The skin Gods jbakb-2

by Richard Montanari

  She held up the card. "I'll call if I hear anything."

  "I'd appreciate it."

  "And if there's anything I can do on this end, please let me know."

  "I will," Byrne said. "Thanks again."

  Byrne turned to walk to his car. Across the street from the shelter a pair of teenaged girls watched and waited and paced and smoked, perhaps summoning the courage to cross the street. Byrne slipped into his car thinking that, like a lot of journeys in life, the last few feet were the hardest.

  34

  Seth Goldman awoke in a sweat. He looked at his hands.

  Clean. He sprang to his feet, naked and disoriented, his heart pounding in his chest. He looked around. He experienced that enervating feeling where you have no idea where you are-not which city, not which country, not which planet.

  One thing was certain.

  This ain't the Park Hyatt. The wallpaper was peeling in long, brittle scabs. There were deep brown water stains on the ceiling.

  He found his watch. It was after ten.

  Fuck.

  The call sheet. He found it and discovered he had less than an hour to be on set. He also discovered that he had the thick binder containing the director's copy of the script. Of all the tasks a director's assistant had- and these ran the gamut from secretary, to psychologist, to caterer, to chauffeur, to drug runner-the most important was as guardian of the shooting script. There were no duplicates of this version of the script, and outside the egos of the leading man and lady, it was the most fragile and delicate item in the entire rarefied world of the production.

  If the script was here, and Ian was not, Seth Goldman was fucked.

  He picked up his cell phone She had green eyes.

  She had cried.

  She had wanted to stop.

  — and called the production office, made his excuses. Ian was in a rage. Erin Halliwell was out sick. Plus, the public relations person from the Thirtieth Street station had not gotten back to them on the final arrangements for the shoot. The set piece of The Palace was going to be filmed in the huge train station at Thirtieth and Market streets in less than seventy-two hours. It was a sequence three months in the planning, by far the most expensive shot in the entire film. Three hundred extras, an elaborate track, a number of in-camera special effects. Erin had been on point for the negotiations and now it was up to Seth to finalize the details, on top of everything else he had to do.

  He looked around. The room was trashed.

  When had they left?

  As he gathered his clothes, he straightened up the room, bagging everything that needed to be thrown out in the plastic bag from the waste- basket in the motel room's small bathroom, knowing that he was going to miss something. He would take the trash with him, as always.

  Before he left the room he examined the bedsheets. Good. At least something was going right.

  No blood.

  35

  Jessica briefed Ada Paul DiCarloon what they had learned the previous afternoon. Eric Chavez, Terry Cahill, and Ike Buchanan sat in. Chavez had spent the early morning sitting outside Adam Kaslov's apartment. Adam had not gone to work, and a pair of phone calls went unanswered. Chavez spent the past two hours digging up background on the Chandler family.

  "Pretty expensive furnishings for a woman working for minimum and tips," Jessica said. "Especially one who drinks."

  "She drinks?" Buchanan asked.

  "She drinks," Jessica replied. "Stephanie's closet was full of designer clothes, too." They had printouts of the Visa bills she had photographed. They had gone over them. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  "Where's the money coming from? Inheritance? Child support? Alimony?" Buchanan asked.

  "Her husband took a powder almost ten years ago. Never gave them a dime that I can find," Chavez said.

  "Rich relative?"

  "Maybe," Chavez said. "But they've lived at that address for twenty years. And dig this. Three years ago Faith paid off her mortgage in one lump sum."

  "How big of a lump?" Cahill asked.

  "Fifty-two thousand."

  "Cash?"

  "Cash."

  They all let this sink in.

  "Let's get that sketch from the news vendor and Stephanie's boss," Buchanan said. "And let's get on her cell phone records."

  At ten thirty, Jessica faxed a request for a search warrant to the district attorney's office. Within an hour they got it. Eric Chavez then ran Stephanie Chandler's financials. She had little more than three thousand dollars in her bank account. According to Andrea Cerrone, Stephanie made thirty-one thousand dollars per year. This was not a Prada budget.

