All that blood.
At 22nd Street her legs felt as if she could not take another step, but she forced herself, she knew she had to keep moving.
When she reached the corner of Sansom and 23rd something jolted her out of her dark reverie. There were police cars all up and down the streets, their lights flashing on the walls of the buildings. Groups of people were gathered on the corners, chatting with each other, pointing at the church. Lucy had walked this way many times.
She was pretty sure that there was a small cemetery next to the church. What was going on?
It didn't matter. It had nothing to do with her. She knew what she had to do. She knew who she had to call. She crossed 23rd Street. There was a policeman standing in the middle of the street, directing traffic away from the church. Lucy pulled up the collar on her coat, angled her head away from him. As she passed, she chanced a glance. He was looking right at her. She quickened her pace, made it across the street. When she had gone half a block she stepped back into the shadows, glanced back. The cop was still looking in her direction.
Lucy ran. She tried to get her bearings. The river was just a few blocks to her left. Ahead was Chestnut, Market, Arch, Cherry.
Cherry.
There was only one place for her to go.
Lucy stood in front of Apartment 106, her breath coming in hot, painful waves. She had run nearly six blocks and her sides ached. She tried to calm herself, to catch her breath. She could hear the sound of a television coming from one of the other apartments on this floor. Somewhere a dog was barking. She knocked softly, but there was no response. She tried again. Nothing.
She tried the doorknob. It turned in her hand. She pushed open the door, and stepped into Mr. Costa's apartment.
The flat was completely empty. This time, even the Dreamweaver booth was gone. The floor had been swept, the walls were bare. She could smell the cleaning products — Spic 'N Span, Lemon Pledge, Windex, Scrubbing Bubbles.
Lucy moved slowly through the living room, glanced into the tiny kitchen. The old appliances remained, but that was it. There was no dinette table, no chairs, no dishes in the sink, no strainer. She turned back to the living room. On the right was a door that she figured led to a bedroom. She stepped lightly, but the old wooden floor still creaked under her weight. She stopped, waiting for the light to go on, for Mr. Costa to appear suddenly as he was likely to do. But it didn't happen. Lucy inched open the door to the bedroom. It too was empty. No furniture, no clothing, no personal items of any kind. There was a single window overlooking the street. That was it.
But it wasn't.
There was something on the wall. A small picture in a frame. Lucy reached over, flipped the light switch, but it didn't work. She crossed the bedroom, pushed the curtain to the side. A wedge of illumination from the street lights across the road spilled into the room. She took the small picture from the wall, angled it toward the borrowed light. The photograph was old, kind of blurry. It was a picture of a little girl, no more than two years old. She sat on a beach. In front of her was a bright red plastic bucket. In her hand was a small shovel. She squinted at the sunlight. She wore a floppy flowered sun hat. Chubby cheeks, chubby knees.
Lucy knew the face, the eyes. The last time she had seen those eyes they had been red with crying.
It was Peggy van Tassel.
Lucy's hands began to shake. She tried to plug it into everything that had happened in the past few days and she could not. Then she tried to put the picture in the pocket of her coat but it wouldn't fit.
She knew what she had to do. She would get to the nearest phone and call Detective Byrne. The longer she waited, the worse it was going to get for her.
Before she could take a single step, she heard the floorboards creak, felt the warm breath on her neck. Someone stood right behind her.
'Police,' the man said. 'Get down on the floor and put your hands behind your back. Do it now.'
Lucy felt her legs go soft. The photograph slipped from her grasp. It crashed to the floor.
'Now,' he repeated.
Lucy got down on the floor, next to the shattered glass, put her hands behind her back. She felt the man take her arms by the wrists, then slip a plastic band around them, tighten it.
He left her there like that for a full minute. She dared not turn to look at him. She heard him pace around the room. Then he spoke.
'Can you hear them?' he asked softly.
Lucy didn't know what he was talking about. She tried to listen hard, to figure out what he meant, but there was only the roar of terror in her head.
