Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense (127 page)

Little by little, Byrne pulled back the woman’s dead fingers. When he finally had four fingers back on her right hand, they saw something they did not expect to see. In death this woman was not holding a fistful of earth or leaves or twigs. In death she held a small brown bird. In the light thrown by the emergency lamps it appeared to be a sparrow, or perhaps a wren.

Byrne gently closed the victim’s fingers. They would place a clear plastic evidence bag around them to preserve every trace of evidence. This was far beyond their ability to assess or analyze in situ.

Then something totally unexpected happened. The bird wiggled out of the dead woman’s grip and flew away. It darted around inside the huge, shadowed space of the waterworks, the beat of its flitting wings resonating off the icy stone walls, chirping either in protest or relief. Then it was gone.

“Son of a
bitch,
” Byrne yelled.
“Fuck.”

This was not good news for the team. They should have immediately bagged the corpse’s hands and waited. The bird might have provided a host of forensic details, but even in its departure it yielded some information. It meant that the body could not have been there that long. The fact that the bird was still alive—perhaps preserved by the warmth of the cadaver—meant that the killer had posed this victim within the last few hours.

Jessica aimed her Maglite at the ground beneath the window. A few of the bird’s feathers remained. Byrne pointed them out to a CSU officer, who picked them up with a pair of forceps and placed them in an evidence bag.

They would now wait for the ME’s office.

JESSICA WALKED TO
the bank of the river, looked out, then back at the body. The figure was perched in the window, high above the gentle slope that ran to the road, then more steeply to the soft bank of the river.

Another doll on a shelf,
Jessica thought.

Like Kristina Jakos, this victim faced the river. Like Kristina Jakos, she had a painting of the moon nearby. There was little doubt that there would be another painting on her body, an image of the moon rendered in semen and blood.

THE MEDIA SHOWED
up just before midnight. They clustered at the top of the cutoff, near the train station, behind the crime-scene tape. It always amazed Jessica how fast they could get to a crime scene.

The story would make the morning editions of the paper.

43

The crime scene was locked down, sealed off from the city. The media had gone off to file their stories. CSU would process the evidence through the night, and far into the next day.

Jessica and Byrne stood near the river’s edge. Neither could bring themselves to leave.

“You gonna be okay?” Jessica asked.

“Yeah.” Byrne took a pint of bourbon out of his coat pocket. He toyed with the cap. Jessica saw it, said nothing. They were off duty.

After a full minute of silence, Byrne glanced over. “What?”

“You,” she said. “You’ve got that look in your eye.”

“What look?”

“The Andy Griffith look. The look that says you’re thinking about turning in your papers and getting a sheriff ’s job in Mayberry.”

“Meadville.”

“See?”

“You cold?”

Freezing my ass off,
Jessica thought. “Nah.”

Byrne hit the bourbon, held it out. Jessica shook her head. He capped the bottle, held it.

“Years ago we used to drive out to my uncle’s place in Jersey,” he said. “I always knew when we were getting close because we would come upon this old cemetery. And by
old
I mean Civil War old. Maybe older. There was this small stone house by the gate, probably the caretaker’s house, and in the front window was this sign that read: ‘
FREE FILL DIRT
.’ Ever see signs like that?”

Jessica had. She told him so. Byrne continued.

“When you’re a kid, you never give stuff like that a second thought, you know? Year after year I saw that sign. It never moved, just faded in the sunlight. Every year, those blocky red letters got lighter and lighter. Then my uncle passed, my aunt moved back to the city, we stopped going out there.

“Years later, after my mother died, I went to her grave one day. Perfect summer afternoon. Blue sky, cloudless. I’m sitting there, telling her how things are going. A few plots down there was a fresh gravesite, right? And it suddenly hit me. I suddenly knew why that cemetery had free fill dirt. Why
all
cemeteries have free fill dirt. I thought about all those people who took them up on that offer over the years, filling their gardens, their potted plants, their window boxes. The cemeteries make space in the earth for the dead, and people take that dirt and grow things in it.”

Jessica just looked at Byrne. The longer she knew the man, the more layers she saw. “That’s, well, beautiful,” she said, getting a little emotional, battling it. “I never would have thought of it that way.”