  As uncaring as it may have sounded to anyone outside the department, the good news was that they had evidence now. A body. Scientific evidence with which they could work. They could now begin to piece together what had happened to this woman, and perhaps why it happened.

  By eleven thirty, they had phone records. Within the past month Stephanie had made only nine calls on her cell phone. Nothing stood out. But the record from the landline at the Chandler house was a little more interesting.

  "Yesterday, after you and Kevin left, there were twenty calls to a single number from the Chandler home phone," Chavez said. "Twenty to the same number?" Jessica asked. "Yeah."

  "Do we know whose number?"

  Chavez shook his head. "No. It's registered to a disposable cell phone. The longest call lasted fifteen seconds. The rest were just a few seconds long."

  "Local number?" Jessica asked.

  "Yeah. Two-one-five exchange. The number was one of a block of ten cell phones that were purchased last month at a wireless store on Passyunk. All prepaids."

  "The ten phones were purchased together?" Cahill asked.

  "Yeah."

  "Why would someone buy ten phones?"

  "According to the manager of the store, small companies will buy a block of phones like this if they have a project where a number of employees are going to be in the field at the same time. She said it keeps a cap on time spent on the phone. Also, if an out-of-town firm sends a number of employees to another city, they'll buy ten consecutive numbers just to keep things tidy."

  "Do we know who bought the phones?"

  Chavez consulted his notes. "The phones were purchased by a company called Alhambra LLC."

  "Philly company?" Jessica asked.

  "Don't know yet," Chavez said. "The address they gave is a mail drop on South. Nick and I are taking a ride up to the wireless store and see if we can shake anything else loose. If not, we'll stake the mail drop for a few hours, see if anyone picks up mail."

  "What's the number?" Jessica asked. Chavez gave it to her.

  Jessica put the desk phone on speakerphone, dialed the number. It rang four times, then clicked over to the standard user not available recording. She redialed. Same result. She hung up.

  "I ran a Google search on Alhambra," Chavez added. "Got a lot of hits, nothing local."

  "Stay with the phone number," Buchanan said.

  "We're on it," Chavez said.

  Chavez left the room as a uniformed officer poked his head in. "Sergeant Buchanan?"

  Buchanan spoke briefly with the uniformed officer, then followed him out of the Homicide Unit.

  Jessica processed the new information. "Faith Chandler placed twenty calls to a disposable cell. What do you think that was all about?" she asked.

  "No idea," Cahill said. "You call a friend, you call a business, you leave a message, right?" "Right."

  "I'll get back in touch with Stephanie's boss," Cahill said. "See if this Alhambra LLC rings a bell."

  They assembled in the duty room and drew a straight line on a city map from the Rivercrest Motel to the offices of Braceland Westcott McCall. They would begin a canvass of the people, shops, and businesses on that line.

  Someone had to have seen Stephanie on the day she disappeared.

  As they began to divide up the canvass, Ike Buchanan returned. He walked toward them, his face grim,
a familiar object in his hand. When the boss had that look on his face it usually meant two things. More work, and a lot more work.

  "What's up?" Jessica asked.

  Buchanan held the object up, a formerly benign, now ominous item made of black plastic, and said: "We've got another tape."

  36

  By the time Seth reached the hotel, he had made his calls. Somehow, he had created a fragile symmetry to his day. Providing there were no disasters, he would survive it. If Seth Goldman was anything, he was a survivor.

  Then disaster presented itself in a cheap rayon dress.

  Standing outside the front entrance to the hotel, she looked a thousand years old. Even from ten feet away he could smell the alcohol.

  In low-budget horror movies, there was a surefire way to tell that the monster lurked nearby. There was always a musical cue. The threatening cellos before the bright brass of the attack.

  For Seth Goldman, no music was needed. The end-his end-was a silent indictment in a woman's puffy red eyes.

