Richard Montanari

by The Echo Man

  Was this a work in progress? Was this some sort of message from Joseph Novak, some riddle left behind for friends and family by which they might make some sense of his final, violent act?

  Jessica had no idea. As much as she would have liked to take the laptop with her, she had no jurisdiction over it. Not yet, anyway. She would lobby the DAs office to establish a material-witness status for the late Joseph Novak, and perhaps she would get a chance to go through it.

  She looked around the place. The silence was thick and oppressive.

  Jessica had to be careful about looking through the contents of the computer. The homicide unit had recently received directives from the DA's office about needing court approval for doing anything with a computer that involved clicking a mouse or touching a keyboard. If there was something on the screen to be seen, in plain view, that was one thing. If it involved maximizing a minimized window, launching a program, or visiting a web page located in a history on a browser, that was something else.

  A case against a man trafficking in child pornography had recently been tossed because the detective, knowing there were thousands of images on the man's hard drive, had opened a graphics program. It turned out that every time a program was launched, there was a log of the event and a record of the precise time it happened. If the suspect was in custody at that moment, the detective could not claim that the program was already open.

  Jessica clicked over to the side bar. There was no harm in looking, as long as she didn't open any files or programs. She glanced at the contents of the drive. There was one file, saraband.doc. That was it. Other than that, there was nothing on the drive. No documents, no spreadsheets, no databases, no photos, music or audio files. It had all the earmarks of a drive that had been recently erased.

  Any good computer-forensic lab would be able to tell when a drive had been formatted, and could usually find evidence of the files that were originally on the drive. Jessica was already formulating the case she would make to the DA's office to allow them to do just that.

  In the meantime she would get a couple of warm bodies down here to canvass the building, just to see if Joseph Novak had had any visitors earlier in the day. If he had, maybe it could lead to a full-scale investigation of his death as something other than a suicide.

  She took out her phone, checked her voicemail. Two messages.

  When did she get two messages? Why hadn't it rung? She checked the side of the phone. With an iPhone, the switch to toggle from silent to ring tone was on the upper left, and was easily activated when you put the phone in your pocket. Too easily. The ringer had been off.

  Jessica switched it back on, tapped the first voicemail message. It was from the man who was hoping to install the awnings on the new house. He wanted two grand. Dream on.

  The second call was from an unknown caller. She played it.

  'Detective Balzano, this is Joseph Novak.'

  Jessica jumped to her feet. Her skin broke out in gooseflesh. She glanced behind her, at the dark sienna stains on the carpet and walls. She could still smell the cordite in the air, could taste the coppery airborne blood at the back of her throat. Joseph Novak's blood. She was listening to a message from the grave.

  'I want to apologize for my behavior. I can't go on like this. There is more to this than you know. Much more. You don't know him. I cannot live with myself anymore.'

  Jessica paused the message for a moment, paced the living room. Everything she looked at - the books, the CDs, the furniture itself - took on a new meaning.

  She stopped pacing, tapped the button, continued the message.

  'I hear him coming down the hall. Look in the cabinet above the range in the kitchen.'

  The message ended.

  Jessica put her phone in her pocket, crossed the living room into the compact Pullman kitchen. She opened the cabinets above the range hood. There she found a dozen or so cookbooks - Mexican, Italian, Cajun. She pulled a few of them out, riffled the pages. Nothing. The second-to-last cookbook was labeled Home Recipes. She pulled it out. When she did, something fell on the floor. It was a slim leather-bound journal. The cover was worn and creased. She picked it up. Stuck in the front was an old photograph. It was Joseph Novak at fifteen or so, standing next to a beautiful cello. Jessica slipped the picture back in the book, opened it.

  It was a diary.

  June 22. The competition is this Saturday. But it is more than just a competition for first chair. We both know that. It is a competition for her. It will always be thus.

  Jessica flipped ahead to the back of the journal. She read the final entry.

