The Killing Room jbakb-6

by Richard Montanari

‘Oh, my goodness,’ Bontrager said.

  For Josh, this was the equivalent of a profane tirade by any other cop in the city. Maybe the world.

  ‘Any witnesses?’ Maria asked.

  ‘Just starting the canvass,’ Jessica said.

  Maria took out her notebook and pen. ‘What time did that call come in?’

  ‘Had to be eight-fifteen or so,’ Jessica said.

  Maria wrote it down.

  ‘What did the caller say again?’ Bontrager asked.

  Jessica repeated the phone call verbatim.

  ‘That’s what the caller said?’ Bontrager asked. ‘One God, seven churches?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jessica said. ‘Mean anything to you?’

  Bontrager thought for a few moments. Considering his childhood and background, Josh Bontrager was kind of the go-to guy around the unit when it came to all things Christian and Biblical. ‘Not off the top. Let me think about it.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Bontrager pointed over his shoulder. ‘We’ll head up Cumberland.’

  Jessica nodded. She and Byrne would work Amber Street.

  Josh Bontrager stepped out of the way to let Maria Caruso go ahead of him. Part of the reason, Jessica surmised, was that Bontrager was by nature a gentleman. The other reason was that Detective Maria Caruso was given to wearing tight slacks and fitted jackets, as she was today. Josh Bontrager was single and unattached. Amish or not, he had to enjoy the view.

  An hour later the four detectives met back in front of the crime scene building, no wiser for their efforts. As expected, mass amnesia. No one had seen or heard anything.

  Bontrager pointed to the PPD camera on the corner. ‘We’re gonna head back to the house, check the footage.’

  Jessica held up her cell phone. ‘Keep me posted.’

  *

  As Byrne prepared to leave for the Roundhouse to begin the paperwork, Jessica waved him over. She was standing by a lamppost directly in front of the crime-scene building.

  ‘What is it?’ Byrne asked.

  Jessica pointed to the lamppost. There was a symbol in the shape of an X painted on it at about eye level for Jessica. Byrne looked closely. It was not spray-painted graffiti. It was dark umber in color. Byrne glanced at Jessica, then got the attention of a CSU officer. The crime scene had just gotten larger. The X looked like it might have been drawn in blood.

  Byrne pointed to the side door of the building. ‘I think I’m going to walk it again.’

  Jessica knew what he meant. As good as they were as a team, she had long ago learned to give her partner time and space on a new homicide. Kevin Byrne had his own methods.

  Due to the amount of blood and other bodily fluids, when they wheeled out the body, the paramedics did not zip the victim into a body bag, for fear that it might compromise crucial scientific evidence. A crowd had formed across the street, and at the sight of this savaged man on the gurney, many turned away.

  With Byrne inside the crime-scene building, Jessica scanned the small, milling crowd. There were twenty or so people gathered, shivering in the cold. The show was just too good, it seemed, for them to worry about frostbite or pneumonia. The gathering was a mix of neighborhood residents, mostly grandmothers and children too young for school. Jessica noticed a woman across the street, seemingly mesmerized by the pageant in front of her. The woman was in her thirties, well-dressed. She caught Jessica’s eye, and immediately made her way around the corner.

  Jessica followed.

  Jessica caught up to the woman about a half-block away, got her attention. She was about to get into her car.

  ‘Is there something you wanted to say, ma’am?’ Jessica asked.

  The woman looked at the ground for a few moments, closed her car door. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. Although she was probably not yet forty, her hair was a beautiful, shimmering silver, blunt cut, down to her shoulders. The look was quite striking, Jessica thought.

  ‘Can I get your name?’ she asked.

  The woman glanced up, resigned. She was going on the record. ‘Mara,’ she said. ‘Mara Reuben.’

  ‘Do you live in the neighborhood?’

  ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘God, no. That’s my mother’s house. I’ve been trying to get her to move for fifteen years, but she won’t have it.’

