Richard Montanari

by The Echo Man

  'Does this dovetail with the case you're working?' Logan asked.

  'It does,' Byrne said.

  'We'll need copies of these photographs, if that's all right,' Jessica said.

  Logan retrieved a stack of envelopes from the top of a nearby file cabinet. He picked up two of them. 'I anticipated that. There's duplicates of everything in here.'

  He handed the envelopes to Jessica. 'Thanks.'

  The three of them went still for a few moments, each of them taking in the horror displayed before them in full color.

  'When was your last homicide?' Jessica asked.

  Logan ran a hand over his chin. 'Well, even though it's been a few years I find it a little hard to talk about. And mind you, I was in Vietnam. Two tours. Saw quite a bit. This one shook me good.'

  Jessica and Byrne remained silent.

  'We haven't had but two murders here in all the time I've been on the job. One was a domestic that went tragically wrong. Everyone saw that one coming, I suppose. Those two were at it for years. The other was little Peggy van Tassel.'

  'Would you mind telling us the details?' Byrne asked.

  Logan sipped his coffee. Jessica noticed a slight shake in his hand. He put the cup down, rattling it slightly on the worn Masonite surface. 'Little girl, eleven years old. Father worked for the county in the water department, mother was a teacher at Jefferson Middle School. Only child. Peggy went to school one day, never came home. We put the word out and by that evening we must have had two hundred volunteers for the search. We found her by Iron Lake ten days later. She'd been molested, stabbed to death. Whoever did it cut her pretty bad.' Logan cleared his throat, reached for his coffee, thought better of it. 'She had on make-up, and a woman's fancy dress. Not a dress that was for a grown woman, mind you, but a small one. One that was her size. The folks at the state crime lab said it looked like it was made for her. State police took the case.'

  The idea of the killer making a dress for the little girl gave Jessica a chill. 'Was the case ever closed?' she asked.

  Logan shook his head. 'There was a man who was questioned in that case. That man's name was George Archer.'

  'Archer?' Byrne asked.

  'Yes, sir. Tommy Archer's father. George was a state trooper for a few years, but as I understand it he was shown the door,' Logan added. 'Insubordination was the official line, but there were rumors.'

  'Rumors of what?' Jessica asked.

  'Like yourselves, I try to deal in facts, ma'am. If it's all the same, rumors should live and die just that. Rumors.'

  Jessica nodded. Fair enough.

  'Why did the state like George Archer in this case?' Byrne asked. 'George had been seen talking to Peggy a few days before she went missing. In fact, that's where we found Tommy Archer's body. Right near Peggy's marker.'

  Jessica looked at Byrne, then back. 'He was found near her plot at the cemetery?'

  'Yes, ma'am.'

  Logan went through the photos on the table. He picked one up. In it, the body of Thomas Archer was visible on the right side of the frame. To the left was a clearly marked headstone.

  MARGARET VAN TASSEL

  APRIL 6 1990 - SEPTEMBER 21 2001

  'Our Beloved Peggy'

  'Do you think any of the girl's family might be involved in this?' Byrne asked.

  Logan shrugged. 'I suppose anything's possible. But as I understand it her family were travelers. I think they moved on a long time ago.' Logan sat on the edge of the table. 'A few years later the FBI came around again, questioned George in another case, up round your way. It was a cold case.'

  'The case was out of Philadelphia?' Byrne asked.

  Logan nodded. 'I believe it was.'

  'Do you remember any details about the case?'

  'No. It wasn't ours. But I do remember that they also talked to Tommy, who swore that George was with him all during the weekend in question, right up at the house on the farm. I'm not sure that George was there, but that was Tommy's story and he stuck to it.'

  'I'd like to take a look at the report on that original homicide,' Byrne said. 'The van Tassel girl. Can you reach out to the state police and have them fax that to us?'

  'Consider it done.' Logan glanced at his watch. 'I've got a few things on today. If there's anything else we can do for you, let Helen know and we'll take care of it.'

  'We'd like to speak to George Archer,' Byrne said.

  'I'll give you directions.' Logan scribbled a few things on a legal pad, tore off the sheet, handed it to Jessica.

