Play dead jbakb-4

by Richard Montanari

  Joseph kept the news clippings beneath his pillow for two years.

  The Great cygne never performed the Singing Boy illusion in front of a live audience. Instead, he sold the drawings and schematics to magicians all over world, claiming exclusivity to each of them. When his ruse was discovered, he became an exile, a recluse no longer welcomed or wanted on any stage. Karl Swann began his final spiral.

  He would never set foot outside Faerwood again.

  1987

  It was a year of transformation for both Joseph Swann and Faerwood. As the exterior continued to fall into ruin, the interior went through many renovations, changes to which Joseph was not privy. He entered through the kitchen, ate his meals and studied in the dining room, slept on a cot in one of the many rooms in the warren-like basement. Month after month the cacophony was endless-sawing, sanding, nailing, demolition, construction.

  Finally, in September, the canvases and temporary partitions came down, and what Joseph saw both excited and confused him. Where there had once been a wall there was now a mirror, a silvered glass panel that turned on a central pivot. Cabinets opened into other rooms. In one of the bedrooms, the switch plate set the walls in motion, forming a separate room, bringing up electric lights outside the frosted windows, giving the room the appearance of being at a seashore, complete with the recorded sounds of gently crashing waves just beyond the glass. In yet another room on the third floor, the movement of a lamp opened a portal in the floor; the movement of a sconce lowered a panel, revealing a round window.

  Faerwood had become an echo of the fury swirling inside Karl Swann. On that day Joseph saw his father standing at the top of the stairs, wearing his stage costume for the first time in years. Karl Swann looked like a ghost-his pale skin and dyed hair giving him a funereal look that young Joseph had only seen in horror films.

  On his eighteenth birthday, with news of his acceptance to college in hand, Joseph returned to Faerwood to find his father in the attic, hanging from the roof beam. He had used the same noose Artemus Coleridge used nearly eighty years earlier.

  Joseph cut his father down, then took a secret staircase to the kitchen.

  Faerwood was his.

  It turned out that his apprenticeship to Karl Swann, building finely crafted magic boxes, served Joseph well. After college he began a small business building one of a kind custom cabinets and furniture. He worked with the finest materials, sometimes not emerging from the workshop for weeks on end. He soon found that his passion for cabinetry and furniture making sprang from his obsession with puzzles, that the elements of joinery-from dovetails to mortise and tenon to dowel joints-all fed his passion for the solving of conundrums, and yet he knew all the while that there was within him a magnum opus, a great and terrible creation yet to come.

  JANUARY 2008

  Now in his late thirties, the dark exhortations of Joseph Swann's youth had passed into the realm of sporadic flame, but he had not forgotten the fascination of that day so many years ago, the shimmering chimera of Molly Proffitt and all who came after her. There were small patches of brown grass and mounded earth on the Faerwood grounds that would attest to this.

  In late January, while cleaning the attic, he came across a box he had not seen in many years. Among the books on magic and illusions, beneath his father's many notebooks of gibberish, he found the old eight-millimeter film The Magic Bricks. He ran the movie in the attic at Faerwood, not far from where his father had thrown a rope over a roof beam. Tears streamed down his face as he was coaxed down a long corridor of remembrance.

  The seminal film had been made in 1908. One hundred years, Swann thought. The significance of this centenary was lost on him until, just before dinnertime, the doorbell rang. On the way downstairs he made himself presentable.

  On the porch was a girl, a maiden of sixteen or so, soliciting for a nonprofit human-rights group. She had short brown hair and roan eyes. She talked to him, trusted him. They always did. Her name was Elise Beausoleil.

  When she stepped inside Faerwood, Joseph Swann saw it all in his mind.

  She would be the first of the Seven Wonders.

  AUGUST 2008

  Swann's showroom was in the Marketplace Design Center at Twenty- Fourth and Market Streets. The building was home to a number of showrooms for the design professional, including Roche-Bobois, Beatrice amp; Martin, Vita DeBellis.

