Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense (125 page)

“Kevin,” Danny said. “Ever meet my youngest son, Paulie?”

Paul McManus was slender, a little birdlike in his demeanor, wore rimless glasses. He was not at all like the mountain that was his father. Still, he looked strong enough.

“Never had the pleasure,” Byrne said, extending a hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too, sir,” Paul said.

“So, are you working the docks like your dad?” Byrne asked.

“Yes, sir,” Paul said.

Everyone at the nearby table exchanged a glance, a quick inspection of the ceiling, their fingernails, anything but Danny McManus’s face.

“Paulie works at Boathouse Row,” Danny finally said.

“Ah, okay,” Byrne said. “What do you do down there?”

“Always something to do at Boathouse Row,” Paulie said. “Scraping, painting, shoring up the docks.”

Boathouse Row was a cluster of privately owned boathouses on the eastern bank of the Schuylkill River, in Fairmount Park, right near the art museum. They were home to the sculling clubs, and managed by the Schuylkill Navy, one of the oldest amateur athletic organizations in the country. They were also about the furthest thing imaginable from the Packer Avenue Terminal.

Was it river work? Technically. Was it working the river? Not in this pub.

“Well, you know what da Vinci said,” Paulie offered, standing his ground.

More sideways glances. More cleared throats, shuffled feet. He was actually going to quote Leonardo da Vinci. In
Killian’s.
Byrne had to give the kid credit.

“What did he say?” Byrne asked.

“In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed, and the first of that which comes,” Paulie said. “Or something like that.”

Everybody took a long, slow gulp from their bottles, no one wanting to be the first to say anything. Finally, Danny put an arm around his son. “He’s a poet. What can you say?”

Three of the men at the table pushed their shot glasses, brimming with Jameson, over toward Paulie McManus. “Drink up, da Vinci,” they said in unison.

They all laughed. Paulie drank.

A few moments later Byrne stood at the door, watching his father throw darts. Padraig Byrne was two games up on Luke Murphy. He was also up three lagers. Byrne wondered if his father should even be drinking at all these days. On the other hand, Byrne had never seen his father tipsy, let alone drunk.

The men formed a line on either side of the dartboard. Byrne imagined them all as young men in their twenties, just starting out with families, the notions of hard work and union loyalty and city pride a bright red pulse in their veins. They’d been coming to this place for more than forty years. Some even longer. Through every Phillies and Eagles and Flyers and Sixers season, through every mayor, through every municipal and private scandal, through all of their marriages and births and divorces and deaths. Killian’s was a constant, and the lives and dreams and hopes of its denizens were, too.

His father threw a bull’s-eye. Cheers and disbelief erupted around the bar. Another round. And so it went for Paddy Byrne.

Byrne thought about his father’s upcoming move. They had the truck scheduled for February 4. This move was the best thing for his father. It was quieter in the Northeast, slower. He knew that this was the beginning of a new life, but he could not shake that other feeling, the distinct and unsettling feeling that it was also the end of something.

39

The Devonshire Acres mental-health facility sat on a gentle slope in a small town in southeastern Pennsylvania. In its glory years, the huge fieldstone and mortar complex had been a spa and convalescent home for wealthy Main Line families. Now it was a state-subsidized long-term warehouse for lower income patients who required constant supervision.

Roland Hannah signed in, declining the escort. He knew his way around. He took the stairs to the second floor one at a time. He was in no hurry. The institutional-green hallways were ornamented with cheerless, time-faded Christmas decorations. Some looked as if they were from the 1940s or 1950s: jolly water-stained Santas, reindeer with their antlers bent and taped and repaired with long-yellowed Scotch tape. One wall held a message misspelled in individual letters made of cotton, construction paper, and silver glitter:

H A P P Y H O D L I A Y S !

Charles no longer came inside the facility.

ROLAND FOUND HER
in the common room, near a window overlooking the rear grounds and the forest beyond. It had snowed for two days straight and a layer of white caressed the hills. Roland wondered what it looked like to her, through her young old eyes. He wondered what memories, if any, were triggered by the soft planes of virgin snow. Did she remember her first winter in the north? Did she remember snowflakes on her tongue? Snowmen?

Her skin was papery, fragrant, translucent. Her hair had long ago spent its gold.