  ‘Is your mother home right now?’

  ‘No. She’s in the hospital. I stop by here twice a day to pick up the mail, get the flyers and newspapers off the stoop, check on things. Her house has been broken into twice in just this past month, and I figured that a build-up of stuff by the front door is a sure tip-off that no one is home.’

  Jessica studied the woman. She had long ago learned that you can tell a lot about a person by their grooming habits and clothing. Many times, with women, their accessories told you the most. This woman wore a stylish pair of drop earrings, a tennis bracelet, a single sapphire ring, third finger right hand.

  ‘Can I ask what happened over there?’ she asked.

  ‘Right now it looks like there was a homicide in that building,’ Jessica said.

  The woman covered her mouth. ‘That’s terrible.’

  ‘Ma’am, if you think you saw something, no matter how insignificant, it might be very helpful. Everything you tell me will be confidential.’

  The woman took a few seconds. ‘Okay. Well. In that case, maybe I do have something you might find useful.’

  Jessica flipped to a fresh page in her notebook.

  ‘I came down here last night, around ten o’clock, just to check on things,’ the woman said. ‘I picked up the newspaper, unlocked the door — there are three dead bolts, so it takes awhile — then stepped inside. I did a quick check of the windows and the back door, and around ten minutes later I was ready to leave. I stepped out and accidentally dropped my keys next to the steps, and had to walk around. As I was picking them up, I thought I heard someone talking across the street.’

  ‘You heard a conversation?’

  ‘No, not really a conversation. I saw a man standing over there. In front of that closed-up building.’

  ‘A man,’ Jessica said. ‘One man.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And he was talking?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘To whom?’

  ‘Well, to himself, I guess.’

  ‘Was he on a cell phone?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I mean, he didn’t have a phone up to his ear. He might have had on one of those earphone headset thingies, but I didn’t see it.’

  ‘Did you get a good look at him?’

  ‘Not really,’ the woman said. ‘I couldn’t see too clearly. It was dark.’

  ‘And this was about ten after ten last night?’

  ‘Yes. I’m usually down here every night at that time. Just to check on things.’

  ‘Can you describe anything about the man you saw?’

  ‘Well, like I said, it was dark, but I’m pretty sure he was wearing a long black coat, and he had on a hood.’

  ‘A hood?’ Jessica asked. ‘Like a hoodie? A hooded sweatshirt?’

  ‘No, more like a pointed hood.’

  Jessica wrote down: pointed hood?

  ‘About how tall was he?’ she asked.

  ‘Not sure. On the tall side though.’

  ‘By tall side, what do you mean?’

  ‘I saw you talking to that man in front of the building. How tall is he?’

  ‘About six-three,’ Jessica replied.

  ‘Maybe six feet then. Perhaps a little less.’

  ‘Do you recall what he was doing?’

  The woman shrugged. ‘He wasn’t doing anything, really. Just standing there talking to himself.’

  Jessica glanced down the street. There was no bus stop. Whatever the man was doing, he wasn’t waiting for SEPTA.

  ‘Can you characterize the sound of his voice?’ Jessica asked.

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

  ‘Was he whispering, shouting, mumbling?’

  ‘He wasn’
t shouting, that’s for sure. It sounded more like — this is going to sound weird.’

  Jessica just waited.

  ‘It sounded more like a prayer. Like an old chant or something.’

  ‘A chant?’

  Mara Reuben closed her eyes for a moment, as if she were listening to the sound, as if reliving the moment. ‘Yes. It had that rhythm, you know? Like in the old Latin mass. Are you Catholic?’

  ‘I was raised Roman Catholic, yes.’

  ‘It sounded like it might have been Latin he was speaking,’ she continued. ‘I can’t be certain, though.’

  ‘Are you sure he came out of that building?’

  ‘Well, I was until you asked me that. I couldn’t swear to it. Sorry.’

  ‘That’s okay. We want you to be sure. Is there anything else you can remember?’