'The dead are all over the city,' the man continued. 'Tonight it belongs to them. It always has.'
A few moments later the man shone a flashlight on the broken photograph on the floor, spotlighting the little girl's face. He held it there for a long time.
'You could have saved her,' the man said. 'You could have saved her and you did nothing.'
Lucy's mind began to spin. This man was not the police.
She was pulled roughly to her feet. She felt the man's breath right near her ear.
'You're as guilty as George Archer.'
Chapter 81
The St Demetrios Orthodox Church was a long rectangular building with a single cupola. Behind it was a graveyard, a small neighborhood cemetery, easily a hundred years old. There was a waist-high brick wall surrounding the courtyard, which was accessible by a double wrought-iron gate. In the light thrown from the headlights of the sector cars and departmental sedans, the headstones cast long shadows over the grounds, as well as onto the walls of the row homes on either side. The flashing lights projected images nearly ten feet tall, giant specters overseeing the dead.
As Jessica approached the scene, Nicci Malone came jogging up to her side. Nicci pointed to a young couple standing near one of the sector cars. They looked terribly frightened.
'These two were walking up the street about a half-hour ago. They said they were not really paying attention but when they got here to the edge of the block they saw someone walking in the shadows to the center of the cemetery. They said it was a man carrying something heavy over his shoulders.'
'Did they get a good look at the guy?' Jessica asked. Nicci shook her head. 'Too dark on that side. But they still watched what he was doing. They said he dropped the parcel to the ground, unwrapped it. When they saw that it was a body, they froze. Then they saw the man position the leg, propping it up on one of the low headstones.'
Jessica knew what came next. She remained silent.
'Then, according to our witnesses, the man jumped high into the air and came down on the leg. The woman said she heard the sound of the breaking bone all the way on the other side of the cemetery.'
A news helicopter roared overhead. Jessica wondered what this grotesque display might look like from above.
'What about the vehicle? Did they get a look?'
Again Nicci shook her head. 'They were both pretty much over the edge at this point. We were lucky they had the wherewithal to call us.'
Jessica glanced at the street corners. She did not see any police cameras. This was not a high-crime or high-drug-traffic area. She looked at the walls of the stone church. She did not see any surveillance cameras there, either.
When she stepped into the gated graveyard, Jessica saw the corpse, the now-familiar signature. The body was nude, a white middle-aged male, shaved clean. There was a band of paper around his forehead. The left foot rested on the headstone. Jessica crossed over to the plot, aimed her Maglite at the dead body, and saw the sharp bone protruding from the skin, just above the left knee. She thought about the line from Danse Macabre.
Zig, zig, zig, each one is frisking,
You can hear the cracking of the bones of the dancers.
Then Jessica leaned in, moved the victim's left leg a few inches, directed the beam of her flashlight at the headstone. At the top she saw:
O THEOS NA TIN ANAPAFSI
The name of the person in the grav
e was Melina Laskaris.
She angled the light to the victim's right hand, which was on the ground, palm up. On the ring finger she saw a small tattoo of a donkey. It was the seventh animal, which meant there was one more to go.
Before Jessica could stop her — and she didn't really want to stop her — Nicci Malone stepped forward, knelt down, pulled off the bloodied white headband. When Jessica saw the victim's face, the triangle was complete.
The dead woman was Lina Laskaris.
Her killer was Eduardo Robles.
The accomplice, the harmony in this horror show — the broken body sprawled before them in this crumbling graveyard — was Detective Dennis Stansfield.
Chapter 82
He stood in shadows, just a block from the Le Jardin hotel, the sounds of his city all around him, the flashing police lights a few blocks away. He felt the hand on his arm.
'Kevin.'
Christa-Marie looked fragile, sculpted from moonlight. She raised a hand to his cheek, a warm finger tracing the lines in his face. She slipped her hand around the back of his head, leaned forward and kissed him, gently at first, then with a growing passion.