“Yeah, well,” Byrne said. “We Irish are all poets, you know.” He uncapped the pint, took a swallow, capped it again. “And drinkers.”

Jessica eased the bottle out of his hands. He didn’t resist.

“Get some sleep, Kevin.”

“I will. I just hate it when we’re getting played and I can’t put my finger on it.”

“Me, too,” Jessica said. She fished her keys out of her pocket, snuck another peek at her watch, then immediately chided herself about it. “You know, you ought to go running with me sometime.”

“Running.”

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s like walking, but faster.”

“Ah, okay. It kind of rings a bell. I think I did it once when I was a kid.”

“I may have a boxing match set up for the end of March, so I better start doing roadwork. We could run together. It does wonders, believe me. Clears the mind completely.”

Byrne tried to suppress the laughter. “Jess. The only time I plan on running is when someone is chasing me. And I mean a big guy. With a knife.”

The wind picked up. Jessica shivered, turned up her collar. “I’m gonna go.” There was a lot more she wanted to say, but there would be time. “You
sure
you’re okay?”

“Never better.”

Right, partner,
she thought. She walked back to her car, slipped in, started it. As she pulled away she glanced at her rearview mirror, saw Byrne silhouetted against the lights on the other side of the river, now just another shadow in the night.

She looked at her watch. It was 1:15
AM
.

It was Christmas Day.

44

Christmas morning broke clear and cold, bright with promise.

Pastor Roland Hannah and Deacon Charles Waite offered service at 7:00
AM
. Roland’s sermon was one of hope, of renewal. He spoke of The Cross and The Cradle. He quoted Matthew 2:1-12.

The baskets overflowed.

LATER, ROLAND AND
Charles sat at the table in the basement beneath the church, a pot of cooling coffee between them. In an hour they would begin to prepare a Christmas ham dinner for upwards of one hundred homeless people. It would be served at their new facility on Second Street.

“Look at this,” Charles said. He handed Roland the morning’s
Inquirer.
There had been another murder. Nothing special in Philadelphia, but this one had resonance. Deep resonance. This one had an echo that reverberated over the years.

A woman had been found in Shawmont. She had been discovered at the old waterworks near the train station, just on the eastern bank of the Schuylkill.

Roland’s pulse raced. Two bodies found on the banks of the Schuylkill River in one week. Then there was the story in the previous day’s paper, an article reporting that Detective Walter Brigham had been murdered. Roland and Charles knew all about Walter Brigham.

There was no denying the truth of it.

Charlotte and her friend had been found on the bank of the Wissahickon. They had been posed, just like these two women. Maybe, after all these years, it was not about girls. Maybe it was about the
water
.

Maybe this was a sign.

Charles dropped to his knees and prayed. His big shoulders shook. In moments he was whispering in tongues. Charles was a glossolalic, a true believer who, when overtaken by the spirit, would speak in what he believed to be God’s idiom, an edification of one’s self. To the casual observer, it might have sounded like so much gibberish. To the believer, to one moved to tongues, it was the language of Heaven.

Roland glanced back at the newspaper, closed his eyes. Soon, a divine calm descended upon him, and a voice inside gave query to his thoughts.

Is it him?

Roland touched the crucifix around his neck.

And knew the answer.

PART THREE

THE RIVER DARKNESS

45

“Why are we in here with the door closed, Sarge?” Park asked.

Tony Park was one of the few Korean-American detectives on the force. A family man in his late forties, a wizard on the computer, a skilled interrogator in the room, there was not a more practical, streetwise detective on the force than Anthony Kim Park. This time, his question was on the mind of everyone in the room.

The task force was four detectives strong. Kevin Byrne, Jessica Balzano, Joshua Bontrager, and Tony Park. Considering the enormous job of coordinating the forensic sections, collecting witness statements, conducting interviews, and all the other minutiae that made up a homicide investigation—a pair of
related
homicide investigations—the task force was meager. There simply was not enough manpower available.

“The door’s closed for two reasons,” Ike Buchanan said, “and I think you know the first one.”

They all did. Task forces were played close to the vest these days, especially those given the challenge of hunting a compulsive killer. Mostly because a small group of men and women tasked with tracking down an individual had a way of drawing that individual to them, putting wives, children, friends, and family in jeopardy. It had happened to both Jessica and Byrne. It happened more than the general public knew.