The skin Gods jbakb-2

by Richard Montanari

  The bottom line was that Kevin Byrne had taken one for the company-had taken one for Jessica-and he deserved better from her. She felt bad, but she was really glad to see him.

  Jessica crossed the room, arms out. They embraced, a little awkwardly, separated.

  "Are you back?" Jessica asked.

  "The doctor says I'm on forty-eight, off forty-eight. But yeah. I'm back."

  "I can hear the crime rate dropping already."

  Byrne smiled. There was sadness in it. "Got room for your old partner?"

  "I think we can find a bucket and a crate," Jessica said.

  "That's all us old-school guys need, you know. Get me a flintlock and I'll be all set."

  "You got it."

  It was a moment Jessica had both longed for and dreaded. After the bloody incident on Easter Sunday, how would they be together? Would it, could it, be the same? She had no idea. It looked like she was going to find out.

  Ike Buchanan let the moment play out. When he was certain it had, he held up an object. A videocassette. He said: "I want you two to see this."

  7

  Jessica, Byrne, and Ike Buchanan huddled in the cramped snack room that held a bank of small video monitors and VCRs. After a few moments, a third man entered.

  "This is Special Agent Terry Cahill," Buchanan said. "Terry is on loan from the FBI's task force on urban crime, but just for a few days."

  Cahill was in his mid-thirties. He wore the standard-issue navy-blue suit, white shirt, burgundy-and-blue-striped tie. He was fair-haired, combed and collegial, good-looking in a J.-Crew-catalog, buttondown kind of way. He smelled like strong soap and good leather.

  Buchanan finished the introductions. "This is Detective Jessica Balzano." "Nice to meet you, Detective," Cahill said. "Same here."

  "This is Detective Kevin Byrne."

  "Good to meet you."

  "My pleasure, Agent Cahill," Byrne said.

  Cahill and Byrne shook hands. Cool, mechanical, professional. You could slice the interagency rivalry with a rusty butter knife. Cahill then turned his attention back to Jessica. "You're the boxer?" he asked.

  She knew what he meant, but still it sounded funny. Like she was a dog. You're the schnauzer? "Yes."

  He nodded, apparently impressed.

  "Why do you ask?" Jessica asked. "Plan on getting out of line, Agent Cahill?"

  Cahill laughed. He had straight teeth, a single dimple on the left. "No, no. I've just done a little boxing myself."

  "Professional?"

  "Nothing like that. Golden Gloves mostly. Some in the service."

  Now it was Jessica's turn to be impressed. She knew what it took to square off in the ring.

  "Terry is here to observe and make recommendations to the task force," Buchanan said. "The bad news is that we need the help."

  It was true. Violent crime, across the board, was up in Philadelphia. Still, there wasn't an officer in the department who wanted any outside agencies butting in. Observe, Jessica thought. Right.

  "How long have you been with the bureau?" Jessica asked.

  "Seven years."

  "Are you from Philadelphia?"

  "Born and raised," Cahill said. "Tenth and Washington."

  The whole time, Byrne just stood back, listening, observing. This was his style. On the other hand, he'd been on the job more than twenty years, Jessica thought. He had a lot more experience distrusting feds.

  Sensing a territorial skirmish, good-natured or otherwise, Buchanan inserted the tape into one of the VCRs and hit PLAY.

  After a few seconds, a black-and-white image rolled to life on one of the monitors. It was a feature film. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, the 1960 film starring Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh. The picture was a little grainy, the video signal blurry around the edges. The scene that was cued up on the tape was well into the film, beginning where Janet Leigh, having checked into the Bates Motel, and having shared a sandwich with Norman Bates in his office, was preparing to take a shower.

  As the film unspooled, Byrne and Jessica glanced at each other. It was clear that Ike Buchanan wouldn't have called them in for a horror classic morning matinee but, at the moment, neither detective had the slightest clue what this was all about.

  They continued to watch as the movie rolled on. Norman removing the oil painting from the wall. Norman peeking through the crudely cut hole in the plaster. Janet Leigh's character-Marion Crane-undressing, slipping on her robe. Norman walking up to the Bates house. Marion stepping into the bathtub and shutting the curtain.

