Rosary girls jbakb-1

by Richard Montanari

  Softly came forth the scratchy voice of Dean Martin crooning "Come Back to Sorrento" on vinyl. Always on vinyl. The technology of CDs had not yet moved into the mansion of her memories.

  "Mom?" Jessica said.

  "No, honey," Peter Giovanni said. Her father's voice was different. Older somehow.

  "Dad?"

  "I'm here, baby."

  A wave of relief washed over her. Her father was there, and everything was going to be fine. Wasn't it? He's a police officer, you know. She opened her eyes. She felt weak, fully spent. She was in a hospital room but, as far as she could tell, she was not hooked to machines, nor an IV drip. Memory plodded back. She remembered the roar of the gunfire in the confines of her basement. It did not appear that she had been shot.

  Her father stood at the foot of the bed. Behind him stood her cousin Angela. She turned her head to the right to see John Shepherd and Nick Palladino.

  "Sophie," Jessica said.

  The silence that followed exploded her heart into a million pieces, each one a burning comet of fear. She looked from face to face, slowly, dizzyingly. Eyes. She needed to see their eyes. In hospitals, people say things all the time; usually the things that people wanted to hear.

  There's a good chance that…

  With proper therapy and medication…

  He's the best in his field…

  If she could just see her father's eyes, she would know.

  "Sophie's fine," her father said.

  His eyes did not lie.

  "Vincent's down in the cafeteria with her."

  She closed her eyes, the tears now flowing freely. She could survive whatever news came her way. Bring it on.

  Her throat was raw and dry. "Chase," she managed.

  The two detectives looked at her, at each other.

  "What happened… to Chase?" she repeated.

  "He's here. In ICU. In custody," Shepherd said. "He was in surgery for four hours. The bad news is, he's going to make it. The good news is, he's going to stand trial, and we have all the evidence we need. His house was a petri dish."

  Jessica closed her eyes for a moment, absorbing the news. Were Andrew Chase's eyes really burgundy? She had a feeling they would be in her nightmares.

  "Your friend Patrick didn't make it, though," Shepherd said. "I'm sorry."

  The insanity of that night seeped into her consciousness slowly. She had actually suspected Patrick of these crimes. Maybe, if she had believed him, he wouldn't have come to her house that night. And that meant he would still be alive.

  An overwhelming sorrow ignited deep within her.

  Angela picked up the plastic tumbler of ice water, brought the straw to Jessica's lips. Angie's eyes were red and puffy. She smoothed Jessica's hair, kissed her on the forehead.

  "How did I get here?" Jessica asked.

  "Your friend Paula," Angela said. "She came over to see if your power had come back on. The back door was wide open. She went downstairs and she… she saw everything."Angela teared up.

  And then Jessica remembered. She almost could not bring herself to say the name. The very real possibility that he had traded his life for hers tore at her from the inside, a hungry beast fighting to get out. And, in this big, sterile building, there would be neither pill nor procedure that could ever heal that wound.

  "What about Kevin?" she asked.

  Shepherd looked at the floor, then at Nick Palladino.

  When they looked back at Jessica, their eyes were grim.

  82

  CHASE ENTERS PLEA, RECEIVES LIFE SENTENCE

  by Eleanor Marcus-DeChant, The Report Staff Writer

  Andrew Todd Chase, the so-called Rosary Killer, pleaded guilty Thursday to eight counts of first-degree murder, bringing to a close one of the bloodiest crime sprees in the history of Philadelphia. He was immediately remanded to the State Correctional Institution in Greene County, Pennsylvania.

  In a plea agreement with the Philadelphia District Attorney's office, the 32-year-old Chase pleaded guilty to the murders of Nicole T. Taylor, 17; Tessa A. Wells, 17; Bethany R. Price, 15; Kristi A. Hamilton, 16; Patrick M. Farrell, 36; Brian A. Parkhurst, 35; Wilhelm Kreuz, 42; and Simon E. Close, 33, all of Philadelphia. Mr. Close was a staff reporter at this paper.

