Richard Montanari (24 page)

    'Has
he been printed?' Byrne asked.

    'The
body's on the way to the morgue now. Boss is going to put Russ Diaz and his
team on this. Russ did four years in Behavioral Science, you know. I have a
sneaking suspicion we're going to need him.'

    'What
about the signature?'

    'Identical,'
Jessica said.

    They
turned back to the case files on the desk. Three bodies. Three identical MOs.
Kenneth and Sharon Beckman were tied to the murder of Antoinette Chan. In the case
of serial murder, the first order of business was to try and establish a link
between the victims, a commonality that might lead to a denominator they all
shared - job, family, circle of friends - and ultimately to the killer.
Connecting Kenneth and Sharon Beckman was, of course, easy. They'd see about
this new victim.

    'I
ordered you some garlic prawns, by the way,' Jessica said. 'But it got eaten.
You know how Chinese food goes in this place. Like pork in a kennel.'

    'I
ate at the hospital,' Byrne said. 'But I did bring dessert.' He held up a white
bag.

    Jessica
sat up straight in her chair.
Dessert at lunch!
She beckoned forth the
bag. Byrne handed it to her.

    Jessica
opened the bag and saw that it was an apple fritter from that bakery on
Seventeenth she liked.

    'What
took you to Seventeenth?' she asked.

    'I
had to pick up a pre-amp from a guy.'

    'And
a pre-amp would be ...'

    'I'm
converting all my old vinyl records to digital. Some of them are old 78s, and
I'm trying to clean up the sound.'

    Jessica
took out the apple fritter, thinking that she couldn't wait for that moment in
her life - a moment she fully expected, a moment she fully intended to savor -
when she just didn't care about her weight anymore, a moment when she could
fully embrace the slide into middle age and obesity.

    Or
when she got pregnant again. Pregnant would be better.

    She
bit into the apple fritter. Heaven. 'You can get MRIs as often as you want.'

    'We're
going to have to give statements, you know.'

    Jessica
nodded, wiped her lips. She and Byrne had met with Sharon Beckman the day
before, and now the woman was the victim of a homicide. Jessica and Byrne had
become part of the timeline.

    'We're
at the ME's,' Nicci said. 'You wanted me to call?'

    'Yeah,'
Jessica said. 'Have you checked the victim's hands for tattoos?'

    'No.
We bagged them at the scene. You want us to check here?'

    'Yeah,'
Jessica said.

    The
next minute took somewhere around an hour for Jessica and Byrne. They both
paced, neither of them having anything to say. They heard more rustling, then
Nicci put the phone back up to her ear.

    'Jess?'

    'Yeah,
Nicci,' Jessica said. 'Is there a tattoo?'

    'There
is,' Nicci said. 'It's a tattoo of a swan. A tiny blue swan. It's on the index
finger of his left hand.'

    Someone
was on a rampage in the city of Philadelphia and every resource had to be
summoned to stop him. The fact that the body of Kenneth Beckman had been found
a half-block from an elementary school put two other agencies on alert.
Personnel had already been dispatched to Washington Elementary.

    Over
the next few hours the apparatus of an investigation handling multiple murders
would gear up around them. Off-duty detectives would be called in, various
sections of the forensic lab would be put on alert.

    'Can
you take a picture of the tattoo and send it to me?' Jessica asked.

    'Sure,'
Nicci said.

    A few
minutes later, Jessica received the image on her cellphone. She put it next to
photos of Kenneth and Sharon Beckman that had been taken. The tattoo was in the
same style. She got online to the World Ink site, put the word 'swan' in the
search box, hit
Enter.
Soon a page came up with six different images of
stylized swan tattoos. The third tattoo was a perfect match.

    'Before
I left the office I heard from World Ink's legal department, which, for all I
know, might have been a lawyer working out of his car,' Drummond said. He
pulled out a fax, handed a copy to Jessica.

    'It
turns out that you can buy these tattoos a la carte, with a minimum of six
tattoos in the order. They searched their database and discovered that, in the
past year, they had sold only one package that contained the first two tattoos
we found on the victims - the lion and the rooster.'

    Drummond
pulled out another fax.

    'They
mailed the package to a post-office box in Jersey City, New Jersey, which
turned out to be a remailer. From there it went to a USPS box in Allentown.'

    This
meant that, for the moment, their most promising avenue of the investigation
was blocked. Getting information on who rented a PO Box presented a whole new
set of challenges. Anytime you dealt with a federal agency the red tape was
massive. On this they would have to bring in the postal inspectors.

    Drummond
glanced at the notes in Jessica's notebook.

    'So
there's been a third murder,' he said. It was a statement, not a question.

    Jessica
picked up her iPhone, showed Drummond the photo of the victim, as well as the
close-up of the tattoo. Drummond scanned the pictures, then looked at his
watch. 'All right. I know where the judges will be drinking in about an hour.
I'll catch them between their second and third martinis.' He gathered his
papers. 'Speaking of martinis, are you coming to my party, Jess?'

