Jessica tried to listen closely but the only sound she could hear was the conversation flying over her head. She knew that Byrne took cryptic but detailed notes. She hoped he was getting all this. She was completely lost when it came to classical music. Whenever someone mentioned The Barber of Seville she thought of Bugs Bunny.
'Are there any symphonic poems, program music, that involve the use of animal imagery?'
'My goodness. Many.'
'Specifically a lion, a rooster, a swan, or a fish?'
'Perhaps the most famous of all. Carnival of the Animals,' Duchesne said without a moment's hesitation. 'It is a musical suite of fourteen movements. Much beloved.'
'The movements are all about animals?'
'Not all,' Duchesne said.
'Who was the composer?' Byrne asked.
'Carnival of the Animals was written by a great proponent of the tone poem. A French Romantic composer named Camille Saint-Saens.'
'Do you have information on this that you might let us borrow?' Byrne asked.
'Of course,' Duchesne said. 'It will take me a little while to collate all of it. Do you want to wait?'
'Can you fax it to us as soon as you have it all together?'
'Sure,' Duchesne said. 'I'll get right on it.'
Jessica and Byrne rose. 'We really appreciate this,' Byrne said, handing the man a business card.
'Not at all,' Duchesne replied. He walked them to the door of his office, through the reception area, to the front doors.
'Were you here when Christa-Marie Schцnburg studied here?' Byrne asked.
'No,' Duchesne said. 'I've been here for almost twenty years, but she had left by then.'
'Did she teach here?'
'She did. It was only for two years or so, but she was quite something, as I understand. The students were madly in love with her.'
They descended the steps, reached the side door of Prentiss.
'Perhaps this is something you are not at liberty to discuss, but does any of this have something to do with Ms. Schцnburg?' Duchesne asked.
'No,' Byrne said, the consummate liar. 'I'm just a fan.'
Duchesne glanced over at the wall. Jessica followed his gaze. There, next to the door, mixed into a precise grouping of portraits of young musicians — violinists, pianists, flutists, oboists — was an expensively framed photograph of a young Christa-Marie Schцnburg sitting in a practice room at Prentiss.
On the way to the van — parked just off Locust Street on a narrow lane called Mozart Place — they walked in silence.
'You saw it, didn't you?' Jessica finally asked.
'Oh yeah.'
'Same one?'
'Same one.'
In the decades-old photograph of Christa-Marie next to the door she wore a stainless steel bracelet with a large garnet stone inlaid.
They had seen the same bracelet on the shelf at Joseph Novak's apartment.
Chapter 60
The Audio-Visual Unit of the PPD was located in the Roundhouse basement. The purview of the unit was to provide A/V support to all of the city's agencies — cameras, TVs, recording devices, audio and video equipment. The unit was also responsible for recording every public event in which the mayor or police department was involved, providing an official record. The detective divisions relied upon the unit to analyze surveillance footage as it related to their cases.
In this regard there was no one better than Mateo Fuentes. In his mid-thirties, Fuentes was a denizen of the gloomy confines of the basement studios and editing bays, a fussy and geometrically precise investigator who seemed to take every foray by detectives into his world as an unwelcome invasion.
Recently promoted to sergeant, Mateo was now commander of the unit. What had passed for punctiliousness when he was Officer Fuentes now bordered on the obsessive.
When Jessica and Byrne arrived in the basement, Mateo Fuentes was holding court in one of the bays off the main studio, chatting with David Albrecht.
'So, you prefer the L-series lens, then?' Mateo asked.
'Oh yeah,' Albrecht said. 'No comparison.'
'No ghosting?'
'None.'
Mateo smirked. 'So, if I mortgage my house and sell all my possessions, I might be able to buy a rig like this?'
'You might be able to rent one.'
Both men looked over at Jessica and Byrne. Albrecht smiled. Mateo frowned. It appeared that the two detectives were harshing his vibe. A few minutes later the rest of the team arrived — six detectives in all, plus Sergeant Dana Westbrook.