  Swann's small, elegant space on the fourth floor was called Galerie Cygne.

  From the moment he had leased the space, eight months earlier, he knew he had found a home here. It was part of the vibrancy that was downtown Philadelphia, but not quite in the beating heart of Center City. It was easily accessible from every city on the eastern corridor of the United States-Boston, New York, Baltimore, Washington, DC, Atlanta. Most important, Marketplace Design Center was just across the Schuylkill River from the Thirtieth Street train station, the hub of Philadelphia's rail traffic, the home of Amtrak.

  Elise, Monica, Caitlin, Katja. He needed just three more pieces to his puzzle.

  One day after the woman was found buried in Fairmount Park, Joseph Swann stood in the gallery, looking out the window, thinking of all the lost children, the night children. They came to the city by the hundreds, filled with hope and fear and promise.

  They arrived every hour.

  SEVENTEEN

  Jessica looked at the file. It was thin, but that was to be expected. The Eve Galvez case had just a day earlier gone from missing person to homicide. It would be a while until they even had a cause of death, if ever.

  It wasn't their case, but right now Jessica's curiosity was outrunning her priorities. Especially now that she knew Kevin Byrne had a past with the woman.

  Jessica got onto the PPD website and checked the Missing Persons pages. The section was divided into four parts: Missing Children, Other Jurisdiction Missing Persons, Unidentified Persons, and Long- Term Missing Adults. On the Missing Adults page Jessica found a dozen entries, almost half being elderly residents suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's. A few people on the page were missing since 1999. Nearly a decade. Jessica considered the strength needed for family members and loved ones to hold out hope for that long. Maybe strength wasn't the word. Maybe it was something more akin to faith.

  Eve Galvez's entry was halfway down the web page. The picture was of a striking, exotic woman with dark eyes and hair. Jessica knew the entry would soon be removed, only to be replaced with another mystery, another case number.

  She wondered if Eve Galvez's killer had ever visited this web page. She wondered if he came here to see if his handiwork was still a puzzle to the police. She wondered if he scanned the daily newspapers looking for a headline that told him his secret had been uncovered, that a new game was afoot, that a body had been discovered buried in Fairmount Park, and that authorities "had not yet identified the remains," that a new set of adversaries had been conscripted.

  Jessica wondered if he wondered whether or not he had left a clue behind, a hair or fiber or fingerprint, trace evidence that would bring a knock on his door in the middle of the night, or a phalanx of 9 mm pistols to his car windows as he sat at a red light in Center City, daydreaming of his wretched life.

  At 8:00 AM Kevin Byrne entered the duty room. Jessica walked right by him, through the maze of corridors, into the hallway, not even sparing him a glance or a "good morning." Byrne knew what it meant. He followed. When they were out of earshot of everyone in the room, alone in the hall, Jessica pointed an accusatory finger, said, "We have to talk about this." They had left Fairmount Park around three o'clock that morning, neither having said a word.

  Byrne looked at the floor for a moment, then back into her eyes.

  Jessica waited. Byrne said nothing. Jessica tossed both hands skyward. Still nothing. She pressed. "So, you were seeing her?" she asked, somehow keeping her voice low.

  "Yes," Byrne said. "On and off."

  "Okay. Was it on or off when she went missing?"

  "It was over for a long
time by then." Byrne leaned against the wall, hands in pockets. To Jessica, it looked like he hadn't slept a wink. His suit coat was wrinkled, his tie creased. Kevin Byrne was no fashion plate, but Jessica had long ago learned that he felt a sense of responsibility to the image of the job-the history of the people who called themselves Philadelphia police officers-and that sense of responsibility included clean shirts, pressed suits, and shined shoes. Today he was 0 for 3.

  "You want the backstory?" he asked.

  She didn't and she did. "I do."

