Richard Montanari

by The Echo Man

  'Really?'

  'Yeah, and like maybe he's looking for the door. Like maybe he's not quite the cop he used to be.'

  Jessica nodded. 'Interesting.'

  'I'm just saying, you know? This is what I've heard. And from more than one person.'

  'Well, Dennis,' Jessica said. 'Maybe you're right.'

  Stansfield looked surprised. 'I am?'

  'Yeah. Can I tell him you said this? I'm sure he'd like to hear it, seeing as it's going around.'

  'Well, I'd really prefer you didn't,' Stansfield said. 'See, I was just saying that—'

  'Then again, why don't you tell him yourself?'

  'What do you mean?'

  'He's right behind you.'

  Stansfield spun around to find Kevin Byrne, who loomed over him by about five inches, standing there. It looked for a moment as though Stansfield was going to extend his hand in greeting. It looked for a moment as though Byrne was going to throw Stansfield out a window. Both men then thought better of it.

  'Detective,' was all that Stansfield managed.

  Byrne stared at him until Stansfield got really interested in the time of day. He glanced at his watch, then back at Jessica.

  'I'm going to follow up on the owner of the building,' Stansfield said. 'I'm mobile if you need me.'

  'Yeah,' Jessica said when Stansfield was out of earshot. 'That'll happen.' She turned to Byrne. 'Done with the grand jury already?'

  Byrne shook his head. 'Postponed. They're hearing the Fontana case today.'

  'Did Drummond tell you when you're back on?'

  'Maybe next week.'

  'Sucks.' The longer it went on, the more likely that people were going to catch amnesia.

  Byrne pointed across the room, at the departing Stansfield. 'When did he go on day work?'

  'Today,' Jessica said. 'The boss put him with me this morning. I caught a case.'

  Jessica filled Byrne in on what they had found. They did not have crime-scene photographs yet, but Jessica had taken a few still pictures on her cellphone. She made it a practice never to print off any crime- scene photographs that she took with her own camera, even though there were no rules against it. It just made it a little too likely that personal photographs would get mixed in with official photographs, and things like that were what defense attorneys lived for. PhotoShop had changed everything.

  Byrne stared at the images for a full minute, scrolling through them one by one.

  'No ID yet?' he asked.

  'Not yet,' Jessica said. 'Body's still on scene.'

  Byrne handed back the phone. 'Any witnesses?'

  'Nothing. I'm heading back there in a few minutes.'

  Byrne looked across the room. David Albrecht sat at one of the desks, playing back footage on his camera's viewfinder.

  'Who's the kid with the camera?'

  Jessica explained David Albrecht's presence.

  'Great,' Byrne said. 'Just what we need.'

  Byrne checked the body chart, taking in the general details of the wounds to the victim, the placement of the body. 'Want some company?'

  'I'll drive,' Jessica said.

  'Let me get my stuff out of my car.'

  In the rear parking lot they stopped at Byrne's car. It was a Kia Sedona minivan. Jessica had never seen it before.

  'When did you get this?'

  'It's a loaner from my cousin Patrick. Colleen is going to be moving soon and we're trying to keep the costs down. I'm bringing some of her stuff to a storage locker this week.'

  'Do you like it?'

  'Oh yeah,' Byrne said. 'Kias are true babe magnets. Had a few college cheerleaders flash me the other day.'

  Byrne unlocked the passenger door, reached in, grabbed some things from the back seat. When he closed the door and turned around, Jessica did a double take.

  Kevin Byrne had a stylish leather messenger bag over his shoulder.

  'Oh my God,' Jessica said.

  'What?'

  'Hang on.' Jessica took out her cellphone, opened it, pantomimed dialing a long phone number. A really long phone number. She held up a finger. 'Hi, is this Hell?'

  Byrne shook his head.

  'Yes,' Jessica continued. 'I was calling to get the current temperature. What's that you say? Five below? Snow squalls expected?'

  'Funny stuff,' Byrne said. 'Let me get a table so I can catch the whole act.'

  Jessica smiled, closed her phone. She leaned against the car, crossed her arms. 'I can't believe it. Kevin Byrne carrying a purse. I am so blogging about this.'