There were four others in the room. Roland knew them all. They did not acknowledge him in any way. He crossed the room, removed his coat and gloves, put the present on the table. It was a robe and slippers, both lavender. Charles had meticulously wrapped and rewrapped the gift in festive foil paper featuring elves and workbenches and brightly colored tools.

Roland kissed her on the top of her head. She did not respond.

Outside the snow continued to fall—huge velvety flakes that lilted silently down. She watched, seeming to select an individual flake from the flurry, following it to the ledge, to the earth below, beyond.

They sat, not speaking. She had said only a few words in many years. The music in the background was Perry Como’s “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

At six o’clock they brought her a tray. Creamed corn, breaded fish sticks, Tater Tots, along with a butter cookie with green and red sprinkles on a Christmas tree made of white icing. Roland watched as she arranged and rearranged her red plastic silverware from the outside in—fork, spoon, knife, then the reverse order. Three times. Always three times, until she had it right. Never two, never four, never more. Roland always wondered by what internal abacus this number had been determined.

“Merry Christmas,” Roland said.

She looked up at him, eyes the palest blue. Behind them lived a universe of mystery.

Roland glanced at his watch. It was time to go.

Before he could stand up she took his hand in hers. Her fingers were carved ivory. Roland saw her lips tremble, and knew what was coming.

“Here are maidens, young and fair,” she said. “Dancing in the summer air.”

Roland felt the glaciers of his heart dislodge. He knew it was all Artemisia Hannah Waite remembered of her daughter Charlotte, and those terrible days in 1995.

“Like two spinning wheels at play,” Roland answered.

His mother smiled, and finished the verse: “Pretty maidens dance away.”

ROLAND FOUND CHARLES
standing next to the van. A dusting of snow sat on his shoulders. In years past, Charles would look into Roland’s eyes at this moment, searching for some sign that things had improved. Even to Charles, with his innate optimism, this was a practice long since dropped. Without a word, they slipped into the van.

After a brief prayer, they drove back to the city.

THEY ATE IN
silence. When they were finished, Charles cleared the dishes. Roland could hear the television news in the office. A few moments later Charles poked his head around the corner.

“Come here and look at this,” Charles said.

Roland walked into the small office. On the television screen was a shot of the parking lot at the Roundhouse, the police administration building on Race Street. Channel Six was doing a remote stand up. A reporter was following a woman across the parking lot.

The woman was young, dark-eyed, attractive. She carried herself with a great deal of poise and confidence. She wore a black leather coat and gloves. The name under her face on the screen said she was a detective. The reporter asked her questions. Charles turned up the volume on the television.

“—the work of one person?” the reporter asked.

“We can’t rule that in or out,” the detective said.

“Is it true that the woman was mutilated?”

“I can’t comment on specifics related to the investigation.”

“Is there anything you’d like to say to our viewers?”

“What we’re asking for is help in finding the killer of Kristina Jakos. If you know something, even something that seems insignificant, please call the Homicide Unit of the PPD.”

With this the woman turned and headed into the building.

Kristina Jakos,
Roland thought. She was the woman they found murdered on the bank of the Schuylkill River in Manayunk. Roland had the news clipping on the corkboard next to his desk. He would read more about the case now. He grabbed a pen and wrote down the detective’s name.

Jessica Balzano.

40

Sophie Balzano was clearly psychic when it came to Christmas presents. She didn’t even need to shake the package. Like a miniature Carnac the Magnificent, she could place the gift against her forehead, and within seconds, by some little-girl magic, she seemed to be able to divine its contents. She clearly had a future in law enforcement. Or maybe Customs.

“This is shoes,” she said.

She sat on the living-room floor, at the foot of the huge Christmas tree. Next to her sat her grandfather.

“I’m not telling,” Peter Giovanni said.

Sophie then picked up one of the fairy-tale books Jessica had gotten from the library. She began to flip through it.

Jessica watched her daughter, thinking:
Find me a clue in there, sweetie.

PETER GIOVANNI HAD
spent nearly thirty years on the Philadelphia police force. He had been awarded many commendations, retiring with the rank of lieutenant.

Peter had lost his wife to breast cancer more than two decades earlier, and he had buried his only son Michael, killed in Kuwait in 1991. Through it all he had identified himself as one thing, had one face that he presented to the world, one banner held high—that of policeman. And although he feared for his daughter every day, as any father would, his deepest sense of pride in life was the fact that his daughter was a homicide detective.