Richard Montanari (12 page)

    'Oh
yeah.'

    When
Jessica and Byrne came around the corner there was a meeting of supervisors.
Among them was ADA Michael Drummond.

    'Counselor,'
Byrne said.

    'Twice
in one day,' Drummond replied. 'People will talk.' He turned to Jessica. 'Nice
to see you, Jess.'

    'Always
a pleasure,' Jessica said. 'But what brings you out here?'

    'I've
got court in about an hour, but these were orders from Valhalla. New DA, new
initiatives. Anything that happens this close to a school gets priority. My
boss wants to watch this one from the beginning. He barks, I fetch.'

    'Gotcha.'

    'Copy
me in on everything?' Drummond asked.

    'Not
a problem,' Jessica said.

    Jessica
and Byrne watched as Drummond crossed the street, positioning himself far from
the crime scene. Jessica knew why. If an ADA was close to the action, he might
witness something, and therefore be called as a witness on his own case, which
was grounds for dismissal. It was a game they all knew how to play.

    Jessica
watched as Byrne walked up to the mouth of the alley, spoke to the uniformed
officer. The uniform pointed to the two buildings behind the crime scene,
nodded his head. Byrne took out his notebook, began to jot down details.

    Jessica
had seen it before.

    Murder
had been done here, and Kevin Byrne was in his element.

    Byrne
walked down the alley, his senses on high alert, his adrenalin surging. It was
odd, to say the least. No matter how fatigued he was - today, on a 1 to 10, he
would clock in at a bone-weary 7 - it all seemed to melt away when he got to a
crime scene. Crime scenes were crack for investigators. Addictive, euphoric,
replenishing, ultimately depleting. There was no other feeling like it. The
best meal, the finest wine, even soul-shaking sex did not come close.

    
Okay,
Byrne thought. Maybe sex
.

    He
took in the approach to the area where the body had been found. The air was
suffused with the stench of rotting fruit coming from the Dumpster a few yards
away, and the unmistakable aroma of death coming from the shoe store.

    He
walked down the stairs, opened the door. Although the smell was almost
overpowering in here, it was not the first thing he sensed. Instead, that was a
feeling, an impression that he had just stepped across the boundary of a
killer's mind, had just become an interloper in a realm of madness.

    
There
is a pairing, a balance, a partnership
.

    Byrne
stopped, waiting for more. Nothing. Not yet.

    In
addition to his upcoming appointment with the sleep-study clinic, he had his
annual MRI screening. He'd had yearly MRIs for the past five years, ever since
he had been nearly fatally injured in a shooting. He knew everyone in the
hospital radiology department, and the mood was always light-hearted when he
went there, but they all knew what it was about. There was, and always would
be, a possibility of a brain tumor. He'd read all the books on symptoms and
signs - blackouts, voices in your head, sometimes unexplained smells.

    In a
separate incident, many years earlier, he had confronted a suspect in a bar
beneath the Walt Whitman Bridge. During the course of the arrest Byrne had
plunged into the frigid Delaware River, locked in combat with the suspect. When
he was pulled out of the water Byrne was declared dead. One full minute later
he came to.

    Not
long after that the visions had started. They were never fullblown apparitions.
He did not show up at a scene, close his eyes, and see any sort of recreation of
the crime in Technicolor and THX audio. Instead, it was more of a feeling.
Sometimes it crossed over into the dominion of sense and sensation, but mostly
he got a feel for the victim, the perpetrator. A thought, a dream, a desire, a
habit.

    Byrne
had been to group-therapy sessions of every kind, even going to a
regression-therapy group that tried to take him back to that moment when he'd
plunged into the river, an attempt to bring him back to the person he had been
before the incident. Byrne now knew that was impossible.

    The
visions had diminished over the ensuing years as had the accompanying
migraines. These days they were few and far between.

    He
had not had anything close to a full-blown migraine lately, but he knew
something was happening inside him. More than once, in the last few months, he
had experienced something... not pain, more of a presence, a thickness in his
head, along with a slight blurring of vision. And with these feelings came the
clearest inner visions he'd ever had, now accompanied by sounds. Then,
sometimes, a blackout.

    He
was still undecided on whether or not to mention these things to his doctor.
Telling a doctor something like this only led to more tests.

    Just
when he was about to begin his routine, a warm sensation filled his head. He
held onto the door jamb for a second, attempting to ride it out. With the
warmth came the knowledge of...

    . . .
something that has burned for many years, a feeling of loss and desire, a
dark passion that will forever be unfulfilled, a love story unwritten,
unwritable, the hunger to create a legacy
. . .

    Byrne
knelt down, snapped on a latex glove, then instantly thought better of it. He
removed the glove. He needed the feel of the flesh. A dialogue happened between
the skin of the dead and his senses. A superior officer, or a representative of
the medical examiner's office would surely object. That didn't matter at the
moment. He was alone with the dead, alone with what had happened in this room,
alone with the rage that drove someone to brutally take a life.