  In exchange for the plea, numerous other counts, including kidnapping, aggravated assault, and attempted murder, were dropped, along with the death penalty provision. Chase was sentenced by Municipal Court Judge Liam McManus to a life sentence, without the possibility of parole.

  Chase remained silent and impassive at the hearing, during which he was represented by Benjamin W. Priest, a public defender.

  Priest said that, considering the horrific nature of the crimes, and the overwhelming evidence against his client, the agreement was the best thing for Chase, a paramedic with the Glenwood Ambulance Group.

  "Mr. Chase will now be able to receive the treatment he so desperately needs."

  Investigators revealed that Chase's wife Katherine, 30, was recently committed to the Ranch House Mental Health Facility at Norristown. They believe that this event may have triggered the spree.

  Chase's so-called signature included leaving a rosary at the scene of each crime, as well as the mutilation of the female victims' hands.

  83

  MAY 16, 7:55 AM

  There is a principle in sales, that being the Rule of250. They say that, in one's lifetime, one becomes acquainted with around 250 people. Make one customer happy, and that just may lead to 250 sales.

  The same might be said for hatred.

  Make one enemy…

  It is for this reason, and, perhaps, many others, that I am segregated from the general population here.

  At just before eight I hear them coming. I am brought to the small exercise yard for thirty minutes each day, right around this time.

  The officer arrives at my cell. He reaches through the bars and shackles my hands. He is not my usual guard. I have never seen him before.

  The guard is not a big man, but he looks to be in great physical shape. He is about my size, my height. I might have known he would be unremarkable in every way but his resolve. In this, we are surely kin.

  He calls for an open cell. My door slides, I exit.

  Hail Mary, full of grace…

  We walk down the corridor. The sound of my chains echoes off the dead walls, steel conversing with steel.

  Blessed art thou amongst women…

  Every step resonates with a name. Nicole. Tessa. Bethany. Kristi.

  And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus…

  The pills I take for pain barely mask the agony. They bring them one at a time to my cell, three times a day. I would have taken them all today if I could have.

  Holy Mary, mother of God…

  This day trembled to life just a few hours ago, a day with which I have been on a collision course for a very long time.

  Pray for us sinners…

  I stand at the top of the steep iron stairs as Christ stood on Calvary. My cold, gray, solitary Golgotha.

  Now…

  I feel the hand at the center of my back.

  And at the hour of our death…

  I close my eyes.

  I feel the push.

  Amen.

  84

  MAY 18, 1:55 PM

  Jessica rode to West Philly with John Shepherd. They had been partners for two weeks, and were en route to interview a witness to a double homicide that left the owners of a variety store in South Philly shot, execution style, and dumped in the cellar beneath their store.

  The sun was warm and high. The city was finally throwing off the shackles of early spring and embracing the day-windows open, convertible tops down, fruit vendors open for business.

  Dr. Summers's final report on Andrew Chase held a number of interesting findings, not the least of which was the fact that workers at the St. Dominic Cemetery reported that a grave had been dug up on the Wednesday of that week, a plot owned by Andrew Chase. Nothing was re
moved from the ground-the small casket remained untouched-but Dr. Summers believed that Andrew Chase truly expected the resurrection of his stillborn daughter on Easter Sunday. She theorized that the motivation behind his madness was to offer the lives of five girls as sacrifice to bring his daughter back from the dead. In his twisted reasoning, the five girls he chose had already attempted suicide, had already welcomed death into their lives.

  About a year before he killed Tessa, as part of his job, Chase had transported a body from the row house right next to the Tessa Wells crime scene on North Eighth. It was then that he had most likely seen the pillar in the basement.

  As Shepherd parked on Bainbridge Street, Jessica's phone rang. It was Nick Palladino.

  "What's up, Nick?" she asked.

  "Hear the news?"

  God, she hated conversations that began with that question. She was fairly sure she hadn't heard any news that would warrant a phone call. "No," Jessica said. "But give it to me gently, Nick. I haven't had lunch yet."

  "Andrew Chase is dead."

