
What are you, in high school, Jess?
she thought
. He’s not your boyfriend, he’s your partner. Get a freakin’ grip.
“Kevin, Josh, Tony, and Nick will work the cases. We’re stretched to the limit here.”
It was true. From a peak of 7,000 police officers three years earlier, the PPD was down to 6,400, the lowest it had been since the mid-nineties. And it got worse from there. Around 600 officers were currently listed as injured and not reporting for work, or were on restricted desk duty. Special plainclothes teams in each district were being switched back to uniformed patrol, boosting the police profile in some neighborhoods. Recently, the commissioner had announced the formation of the Strategic Intervention Tactical Enforcement Mobile Unit, an elite forty-sixofficer anticrime team to patrol the city’s most dangerous areas. For the last three months every nonessential officer at the Roundhouse had been put back on the street. It was a bad time for Philly’s cops, and sometimes a detective’s assignments, and their focus, shifted at a moment’s notice.
“How long?” Jessica asked.
“Just for a few days.”
“I have calls out, boss.”
“I understand. If you have a few spare minutes, or if something breaks, follow it. But for now, our plate is full. And we simply don’t have the warm bodies. Work with Nicci.”
Jessica understood the pressure to solve a cop killing. If the criminals were getting bolder and bolder these days—and there was little debate about that—they would go off the chart if they thought they could execute a cop on the street and not feel the heat.