  'You can't miss the sign,' he added. 'Archer Farms.'

  Jessica and Byrne thanked Logan for his time and consideration. On the way to the parking lot Jessica turned, asked the chief one last question.

  'What do they grow up there at Archer Farms?'

  'Apples, mostly,' Logan said. 'They have about fifty acres of orchards.'

  Chapter 66

  The house was a large, aging Dutch Colonial on a hillside, not so much the archetypal farmhouse but rather a house built on a farm, remodeled many times over the years. It was surrounded on three sides by apple trees as far as the eye could see. In addition to a triple garage there were two outbuildings; one small, perhaps for lawn and maintenance equipment; one large, perhaps for mechanical harvesters, straddle trailers, and the storage of harvest totes.

  The air was heavy with the sugary-tart smell of the fruit.

  Jessica pulled over on the drive, stopping about fifty yards from the house. Nothing moved. There were no vehicles in sight.

  'Does it get quieter than this?' Jessica asked.

  Byrne just looked at the house, at the acres of trees. There was a porch light on, but no lights were visible through the windows.

  Jessica had a hard time reconciling the bucolic vision in front of her with what she had seen in the past four days, or with the story she had heard from Rogers Logan. Still, there could be no denying that the murder of Thomas Archer, who at one time had lived right here, was connected to the brutal homicides in Philadelphia.

  She looked at Byrne. 'Ready?'

  Byrne hesitated for a few moments, then nodded.

  Jessica crossed the gravel drive, looked in the grimy garage-door window. Inside she saw a pickup truck on the right-hand side. It looked to be a five-year-old F-150. The other two bays were empty. There was a thin layer of dust on the truck. There had been rain in this part of Pennsylvania in the past three days. Chances were good that the truck had not been out.

  She and Byrne then walked over to the porch. The place was eerily quiet. They were about three hundred yards from Route 68, and it seemed that even the sound of the occasional car passing by did not reach them.

  The right-hand side of the porch had a rick of well-seasoned firewood, stacked in a rusted wrought-iron rack. The door was ringed with a grapevine wreath, strung with autumn mums and small gourds.

  Jessica looked through the window in the door. She saw no activity. She knocked, listened. Byrne moved across the porch, next to the window that looked into the living room. There were sheer curtains over the opening.

  Jessica knocked again, put her ear near the door. Only silence.

  Walking around to the back of the house, they found a tilled vegetable garden, turned for the season. A small green-water pond sat at the bottom of a gentle hill. The back porch was smaller than the front, but boasted a pair of new Adirondack chairs. They climbed the steps, looked inside. Inside was a mud room of sorts, one that led to a large kitchen. There were no cups or plates on the table, none in the sink.

  Jessica knocked again, waited. The house appeared to be unoccupied.

  'Let's check the garage,' Byrne said.

  They walked over to the triple garage, around the side where there was a smaller door. It was unlocked.

  Byrne stayed outside while Jessica pushed open the door, stepped in. The garage was dark and dusty, smelling of axle grease and the ever-pervasive sweetness of apples. The cloying smell was even stronger in here. One wall was lined with gard
en and farm tools - rakes, half- round shovels, hoes, mattocks, pickaxes. The other wall boasted a collage of license plates and street signs.

  Jessica walked over to the truck. She placed her hand on the hood. The engine was cold. She then took a Kleenex out of her pocket, opened the driver's-side door. The rusty hinge moaned, and she stopped. It had been so quiet that the sound went through the garage like a scream. She eased the door all the way open. There were no keys in the ignition, and the cab was relatively clean. A pine-tree- shaped deodorizer dangled from the rearview mirror.

  On the seat was a small pile of papers. Jessica held the Kleenex tightly, sorted through them. There were a pair of flyers for a recent Oktoberfest in Kelton, a coupon for a free car wash. There was a brochure for tours of Philadelphia. At the bottom was a postcard depicting a beach in South Carolina. Greetings from Edisto Island. Jessica flipped the card over, angled her Maglite.

  Looking forward to seeing you and everyone at Société Poursuite!