  At first, the words seemed to carom around in her mind a bit, the way unexpected news, good and bad, tends to do. When Judge McManus had sentenced Chase to life, Jessica had assumed that life would be forty or more years, decades to reflect on the pain and suffering he had inflicted.

  Not weeks.

  According to Nick, details surrounding Chase's death were a little sketchy, but Nick heard that Chase had fallen down a long flight of steel steps and had broken his neck.

  "A broken neck?" Jessica asked, trying to keep the irony from her voice.

  Nick read it. "I know," he said. "Karma's a bitch with a bazooka, sometimes, eh?"

  That she is, Jessica thought.

  That she is.

  Frank Wells stood in the doorway to his row house, waiting. He looked small and brittle and terribly pale. He wore the same clothes he'd had on the last time she'd seen him, but now he seemed even more lost in them than he had before.

  Tessa's angel pendant had been found in Andrew Chase's bedroom dresser and had just cleared the miles of red tape attendant in capital cases such as this. Before she got out of the car, Jessica slipped it out of the evidence bag and into her pocket. She checked her face in the rearview, not so much to see if she looked okay, but rather to make sure she had not been crying.

  She had to be strong here one final time. "Is there anything I can do for you?" Wells asked.

  Jessica wanted to say: What you can do for me is get better. But she knew it wasn't going to happen. "No, sir," she said.

  He had asked her in, but she had declined. They stood on the steps. Above them, the sun warmed the corrugated-aluminum awning. Since she had been here last, she noticed Wells had put a small flower box beneath the window on the second floor. Bright yellow pansies grew toward Tessa's room.

  Frank Wells had taken the news of Andrew Chase's death the way he had taken the news of Tessa's death-stoic, impenetrable. He had simply nodded.

  When she had given him the angel pendant back, she thought she might have seen a brief flourish of emotion. She had turned to look up the street, as if she were waiting for a ride, giving the man his moment of privacy.

  Wells looked down at his hands. He held out the angel pendant.

  "I want you to have this," he said.

  "I… I can't take it, sir. I know how much it means to you."

  "Please," he said. He put the pendant in her hand, wrapped his hand around hers. His skin felt like warm tracing paper. "Tessa would want you to have it. She was like you in many ways."

  Jessica opened her hand. She looked at the inscription engraved on the back. Behold, I send an angel before you, to guard you on the way.

  Jessica leaned forward. She kissed Frank Wells on his cheek.

  She tried to keep her emotions in check as she headed to her car. As she neared the curb, she saw a man exiting a black Saturn, parked a few cars behind her on Twentieth Street. He was about twenty-five, medium height, slender, but toned. He had thinning dark brown hair, along with a trimmed mustache. He wore mirrored aviators and a tan uniform. He headed towards the Wells house.

  Jessica placed him. Jason Wells, Tessa's brother. She recognized him from the photo on the living room wall.

  "Mr. Wells," Jessica said. "I'm Jessica Balzano."

  "Yes, of course," Jason said.

  They shook hands.

  "I'm very sorry for your loss," Jessica said.

  "Thank you," Jason said. "I miss her every day. Tessa was my light."

  Jessica couldn't see his eyes, but she didn't have to. Jason Wells was a young man in pain.

  "My father has a great deal of respect for you and your partner," Jason continued. "We're both very grateful for all you've done."

  Jessica nodded, not knowing what to say. "I hope you and your dad can find comfort."

  "Thank you," Jason said. "How is your partner doing?"

  "He's hanging in there," Jessica said, wanting to believe it.

  "I'd like to stop in and see him sometime, if you think that would be okay."

  "Sure," Jessica replied, although she knew that the visit would not be acknowledged in any way. She looked at her watch, hoping it didn't appear as clumsy as it felt. "Well, I've got a few errands. It was nice to meet you."

  "Same here," Jason said. "Take care."

  Jessica walked to her car, got in. She thought about the rebuilding process that would now begin in the life of Frank and Jason Wells, along with the families of all of Andrew Chase's victims.