  November 1. All Saints Day. It is done. I know now that I will be forever beholden to him. I will never be out of his shadow. For the rest of my life I will do his bidding. My heart is forever broken, forever in his hands.

  Zig, zig, zig.

  He is death in cadence.

  Jessica closed the journal. She needed a warrant to search every square inch of this apartment, and she needed one fast. She put in a call to the DA's office, told them what she had, what she needed. She took the journal, intending to say it had been in plain sight, therefore not covered by the warrant. She stepped outside, locked the door. She told the two CSU officers they could return to the lab. She would call them when and if she needed them.

  She walked across the street, grabbed a coffee-to-go at the diner, stepped into the parking lot behind. She called Byrne, got his voice- mail. She called Dana Westbrook, gave her a status report. Westbrook said she would send two other detectives from the Special Investigations Unit to aid in the search.

  Jessica opened the journal. There was something under the back cover. She peeled it back gently. There was a second photograph there, an old Polaroid, a long shot of a window in a huge stone building. In the window was a figure. It was impossible to see who it was, but it looked like a slender woman. On the back of the photograph was one word scrawled in red pencil.

  Hell.

  Before Jessica could get the photograph back into the journal she heard someone approaching, footfalls on hard gravel. She turned.

  The fist came from nowhere, connecting with the right side of her face in a dull thud. She staggered back, saw stars. The journal flew out of her hands. The second blow was more glancing, but it carried enough force to knock her to the ground. She had enough presence to roll onto the side where she had her weapon holstered.

  Through the haze she saw her assailant. White-blond hair, filthy jeans, laceless sneakers. She didn't recognize him. Not by sight, not at first. When he spoke again, she knew. And there was no mistaking those eyes.

  'I think we have some unfinished business, Detective Balzano,' Lucas Anthony Thompson said. 'Or should I say Detective Cunt Balzano.'

  Jessica rolled to her right, worked the Glock from her holster, but she was too slow. Thompson stepped forward, kicked the weapon from her hand.

  'You shoulda shot me when you had the fucking chance, bitch. Ain't gonna happen today.'

  When Thompson took another step toward her, Jessica saw movement at the back of the parking lot. A shadow slithered along the pavement.

  Someone was standing behind Thompson.

  And then everything went gray.

  Chapter 49

  The Philadelphia Orchestra began life in 1900. Over the next century it held many distinctions, not the least of which was the 'Philadelphia Sound', a legacy that, under conductor Eugene Ormandy, became known for its clarity and skilled execution, its warm tonality and precise timing.

  The orchestra also had a unity of artistic leadership virtually unknown in the world of great orchestras, with only seven musical directors in its entire history. Two men, Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy, held the reins from 1912 to 1980.

  It was on the occasion of Ormandy's leaving that the Philadelphia Orchestra found itself at a crossroads and, perhaps in an attempt to modernize its somewhat staid image, turned to a young firebrand, Neapolitan Riccardo Muti, as its new musical director. Darkly ha
ndsome, intensely serious to the point of almost never smiling on stage, Muti ushered in a new era, an era dominated by a man whose insistence on the letter of the musical law earned him the nickname - at least around the opera houses of Italy - of lo scerif, the sheriff.

  In 1981, in a move still discussed in some circles, the orchestra rattled the classical musical world by hiring as its principal cellist a nineteen-year-old named Christa-Marie Schönburg - a tempestuous wunderkind who was taking the world of strings by storm. Within a year her name became as synonymous with the Philadelphia Orchestra's

  as Muti's, and when the chamber orchestra toured Eastern Europe that summer Christa-Marie Schönburg was the talk of the classical- music universe.

  By the time she was twenty-two there was no doubt in the minds of the cognoscenti that she would surpass, in technical skill, pure artistry and, indeed, world-wide recognition, the only other woman to capture international fame on the cello, the tragic Jacqueline du Pre, the brilliant cellist whose career was cut short at the age of twenty-eight by multiple sclerosis.