  ‘No,’ the woman said. ‘Nothing I can think of right now. To be honest, I didn’t think anything of it at the time. You know better than I do that Philly has its share of characters. I just locked the locks, got in my car, and drove away.’

  ‘Okay. This has been very helpful. If you — ’

  The woman held up a finger. ‘Wait. I do remember something else. When I drove away I looked in the rearview mirror, and it looked like he was touching the post. I do remember that.’

  ‘The lamppost in front of the building?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Jessica made a note to expedite the lab test on the substance they found on the lamppost, as well as the latent prints, if any. This woman might have seen the man painting the X on it.

  ‘And you say you’re down here every night at ten?’ Jessica asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘May I ask what brought you back down here this morning?’

  ‘Well, like I said, I’m pretty paranoid, my mother having had two break-ins this month. I was just going to drive by, then I saw all the police cars and I freaked.’

  ‘That’s understandable.’ Jessica handed the woman a card. ‘If you think of anything else, no matter how trivial it might seem, please call me.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘And if it’s any consolation,’ Jessica added, ‘your mother’s house should be okay for the next few days. There are going to be police all over the place around here for awhile.’

  The woman offered a faint smile. ‘Yeah, well, I’m still going to use this to get her to move in with me.’

  There was no response to this. There were good areas and bad areas of the city. Jessica had investigated homicides in penthouses and flophouses. Nowhere was safe from violence.

  Ten minutes later Jessica stood on the corner, across from the crime scene. She tried to imagine the street when it was empty, as it had been at ten o’clock the previous night. She tried to imagine a man standing there, clad in a long black coat and a pointed hood, speaking aloud.

  In Latin.

  She glanced at the police pole camera on the corner. If they were going to get lucky on this one — and, considering how they’d struck out completely on the neighborhood interviews, they were going to need luck — the camera would be operational, and they would have an image.

  SEVEN

  Byrne knew the moment he walked into the building. The feeling settled first on the surface of his skin, a damp sensation of dread that seemed to bleed from these walls, stone that had stood witness to a hundred years of secrets, and before that the history of the land from which it had been quarried. Byrne all but heard the hooves on wet sod, the fading heartbeats of the fallen.

  Here, in this place where the stone had long ago been keyed and weighted, this place where murder was done, the walls protected its ghosts.

  The Boy in the Red Coat.

  Byrne had not thought of the boy in many months, a long time considering his history with the case. The Boy in the Red Coat was one of the more famous, and lurid, unsolved crimes in Philadelphia’s history. Byrne had gotten a call from the pastor of St Gedeon’s, the South Philadelphia church of his youth. When he arrived the church was empty save for a dead boy in the last pew, a child clad in a bright red jacket.

  Byrne secured the scene, waited for the divisional detectives. That was where and when his official involvement with the case ended. In the years since, many detectives, including Byrne himself, had looked at the files, tried to track down fresh leads. The case remained open. But Byrne had never forgotten the sensation of walking into that huge, empty cathedral that day, seeing the dead child.

  It was the same feeling he had walking into the dank basement on this day, seeing the young man so barbarously wired to the chair, his body bathed in scarlet.

  In his time as a homicide detective Byrne had borne witness to every imaginable violence, every conceivable way for one human to cause the death of another. Since he’d had his own near-fatal experience many years earlier — an incident where he was pronounced dead, only to come back to life a full minute later — he had been both blessed and cursed with this vision, this sight. It wasn’t as if he could see into the future, or the past, or had any sixth sense that made him special. He felt special by no means. It was, instead, more of a sense of presence, a sense of being, an incarnation of the men and women who had occupied these rooms before him. Many times he walked into a crime scene, a place fresh from the murderer’s touch, and felt as if he walked in the killer’s skin for a fleeting instant. It was an ugly, sickening sensation, to feel even for a moment a soul devoid of compassion, a heart bereft of sorrow.

