Richard Montanari (21 page)

    It
was the house she had grown up in.

    
It
is said of Mozart that he could never sit still for his barber running instead
to his clavier every time he had an idea, forcing the man tasked with tonsorial
duties to chase after him, ribbons in hand.

    
I
understand. Sometimes, when the music of the dead is loud, I cannot sit still,
I must go out and begin the hunt anew.

    
For
now I watch and wait, idling, my killing instruments at the ready.

    
I
survey the ground before me. The cemetery looks so different in the daytime. No
glowering ghouls, no hovering apparitions. Just the dead. Just a chorus of
plaintive voices asking for justice, for answers, for truth.

    
I
watch the people scramble callously about, the decaying dead underfoot, souls
trampled beneath the weight of duty. We all know why we are here.

    
There.
From the other side.

    
Can
you hear it?

    
It
is the rooster, a fresh voice in the choir.

    
The
carnivale has come to town.

    Mount
Olive was an old cemetery in West Philadelphia, the final resting place of hundreds
of Civil War dead as well as of some of Philadelphia's most famous and infamous
citizens.

    As
with other areas of the City of Brotherly Love, including the design and layout
of Benjamin Franklin Parkway with its similarity to the Champs Elysees, the
concept of the pastoral graveyard was based on a Parisian model.

    Framed
on three sides by residential neighborhoods, Mount Olive was bordered to the
northwest by Fairmount Park. Incorporated in the mid-1800s, it was a non-sectarian
graveyard that at one time had been nearly four hundred acres in area. It was
established at a time when older, smaller urban graveyards, located in city
blocks and alongside churches, had stood in the way of Philadelphia's booming
development, and over the course of many years a number of the interred had
been moved to Mount Olive. But even though the cemetery was a National Historic
Landmark and on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, over the years it
had become the victim of vandalism, dumping, and theft. And now, with many of
the families of the dead having moved away, some areas of the graveyard had
fallen into a state of disrepair.

    Jessica
and Byrne stood on Kingsessing Avenue. Two sector cars were already on the
scene, as well as a departmental sedan and a van from the Crime Scene Unit.

    A
second team had already been dispatched to the other crime scene. The location
of the second body was a parking lot in Northern Liberties. Nicci Malone would
be the lead investigator on that case. Jessica and Byrne would be briefed by
phone by Dana Westbrook.

    David
Albrecht appeared from behind a grove of trees at the northern end of the
graveyard. He shouldered his camera, took shots of the mausoleum, the grounds,
the arriving personnel. After a few minutes he approached Jessica and Byrne.

    'I
should have asked about this before,' he said. 'Is it okay to shoot here?'

    'I
don't see why not,' Jessica said. 'As long as you hang back until CSU has done
its job.'

    'I
don't want to disrespect the dead.'

    'I
think it's okay.'

    Albrecht
looked out over the grounds. He pointed to a small monument. It was a single
headstone, carved in Georgia gray granite. 'That's my father's grave,' he said.
He shrugged, perhaps a bit apologetically. 'I haven't been here in a while. I
guess I should probably pay a visit.'

    The
three of them fell silent for a moment. Finally Byrne broke the calm. 'We're
going to be here for a while, David. Take your time.'

    'Okay,'
Albrecht said. 'Thanks.'

    He
put the camera at his side, traversed the grounds, stopped at the monument. He
crossed himself, bowed his head.

    Jessica
scanned the area. On the corner, talking to a man Jessica assumed worked for
the cemetery, was Josh Bontrager. When the other man left, Bontrager noticed
Jessica and Byrne, waved them over.

    'What
do you have?' Byrne asked.

    'Female
DOA,' Bontrager said, pointing over his shoulder. Jessica could see a
sheet-covered form about twenty yards away. Next to the body stood a CSU officer.
Because the potential crime scene was so large, a wide area had been taped off
around the body, the sheet that covered it secured with stakes driven into the
ground.

    'Do
we know how long the body has been here?' Byrne asked.

    'Not
too long.' Bontrager took out his notepad. 'There's a service here later today,
and the guy who does the digging found the body about six this morning. He said
he was here late yesterday afternoon and he went by the plot, didn't see
anything. So the dump occurred sometime between four yesterday afternoon and
six this morning.'

    Byrne
looked at the fences. 'How secure is this place?'

    'Not
very secure at all,' Bontrager said. He gestured toward the area bordering the
two main streets. 'I walked two sides of it when I got here. Lots of places
where you can get in and not be seen. Lots of tree cover.'

    'Did
the man who works here move or touch anything?'

    'He
says no. As you might imagine, he's not particularly disturbed by the sight of
dead bodies. But a homicide victim is another story. He said he saw the body,
lit a cigarette, hit the flask of tequila he's not supposed to have, and called
his boss.'

    'Did
he leave the area after the call?'

    'Again,
he says no. I'm inclined to believe him.'

    'Is
the body near a plot?' Jessica asked.

    'Right
on top of one,' Bontrager said.

    'Any
ID on the victim?'

    'No,'
Bontrager said. 'Not yet, anyway. I haven't done a full search of the area.'