  He couldn't let it happen. Couldn't. He had worked too hard, too long. Everything was riding on The Palace and he would not let anything get in the way.

  How far would he go to stanch the flow? He would soon find out.

  Before anyone saw them, he took her by the arm and led her to a waiting cab.

  37

  "I think I can manage," the old woman said.

  "I wouldn't hear of it," Byrne replied.

  They were in the parking lot of the Aldi on Market Street. Aldi was the no-frills supermarket chain that sold limited brands at discount prices. The woman was in her late seventies or early eighties, spindly and gaunt. She had fine features and translucent powdered skin. Despite the heat, and the fact that no rain was in the forecast for at least three days, she wore a double-breasted wool coat and bright blue galoshes. She was trying to load half a dozen grocery bags into her car, a twenty-year-old Chevy.

  "But look at you," she said. She gestured toward his cane. "I should be helping you."

  Byrne laughed. "I'm fine, ma'am," he said. "Just twisted my ankle."

  "Of course, you're still a young man," she said. "At my age, if I twisted an ankle, they might put me down."

  "You look pretty spry to me," Byrne said.

  The woman smiled beneath the veil of a schoolgirl blush. "Oh, now."

  Byrne grabbed the bags and started loading them into the backseat of the Chevy. Inside, he noticed a few rolls of paper towels, a few boxes of Kleenex. There were also a pair of mittens, an afghan, a knit cap, and a soiled quilted ski vest. Seeing as this woman probably didn't frequent the slopes of Camelback Mountain, Byrne figured she carted around this wardrobe on the off chance that the temperature might dip down to a frigid seventy-five degrees.

  Before Byrne could load the last bag into the car his cell phone chirped. He took it out, snapped it open. It was a text message from Colleen. In it, she told him that she was not leaving for camp until Tuesday, and wondered if they could have dinner Monday night. Byrne messaged her back that he would love to have dinner. On her end, the phone would vibrate and she could read the message. She replied immediately: KEWL! LUL CBOAO:)

  "What is that?" the woman asked, pointing to his phone.

  "It's a cell phone."

  The woman looked at him for a moment, as if he had just told her it was a spaceship built for very, very small aliens. "That's a telephone?" she asked.

  "Yes, ma'am," Byrne said. He held it up for her to see. "It has a camera built in, a calendar, an address book."

  "My, my," she said, shaking her head side to side. "I believe the world has passed me by, young man."

  "It's all moving too fast, isn't it?"

  "Praise His name."

  "Amen," Byrne said.

  She began to slowly make her way toward the driver's door. Once inside she reached into her purse, produced a pair of quarters. "For your troubles," she said. She tried to hand them to Byrne. Byrne raised both hands in protest, more than a little moved by the gesture.

  "That's okay," Byrne said. "You take that and buy yourself a cup of coffee." Without protest, the woman slipped the two coins back into her purse.

  "Time was when you could get a cup of coffee for a nickel," she said.

  Byrne reached over to close the door for her. With a movement he would have thought was too quick for a woman of her age she took his hand in hers. Her papery skin felt cool and dry to the touch. Instantly, the images ripped through his mind- a damp, dark room… the sounds of a TV in the background… Welcome Back, Kotter… the flicker of votive candles… a woman's anguished sobs… the sound of bone on flesh… screams in the blackness… Don't make me go up to the attic… — as he tore back his hand. He wanted to move slowly, not wanting to alarm or insult the woman, but the images were terrifyingly clear, heart- breakingly real.

  "Thank you, young man," the woman said.

  Byrne took a step back, trying to compose himself.

  The woman started her car. After a few moments she waved a thin, blue-veined hand, and angled across the lot.

  Two things stayed with Kevin Byrne as the old woman drove away. The image of the young woman who still lived in her clear, ancient eyes.

  And the sound of that terrified voice in his head.

  Don't make me go up to the attic… he stood across the street from the building. It looked different in daylight, a squalid relic of his city, a scar on a moldering urban block. Every so often a passerby would stop, try to look through the grimy glass-block squares that checkerboarded the front.

