Richard Montanari (19 page)

    It
was true. By comparison with the photographs in the leather-bound notebook the
lion tattoo looked like it had been drawn with a crayon.

    'I
take it you do not offer this service or sell items like this,' Jessica said.

    'We
do not. But I believe I can point you in the right direction.'

    'That
would be great.'

    'If
you will excuse me for a moment.'

    The
woman rose, seemingly without effort. She stepped into the back room. She
returned a few minutes later with pages from a color printer.

    'I
believe this is what you are looking for.'

    She
handed a page to Jessica. On it was an exact replica of the lion transfer
tattoo.

    'Wow,'
Jessica said. 'That's it.'

    Dalaja
handed her a second sheet. 'At the top is the website from which I downloaded
the image. There are ten others here on the page, but the first company, called
World Ink, is the largest. I did not find that exact image on any of the
others, but that is not to say it is not sold elsewhere.'

    Jessica
and Byrne got to their feet.

    'The
chai was delicious,' Byrne said. 'Thanks very much.'

    'You
are most welcome,' the woman replied. 'Is there anything else I can do for
you?'

    'I
believe that is it for now,' Jessica said.

    'Then,
for now,
alvida.
' She spun on her heels and walked toward the back room
without making a sound.

    But
it was the stock tattoos in which Jessica was interested. And they had
hundreds, maybe thousands of designs. Angels, cars, flags, flowers, sports, holiday-themed,
myth and fairy-tale, as well as religious and tribal symbols.

    Six
pages deep into the online catalog she found the lion design. It was in a
collection called TinyToos, and was a perfect match. She took out her
cellphone, clicked over to the photograph of Kenneth Beckman's body. There
could be no doubt. Unless the victim had put this tattoo on himself - and
Jessica had a problem seeing Beckman doing this, it seemed inconsistent with
his personality - someone had done it for him. Quite possibly the person who'd
strangled and mutilated him.

    Byrne
already had three calls in to Sharon Beckman to ask if her husband had a tattoo
on his finger.

    Jessica
got on the phone to World Ink, and after a few minutes of
press one, press
five, press two,
she pressed
0
until a human being picked up the
phone. She identified herself and in short order was passed over to the
website-catalog sales manager.

    Jessica
explained the bare minimum. After a little hemming and hawing, the man told her
that they would be happy to help, but he was going to have to get clearance and
they would need some kind of request on paper. Jessica asked the man if a fax
on a PPD letterhead would suffice, and he said it would. Jessica scratched a
few more notes, hung up the phone. She caught Byrne's attention, gave him the
highlights. She held up the photo of the lion tattoo.

    'This
design is exclusive to this company,' she said. 'It's an original design.
That's not to say that our guy bought it from them, or didn't duplicate it
himself - the guy at World Ink said it was fairly easy to do with a scanner,
PhotoShop, and the right supplies - but considering the way these tattoos are
applied, I think it's a safe bet that Kenneth Beckman did not apply the tattoo
himself. Even if it has nothing to do with the case, we can be pretty sure
someone did it for him.'

    'Like,
for instance, our bad boy.'

    'Could
be. Now, if it
was
him, he might have placed an order online with this
company. I'm going to fax them a request for a customer list, people who
purchased this tattoo.'

    'Do
you think we'll need the DAs office on this?' Byrne asked.

    'Maybe.'

    'Let
me call Mike Drummond and give him a heads-up.'

    While
Byrne made the call, Jessica printed off the tattoo of the lion. She heard
laughter coming down the hall. She looked up to see Nicci Malone - a
love-struck, schoolgirl-in-distress Nicci Malone - enter the duty room with
Detective Russell Diaz.

    Russell
Diaz was the head of a newly formed tactical squad, part of the PPD's Special
Investigations Unit, a job originally offered to Kevin Byrne, who had turned it
down. The tactical unit was a sort of rapid-response team for high-profile
cases involving special circumstances. Diaz had spent ten years with the FBI's
Philadelphia field office, but had been traveling too much, he said, and joined
the PPD to stay closer to his family. While in the FBI he had worked with
Behavioral Science and had consulted with the homicide unit a number of times
in the past few years.

    Beyond
that, Russell Diaz was a specimen. About six feet tall, cut from stone,
close-cropped brunette hair, dreamy eyes. He was given to wearing those tight
navy blue PPD T-shirts that showed off his biceps. Oddly enough, he seemed not
to notice his impact on members of both the same and opposite sexes, along with
everything in between. This made him even more appealing.

    Tomorrow
was his first tour in the new unit.

    Diaz
noticed Jessica, crossed the room, smiled. 'Hello, detective. Been a while.'

    'Too
long,' Jessica said. They shook hands. Jessica had worked with Diaz on a joint
task force when she'd been in the auto-theft unit.

    They
had taken down an international ring, a gang shipping high-end cars to South
America. 'Glad to have you on the team. How is Marta?'