  Everything seemed normal until there was a glitch in the tape, the type of slow, vertical roll produced by a crash edit. For a second the screen went black; then a new image appeared. It was immediately clear that the movie had been recorded over.

  The new shot was static, a high-angle view of what looked like a motel bathroom. The wide-angle lens showed a sink, toilet, bathtub, a tile floor. The light level was low, but there was enough brightness thrown by the fixture above the mirror to illuminate the room. The black-and- white image had a coarse look to it, like the image produced by a webcam or an inexpensive camcorder.

  As the tape continued, it appeared that someone was in the shower with the curtain pulled closed. The ambient sound on the tape yielded the faint noise of water running, and every so often the shower curtain billowed out with the movement of whoever was standing in the tub. A shadow danced on the translucent plastic. Beneath the sound of the water was a young woman's voice. She was singing a song by Norah Jones.

  Jessica and Byrne looked at each other again, this time with the knowledge that this was one of those situations when you know you are watching something you shouldn't be seeing, and by the very fact that you were watching it, something bad was imminent. Jessica glanced at Cahill. He seemed riveted. A vein pulsed in his temple.

  On the screen, the camera remained stationary. Steam emerged from above the shower curtain, slightly blurring the top quarter of the picture with condensation.

  Then, suddenly, the bathroom door opened and a figure entered. The slender person appeared to be an elderly woman with gray hair pulled back into a bun. She wore a flower-print calf-length housedress and a dark cardigan sweater. She held a large butcher knife. The woman's face was not visible. The woman had a man's shoulders, a man's deportment and bearing.

  After a few seconds' hesitation the figure drew back the curtain, and it became clear that there was a naked young woman in the shower, but the angle was too steep, and the picture quality too poor, to even begin to ascertain what she looked like. From this vantage, all that could be determined was that the young woman was white and probably in her twenties.

  Instantly the reality of what they were watching settled upon Jessica like a pall. Before she could react, the knife held by the shadowy figure descended upon the woman in the shower over and over, ripping at her flesh, slicing her chest, arms, stomach. The woman screamed. Blood spouted, splashing the tile. Gobbets of torn tissue and muscle slapped the walls. The figure continued to viciously stab the young woman, over and over and over, until she slumped to the floor of the tub, her body a horrible crosshatch of deep, gaping wounds.

  Then, as quickly as it began, it was over.

  The old woman ran from the room. The showerhead washed the blood down the drain. The young woman didn't move. A few seconds later there was a second crash edit, and the original movie resumed. The new image was the extreme close-up of Janet Leigh's right eye as the camera began to turn and move backward. The film's original soundtrack soon returned to Anthony Perkins's chilling scream from the Bates house:

  Mother! Oh God Mother! Blood! Blood!

  When Ike Buchanan shut off the tape, silence embraced the small room for nearly a full minute.

  They had just witnessed a murder.

  Someone had videotaped a brutal, savage killing and inserted it into the precise place in Psycho where the shower scene murder occurred. They had all seen enough true carnage to know that this was not some special-e
ffects footage. Jessica said it out loud.

  "This is real."

  Buchanan nodded. "It sure looks like it. What we just watched is a dubbed copy. AV is going over the original tape now. It's of a little better quality, but not much."

  "Is there any more of this on the tape?" Cahill asked.

  "Nothing," Buchanan said. "Just the original movie."

  "Where is this tape from?"

  "It was rented at a small video store on Aramingo," Buchanan said.

  "Who brought it in?" Byrne asked.

  "He's in A."

  The young man sitting in Interview Room A was the color of sour milk. He was in his early twenties, had close-cropped dark hair, pale amber eyes, fine features. He wore a lime-green Polo shirt and black jeans. His 229-a brief report detailing his name, address, place of employment- revealed that he was a student at Drexel University and worked two part-time jobs. He lived in the Fairmount section of North Philadelphia. His name was Adam Kaslov. The only prints on the videotape were his.