  Many times, late into a night of bad dreams, Byrne had wished this ability would go away. Just as often he wished it would develop, becoming more clear and profound, something he could channel. It never happened. It had always been — and, he suspected, would always be — something that came and went. Something that had its own power and agenda.

  Ever since the visions began Byrne believed he would one day walk onto a scene and know that it was the beginning of the end, that he was about to engage in a great battle, a stand between good and evil.

  This was that day. He didn’t know how he knew it, but he knew it.

  It was finally happening.

  In the vestibule of the old building was a narrow door to the left, slightly ajar, its hinges rusted, its jambs out of square. Byrne shouldered the door. It opened just enough for him to squeeze through.

  He mounted the winding stone staircase to the bell tower. When he made it to the top he stepped inside. The bell itself was long gone; the two small windows were covered with thin slats of wood lath.

  Byrne pulled a few of the slats free. The parched wood came loose with very little effort. The gray light coming through the opening gave him a better view from the landing.

  He closed his eyes, felt the feeling wash over him, the knowledge that -

  — this evil has just awakened and the mother and child mother and child mother and child the -

  — mother and child.

  Byrne opened his eyes, looked out the window. He saw Jessica on the street, talking to one of the CSU officers. Next to Jessica stood Maria Caruso and Josh Bontrager. Behind them stood thirty or so people gathered to bear witness to what had happened today, many of them women -

  — having given birth to a child who would one day grow to be a man who would expiate the sins of his father by becoming his own father, a man who would walk the dark corners of the night and -

  — do murder.

  Byrne thought of Jessica, of her daughter and newly adopted son. He thought of his ex-wife Donna and their daughter Colleen. He thought of Colleen, who would one day soon find love and have a child of her own. He thought about Tanya Wilkins and her sons Gabriel and Terrell. He thought of all the women who hoped for the best for their sons and daughters. He thought of that day long ago when he walked into a church and saw the small figure in the back pew, that blood red coat, the smell of death, a scent he would forever carry in his soul.

  Mother and child, Kevin Byrne thought.

  Mother and child.

  EIGHT


  By the time they returned to the Roundhouse the victim had been transported to the morgue. There he would be fingerprinted, which was protocol for a John Doe. Prints were rarely, if ever, lifted at the scene. Once the prints were taken they would be sent to the latent print section, where they would be run through IAFIS, the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, a program run and maintained by the FBI. If the victim had ever been arrested, or worked for a government agency, his prints would be on file.

  While Jessica waited she did the initial paperwork, including filling out the body chart, the standard Police Department form that had four outlines of the human body drawn on it, front and back, left and right side. It also had space for the fundamental details of the crime scene. Whenever someone came onto an existing case, this was the first document they consulted.

  But this body chart was a bit more difficult than usual. It was not easy to diagram the wounds on the body. The fatal wound — the laceration that had probably been responsible for the victim bleeding out — was the one barb that looked to have been specifically sharpened for that purpose. They would know a lot more about that when the victim was autopsied the next morning.

  While all this was pending Jessica called a friend of hers at L amp; I. The Licenses and Inspections Department was the agency dedicated to, among other things, enforcement and regulation of the city’s code requirements regarding public safety, including building, plumbing, electrical, mechanical, fire, property maintenance, business, and zoning regulations.

  After being on hold for more than five minutes she hung up, deciding to just go there and get what she needed. She crossed the duty room to where Byrne sat at a terminal, running the names of some of the witnesses they had spoken to.

  ‘I’m going to run over to L amp; I and get a history on that building,’ Jessica said.

  In a city like Philadelphia, with a 300-year history, there was always a battle being fought between progress and preservation. The crime-scene building from that morning had easily been more than a hundred years old. There was nothing particularly interesting or attractive about it, and it clearly had been used for a number of purposes over the years. A visit to the zoning archives would give them a handle on who, if anyone, owned the building now, and what it had been used for in the past.