  Byrne took a moment, fingering the V-shaped scar over his right eye, a scar he had gotten many years earlier, a result of a vicious attack by a homicide suspect. "Well, we both kind of knew early on it wasn't going anywhere," he said. "We probably knew that on the first date. We were polar opposites. We were never exclusive to each other, we always saw other people. By last fall we were pretty much at the 'let's grab some lunch' stage. After that is was Rite Aid greeting cards and drunken voicemails in the middle of the night."

  Jessica absorbed the details. The "backstory" Byrne was describing didn't go back far enough. Or deep enough. Not for her. She believed she knew a great deal about her partner-his unyielding love for his daughter Colleen, his commitment to his job, the way he took the grief of a victim's family and made it his own-but she had long ago conceded that there were many parts of his personal life from which she was, and would always be, excluded. For instance, she had never actually been inside his apartment. On the sidewalk directly below his living room window, yes. Parked around the corner, discussing a case, many times. Actually inside Kevin Byrne's current living quarters, no.

  "Did the FBI contact you when she disappeared?"

  "Yeah," Byrne said. "Terry Cahill. Remember him?"

  Jessica did. Cahill had consulted with the PPD on a particularly gruesome case a few years earlier. He had nearly gotten killed for his efforts. "Yeah."

  "I told him what I knew."

  Silence. Jessica wanted to punch him for this. He was making her dig. Maybe it was her penance for asking. "Which was what?"

  "The who, the what, the where. I told him the truth, Jess. I hadn't seen or talked to Eve Galvez for months."

  "When you spoke to Cahill, did he ask your opinion?"

  "Yeah," Byrne said. "I told him I thought Eve might have been caught up in the life. I knew she was drinking too much. I didn't think it was serious. Besides, I've had my jags. I'm in no position to judge."

  "So, how come I didn't know anything about this?" she asked. "I mean, I knew an investigator from the DA's office had gone missing, but I didn't know you knew her. I didn't know you were interviewed. Why didn't you tell me?" She hoped she didn't sound matronly. On the other hand, she didn't really care. She had an obligation.

  Byrne took what seemed like a full minute. "I don't know. I'm sorry, Jess."

  "Yeah, well," Jessica said, in lieu of something pithy or clever. She tried to think of something else to ask. She couldn't. Or maybe she realized she had pushed this line of inquiry far enough. She didn't like the position she found herself in. Hell, she had learned 90 percent of what she knew on the job from Kevin Byrne, and here she was putting him on the spot.

  At that moment a pair of uniformed officers walked out of the unit, toward the elevators. They made brief eye contact with Jessica and Byrne, nodded a good morning, moved on. They knew what the hallway was for.

  "We'll continue this later, right?" Jessica asked.

  "I've got a half-day off, remember?"

  She had forgotten. Byrne had put in for it a while back. He had also been a little mysterious about it, so she hadn't pressed. "Tomorrow then."

  "By the way, have we gotten the lab results on the remains?"

  "Just the preliminaries. The heart in the old fridge was human. It belonged to a female, twelve to twenty-five years old."

  "How long has it been in that specimen jar?"

  "There's no way to tell with any accuracy, not without a hell of a lot more tests," Jessica said. "Preserved is preserved, I guess. ME's office thinks it's less than a year. They also say it was rather inexpertly removed, so this is probably not something that was stolen from a med school laboratory. So, until we find a body to match this organ, the case is going on a shelf."

  EIGHTEEN

  They came from Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, from York and State College and Erie, from points south, west, east, north. They came with the intention of making it big, with the intention of disappearing completely, or with no intention at all. Except, perhaps, finding the love they both ran from and sought. They came with paperbacks and Diet Cokes in hand, with mini Bic lighters in the small change pockets of their jeans, with mysterious female treasures tucked into the folds of their backpacks and purses, raw materials unseen and perplexing to even the brightest of the male species. They got on their buses and trains in Cleveland and Pittsburgh and Youngstown, in Indianapolis and Newark. They hitched rides from Baltimore and D.C. and Richmond. They smelled of the road. They smelled of Daddy and cigarettes and cheap food and even cheaper perfume. They smelled of hunger. Of desire.