    Marta
was Diaz's daughter. To Jessica's understanding she was some sort of musical
prodigy. The fact that Diaz, long divorced, was raising her alone vaulted him
from appealing to unbelievably adorable.

    'She's
great, thanks. Fourteen going on thirty.'

    Jessica
glanced down at the stack of papers and books in Diaz's grasp.

    'What
is this?' Jessica pointed at the book. Diaz handed it to her. It was a copy of
Dante's Inferno.

    'Just
a little light reading,' Diaz said, with a smile.

    Jessica
thumbed through the book. It was anything but light reading. 'You read
Italian?'

    'Working
on it. Marta is going to do her sophomore year in Italy, and I want to be able
to sound hip to her friends.'

    'Impressive.'

    'Che
c'è di nuovo
?' Diaz asked.

    Jessica
smiled.
'Non molto.'

    As
far as she could tell, Diaz had asked her what was new and she'd told him 'not
much.' Outside of swear words, that was about the extent of Jessica's Italian.

    Byrne
walked into the duty room. Jessica gestured him over. She introduced the two
men.

    'Kevin
Byrne, Russell Diaz,' she said.

    'Good
to meet you,' Diaz said. 'I've heard a lot about you.'

    'Likewise.'

    They
batted shoptalk around for a while until Diaz glanced at his watch. 'I'm due
back at Arch Street to wrap a few things.' The Philadelphia FBI field office
was at 6000 Arch. Diaz gathered his things, including the copy of
Dante's
Inferno.
He put it all in his duffel, slung it over his broad shoulder.
'Drinks later?'

    Standing
behind Diaz, Nicci Malone nodded like a bobble-head doll.

    'I
think you should stay on that tattoo company,' Byrne said. 'I'll see if I can
red-light the lab on the brand of paper used to gift-wrap Beckman's head.'

    'Sounds
like a plan,' Jessica said.

    In
the background the duty-room phone rang. Out of habit, Jessica and Byrne both
looked at the assignment desk, which was positioned more or less in the middle
of the cluttered room. Nick Palladino was up on the wheel. They saw him reach
into the desk for a notification form, which could only mean one thing.

    The
homicide unit was contacted every time there was a suspicious death. Some
turned out to be accidents, some turned out to be suicides. But every time a
non-hospital, non-hospice death occurred, anywhere in the county of
Philadelphia, only one phone rang.

    Jessica
and Byrne turned their attention back to the case, to each other. Or tried to.

    A few
minutes later, out of the corner of her eye, Jessica noticed someone crossing the
duty room. It was Nick Palladino. He was heading straight for Jessica and
Byrne, a dour look on his face. For the most part, Dino was a pretty affable
guy, even-tempered, at least for a South Philly Italian. Except when he was on
a job. Then he was all business.

    This
was one of those times.

    'Please
don't tell me we have another body on this case,' Jessica said. 'We don't have
another body on this case, do we, Dino?'

    'No,'
Nick Palladino said, slipping on his coat. 'We don't.' He grabbed a set of keys
off the rack, along with a two-way handset. 'We have two.'

    Lucy
Doucette made the six blocks in just under four minutes. It might have been a
record. On the way she outpaced two SEPTA buses and just barely dodged an SUV
that ran the light on Eighteenth Street. She'd been dodging traffic since she
was three. It didn't slow her down a bit.

    She
looked for a buzzer or doorbell and, seeing none, pushed on the door. It
opened. Ahead was a long dimly lit hallway.

    Lucy
started down the corridor, surrounded by the smells of old buildings - bacon
fat, wet dog, fruity room deodorizers, with top notes of soiled diaper. She had
long ago developed a keen sense of smell - it was something that really helped
in her business: sometimes some really funky things lurked in the craziest
places in hotel rooms, and being able to root them out and dispose of them, by
any means necessary, was a real plus.

    When
she got to number 106 at the end of the hallway the door was slightly ajar. She
knocked on the door jamb and, out of long- ingrained habit, almost called out
'Housekeeping.' She stopped herself at the last second.

    She
knocked again. 'Hello?'

    No
response.

    She
took a deep breath and stepped into the room.

    The
space was small and cramped, with stacks of old leather-bound books in the
corners reaching nearly to the ceiling. In the center were two upholstered
chairs of differing style and vintage. In here she tasted long-boiled coffee on
the back of her tongue.

    'Hello.'
The voice came from behind her.

    Lucy
spun around, her heart leaping. Behind her stood a compact man somewhere in his
forties or fifties. He was of average height, but lean and wiry. His white
shirt, which had yellowed around the collar and cuffs, appeared to be a few
sizes too large. His navy blue suit coat was shiny and worn, his shoes dusty.
But what struck Lucy most were his eyes. He had the dark, shiny eyes of a
fierce terrier.

    'Hello,'
she replied, the word coming out squeaky. She hated it when her voice did this.
'I'm Lucy Doucette.'