Play Dead (26 page)

It was a USB flash drive, the kind that plugs into a port on a computer. It was not labeled or marked in any way. Jessica saw the print powder on the cube, so she knew someone at CSU had touched this. She looked inside the cube again. The flash drive had been wrapped in the tissue. Jessica understood. Eve had hidden it in there and put in the tissue so it would not rattle. She had done this for the possibility of a moment just such as this.

Against her better judgment—in fact, against all the judgment she had—she slipped the flash drive into her pocket, and clicked off her flashlight.

Five minutes later, leaving the apartment virtually the way she had found it, she headed home.

An hour later Jessica sat in the bathtub.
It was Saturday. Vincent had two days off. He had taken Sophie to
visit his parents. They would be back Sunday afternoon.
The house had been ghostly quiet, so she had taken her iPod into
the tub. When she’d gotten home she’d plugged Eve’s flash drive into
her desktop computer, and found that there were a few dozen mp3s on
it, mostly songs by artists of whom Jessica had never heard. She added
some them to her iTunes library.
Her Glock sat on the edge of the sink, right next to the tumbler
containing three inches of Wild Turkey.
Jessica turned the hot water on again. It was already almost scalding in the tub, but she couldn’t seem to get it hot enough. She wanted the memory of Katja Dovic, and Monica Renzi, and Caitlin O’Riordan to wash off. She felt as if she would never be clean again.

Eve Galvez’s music was a mix of pop, salsa,
tejano, danzón—
a sort of old- time formal Cuban dance music—and something called
huayño.
Good stuff. New stuff.
Different
stuff. Jessica listened to a few songs by someone named Marisa Monte. She decided to add the rest of the songs to her iPod.

She got out of the tub, threw on her big fluffy robe and went into the small room off the kitchen they used as a computer room. And it was small. Room enough for a table, chair, and a G5 computer. She poured herself another inch, sat down, selected the flash drive. It was then that she noticed a folder she hadn’t seen, a folder labeled
vademecum.
She double- clicked it.

A few moments later, the screen displayed more than two hundred files. These were not system files, nor were they music files. They were Eve Galvez’s personal files. Jessica looked at the extensions. All of them were .jpg files. Graphics.

None of the files were named, just numbered, starting with one hundred.
Jessica clicked on the first file. She found that she was holding her breath as the hard drive turned, launching Preview, the default graphic display program she used on her computer. This was, after all, a picture of some kind, and she wasn’t all that sure it was something she wanted to see. Or should see.
A moment later, when the graphic showed up the screen, it was probably the last thing Jessica expected. It was the scanned image of a piece of paper, a yellowed, three- holed piece of notebook paper with blue lines, something akin to a leaf from a child’s school composition book. On it was a young woman’s back- slanted, loopy handwriting.
Jessica scrolled to the top of the file. When she saw the handwritten date, her heart began to race.

september 3, 1988.
It was Eve Galvez’s diary.
FORTY-NINE

SEPTEMBER 3, 1988
I hide.

I hide because I know his anger. I hide because it took more than six months to heal the last time I saw this much rage in his eyes. The bones in my right arm, even now, tell me of a coming rainstorm. I hide because my mother cannot help me, not with her pills and her lovers; nor can my brother, my sweet brother who once stood up to him and paid so dearly. I hide because, not to hide, could very easily mean the end of me, the final punctuation of my short story.

I hear him in the foyer of the house, now, his huge boots on the quarry tile. He does not know about this secret place, this rabbit hole which has been my salvation so many times, this dusty sanctuary beneath the stairs. He does not know about this diary. If he ever found these words, I don’t know what he would do.

The drink has taken over his mind, and made it a house of red mirrors where he cannot see me. He can only see himself, his own monstrous face in the glass, reflected a thousand times over like some uncontrollable army.

I hear him walking up the stairs, just above me, calling my name. It won’t be long until he finds me. No secret can remain so forever.
I am afraid. I am afraid of Arturo Emmanuel Galvez. My father.
I may never make another entry in this journal.
And, dearest diary, if I do not, if I never speak to you again, I just wanted you to know why I do what I do.
I hide.

AUGUST 1, 1990
There is a place I go, a place that exists only behind my eyes. It all started when I was ten years old. A light in the heavens. More like a yellow moon, perhaps, a soft yellow moon in an aluminum sky. Heaven’s porch light.

Soon the moon becomes a face. A devil’s face.

JANUARY 22, 1992
I left yesterday. I hitchhiked along Frankford Avenue for awhile, caught a few good rides. One guy wanted to take me to Florida with him. If he hadn’t looked like Freddy Krueger I might have considered it. Even still I considered it. Anything to get away from Dad.

I am sitting on the steps at the art museum. It is hard to believe that I have lived in Philadelphia most of my life, and I have never been here. It is another world.

Enrique will be in this place one day. He will paint pictures that will make the world laugh and think and cry. He will be famous.

JULY 23, 1995
I still hide. I hide from my life, my obligations. I watch from afar. Those tiny fingers. Those dark eyes.
These are my days of grace.

MAY 3, 2006
Nobody who is truly happy is an alcoholic or a drug addict. These things are mutually exclusive. Drugs are what you do instead of loving someone.

JUNE 2, 2008
I walk the Badlands. The nights here are made of broken glass, broken people. I carry two firearms now—one is my service weapon, a Glock 17. Full mag, plus a round in the chamber. There is no safety. I carry it in a holster on my hip.

The other weapon is a .25- caliber Beretta. I have an ankle rig for it, but it fits nicely into the palm of my hand. I do not enter a convenience store without it palmed. I do not walk the streets without my finger on the trigger. When I drive, even through Center City, its weight is familiar on my right thigh. It is always within reach. It is part of me now.