A moment later she leaned back, looked into his eyes.
'It's time, isn't it?' she asked.
'Yes,' Byrne said. 'Are you ready?'
'Yes.' She took his hand in hers. 'Take me home.'
Chapter 83
'Jess?'
It was Russell Diaz. The city block had been taken over by law enforcement. Residents had begun to drift out of their houses. Endlessly, the helicopter flew back and forth, hovering overhead. Jessica looked around. David Albrecht was not to be found.
'You have a minute?' Diaz asked.
She did not. But she knew that this was coming, just as she knew what it was about. 'Sure.'
Diaz looked at his two men. 'Give us a second.'
The two officers walked a few feet away, leaned against Jessica's car. When Diaz felt they were out of earshot, he spoke.
'You know what I have to ask, don't you?' he said, lowering his voice.
Jessica remained silent. It was a rhetorical question. Diaz plowed ahead. Niceties were over.
'I need to talk to Kevin,' Diaz said. 'Have you heard from him?'
'Not since earlier this evening.'
'About what time was that?'
Jessica had to think about this. She had to be accurate. This was all going on the record. 'Maybe an hour ago.'
'He called you?'
'Yes.'
'Did he mention where he was going?'
Now she had to be careful. Byrne had not said anything specific. 'No.'
'Is he still driving that van?'
'I don't know.'
Diaz looked out over the gathering crowd, back.
'I want to show you something.'
They walked over to the unmarked police van. Diaz opened the sliding side door. Inside was a rack of electronic equipment, surveillance monitors, three locked gun racks. Diaz grabbed a laptop off the front seat, opened it, put it on the floor of the van. The screen instantly displayed a flow chart. On it were six different squares. Diaz clicked the first one.
Seconds later three separate documents cascaded across the screen. Jessica recognized them as PPD witness statements, presented in. pdf format.
'We have statements from three people who live on West Tioga Street,' Diaz said. 'Neighbors of Sharon and Kenneth Beckman. They all stated that they saw Detective Byrne at the Beckman house an hour before her son reported her missing.'
'She was next of kin, Russell. Both Kevin and I were there that morning. We made notification.'
'As you know, he returned a short time later. Did you accompany Detective Byrne back to the premises?'
'No,' Jessica said. 'He returned to follow up. We had received additional information.'
'What was the information?'
Diaz knew the answer to his question. He was testing her. 'That Kenneth Beckman was questioned in the murder of Antoinette Chan.'
'When did Detective Byrne return to the Roundhouse?'
'It had to be around three.'
'What did he say about the interview?'
'He said that Sharon Beckman didn't answer the door.'
Diaz took a moment, then tapped another square on the chart. This was the ME's preliminary report on Joseph Novak. 'The coroner puts the time of death for Joseph Novak at between eight p.m. and six a.m. Do you know where Detective Byrne was during those hours?'
This was getting so bad, so fast. Was Diaz making an attempt to establish some sort of conspiracy here?
'I do not.'
'Did Detective Byrne mention anything about seeing Mr. Novak again that day?'
'No.'
Diaz hit yet another button on the laptop. A grainy video began to play. It was the stationary image of a city street at night.
'This is PPD surveillance footage near the corner of Frankford and York.'
At the thirty-four-second mark on the video a man crosses the top of the frame, hesitates for a moment, walks off frame. A few seconds later, a second man walks across the frame, right to left. He continues off. Diaz rewound the recording. He pointed to the lower right of the image, at a van parked on the street. 'This tag is registered to a man named Patrick Connolly. He is Detective Byrne's cousin. Connolly stated that he lent this vehicle to Detective Byrne last week.'
Jessica looked closely. It was clearly the Sedona minivan. She looked closely at the whole image. 'I believe Kevin already acknowledged that he was there that night. This is not new information.'