    Jessica
had forgotten all about it. She hoped it didn't show on her face. 'Of course.
Looking forward to it.'

    'I'll
get on the feds.' Drummond smiled, held up his phone. 'I'll call you later.'

    Ten minutes
later, with everything printed off, Jessica and Byrne stood in front of the
material. There was no question that the tattoos purchased from World Ink were
the same tattoos found on the victims.

    The
bad news was that, according to the material they had just received from
Drummond, in the packet of tattoos mailed to their killer there were five other
tattoos. Turtle, donkey, elephant, kangaroo, and fish.

    Eight
tattoos in all. The thought was chilling.

    Would
there be eight murders?

    The
house in Lexington Park was nearly empty, save for the hundred or so boxes
stacked in the attic, upper hallway, living room and kitchen. The furniture was
gone. The dining-room chandelier, an heirloom passed down from Jessica's grandmother,
had been carefully packed and spirited away, as had all her mother's
cut-crystal goblets.

    Three
dozen people crowded the first floor, eating wings and crab fries from
Chickie's and Pete's. Among them were a who's who from the police department,
crime lab and district attorney's office. Chits cashed, favors recalled,
Jessica had been batting her eyelashes for weeks; Vincent had been twisting
arms, sometimes literally, for months.

    Also
downstairs were Jessica's father Peter Giovanni, most of her cousins, Colleen
Byrne and her friend Laurent, Byrne's father Paddy. Just about everyone who
could be roped in was in attendance.

    Byrne
arrived a little late.

    'Wow,'
Byrne said.

    'I'm
a total pack rat, aren't IP'

    Byrne
looked around, shrugged. 'It's not that bad. I've seen worse. Remember the old
lady on Osage, the one with two hundred cats?'

    'Thanks.'

    Jessica
noticed some hair on Byrne's shoulder. She reached over, brushed it off.

    'Did
you get a haircut?'

    'Yeah,'
he said. 'I popped in and got a trim.'

    
'You
popped
in
?'

    'Yeah.
No good?'

    'No,
it looks fine. It's just that I've never "popped in" for a haircut.
It takes me four to six weeks to make the decision, then it's another month of
doubt, steering committees, estimates, near misses, appointments cancelled at
the last second. It's a life-changing event for me.'

    'Well,
it's pretty much a haircut for me.'

    'You
have it
so
easy.'

    'Oh
yeah,' Byrne said. 'My life's a Happy Meal.'

    Jessica
lifted a few boxes that were, mercifully, light. At least she had taken to
labeling things in the past few years. This one read
ST. PATRICK'S DAY ORNAMENTS
. She did not remember ever buying or displaying St.
Patrick's Day ornaments. It looked like she was going to keep them nonetheless,
so she could not use them in the future. She put the box by the top of the
stairs, turned back.

    'Let me
ask you something,' she said.

    'Shoot.'

    'How
many times have you moved in the last ten years?'

    Byrne
thought for a few moments. 'Four times,' he said. 'Why?'

    'I
don't know. I guess I was just wondering if you're still hanging onto a bunch
of completely pointless, useless crap.'

    'No,'
Byrne said. 'Everything I have is absolutely necessary. I'm a Spartan.'

    'Right.
You should know that I once talked to Donna about this very thing.'

    'Uh-oh.'

    In
the past few years Jessica and Byrne's ex-wife Donna had become good friends.

    'Oh
yeah. And she said that when you guys were married, and you moved from the
apartment into your house, the first thing you packed was your Roger Ramjet
nightlight.'

    'Hey!
That was a safety issue, okay?'

    'Uh-huh.
Still have it?'

    'I do
not,' Byrne said. 'I have a Steve Canyon nightlight now. Roger Ramjet is for
kids.'

    'Tell
you what,' Jessica said. 'I will if you will.'

    It
was a game they sometimes played - like Truth or Dare, but without the dare.
Ninety-nine percent of the time is was light-hearted. Once in a while it was
serious. This was not one of those times. Still, there were rules.

    'Sure,'
Byrne said. 'You're on.'

    'Okay.
What is the most ludicrous piece of clothing you still own? I mean, something
you know you will never wear again, not in a million years, but you just can't
bring yourself to part with it?'

    'That's
an easy one.'

    'Really?'

    'Oh
yeah,' Byrne said. 'A pair of 33-inch waist green velvet pants. Real
plum-smugglers.'

    Jessica
almost laughed. She cleared her throat instead. No laughing was one of the big
rules of the game. 'Wow.' It was all she could muster.

    'Is
that
wow
I once had a 33-inch waist, or
wow
green velvet?'

    This
was a no-win question. She opted for the velvet.

    'Well,'
Byrne said. 'I bought them in New York in my Thin Lizzy days. I really wanted
to be Phil Lynott. You should have seen me.'

    'I
would pay good money for that,' Jessica said. 'A lot of women in the department
would chip in, too.'

    'What
about you?'

    Jessica
glanced at her watch. 'My God. Look at the time.'

    'Jess.'