Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense (29 page)

On her porch, in the dark, in the rain, however, he was Freddie Krueger.

What happened was, one of the gutters over the porch was perched precariously overhead, about to break off under the weight of a waterlogged branch that had fallen from a nearby tree. Father Corrio had grabbed Jessica to get her out of harm’s way. A few seconds later, the gutter had ripped free of the gutter board and crashed to the ground.

Divine intervention? Perhaps. But that didn’t prevent Jessica from being scared shitless for a few seconds.

“I’m sorry if I frightened you,” he said.

Jessica almost said,
I’m sorry I almost punched your freakin’ lights out, Padre.

“Come on inside,” she offered instead.

D
RIED OFF, COFFEE MADE, they sat in the living room and got the pleasantries out of the way. Jessica called Paula and told her she’d be there shortly.

“How is your father?” the priest asked.

“He’s great, thanks.”

“I haven’t seen him at St. Paul’s lately.”

“He’s kind of short,” Jessica said. “He might be in the back.”

Father Corrio smiled. “How do you like living in the Northeast?”

When Father Corrio said it, it sounded like this part of Philadelphia was a foreign country. On the other hand, Jessica thought, to the cloistered world of South Philly, it probably was. “Can’t get any good bread,” she said.

Father Corrio laughed. “I wish I had known. I would have stopped at Sarcone’s.”

Jessica remembered eating warm Sarcone’s bread as a little girl. Cheese from DiBruno’s, pastries from Isgro’s. These thoughts, along with the proximity of Father Corrio, filled her with a deep sadness.

What the hell
was
she doing in the ’burbs?

More important, what was her old parish priest doing up here?

“I saw you on television yesterday,” he said.

For a moment, Jessica almost told him that he must be mistaken. She was a police officer. Then, of course, she remembered. The press conference.

Jessica wasn’t sure what to say. Somehow she knew Father Corrio had stopped by because of the murders. She just wasn’t sure if she was ready for a homily.

“Is that young man a suspect?” he asked.

He was referring to the circus surrounding Brian Parkhurst’s departure from the Roundhouse. He had walked out with Monsignor Pacek, and—perhaps as an opening salvo in the PR wars to come—Pacek had deliberately and dramatically declined comment. Jessica had seen the constant replay of the scene at Eighth and Race. The media managed to get Parkhurst’s name and plaster it all over the screen.

“Not exactly,” Jessica lied. To her
priest,
yet. “We’d sure like to talk to him again, though.”

“I understand he works for the archdiocese?”

It was a question and a statement. The sort of thing priests and shrinks were really good at.

“Yes,” Jessica said. “He counsels students from Nazarene, Regina, and a few others.”

“Do you think he is responsible for these . . .?”

Father Corrio trailed off. He clearly had trouble saying the words.

“I really don’t know for sure,” Jessica said.

Father Corrio absorbed this. “This is such a terrible thing.”

Jessica just nodded.

“When I hear of crimes such as these,” Father Corrio continued, “I have to wonder just how civilized a place we live in. We like to think that we have become enlightened through the centuries. But this? It’s barbaric.”

“I try not to think of it that way,” Jessica said. “If I think about the horrors of it all, there’s no way I can do my job.” It sounded easy when she said it. It wasn’t.

“Have you ever heard of the
Rosarium Virginis Mariae
?”

“I think so,” Jessica said. It sounded like something she had run across in her research at the library, but like most of the information it was lost in a bottomless chasm of data. “What about it?”

Father Corrio smiled. “Don’t worry. There won’t be a pop quiz.” He reached into his briefcase and produced an envelope. “I think you should read this.” He handed her the envelope.

“What is this?”

“The
Rosarium Virginis Mariae
is an apostolic letter regarding the rosary of the Virgin Mary.”

“Does it have something to do with these murders?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

Jessica glanced at the folded papers inside. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll read it tonight.”

Father Corrio drained his cup, looked at his watch.

“Would you like some more coffee?” Jessica asked.

“No thanks,” Father Corrio said. “I really should get back.”

Before he could rise, the phone rang. “Excuse me,” she said.

Jessica answered. It was Eric Chavez.

As she listened, she looked at her reflection in the night-black window. The night threatened to open up and swallow her whole.

They had found another girl.

38

TUESDAY, 10:20 PM

T
HE RODIN MUSEUM was a small museum dedicated to the French sculptor at Twenty-second Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

When Jessica arrived, there were already a number of patrol cars on the scene. Two lanes of the parkway were blocked. A crowd was gathering.