Mateo was outnumbered.
'And so to business,' Fuentes said. 'Ready?'
The detectives gathered around David Albrecht's camera. The LCD screen was about four inches diagonally, but Mateo had hooked it up to one of the fifteen-inch monitors from the Comm Unit.
Mateo fast-forwarded through footage of the West Philly location until he came to the sequence showing the parking lot where Jessica had been assaulted.
The video showed Jessica walking out of the diner and into the parking lot. Ordinarily this would have been a moment for hoots and hollers, for a bout of good-natured ribbing. Everyone was silent. They knew what was coming.
On the screen Jessica made a call on her cellphone, then pocketed the phone. She leaned against the wall of the building, and opened the diary. She pulled something out of the back. This went on for a full minute. Cars passed in the foreground. A mother walking with her three small children stopped in front of the lot. The woman adjusted the jacket on a two-year-old girl, who wanted nothing to do with it. They soon moved on. Jessica continued to read.
A few moments later Thompson emerged from behind the building. It showed him sucker-punching Jessica, the diary flying from her hand. Two loose pieces of paper lofted on the wind. Everyone watching winced. The second blow took Jessica down. Thompson paced for a few moments, strutting. The audio was from across the street, just the sound of traffic. His words were unintelligible, but his gestures were not.
'There,' Albrecht said. He hit a button on the small remote in his hand. The video froze. Albrecht pointed to the right side of the screen. There, just beyond the corner of the building, was a shadow on the ground, the unmistakable shadow of a person. Albrecht restarted the video. Thompson stood over Jessica's body, but all eyes were on the shadow. The shadow didn't move.
He's watching, Jessica thought. He's just standing there watching what's happening. He's not helping me. He's part of this.
When Thompson got close to the corner of the building a pair of arms reached out, over his head. A second later the arms descended and Thompson all but disappeared, dragged off his feet with enormous force.
Albrecht rewound the video, played it again, this time frame by frame. The arms were dark-clad. The subject wore dark gloves. When the hands were over Thompson's head Albrecht froze the video. Silhouetted against the white of the garage behind the building, it was possible to see what the man in shadows had in his hands. It was a wire. A long loop of thin wire. He slipped the wire over Thompson's head and around his neck, yanking back and pulling Thompson from the frame.
The screen went black.
'I want a copy of this sent to Technical Services,' Dana Westbrook said. 'I want this broken down frame by frame.'
'Sure.'
'I want tire impressions from that lot and the area behind the building,' Westbrook said. 'See if we have any police cameras on that street.'
Before Westbrook could say anything else, Dennis Stansfield came down the stairs in a hurry. He bulled into the center of the room.
'Detective?' Westbrook asked. 'You're late.'
Stansfield looked at the floor, the ceiling, the walls. He opened his mouth, but nothing emerged. He seemed stuck.
'Dennis?'
Stansfield snapped out of it. 'There's another one.'
The scene was a Chinese takeout on York Street, in a section of Philadelphia known as Fishtown. A longtime working-class neighborhood in the northeast section of Center City, run
ning roughly from the Delaware River to Frankford Avenue to York Street, Fishtown now boasted a number of arts and entertainment venues, mixing arty types with the cops, firefighters, and blue-collar workers.
As Byrne and Jessica threaded through the cordon to the area behind the restaurant, Jessica dreaded what she was about to see.
A pair of uniformed officers stood at the mouth of the alley. Jessica and Byrne signed onto the crime scene, gloved up, and walked down the narrow passageway. No one was in a hurry.
The call had come in to 911 at just after nine p.m. The victim, it appeared, had been dead for days.
Garbage bags had been piling up behind the restaurant for weeks. Apparently the restaurant owner had an ongoing feud with the private hauling company, and it had become a matter of principle. Pushed against one wall were more than a hundred bulging plastic bags, ripped and torn by all manner of vermin, their rotting contents spilling out. The foul smell of the decomposing body was masked by a dozen other acrid odors of decaying meats and produce. A trio of brave rats milled at the far end of the alley, waiting their turn.