  Byrne took an item out of his coat pocket. It was the napkin that Victoria had given him when she had brought him breakfast in bed, the white linen square with the imprint of her lips in deep red lipstick. He turned it over and over in his hands as he drew the layout of the street in his mind. To the right of the building across the street was a small parking lot. Next to that, a used-furniture mart. In front of the furniture store was an array of bright plastic bar stools in the shape of tulips. To the left of the building was an alleyway. He watched a man exit the front of the building, around the corner to the left, down the alley, then down a set of iron stairs to an access door beneath the structure. A few minutes later, the man emerged carrying a pair of cardboard boxes.

  It was a storage cellar.

  That's where he would do it, Byrne thought. In the cellar. He would meet the man later that night in the cellar.

  No one would hear them down there.

  38

  The woman in the white dress asked: What are you doing here? Why are you here?

  The knife in her hand appeared extremely sharp and, as she began to absently dig at the outside of her right thigh, it sliced through the material of her dress, splotching it with a Rorschach of blood. Thick steam filled the white bathroom, slicking the tiled walls, misting the mirror. Scarlet streaked and dripped from the razor-keened blade.

  Do you know how it is when you meet somebody for the first time? the woman in white asked. Her tone was casual, almost conversational, as if she were having a cup of coffee or a cocktail with an old friend.

  The other woman, the bruised and damaged woman in the terry- cloth robe, just stared, the terror building behind her eyes. The bathtub began to overflow, rippling over the side. Blood dappled the floor, pooling in a glossy, ever-widening circle. Downstairs, water began to seep through the ceiling. The big dog lapped at it on the hardwood floor.

  Upstairs, the woman with the knife screamed: You're a stupid, selfish bitch!

  Then she attacked.

  Glenn Close hacked at Anne Archer in a life-and-death struggle as the tub began to overflow, flooding the bathroom floor. Downstairs, Michael Douglas's character-Dan Gallagher-took the kettle off the boil. Instantly he heard the screams. He bolted upstairs, ran into the bathroom, and slammed Glenn Close into the mirror, smashing it. They fought tooth and nail. She slashed him across the chest with the knife. They plunged into the tub. Soon Dan got the best of her, choking the life
out of her. She finally stopped thrashing. She was dead.

  Or was she?

  And that's where the edit was.

  Individually, simultaneously, the investigators watching the video tensed their muscles in anticipation of what they might see next.

  The video jerked and rolled. The new image was a different bathroom, much dimmer, the light source coming from the left side of the frame. Ahead was a beige wall, a white slatted window treatment. There was no sound.

  Suddenly a young woman rises to midframe. She is wearing a white, scoop-neck T-shirt dress, long-sleeved. It is not an exact duplicate of that worn by Glenn Close's character-Alex Forrest-in the film, but it is similar.

  As the tape rolls, the woman steadies herself, centered in the frame. She is soaking wet. She is furious. She appears outraged, ready to pounce.

  She stops.

  Her expression suddenly turns from rage to fear, her eyes widening in horror. Someone, probably whoever was holding the camera, raises a small-caliber gun into the right side of the frame and pulls the trigger. The bullet slams into the woman's chest. The woman reels but doesn't instantly fall. She looks down at the widening intaglio of red.

  She then slides down the wall, her blood painting the tile in bright crimson swaths. She slips slowly into the tub. The camera moves toward the young woman's face beneath the reddening bathwater.

  The video shudders, rolls, then returns to the original film, to the scene where Michael Douglas shakes hands with a detective in front of his formerly idyllic home. In the movie, the nightmare is over.

  Buchanan shut off the tape. As with the showing of the first tape, the occupants of the small room were stunned into silence. Every high they had felt in the past twenty-four hours or so-catching the break on the Psycho tape, finding the plumbing supply house, finding the motel room where Stephanie Chandler had been killed, finding the Saturn submerged along the banks of the Delaware-went out the window.