  'It's a man bag.'

  'Ah.'

  'And it's a Tumi. Tumi makes good stuff.'

  'There's no question about that,' Jessica said. 'I have a Tumi purse myself.'

  'This isn't a purse, okay? It's a—'

  'Man bag,' Jessica said.

  'And, just for the record, I never want to hear the words metro and sexual in the same sentence. Okay?'

  'Promise,' Jessica said. Her fingers were secretly crossed behind her back. 'So, what made you decide to do this?'

  Byrne leaned closer. 'It's just getting harder and harder to leave the house, you know? You have to have your keys, your cellphone, your pager, your sunglasses, your regular glasses, your iPod—'

  'Wait. You have an iPod?'

  'Yes, I have an iPod. What's so odd about that?'

  'Well, for one thing, you still buy vinyl records. I just figured in a few years you'd make the giant leap to audiocassettes. Maybe even CDs one day.'

  'I buy vinyl because it's collectible. Especially the old blues.'

  'Okay.'

  'Remember your uniform days when everything went on your belt? Ami what didn't go on your belt fitted in your shirt pocket?'

  'I remember, but keep in mind there's even less room up there for female cops.'

  'I'm a detective,' Byrne said. 'I've noticed that.'

  I le took a few steps back, gestured to the cut of his new suit, which Jessica had to admit looked pretty good on him. It was a charcoal gray two-button.

  'Think about it,' he said. 'If I put all that stuff in my pockets it would ruin the line.'

  'The line?' Jessica put her hand on the butt of her weapon. 'Okay, who are you and what have you done with my partner?'

  Byrne laughed.

  'Well, now that you carry a bag,' Jessica continued, 'you should keep in mind one of the first things they taught us at the academy.'

  'I may be older than slate, but I seem to recall going to that academy myself. Over on State Road, right?'

  'That's the one,' Jessica said. 'But what I meant by "us" was, well, women.''

  Byrne braced himself, said nothing.

  'They taught us to never, ever, carry your weapon in a purse.'

  There was that word again. Byrne looked at the sky, back at Jessica. 'This is going to go on for a while, isn't it?'

  'Oh yeah.'

  The CSU team was still processing the scene on Federal Street, which now had crime-scene tape crossing both ends of the alley. As always, a crowd had gathered to watch the proceedings. It always amazed Jessica how no one ever saw anything, heard anything, witnessed anything, but as soon as the investigation got underway, as soon as there was some sort of urban circus to attend, everyone was suddenly available to gawk and rubberneck, conveniently off work and out of school.

  When Jessica and Byrne came around the corner there was a meeting of supervisors. Among them was ADA Michael Drummond.

  'Counselor,' Byrne said.

  'Twice in one day,' Drummond replied. 'People will talk.' He turned to Jessica. 'Nice to see you, Jess.'

  'Always a pleasure,' Jessica said. 'But what brings you out here?'

  'I've got court in about an hour, but these were orders from Valhalla. New DA, new initiatives. Anything that happens this close to a school gets priority. My boss wants to watch this one from the beginning. He barks, I fetch.'

  'Gotcha.'

  'Copy me in on everything?' Drummond asked.

  'Not a problem,' Jes
sica said.

  Jessica and Byrne watched as Drummond crossed the street, positioning himself far from the crime scene. Jessica knew why. If an ADA was close to the action, he might witness something, and therefore be called as a witness on his own case, which was grounds for dismissal. It was a game they all knew how to play.

  Jessica watched as Byrne walked up to the mouth of the alley, spoke to the uniformed officer. The uniform pointed to the two buildings behind the crime scene, nodded his head. Byrne took out his notebook, began to jot down details.

  Jessica had seen it before.

  Murder had been done here, and Kevin Byrne was in his element.

  Chapter 9

  Byrne walked down the alley, his senses on high alert, his adrenalin surging. It was odd, to say the least. No matter how fatigued he was - today, on a 1 to 10, he would clock in at a bone-weary 7 - it all seemed to melt away when he got to a crime scene. Crime scenes were crack for investigators. Addictive, euphoric, replenishing, ultimately depleting. There was no other feeling like it. The best meal, the finest wine, even soul-shaking sex did not come close.