At first, Jessica didn't see the victim. CSU had not yet set up their field lighting, and in the dim light of the sodium street lamps, combined with the meager yellow light thrown by the security light over the back door to the restaurant, the flesh of the corpse blended in with the trash and pitted asphalt. It was as if he had become part of the city itself. Stepping closer, she saw the body.
Light brown skin. Nude and hairless. Head shaved bald. The body was bloated with gases.
The entire team was present, along with Russell Diaz, Mike Drummond, and now a representative of the mayor's office.
They all waited for the ME's investigator to clear the body for investigators. Tom Weyrich was taking a day off. The new investigator was a black woman in her forties whom Jessica had never met. She examined the body for wounds, made her notes. She opened the victim's hand, shone her Maglite, and everyone saw the small tattoo on the middle finger of the left hand. It appeared to be a kangaroo. Photos were taken from every angle.
The ME's investigator rose and stepped back. Stansfield walked forward and gently removed the white paper band that was wrapped around the victim's head.
The dead man was Latino, in his late thirties. Like the other victims he had a slash across his forehead, but this time the puncture wound was over his left eye. His right ear was shredded into a scabrous tangle of blood and ruined cartilage.
Byrne saw the victim's face, turned, and took a few steps away, his hands in his pockets.
What was this about? Jessica wondered. Why was he stepping away?
'I know him,' Drummond said. 'That's Eduardo Robles.'
All eyes turned to Kevin Byrne. Everyone knew that Byrne had been trying to get the grand jury to indict Robles in the death of Lina Laskaris. And now Robles was a victim of their serial murderer.
'This is where she died,' Byrne said. 'She was shot on the street and she crawled back here to die. This is the Lina Laskaris crime scene.'
On York Street, the media crews swarmed. In the mix Jessica noted CNN, Fox and other national news outlets. Among them David Albrecht jockeyed for position.
Five victims.
Chapter 61
Byrne got in the van and drove. At first he had no idea where he was going. But soon he found himself on the expressway, and not long after that back in Chestnut Hill, looking beyond the high iron fence at the huge house.
He saw a light in a window, a shadow cross the elegant silk drapery.
Christa-Marie.
Closing his eyes and leaning back in the driver's seat, he returned to that night in 1990. He and Jimmy Purify had been grabbing a bite to eat. They had just closed a double homicide, a drug murder in North Philadelphia.
Had he really been that young? He'd been one of the newer detectives in the unit then, a brash kid who carried over the nickname of his youth. Riff Raff. He wore it with the expected cocky Irish swagger. They called Jimmy 'Clutch.'
Riff Raff and Clutch.
But that was ancient history.
Byrne glanced up at the second floor, at the figure in the window. Was she looking out at him?
He picked up the file next to him on the seat, opened it, looked at the photos, at the body of Gabriel Thorne lying on the floor, the bloody white kitchen where all this had begun.
He had met earlier in the day with a man named Robert Cole, a man who ran an independent lab that sometimes took contracts from the department when rush forensic services were needed. He had seen Cole testify a number of times. He was good, he was thorough and, above all, he was discreet. Cole had promised Byrne a rush job on what he wanted.
Byrne flipped through the case file. He looked at his signature at the bottom of the form. A much younger man had wielded the pen that day. A man who had his whole career, his whole life, ahead of him.
Byrne didn't have to look at the time of arrest, the moment he had placed Christa-Marie Schцnburg in custody. He knew.
It was 2:52.
Chapter 62
In the night, when hotel guests are asleep in their beds, the dead roam the halls. They ride the elevators, take the back stairs, slip into rooms and stand at the foot of your bed. They sit on the edge of the sink when you take your shower. They watch as you make love, as you stuff the free toiletries and soaps into your luggage, thinking yourself so clever. They watch as you view late-night porn.
Stacy Pennell walks these hallways, her small feet barely making an impression on the soft carpeting. Guests come and go, but Stacy stays on, her final words circling in Room 1208 like sorrowful little birds.