  Jessica entered the room, introduced herself. Kevin Byrne and Terry Cahill observed through the two-way mirror.

  "Can I get you anything?" Jessica asked.

  Adam Kaslov offered a thin, bleak smile. "I'm okay," he said. There was a pair of empty Sprite cans on the scarred table in front of him. He had a piece of red cardboard in his hands, twisting it and untwisting it.

  Jessica placed the Psycho videocassette box on the table. It was still in a clear plastic evidence bag. "When did you rent this?"

  "Yesterday afternoon," Adam said, his voice a little shaky. He had no police record and this was, perhaps, the first time he had ever been in a police station. A Homicide Unit interrogation room no less. Jessica had made sure to leave the door open. "Maybe three o'clock or so."

  Jessica glanced at the label on the tape housing. "And you got this at The Reel Deal on Aramingo?"

  "Yes."

  "How did you pay for this?" Excuse me?

  "Did you put this on a credit card? Pay cash? Have a coupon?"

  "Oh," he said. "I paid cash."

  "Did you keep the receipt?"

  "No. Sorry."

  "Are you a regular there?"

  "Kind of."

  "How often do you rent movies at that location?"

  "I don't know. Maybe twice a week."

  Jessica glanced at the 229 report. One of Adam's part-time jobs was at a Rite Aid on Market Street. The other was at the Cinemagic 3 at Penn, the movie theater near the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. "Can I ask why you go to that store?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "You live only half a block from a Blockbuster."

  Adam shrugged. "I guess it's because they have more foreign and independent films than the big chains."

  "You like foreign films, Adam?" Jessica's tone was friendly, conversational. Adam brightened slightly.

  "Yeah."

  "I like Cinema Paradiso a lot," Jessica said. "One of my favorite movies of all times. Ever see that one?"

  "Sure," Adam said. Even brighter, now. "Giuseppe Tornatore is great. Maybe even the heir apparent to Fellini."

  Adam was beginning to relax somewhat. He had been twisting that piece of cardboard into a tight spiral, which he now put down. It looked stiff enough to be a swizzle stick. Jessica sat in the battered metal chair opposite him. Just two people talking, now. Talking about a vicious homicide someone had videotaped.

  "Did you watch this alone?" Jessica asked.

  "Yeah." There was a morsel of melancholy in his answer, as if he had recently broken off a relationship and was accustomed to watching videos with a partner.

  "When did you watch it?"

  Adam picked up the cardboard swizzle stick again. "Well, I get off work at my second job at midnight, I get home around twelve thirty. I usually take a shower and eat something. I guess I started it around one or one thirty. Maybe two."

  "Did you watch it straight through?"

  "No," Adam said. "I watched up until Janet Leigh gets to the motel."

  "Then what?"

  "Then I shut it off and went to bed. I watched… the rest this morning. Before I left for school. Or, before I was going to leave for school. When I saw the… you know, I called the cops. Police. I called the police."

  "Did anyone else see this?"

  Adam shook his head.

  "Did you tell anybody about it?"

  "No."

  "Was this tape in your possession the whole time?"

  "I'm not sure what you mean."

  "From the time you rented it until the time you called the police, did you have possession of the tape?" "Yes."

  "You didn't leave it in your car for a while, leave it with a friend, leave it in a backpack or a book bag that you hung on a coatrack somewhere public?"

  "No," Adam said. "Nothing like that. I rented it, took it home, and put it on top of the TV."

  "And you live alone."

  Another grimace. He had just broken up with someone. "Yes."

  "Was anyone in your apartment when you were at work yesterday evening?"

  "I don't think so," Adam said. "No. I really doubt it."

  "No one else has a key?"

  "Just the landlord. And I've been trying to get him to fix my shower for, like, a year. I doubt he would come around without me being there."

  Jessica made a few notes. "Have you ever rented this movie from The Reel Deal before?"

  Adam looked at the floor for a few moments, thinking. "The movie or this particular tape?"

  "Either."

  "I think I rented the DVD of Psycho from them last year."