    Byrne
took another look around. 'Is this our bad guy, Josh?'

    'Oh
yeah. This is our bad guy,' Bontrager replied. 'No doubt about it.'

    'All
right,' Byrne said. 'Let's go look at a dead body in a cemetery.'

    The
three of them walked onto the grounds, down a narrow weed- grown path between
headstones that dated from the mid-1800s. Every tenth site or so had been
tended to some degree, with the grass trimmed around the stone, plastic flowers
placed. Most of the grave sites were criminally unkempt.

    When they
reached the top of the rise Jessica glanced over her shoulder. The place was
beginning to teem. She noticed that there were now a half-dozen more people,
including representatives from the DA's office. The fact that the DA had a
presence let the detectives know what priority these killings were being given.

    'Ah,
Christ,' Byrne said. He spoke for everyone.

    As
with the previous victim, the middle-aged female's body was nude, shaved clean
of all hair, as was her head. Jessica immediately noticed the bruises around
her ankles. She had been shackled.

    Wrapped
around the victim's head was a white paper band, identical to the one that they
had found wrapped around Kenneth Beckman's head. There was a red wax seal. Also
identical were the blood patterns. One lateral slash to the forehead. Beneath
it and to the left was another splotch, in a circular pattern. The area near
the right ear was marked with blood in a figure eight.

    If
these were the similarities to the condition in which Kenneth Beckman had been
found, there was a difference. This victim was lying on her side, behind the
grave marker. One foot was resting on top of the marker. The other leg, the
left leg, was bent completely back at an impossible angle. Jessica saw the bone
protruding from the victim's thigh.

    'ME's
been here?' Byrne asked.

    'Not
yet.'

    'Pictures
taken?'

    Bontrager
nodded, pointed to the CSU officer who was leaning against a nearby tree and
smoking a cigarette. 'Video, too.'

    Jessica
looked at the headstone. The victim's right leg extended toward the grave
marker, which was half covered in debris and dead grass. The foot rested
directly over the center.

    'Kevin.
Give me a hand here.'

    Both
detectives snapped on latex gloves. They knelt on either side of the body and
gently lifted the victim's right leg, moving it just a few inches, being
careful not to disturb any of the area next to the grave. They lowered the
victim's leg gently. Jessica looked at the grave marker. It was not nearly as
old as the ones that surrounded it, looking as though it had been positioned no
more than a few years earlier. A shift in the ground had lowered it a few
inches so that the marker's engraving was now covered in dirt.

    Byrne
motioned to the CSU officer standing nearby, who tossed away his cigarette,
walked over and took a number of additional pictures. When he was finished,
Byrne took out a pocket knife and began to scrape away the mud. The first thing
to be revealed was a carving, one with which Jessica was not familiar. It did
not appear to be a Catholic or Christian symbol - praying hands, an angel, a
crucifix. As they cleared away more dirt, Jessica thought the symbol was
beginning to look like a flower, a red flower with narrow petals.

    Byrne
brushed away the last of the mud and revealed that it wasn't a flower at all
but rather a Chinese character. Beneath it, running vertically, were three
other characters, all red.

    A few
minutes later they had the bottom of the headstone cleared of dirt, and saw
what they were looking for. The person interred in this space had died on March
21, 2002.

    Her
name was Antoinette Chan.

    Jessica
looked at Byrne, a bolt of electricity passing between them.

    Across
town, a man had been found murdered, his head wrapped in a band of white paper.
A man named Kenneth Beckman. Here in West Philadelphia, a second body is found,
its head too wrapped in white paper. This victim, still unidentified, is found
on the grave of a young woman who was also murdered.

    Murdered,
it is believed, by Kenneth Beckman.

    'Let's
check her hands,' Byrne said.

    Byrne
lifted the victim's right hand, checked it. Nothing. He circled the body,
gently lifted her left hand. There, on the index finger, was a small tattoo.
Instead of a lion, this time it was a rooster.

    Jessica
took a few photographs, her heart starting to race. She glanced over at Byrne.
He wore an expression she had come to know well over the years, one that barely
contained a cold rage.

    Byrne
squatted next to the body and began to undo the paper that wrapped the victim's
head.

    'Kevin,
the ME's office is on the way,' Jessica said. 'You should wait.'

    'Yeah,
well, I should be living in Cazumel with the Corr sisters, too,' Byrne said. 'I
don't see either of these things happening.'

    Byrne
gently unwrapped the victim's head, carefully removing the wax seal first and
dropping it into a small evidence bag. The first thing that Jessica noticed
when the paper was removed was that the laceration across the forehead, and the
puncture wound, were in almost the same places as they'd been with the first
victim.

    The
second thing Jessica noticed was that the dead woman was Sharon Beckman.

    The
feelings coursed through Byrne, sensations that grew exponentially. He paced
like an animal.

    He
stepped behind a tree as the feeling surged, filling his head like an onrush of
water from a broken dam. It was followed by a moment of vertigo. He steadied
himself, tried to wait it out, trying not to notice as...