  As she started the car, it hit her. She remembered where she had seen the crest before, the crest she had first noticed in the photograph of Frank and Jason Wells on the living room wall, the crest on the black wind- breaker the younger man wore. It was the same crest she had just seen on the patch sewn onto the sleeve of Jason Wells's uniform.

  Did Tessa have any brothers or sisters?

  One brother,Jason. He's much older. He lives in Waynesburg.

  SCI Greene was in Waynesburg.

  Jason Wells was a corrections officer at SCI Greene.

  Jessica glanced at the front door to the Wells house. Jason and his father stood in the doorway. They held each other.

  Jessica took out her cell phone, held it in her hand. She knew that the Greene County sheriff's office would be very interested in learning that the older brother of one of Andrew Chase's victims worked at the facility where Chase was found dead.

  Very interested indeed.

  She looked one last time at the Wells house, her finger poised to make the call. Frank Wells watched her with his damp, ancient eyes. He lifted a thin hand to wave. Jessica waved back.

  For the first time since she had met him, the look on the older man's face was not one of grief or apprehension, or sadness. Instead, the look on his face was one of tranquility, she thought, of resolution, of an almost preternatural serenity.

  Jessica understood.

  As she pulled away, and dropped the cell phone back into her purse, she looked into the rearview mirror and saw Frank Wells framed in his doorway. It was how she would always remember him. For that brief moment, Jessica thought that Frank Wells was finally at peace.

  And if you were someone who believed in such things, so was Tessa.

  Jessica believed.

  EPILOGUE

  MAY 31, 11:05 AM

  Memorial Day brought a punishing sun to the Delaware Valley. The sky was clear and azure blue; the cars that lined the streets around Holy Cross Cemetery were polished and tuned for summer. Hard gold sunlight glinted off the windshields.

  The men were dressed in bright polo shirts and khakis; the grandfathers wore suits. The women wore spaghetti strap sundresses and JCPenney espadrilles in a rainbow of pastels.

  Jessica knelt and put the flowers at her brother Michael's grave. She planted the small flag near the headstone. She looked across the expanse of the cemetery; saw other families planting their flags. Some of the older men saluted. Wheelchairs gleamed, their occupants de
ep in private remembrance. As always on this day, across the shimmering breadth of green, families of fallen servicemen and servicewomen would find each other, their eyes meeting in understanding, in shared sorrow.

  In a few minutes Jessica would join her father at her mother's stone, and they would file silently back to the car. This is how they did things in her family. They grieved separately.

  She turned and looked at the road.

  Vincent leaned against the Cherokee. He was not good at grave sites, and that was okay. They had not worked it all out, they might never, but for the last few weeks he had seemed like a new man.

  Jessica said a silent prayer and made her way through the headstones.

  "How's he doing?" Vincent asked. They both glanced over at Peter, his broad shoulders still powerful at sixty-two.

  "He's a rock," Jessica said.

  Vincent reached out, took Jessica's hand softly in his. "How are we doing?"

  Jessica looked at her husband. She saw a man in sorrow, a man laboring beneath the yoke of failure-failure to honor his marriage vows, failure to protect his wife and daughter. A crazy man had come into Vincent Balzano's house, threatened his family, and he had not been there. This was a special corner of hell for police officers.

  "I don't know," she said. "I'm glad you're here, though."

  Vincent smiled, held on to her hand. Jessica didn't pull away.

  They had agreed to attend marriage counseling; their first session was in just a few days. Jessica wasn't ready to share her bed, or her life, with Vincent again just yet, but it was a first step. If they were meant to weather these storms, they would.

  Sophie had picked some flowers at the house and was methodically distributing them on the grave sites. Because she hadn't gotten to wear the lemon-yellow Easter dress they had bought at Lord amp; Taylor's on the day itself, she seemed determined to wear it every Sunday and holiday until it was too small. Hopefully, that was a long way off.

  As Peter began to make his way to the car, a squirrel darted out from behind a headstone. Sophie giggled and gave chase, her yellow frock and chestnut curls radiant in the springtime sun.