  And while Jacqueline du Pre made her most memorable recording with Elgar's Cello Concerto in E Minor, Christa-Marie put her imprimatur on the Bach suites.

  For nearly a decade, from Vienna's Konzerthaus to Rotterdam's Grote Zaal, from the Royal Festival Hall in London to Avery Fisher Hall in New York City, Christa-Marie Schönburg, with her tensile, passionate music, brought audiences to their feet.

  On a cold autumn night in 1990 all of that changed.

  Something tragic happened on that night when Christa-Marie returned home after a triumphant performance at the Academy of Music - a benefit attended by many of Philadelphia's elite society, a fund-raiser for Philadelphia's homeless children.

  Although details of the last two hours remain unknown, it was believed that Christa-Marie returned to her Chestnut Hill house at approximately 11:45 p.m., delivered there by a car service. A few hours later, according to her housekeeper, there were sounds of an argument in the kitchen, a struggle, then a scream. The housekeeper called the police.

  Police arrived at around two-thirty. They found a man named Gabriel Thorne - a psychiatrist who had treated Christa-Marie for many years - sprawled on the kitchen floor, bleeding heavily from wounds to his abdomen and chest, the bloodied knife at his side. He was still alive. They called EMS, who tried to save him at the scene but failed. He was pronounced dead minutes after their arrival. The ME's office would eventually rule that Thorne bled out as a result of multiple stab wounds.

  Christa-Marie Schönburg never played another public concert.

  Because she confessed to the crime there was no show trial, much to the disappointment of the burgeoning cable-TV court shows. Christa- Marie Schönburg was as enigmatic as she was strikingly beautiful, and her relationship with Thorne was, for many years, cause for gossip and speculation.

  The last time Byrne saw Christa-Marie Schönburg was at her allocution, when she stood before a judge and admitted her guilt regarding the murder of Dr. Gabriel Thorne.

  As Byrne drove north he thought of the Chestnut Hill house, how when people heard what had happened they began to gather across the street early the next morning, bringing with them flowers and stuffed animals, even sheet music. It was as if Christa-Marie had been the victim, not the perpetrator.

  Byrne had thought of Christa-Marie often. It wasn't just that Christa-Marie Schönburg had been his first case as the lead detective in a homicide. Something else about the woman haunted him. What drew him to her had never been entirely clear to him.

  Maybe he would discover what that was today.

  Chapter 50

  'I'm fine,' Jessica said.

  It was a lie, but she was sticking to it.

  The paramedic shone his light into her eyes for the third time, took her blood pressure for the third time, took her pulse for the fifth time.

  She had been punched on many occasions in the past - when you box in the ring, it kind of goes with the territory - and this had been a glancing blow, not really that hard. But it had caught her off guard. In the ring, you brace yourself for incoming blows, and the adrenalin that flows naturally at a moment like that works as a sort of neural shock absorber. No one on Earth can be prepared for a sucker punch, which, by definition, comes out of the blue. Her head throbbed a little but her vision was clear, and her energy level was high. She wanted back in the game but they were going to make her sit there like an invalid. She had seen it many times in her years on the job, had even been the purveyor of the unwelcome news to victims of assault.

  Just sit there for a moment.

  Not so for Vincent Balzano. When the sector cars showed up, she made the call, found Vincent only a dozen blocks away, working an investigation of his own. He broke every speed record getting to the scene. That was the easy part. Calming him down was another matter. At the moment he was pacing like a caged animal. Unfortunately for Vincent Balzano and his Italian temper, he was lacking a convenient punching bag. For now, at least.

  Jessica's weapon had been recovered. It had not been fired.

  All Jessica remembered was hearing other footsteps but she did not know whose they were. She did not mention the journal, which had not been recovered from the scene

  'No one said anything?' Westbrook asked.

  Jessica shook her head. It hurt. She stopped doing it. 'No. I heard footsteps approaching. I got clocked twice. There was a scuffle. Then I faded out.'