Soon she will be set free.
Chapter 63
Saturday, October 30
Jessica jogged down third street. at this early hour the running was not as bad as she'd thought it was going to be. Traffic was sparse, and the only people on the streets were those opening their bakeries and coffee shops, city crews, other joggers and cyclists. The hard part of running through a city was the uneven sidewalks, the curbs, the occasional stray dog.
There was a light drizzle, a condition that the weather report said would end by mid-morning. Jessica wore her rain gear and an Eagles ball cap. She was wet, but not soaked. The temperature was in the high forties. Perfect jogging weather.
As she turned the corner onto Wharton she thought about her and Byrne's meeting with Frederic Duchesne. She thought about the photograph on the wall of the Prentiss Institute, the picture of Christa-Marie Schцnburg wearing the bracelet they had seen in Joseph Novak's apartment.
This morning they would get the background information on Carnival of the Animals, and they could begin to work on what might be the killer's twisted method.
She turned the corner and saw someone standing in front of her house. Again. She slowed up.
This time it was not Dennis Stansfield. It was Kevin Byrne. As Jessica approached she got a better look at him. She had never seen him look worse. His face was drawn and pale. He hadn't shaved. He was wearing the same clothes he'd had on yesterday. And he was just standing in the rain. He didn't seem to be looking for her, didn't seem to be doing anything. He was just standing in the cold rain, holding a large envelope in his hands. Just a few feet from where he stood was an awning that would have provided him shelter.
Jessica came to a stop, then walked the last few yards.
'Hey,' she said, catching her breath.
Byrne turned to look at her. 'Hey.'
'Want to come in? You're getting soaked.'
Byrne just looked up at the sky, letting the rain fall on his face.
'Come on inside,' Jessica said. 'I'll make some coffee, get you a towel.'
'I'm okay.'
Jessica took him by the arm, led him under her neighbor's awning. She shook the rain off her ball cap, brushed some of the water from Byrne's shoulders. 'What's up?'
Byrne was silent for a few moments. He pointed across the street, at a novelty sign in the window of a ro
w house. It read
PARKING FOR ITALIANS ONLY.
Jessica offered a smile. 'South Philly. What are you going to do?'
Byrne turned the envelope over and over in his hands. The moment drew out. 'I don't think I know how to do this anymore, Jess.'
He looked down the street, remained silent. Lights flickered on in some of the windows. Another morning in Philadelphia.
Jessica turned him to face her fully. 'There are two dozen people working these cases. Every resource available is on this. We're going to shut him down. Take the day. I'll call you every hour on the hour. If something breaks I'll-'
'We heard from the lab,' Byrne said, interrupting her. 'From Irina. We have a fix on the murder weapon.'
'Well, that's good, right? That's a good thing.'
'The killer is using strings from an instrument.'
'An instrument?'
Byrne looked down the street, back. 'The wire is a string from a cello, Jess. He's strangling them with a string from a cello. That explains the animal hair on the wire. It's horsehair from the bow.'
The implications of this were deep, and Jessica knew now why her partner had been up all night. There could no longer be any excuse for not bringing Christa-Marie Schцnburg in for questioning. There were too many connections.
Jessica knew she had to tread lightly. 'How do you want to handle this?'
Byrne said nothing. A city street-sweeper trolled slowly by. They took a step back, closer to the building. When it had passed Byrne turned to her.
'When I walked into that house, twenty years ago, I felt something, you know? It was my first case as a lead investigator, and I had it all in my hand. I saw the body, the weapon, the blood. I saw the suspect, I knew the motive. I saw it all in one second. One big picture, no parts.' He looked at Jessica. He was on the edge. 'I said to myself this is what you were meant to do.'
Jessica wanted to jump in. It wasn't the right moment.
'I don't see it like that anymore,' Byrne said. 'Now it's all in pieces, and I'm scared that I made a mistake. I'm scared I can't do it anymore.'
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