    Alone
with himself.

    Kevin
Byrne reached out and touched a finger to the dead man's lips. He closed his
eyes, listened, and the dead man spoke.

    Jessica
and Byrne spent the next hour separately canvassing the neighborhood for a
second time. They learned a great deal about cheating spouses, lazy landlords,
illegal parking, possible international drug cartels, alien invasions, more
illegal parking, and - a fan favorite - government conspiracies. In other words,
nothing.

    At
three o'clock Jessica met Byrne back at the corner of Fifth and Federal to
compare notes.

    'Jess,'
Byrne said, pointing down the street.

    Jessica
turned and saw two figures sitting in a vacant lot, sandwiched between a pair
of old row houses. The detectives were being observed.

    Jessica
and Byrne walked a half-block up Federal. David Albrecht, who had just returned
from getting some high-angle shots from nearby rooftops, followed, but kept his
distance.

    Iwo
older men sat on lawn chairs across the street from the ball field. They had
racing forms on their laps, along with the sports sections of that morning's
Inquirer.
They were in their late seventies and had their chairs positioned
in such a way that each could see what was approaching but still be close
enough to converse. Jessica had the distinct feeling they didn't miss much.

    One
of the guys wore at least three cardigans, each a slightly different shade of
maroon. The other wore a fishing hat with a button saying
Kiss Me I'm
Italian
on it, a button so old that most of the letters were rubbed off.
Now, from a few feet away, it looked like
Kiss It.
Jessica wondered if
that wasn't on purpose. She showed her badge, introducing herself and Kevin
Byrne.

    When
the men saw they were police officers they sat a little straighten

    Jessica
asked: 'You fellows out here every day?'

    'Every
morning, every afternoon,' Cardigans said. 'Rain or shine. 'Cept when it rains,
then we sit over there.' He pointed to an old storefront with a metal awning.

    'In
winter we meet at Mulroney's,' added Fishing Hat.

    Mulroney's
was a tavern on the other side of the playground, a fixture that had been
around since sometime during the Truman administration.

    Jessica
asked the men what, if anything, they had seen the previous day. After a brief
rundown of the day's events - a
Philadelphia Inquirer
delivery truck got
a flat tire, some idiot on a cellphone was yelling at his wife or girlfriend
and almost walked into the traffic on Federal, a dog came up and snatched one
of their lunch bags right from under the chair - they got around to what they
had seen at or near the crime- scene building.

    Nothing.

    'You
didn't see anybody doing anything suspicious, anybody you haven't seen in the
neighborhood before?' Byrne asked.

    'Nah,'
Cardigans said. 'We're the only suspicious characters around here.'

    Jessica
jotted down the meager information.

    'You
guys got here pretty quick earlier this morning,' Cardigans said.

    'We were
on a donut run around the corner,' Jessica said. 'It was on the way.'

    Cardigans
smiled. He liked her.

    'Not
like the last time,' Fishing Hat interjected.

    Jessica
glanced over at Byrne, back. 'I'm sorry?' she said. 'The last time?'

    'Yeah.
That other one?'

    'The
other one.'

    'The
other
dead
one they found in there.' Fishing Hat pointed to the
crime-scene building, saying all this like it was common knowledge, worldwide.

    'There
was another victim found in that building?' Jessica asked.

    'Oh,
yeah,' he said. 'Place is a slaughterhouse. A regular abbytwar.'

    Jessica
figured he meant
abattoir.
She stole another glance at Byrne. ' This was
getting better by the minute. Or worse. 'When was this again?'

    '2002,'
Fishing Hat said. 'Spring of 2002.'

    'Nah,'
Cardigans said. 'It was '04.'

    Fishing
Hat looked over, as if the other man had just told him the pope was a woman.
'2004? What are you, drunk? It was 2002. March 21st. Mickey Quindlen's grandson
broke his arm on the playground. My wife's brother came in from Cinnaminson,
rammed his fucking car into the house.' He looked at Jessica. 'Excuse my
German.'

    'I
speak German,' Jessica said.

    'Uniforms
came around noon. Suits didn't show up until midnight. I believe I can say all
this without fear of contraception.'

    Cardigans
nodded, acquiescing.

    'Uniforms?
Suits?' Jessica asked. 'Did you used to be a cop?'

    'Cop?
Nah. I worked the docks, forty-one years. I just like that
Law and Order
show. The guy with the big teeth says that kind of stuff all the time.'

    'He's
dead now,' Cardigans said.

    Fishing
Hat looked at his friend. 'He is? Since when?'

    'Long
time now.'

    'He
ain't dead on the show.'

    'No.
Not on the show he ain't. Just in real life.'

    'Damn.'

    'Yeah.'

    A
respectful silence fell over the group for a moment.