Diaz hit play. The image scrolled by in slow motion this time. He freeze-framed it as the first man walked into the frame. 'This is Eduardo Robles.' He hit play again. Robles disappears off frame, walking down the alley, the alley in which his body was found. The second man enters the frame. Diaz froze the image again.
'Do you recognize this person, detective?' he asked.
Jessica noted that she had gone from Jess to detective. To another person it might have gone unnoticed. Not to anyone in law enforcement. 'No. Sorry. It could be anyone.'
'Not exactly.' Diaz hit a few keys, zoomed in. It increased the size of the pixels, but some things were obvious. Like the man's left hand. 'It can only be a white male, so it can't be "just anyone".' He pointed to something next to the figure. 'We took measurements on this stand- pipe. This person is over six feet tall. He is wearing a dark overcoat and a dark watch cap.' Diaz reached onto a shelf. He produced a photograph of Kevin Byrne, a picture that Jessica recognized instantly.
It had been taken a year ago at a benefit in the Poconos. It was of Kevin and her standing with a bunch of kids. Kevin wore a dark overcoat and navy blue watch cap.
Jessica said nothing.
Diaz directed her gaze to the body on the ground across the cemetery from where they stood. 'Everyone was well aware of the friction between Detective Byrne and Detective Stansfield. Add to that the incident between them at the Roundhouse and you can see what I'm faced with, right?' Diaz closed the laptop, squared himself in front of her. 'I now have a dead cop, and Kevin Byrne is missing again.'
Diaz opened a second laptop. There on the screen were two microscope photographs of hair shafts. Diaz pointed to the one on the left. 'This is a sample taken from a brush belonging to Sharon Beckman.' He pointed to the example on the right. Jessica was far from an expert, but to her eye the samples were identical. 'This was found on the driver's seat of Kevin Byrne's van. They match.'
Jessica recalled the hair on Byrne's shoulder.
'Did you get a haircut?'
'Yeah. I popped in and got a trim.'
Jessica began to feel nauseated. She remained silent, which was just as well because she had no idea what to say. Diaz closed the side door of the van, signaled to his two men. They approached, stopped a few feet away.
'Look, Jess. If you were looking at this from the outside, you would see why we need to talk to Detective Byrne.'
Jessica knew that
Diaz was right. In her career she had brought people in for questioning based on far less.
'I don't know where he is, Russ. I've left five voicemails for him in the past half-hour.'
'When was the last time you called?'
'Five minutes ago.'
'Want to try again?'
Jessica took out her phone. She put it on speaker, hit Byrne's speed- dial number. It rang twice, and his voicemail greeting came on. There was no point leaving a sixth message. Jessica closed her phone.
Diaz nodded. 'Detective Byrne carries a 17?'
He was referring to a Glock 17, the standard-issue service weapon for PPD detectives. 'Yeah.'
'Does he carry a second piece?'
My God, Jessica thought, her heart in free fall. She was betraying one of the most important people in her life. She wondered how Kevin would handle the same situation if someone was asking these questions about her. 'Sometimes.'
'Today?'
Jessica told the truth. 'I don't know.'
'Does he pack anything else?'
Diaz meant knives, spray, knuckles, batons. 'No.'
Diaz processed it all. He looked out over the burgeoning mass of people, then back at Jessica. 'You know him better than anyone. I know you are close. I know this has to be hard for you.'
Jessica said nothing.
Diaz handed her a card. 'That's my cell on the back. If you talk to Kevin, have him call me.'
Jessica took the card, said nothing.
'You know this is going to move forward, right?'
'I know.'
'It's better for everyone if he walks in the front door.'
Diaz hesitated a few moments, then turned and walked away.
Jessica looked out over the cemetery. In all, there were probably thirty or forty people on scene. Jessica knew most of them by name, yet she had never felt so completely alone in her life.
A few minutes later Josh Bontrager emerged from the crowd.
'You okay, Josh?'
'No,' he said. 'I am not.'
'What's wrong?'
Bontrager bowed his head for moment. 'He was my partner, and now he's dead.'
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