  Okay, Byrne thought. Maybe sex.

  He took in the approach to the area where the body had been found. The air was suffused with the stench of rotting fruit coming from the Dumpster a few yards away, and the unmistakable aroma of death coming from the shoe store.

  He walked down the stairs, opened the door. Although the smell was almost overpowering in here, it was not the first thing he sensed. Instead, that was a feeling, an impression that he had just stepped across the boundary of a killer's mind, had just become an interloper in a realm of madness.

  There is a pairing, a balance, a partnership.

  Byrne stopped, waiting for more. Nothing. Not yet.

  In addition to his upcoming appointment with the sleep-study clinic, he had his annual MRI screening. He'd had yearly MRIs for the past five years, ever since he had been nearly fatally injured in a shooting. He knew everyone in the hospital radiology department, and the mood was always light-hearted when he went there, but they all knew what it was about. There was, and always would be, a possibility of a brain tumor. He'd read all the books on symptoms and signs - blackouts, voices in your head, sometimes unexplained smells.

  In a separate incident, many years earlier, he had confronted a suspect in a bar beneath the Walt Whitman Bridge. During the course of the arrest Byrne had plunged into the frigid Delaware River, locked in combat with the suspect. When he was pulled out of the water Byrne was declared dead. One full minute later he came to.

  Not long after that the visions had started. They were never fullblown apparitions. He did not show up at a scene, close his eyes, and see any sort of recreation of the crime in Technicolor and THX audio. Instead, it was more of a feeling. Sometimes it crossed over into the dominion of sense and sensation, but mostly he got a feel for the victim, the perpetrator. A thought, a dream, a desire, a habit.

  Byrne had been to group-therapy sessions of every kind, even going to a regression-therapy group that tried to take him back to that moment when he'd plunged into the river, an attempt to bring him back to the person he had been before the incident. Byrne now knew that was impossible.

  The visions had diminished over the ensuing years as had the accompanying migraines. These days they were few and far between.

  He had not had anything close to a full-blown migraine lately, but he knew something was happening inside him. More than once, in the last few months, he had experienced something... not pain, more of a presence, a thickness in his head, along with a slight blurring of vision. And with these feelings came the clearest inner visions he'd ever had, now accompanied by sounds. Then, sometimes, a blackout.

  He was still undecided on whether or not to mention these things to his doctor. Telling a doctor something like this only led to more tests.

  He stepped into the room where a dead man lay on the floor. Byrne's heart picked up a beat, quickening with the knowledge that a killer had stood in this spot no more than twenty-four hours earlier, breathing the same air.

  Just when he was about to begin his routine, a warm sensation filled his head. He held onto the door jamb for a second, attempting to ride it out. With the warmth came the knowledge of...

  . . . something that has burned for many years, a feeling of loss and desire, a dark passion that will forever be unfulfilled, a love story unwritten, unwritable, the hunger to create a legacy . . .

  Byrne knelt down, snapped on a latex glove, then instantly thought better of it. He removed the glove. He needed the feel of the flesh. A dialogue happened between the skin of the dead and his senses. A superior officer, or a representative of the medical examiner's office would surely object. That didn't matter at the moment. He was alone with the dead, alone with what had happened in this room, alone with the rage that drove someone to brutally take a life.

  Alone with himself.

  Kevin Byrne reached out and touched a finger to the dead man's lips. He closed his eyes, listened, and the dead man spoke.

  Chapter 10

  Jessica and Byrne spent the next hour separately canvassing the neighborhood for a second time. They learned a great deal about cheating spouses, lazy landlords, illegal parking, possible international drug cartels, alien invasions, more illegal parking, and - a fan favorite - government conspiracies. In other words, nothing.

  At three o'clock Jessica met Byrne back at the corner of Fifth and Federal to compare notes.

  'Jess,' Byrne said, pointing down the street.

  Jessica turned and saw two figures sitting in a vacant lot, sandwiched between a pair of old row houses. The detectives were being observed.