  They had so many styles-from Goth to grunge, from Barbie to baby doll-yet they seemed to have just one heart, one thing that united them in their differences. They all needed tending. They all needed loving care.

  Some, of course, more than others.

  Joseph Swann sat near the periodicals room of the main branch of the Free Library. There were fifty-four branches citywide, but Swann preferred the main branch for its size, for the way it diminished a patron by proportion. He preferred it for its choice.

  The library also attracted runaways. It was indeed a free space, and in summer the air-conditioning was splendidly cool. Along the parkway, from City Hall to the art museum, they could often be seen blending in with students and tourists. Locals rarely walked the sidewalks here, along Benjamin Franklin Parkway, a wide tree-lined boulevard fashioned after the Champs-Elysees in Paris. In summer it was packed with sightseers.

  Swann was one of the Philadelphians who did come here often. In addition to the library he also frequented the Rodin Museum, the Franklin Institute, the steps of the art museum, which reminded him of the Scalinata della Trinita dei Monti, the Spanish Steps in Rome. Here, as there, people lunched on the steps, lingered, romanced, photographed.

  But for the night children, the Free Library was a place to spend a few quiet hours. As long as you were relatively quiet, and you looked to be studying or researching something, you were left alone.

  And it was for this reason that Swann was rarely unaccompanied in his quest, regardless of the venue. There were others, so many others, he had seen over the years. Men who came for their own dark purposes. Men who lingered too long near restrooms and fast-food restaurants located near middle schools. Men who parked on suburban streets, maps deceptively in hand for cover, side and rearview mirrors adjusted toward sidewalks and playgrounds.

  There, right now, stood just such a man. He was younger than Swann, perhaps in his late twenties. He had long, thin hair pulled back into a ponytail, tucked into his shirt. Swann pegged the man by the cant of his lascivious leer, the angle of his hips, the nervous fingers. He was covertly watching a girl at one of the catalog computers. The girl was adorable in her matching pink T-shirt and jeans, but she was far too young. The man may have thought he was invisible to others, especially to the girls themselves, but not to Joseph Swann. Swann could smell the repulsiveness of his soul from across the room. He wanted to put the man in the world of a particularly gruesome illusion called Strobika, a deliciously shocking effect that involved sharpened spikes and Swann calmed himself. There was no time, nor need, for anything of the sort.

  This man was nothing like him. This man was a predator, a pederast, a criminal. Few things made Swann angrier.

  Over the months, as his mind fit these pieces into his puzzle, he had often wondered about the fates of those he had not chosen, those completely unaware just how close they had come to becoming part
of his riddle. How close they had come to becoming part of history.

  Given his needs, the selection process was easier than one might think. Often, a single stroll through the library's computer center, where patrons could sign on to the Internet, produced interesting results. One glance at what someone was looking at on the Web told him much about the person. If he followed, and was pressed for a topic, he could recall the subject of their search and weave it into conversation. It rarely failed to engage.

  Swann glanced at his watch, then across the room, toward the magazine racks. Sunlight suddenly streamed through the windows, and he saw her. A new maiden, slouching in the corner armchair. His heart skipped a beat.

  This one was about seventeen or so. She had coal black hair. She was Asian-American, perhaps of Japanese descent. She had the slightest overbite, her two front teeth resting on her lower lip as she twirled a strand of hair, deep in concentration on her periodical, biting gently down as the possibilities swirled, all the choices presented to one so young.

  He watched her as she idly flipped through the pages. Every so often she glanced at the doorways, out the windows; watching, waiting, hoping. Her fingernails were raw and red. Her hair was three days or more from a shampoo.

  At just after 9:20-Swann checked his watch again, these moments were valued in his memory-she put down the magazine, picked up another, then gazed across the room, a downy longing to which Swann instantly responded.

  The girl rose from her table, returned the magazine to its rack, traversed the room, the lobby, and stepped onto Vine Street, her nutmeg skin aglow in the Philadelphia summer morning. She believed she had nowhere to go, it seemed, no destination known.