  I'll be staying at the Hyatt Penn's Landing. Look me up and we'll have a drink.

  It was signed, simply, R.

  Jessica glanced at the date on the postmark. It was from the previous Friday.

  She slipped the postcard back where it had been, closed the truck door, and walked out of the garage. She told Byrne about the postcard.

  'It looks like he might be at the annual meeting of the Société Poursuite.'

  'That's the group that handles the cold cases, right?'

  'And these are all—'

  'Cold cases,' Byrne said. 'Melina Laskaris, Marcellus Palmer, Antoinette Chan, and Peggy van Tassel are all open investigations, just the kind of thing a group like Société Poursuite would look into.'

  Jessica nodded, thought for a moment. 'Logan said this guy used to be a state trooper. Maybe he's a member.'

  'That convention is this week.'

  It occurred to both of them at the same time.

  'He's in Philly,' Jessica said.

  'He's in Philly.'

  Chapter 67

  In July 1998, at a small Italian restaurant in Queens, New York - an old-school trattoria on Astoria Boulevard called Theresa's - a man named Paul Ferrone, a retired NYPD detective, met with two of his oldest friends.

  The three men had been meeting at Theresa's every month for the past four years, mostly for two reasons. One, Theresa Colopinti's chicken with peppers was the best in the city of New York. More importantly, the second reason was that these three men genuinely enjoyed each other's company.

  After their entree plates were cleared, they began to talk about murder, as was their custom. Cold-case murder. Paul Ferrone's two friends - Matt Grayson, a retired forensic dentist from Newark, New Jersey, and Eli O'Steen, a retired judge from Brooklyn - had been thinking about forming a group that did this sort of thing with regularity, a group that would expand beyond the three of them.

  On that night they created an association called Societe Poursuite, an homage to the Vidocq Society, a similarly themed group named after a nineteenth-century French detective named Eugene Francois Vidocq.

  Similar in some ways to the Vidocq Society, Societe Poursuite - which translated as Pursuit Society - now boasted more than three hundred and seventy members worldwide. And since its inception on that summer night in 1998, it had contributed to the solving of more than sixty homicides around the world.

  The group met every month in New York City, with their annual conclave held in a different major city on the east coast each October, rotating between New York, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C.

  This year their eleventh annual conclave would meet in Philadelphia, at the Le Jardin hotel. On the final night, an evening which would include a five-course meal prepared by the hotel's Michelin-starred chef Alain Cochel, there would be a speech by the Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

  When Jessica and Byrne arrived at Le Jardin they were met in the lobby by the hotel's director of security, John Shepherd.

  Shepherd had been a homicide detective in Philadelphia for more than twenty years. When Jessica had come into the unit, it had been Kevin Byrne and John Shepherd who had showed her the ropes. While Byrne taught her - indeed, in many ways was still teaching her - how to work a crime scene, it was John Shepherd who taught her how to walk into an interrogation room, how to position her body at first so as not to intimidate, how to walk that gossamer-thin line between treating someone like a suspect and like a witness, how to coax that first lie out of their mouths, and then, an hour or two later, how to slam it back in their faces.

  The PPD had lost a great one when he retired.

  John Shepherd, turned out in a smart navy blue suit, opened his arms. 'Jess,' he said. 'Beautiful as ever.'

  They embraced. Even though they were still on the same side, they were no longer on the same team, and shows of affection were now allowed. 'We miss you, John.'

  Shepherd looked at Byrne. 'And if I wasn't head of security here, I'd have to call security on this shady-looking character.'

  The two men did the handshake, shoulder-bump, back-slap, I- swear-to-God-I'm-not-gay thing. Men, Jessica thought. God forbid they should show emotion in public. Cops were the worst.

  'You look good, Johnny,' Byrne said.

  'Underworked and overpaid.'

  Shepherd did look healthier than he ever had. Anytime you could get away from cop food and cop hours, you looked better. Tall and Denzel-handsome, now in his salt-and-pepper fifties, Shepherd looked relaxed, and in charge.

  He led them to the other side of the lobby, to the other side of a tall frosted-glass panel that somehow managed to keep the noise of arriving guests out of the tastefully appointed lounge.