  'What kind of scuffle?'

  'Not sure. I heard at least two people grunting. Then the ringing in my ears took over.'

  'And you did not see the other person?'

  'No, but I—'

  Jessica suddenly looked at her watch, sprang to her feet. She felt dizzy for a moment, then it passed. Her anger did not.

  'What is it?' Vincent asked.

  'We missed it. We fucking missed it.' 'What?'

  'The appointment at the Department of Human Services.'

  'Jess.'

  'Don't Jess me.'

  'We'll work it out,' Vincent said. 'Don't worry.'

  'Don't worry? This is why they turn you down, Vincent. This is the first big test. You don't show, you don't call, it's over.'

  Vincent held her close. 'I think you have a pretty good excuse, babe. I think they'll understand.'

  'They won't,' Jessica said, wiggling loose. 'Plus, they're not going to place Carlos in a home where his mother is in danger every day.'

  'They know we're both cops. They know what we do.'

  It all came out. The anger of this brutal case. The inability to conceive for two years. The indignity of being assaulted. All of it.

  'You weren't there, Vincent. I was there. I saw how Carlos was living. I saw the dog shit and the fucking hypodermic needles all over the place. I saw the cockroaches and rats in the sink, the rotting food. I saw him hiding under a fucking garbage bag. You don't know what a hell hole it was, how bad his life was. They are not going to hand him over to us so we can make it worse.'

  She tried to walk it off. The rage was a breathing thing within her.

  Soon Jessica calmed down and let the investigation begin. It was going to be a long day - and it was just getting started.

  Chapter 51

  Chestnut Hill was an affluent neighborhood in the Northwest section of Philadelphia, originally part of the German Township laid out by Francis Daniel Pastorius. One of the original 'railroad suburbs,' the area contained a wide variety of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century residences designed by many of the most prominent Philadelphia architects.

  Before leaving Center City, Byrne had called ahead to schedule a time to meet with Christa-Marie. He was directed to Christa-Marie's attorney, a man named Benjamin Curtin. Reluctant at first, Curtin arranged to meet Byrne at the estate at one p.m.

  As Byrne turned down St. Andrews Road he saw the house for the second time in his life. He had not been back since the night of the murder.

  It was a massive, sprawling Tudor buildi
ng with a circular driveway accented with cobblestones, a large gabled entrance. To the right, partially hidden by trees, was a stable, next to a pair of tennis courts. A high wrought-iron fence encircled the property.

  Byrne parked his van and, even though he was wearing his best suit, suddenly felt underdressed. He also realized that he had been holding his breath. He got out of the vehicle, straightened his tie, smoothed the front of his overcoat, and rang the bell. A few moments later the door was opened by a woman in her sixties. Byrne announced himself, and the woman led him through the high, arched doorway. Ahead was a carved mahogany winding staircase; to the right were thick fluted pillars leading to a formal dining room. To the left was the great room, with a view of the pool and the manicured grounds beyond. Byrne's heels echoed in the massive space. The woman took his coat and led him into a study off the enormous foyer.

  The room was darkly paneled, clubby, with a pair of large bookcases built in and a vaulted open-trussed ceiling. A fire burned in the fireplace. The mantel was arrayed with pine cones and other autumn decorations. Above the mantel was a large portrait of Christa-Marie. In the painting she sat in a velvet chair. It had to have been painted right around the time Byrne met her, that dark night in 1990.

  A few moments later the door opened and a man entered.

  Benjamin Curtin was in his early fifties. He had thick gray hair, swept straight back, a strong jaw. His suit was tailored to perfection and might well have cost what Byrne made in a month. Curtin was probably twenty pounds heavier than he looked.

  Byrne introduced himself. He did not produce his identification. He was not there in any official capacity. Not yet.

  'It's a pleasure to meet you, detective,' Curtin said, perhaps to remind Byrne what he did for a living. Curtin had a Southern accent. Byrne pegged him as Mississippi money.