  "Why did you rent the VHS version this time?"

  "My DVD player is broken. I have an optical drive in my laptop, but I don't really like watching movies on a computer. The sound kind of sucks."

  "Where was this tape in the store when you rented it?"

  "Where was it?"

  "I mean, do they display the tapes on racks there, or do they just have empty boxes on the racks and keep the tapes behind the counter?"

  "No, they have actual tapes on display."

  "Where was this tape?"

  "There's a section called Classics. It was in there."

  "Are they displayed alphabetically?"

  "I think so."

  "Do you recall if this movie was right where it was supposed to be on the rack?"

  "I don't remember."

  "Did you rent anything else along with this?"

  Adam drained of what little color remained in his face, as if the idea, the very notion, that other tapes might contain something this horrible was a possibility. "No. That was the only one."

  "Do you know any of the other customers there?"

  "Not really."

  "Do you know anyone else who may have rented this tape?"

  "No," he said.

  "Here's a tough one," Jessica said. "Are you ready?" I guess so.

  "Do you recognize the young woman on the tape?"

  Adam swallowed hard, shook his head. "Sorry."

  "That's okay," Jessica said. "We're just about done for now. You're doing great."

  This dislodged a crooked half smile from the young man. The fact that he was going to leave soon-the fact that he was going to leave at all-seemed to lift a heavy yoke from his shoulders. Jessica made a few more notes, glanced at her watch.

  Adam asked: "Can I ask you something?"

  "Sure."

  "Is that part, like, real?"

  "We're not certain."

  Adam nodded. Jessica held his gaze, looking for the slightest sign that he might be hiding something. All she found was a young man who stumbled onto something bizarre and, probably, terrifyingly real. Talk about your horror movie.

  "Okay, Mr. Kaslov," she said. "We appreciate you bringing this in. We'll be in touch."

  "Okay," Adam said. "Are we done?"

  "Yes. And we'd appreciate it if you didn't discuss this with anyone for the time being." I won t.

&nbs
p; They stood, shook hands. Adam Kaslov's hand was ice.

  "One of the officers will walk you down," Jessica added.

  "Thanks," he said.

  As the young man walked out into the duty room of the Homicide Unit, Jessica glanced at the two-way mirror. Although she couldn't see through it, she didn't have to read Kevin Byrne's face to know they were in total agreement. Chances were good that Adam Kaslov had nothing to do with the crime committed on the tape.

  If, in fact, a crime had actually been committed.

  Byrne told Jessica he would meet her in the parking lot. When he found himself relatively alone and unobserved in the duty room, he sat at one of the computers, ran a check on Julian Matisse. As expected, there was nothing current. There had been a break-in at Matisse's mother's house a year earlier, but nothing involving Julian. Matisse had been in prison for the past two years. His list of known associates was outdated as well. Byrne printed off the addresses anyway, tore the sheet from the printer.

  Then, although he may have been screwing up another detective's work, he dumped the computer's cache and erased the PCIC history for the day.

  On the ground floor of the Roundhouse, in the back, was a lunchroom with a dozen or so battered booths, a dozen tables. The food was passable, the coffee was forty-weight. A bank of vending machines held down one wall. Large windows with an unobstructed view of the air- conditioning units held down the other.

  As Jessica grabbed a pair of coffees for her and Byrne, Terry Cahill walked into the room, approached her. The handful of uniformed cops and detectives scattered around the room gave him the casual, appraising eye. He really did have fed written all over him, right down to his highly polished yet sensible cordovan oxfords. Jessica would bet that he ironed his socks.

  "Got a second, Detective?"

  "Just," Jessica said. She and Byrne were on their way to the video store where the Psycho tape had been rented.

  "I just wanted to tell you that I won't be riding with you this morning. I'll run what we have through VICAP and the other federal databases. See if we get a hit."

  We'll try to get by without you, Jessica thought. "That would be very helpful," she said, suddenly aware how patronizing she sounded. Like herself, this guy was just doing his job. Luckily, it appeared as if Cahill hadn't noticed.