  They stood at the far end of the bar, away from everyone. Without asking, three cups of coffee, with creamers on ice, were put in front of them.

  'So what are you up to?' Shepherd asked. 'Keeping the peace?'

  'Disturbing it whenever possible,' Byrne said. 'How are things here?'

  'Had a door pusher last month.'

  A door pusher was one of the more unsophisticated breeds of hotel criminal. He was a guy who got into the hotel, went to upper floors, and simply pushed on doors to find one that was unlocked, or improperly closed or, God help the room attendant, left open by housekeeping. These were guys who always had a record for B & E, generally nonviolent types but a real nuisance in hotel security work.

  'You take him down?' Byrne asked.

  'Guy hit the Sheraton Society Hill in March, moved over to the Hyatt Penn's Landing in May. We had him on tape, but he was slick - ball caps, glasses, packing his waist to look heavier. Wore a suit one time, sweats and sneaks the next. We got him, though.'

  They kicked the cop talk around for a while, until Shepherd moved his stool closer and lowered his voice. 'Now, I know how magnetic and incredibly charming I am, but I think y'all are here for another reason.'

  Byrne took a moment. 'There's a convention here. We think we might have a connection to a case we're working.'

  Shepherd nodded. 'The serial?'

  'Yeah.'

  'Lay it out.'

  Byrne told Shepherd the details.

  'And his name is George Archer?' Shepherd asked.

  'Yeah.'

  'Hang on.'

  Shepherd left the bar, returned a few minutes later. 'No one registered here under that name. Maybe he's staying somewhere else. Do you have a description on the guy?'

  'Not yet,' Byrne said. 'We have a request in to the state police. But they may not even have a picture. The guy was questioned, but he was never arrested or charged.'

  Shepherd nodded. He'd been right where Jessica and Byrne were.

  'Can you reach out to some of the other hotels, see if they have a George Archer?' Byrne asked.

  'No problem. I'll make a few calls.' Shepherd pointed to the other side of the lobby. 'They're setting up in the Crystal Room right now. It's going to be a big deal tonight, even bigger tomorrow.'

  'Do you
have cameras in there?'

  John Shepherd chuckled. 'Is the pope .. . what is the pope now, by the way?'

  'German.'

  'Doesn't sound as good as Polish, does it?'

  'No.'

  'We have cameras,' Shepherd said. 'Come on.'

  From the outside, the Loss Prevention office at Le Jardin looked like any other room in the hotel. Unremarkable door, heavy-duty key lock. In the center of the hallway outside, which itself was off-limits to hotel guests, was a smoked-glass dome cam.

  Inside was a small outer office, which led, through another secure door, to a larger room in which two people were working.

  Shepherd spoke to a young woman at one of the desks, wrote something on the pad. While he was showing Jessica and Byrne the surveillance capabilities of the hotel, she would be putting in calls to the security directors of the surrounding hotels, looking for a guest named George Archer.

  In front of them were two thirty-inch high-definition monitors, each divided into six windows. According to Shepherd, one operator kept an eye on them at all times, two people per eight-hour shift, rotating every two hours.

  Jessica scanned the monitors. The one on the right had six windows up that showed the huge atrium, viewed from the mezzanine level. A dozen people or so had congregated near the center of the room. A man and a woman, middle-aged, stood at the front desk. An elderly woman chatted with the concierge. A few seconds later the view shifted to the parking lot and front entrance. A limo idled at the front door as a pair of young bellmen pulled a number of large suitcases from the trunk. Another bellman leaned into the passenger window of a waiting cab.

  The software rotated the windows, floor after floor, with a view of the elevators constantly in the upper right-hand section of the screen.

  Shepherd sat down, clicked a few keys, and more than sixty small windows lined up on the two monitors. 'We've got two dome cams in every hall, clock cams in all the personnel spaces, half-zone weatherproof bullet cams in the parking lot, and four state-of-the-art 360-degree pan-and-tilt domes in the atrium and lobby, watching the desk and the money room. Not too much goes on here that we don't see.'