I am drinking too much. I am not sleeping. The alarm sounds at six. A shot before I can face the shower, the coffee, the mirror. No breakfast. Remember breakfast? Bagels and juice with Jimmy Valentine? Remember laughter?

All I want is one good night’s sleep. I would trade everything I have for one night’s sleep. I would trade my life for the sanctity of slumber, the sanction of rest.

Graciella
mi amor.
I have nothing. Not anymore. I walk the Badlands, searching, dying, asking. I am asking to be found.
Find me.

FIFTY
T

he rain came at midnight. At first it was an unrepentant downpour, thick bulbs of water smashing against the pavement, the buildings, the grateful city. In time, it relented. It was now a thin drizzle. The asphalt steamed. With the pitted road, the rusted and abandoned hulks of old vehicles, the flickering neon, it looked like an alien landscape. Traffic was light on Kensington, the few cars taking advantage of the free car wash, the removal of the dust of a hot, dry August. Five styles of rap pounded in the distance.

Jessica had read more than twenty of Eve Galvez’s diary entries. She discovered early on in her reading that the files were not in any order. Eve as a child, Eve as an adult, Eve as a teenager. Jessica read them in the order in which they were scanned. There were still at least a hundred more.

Jessica’s tears had come after reading just a few. She couldn’t seem to stop herself. Eve was abused. Her father was monstrous. Eve was a runaway.

It was all a continuum of death—Monica Renzi, Caitlin O’Riordan, Katja Dovic, Eve Galvez.
Jessica stood in a doorway, surveyed the area. It was one of the worst parts of the city. Eve Galvez had walked these streets at night. Had she paid the price for it?
Jessica put the earbuds in her ears. She looked at the backlighted LCD screen, scrolled down, selected a song. The beat began to build. She felt the comforting weight of the Tomcat 32 in her pancake holster. Eve Galvez had carried two weapons. It was probably not a bad idea.
Jessica pulled up the hood on her rain slicker. She looked left, right. She was alone. For the moment.
Sophie, my love.
Graciella, mi amor.
The music matched her heartbeat. She stepped out onto the sidewalk, and began to run.
Into the Badlands.

FIFTY-ONE
T
he tenth floor of the Denison smelled like wet smoke, wet lumber, wet dog. Byrne was six bourbons into his plot, and should be home. He should be
sleeping.

But here he was. At Laura Somerville’s apartment. The walls in the hallway were still warm. The wallpaper was peeled and cracked, some of it charred.

He pulled out his knife, slit the seal on the door, picked the lock, and entered the apartment.
The odor of burned upholstery and paper was overwhelming. Byrne put his tie over his mouth and nose. He had an old friend, Bobby Dotrice, who had retired from the PFD fifteen years earlier, and Byrne would swear under oath that man still smelled like smoke. Bobby had all new clothes, a new car, a new wife, even a new house. It never left you.
Byrne wondered if he smelled like the dead.
Even though the tenants of the building had been reassured there was no structural damage, Byrne stepped lightly through the space, his Maglite bouncing on overturned tables, chairs, bookcases. He wondered what had done more damage, the fire or the fire brigade.
He stood before the partially opened bedroom door. It seemed a lifetime ago he had been there. He pushed into the bedroom.
The window had been boarded up. The mattress and box spring were gone, as was the dresser. He saw blackened Scrabble tiles all over the room.
He opened the closet. It was mostly untouched, except for the water damage. On one side was a canvas garment bag. Byrne unzipped it, peered inside. Old dresses.
Ve r y
old, very
theatrical.
She—
—sees the countryside from a cracked and taped truck window...she knows...
Byrne shut his eyes to the pain in his head.
She knows...

He looked at the top shelf. The strongbox was still there. He put his flashlight under his arm, took down the box. It was warm. There was no latch. The box was perfectly smooth. He shook it. Something shifted inside. It sounded like paper.

When Byrne left the apartment, just a few minutes later, he took the box with him. Out in the hallway he closed the door, reached into his pocket, took out a fresh police seal. He peeled off the back, smoothed it over the doorjamb, and pocketed the backing.

He drove back to South Philly.

As he stepped onto the sidewalk in front of his apartment building his phone beeped. It was a text message. Before reading the message, Byrne looked at his watch. It was 2:45 am. Just about the only person who sent him text messages was Colleen. But not in the middle of the night.

He retrieved the message, looked at the LCD screen. It read: 910 jhome.
Byrne knew what it meant. It was a little- used code he had established a long time ago with Jessica. jhome meant she was at her house; 910 meant that she needed him, but it was not an emergency.

That would be 911.
Byrne got back into his car and headed to the Northeast.
FIFTY-TWO
S

wann awoke at 3 am. He could not sleep. It had been the same since he was a child. On the night before he and his father were to go on a tour, or even move between venues on a sunrise train, he found the anticipation to be overwhelming. Sleep would not find him.

This would be such a day.
He showered and shaved, dressed casually—perhaps an engineer preparing a survey in some wooded expanse, perhaps a junior high school principal about to give a holiday speech.
He parked near Tacony Creek Park, in a small lot off Wyoming Avenue. They would be arriving at first light. Some may have even spent the night in the park.
He looked at the screen of his cell phone. It was dark. Lilly would call. He was sure of it. But still, he had to be prepared if she did not.

FIFTY-THREE
J

essica sat on her porch. Behind her, every light in the house was blazing. The stereo inside blasted the Go- Gos.
“Hey, partner!” she yelled.
Oh, boy,
Byrne thought.
She’s hammered.
The Go- Gos proved it.