  Jessica and Byrne walked a half-block up Federal. David Albrecht, who had just returned from getting some high-angle shots from nearby rooftops, followed, but kept his distance.

  Iwo older men sat on lawn chairs across the street from the ball field. They had racing forms on their laps, along with the sports sections of that morning's Inquirer. They were in their late seventies and had their chairs positioned in such a way that each could see what was approaching but still be close enough to converse. Jessica had the distinct feeling they didn't miss much.

  One of the guys wore at least three cardigans, each a slightly different shade of maroon. The other wore a fishing hat with a button saying Kiss Me I'm Italian on it, a button so old that most of the letters were rubbed off. Now, from a few feet away, it looked like Kiss It. Jessica wondered if that wasn't on purpose. She showed her badge, introducing herself and Kevin Byrne.

  When the men saw they were police officers they sat a little straighten

  Jessica asked: 'You fellows out here every day?'

  'Every morning, every afternoon,' Cardigans said. 'Rain or shine. 'Cept when it rains, then we sit over there.' He pointed to an old storefront with a metal awning.

  'In winter we meet at Mulroney's,' added Fishing Hat.

  Mulroney's was a tavern on the other side of the playground, a fixture that had been around since sometime during the Truman administration.

  Jessica asked the men what, if anything, they had seen the previous day. After a brief rundown of the day's events - a Philadelphia Inquirer delivery truck got a flat tire, some idiot on a cellphone was yelling at his wife or girlfriend and almost walked into the traffic on Federal, a dog came up and snatched one of their lunch bags right from under the chair - they got around to what they had seen at or near the crime- scene building.

  Nothing.

  'You didn't see anybody doing anything suspicious, anybody you haven't seen in the neighborhood before?' Byrne asked.

  'Nah,' Cardigans said. 'We're the only suspicious characters around here.'

  Jessica jotted down the meager information.

  'You guys got here pretty quick earlier this morning,' Cardigans said.

  'We were on a donut run around the corner,' Jessica said. 'It was on the way.'

  Cardigans smiled. He liked her.

  'N
ot like the last time,' Fishing Hat interjected.

  Jessica glanced over at Byrne, back. 'I'm sorry?' she said. 'The last time?'

  'Yeah. That other one?'

  'The other one.'

  'The other dead one they found in there.' Fishing Hat pointed to the crime-scene building, saying all this like it was common knowledge, worldwide.

  'There was another victim found in that building?' Jessica asked.

  'Oh, yeah,' he said. 'Place is a slaughterhouse. A regular abbytwar.'

  Jessica figured he meant abattoir. She stole another glance at Byrne. ' This was getting better by the minute. Or worse. 'When was this again?'

  '2002,' Fishing Hat said. 'Spring of 2002.'

  'Nah,' Cardigans said. 'It was '04.'

  Fishing Hat looked over, as if the other man had just told him the pope was a woman. '2004? What are you, drunk? It was 2002. March 21st. Mickey Quindlen's grandson broke his arm on the playground. My wife's brother came in from Cinnaminson, rammed his fucking car into the house.' He looked at Jessica. 'Excuse my German.'

  'I speak German,' Jessica said.

  'Uniforms came around noon. Suits didn't show up until midnight. I believe I can say all this without fear of contraception.'

  Cardigans nodded, acquiescing.

  'Uniforms? Suits?' Jessica asked. 'Did you used to be a cop?'

  'Cop? Nah. I worked the docks, forty-one years. I just like that Law and Order show. The guy with the big teeth says that kind of stuff all the time.'

  'He's dead now,' Cardigans said.

  Fishing Hat looked at his friend. 'He is? Since when?'

  'Long time now.'

  'He ain't dead on the show.'

  'No. Not on the show he ain't. Just in real life.'

  'Damn.'

  'Yeah.'

  A respectful silence fell over the group for a moment.

  'He was a longshoreman, too,' Fishing Hat said then, crooking a thumb at his buddy. 'Back in the day, we were all over. All over. Oregon Avenue, up to South Street, Front Street, Third Street. Not like now. Now I got a lawyer living next door to me. A lawyer. There goes the neighborhood.'