Kevin Byrne huddled with John Shepherd.

The girl sat on the ground, her back against the bronze gates leading into the museum courtyard. She looked about sixteen. Her hands were bolted together, just like the others. She was heavyset, red-haired, pretty. She wore a Regina uniform.

In her hands was a black rosary, with three decades of beads missing.

On her head was a crown of thorns, fashioned out of concertina wire.

Blood trickled down her face in a delicate crimson web.

“God
damn
it,” Byrne yelled, slamming his fist into the hood of the car.

“I put out an all-points on Parkhurst,” Buchanan said. “There’s a BOLO on the van.”

Jessica had heard it go out on her way into the city, her third trip of the day.

“A crown?” Byrne asked. “A fucking
crown
?”

“Gets better,” John Shepherd said.

“What do you mean?”

“You see the gates?” Shepherd pointed his flashlight toward the inner gates, the gates leading to the museum itself.

“What about them?” Byrne asked.

“Those gates are called
The Gates of Hell,
” he said. “This fucker is a real piece of work.”

“The picture,” Byrne said. “The Blake painting.”

“Yeah.”

“He’s telling us where the next victim is going to be found.”

For a homicide detective, the only thing worse than having no leads was being played with. The collective rage at this crime scene was palpable.

“The girl’s name is Bethany Price,” Tony Park said, consulting his notes. “Her mother reported her missing this afternoon. She was at the Sixth District station when the call came in. That’s her over there.”

He pointed to a woman in her late thirties, dressed in a tan raincoat. She reminded Jessica of those shell-shocked people you see on foreign news footage, just after a car bomb has gone off. Lost, numb, hollowed out.

“How long had she been missing?” Jessica asked.

“She didn’t make it home from school today. Everybody with a daughter in high school and junior high is pretty jumpy.”

“Thanks to the media,” Shepherd said.

Byrne began to pace.

“What about the guy who called in the nine-one-one?” Shepherd asked.

Park pointed to a man standing behind one of the patrol cars. He was about forty, well dressed in a three-button navy suit, club tie.

“His name is Jeremy Darnton,” Park said. “He said he was driving about forty miles an hour when he went by. All he saw was the victim being carried on a man’s shoulder. By the time he could pull over and double back, the man was gone.”

“No description of the man?” Jessica asked.

Park shook his head. “White shirt or jacket. Dark pants.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“That’s every waiter in Philly,” Byrne said. He went back to his pacing. “I want this guy. I want to put this fucker down.”

“We all do, Kevin,” Shepherd said. “We’ll get him.”

“Parkhurst played me.” Jessica said. “He knew I wouldn’t come alone. He knew I’d bring the cavalry. He tried to draw us off.”

“And he did,” Shepherd said.

A few minutes later, they all approached the victim as Tom Weyrich stepped in to do his preliminary exam.

Weyrich searched for a pulse, pronounced her dead. He then looked at her wrists. On each wrist was a long-healed scar, a snaky gray ridge, crudely cut, laterally, about an inch below the heel of her palm.

At some point in the last few years, Bethany Price had attempted suicide.

As the lights from the half dozen patrol cars strobed against the statue of
The Thinker,
as the crowd continued to gather, as the rain picked up in intensity, washing away precious knowledge, one man in the crowd looked on, a man who carried a deep and secret knowledge of the horrors that were befalling the daughters of Philadelphia.

39

TUESDAY, 10:25 PM

The lights on the face of the statue are beautiful.

But not as beautiful as Bethany. Her delicate white features give her the appearance of a sad angel, as radiant as the winter moon.

Why don’t they cover her?

Of course, if they only realized how tormented a soul Bethany was, they wouldn’t be quite so upset.

I have to admit that I get a deep chill of excitement standing among the good citizens of my city, watching it all.

I’ve never seen so many police cars in my life. The flashing racks illuminate the parkway like a carnival midway. It is almost a festive atmosphere. There are about sixty or so people gathered. Death is always an attraction. Like a rollercoaster. Let’s get close, but not too close.

Unfortunately, we all get closer one day, whether we like it or not.

What would they think if I opened my coat and showed them what I am carrying? I look to my right. There is a married couple standing next to me. They appear to be in their midforties, white, affluent, well dressed.

“Do you have any idea what happened here?” I ask the husband.

He looks at me, a quick up and down. I do not offend. I do not threaten. “I’m not sure,” he says. “But I think they found another girl.”

“Another girl?”

“Another victim of that . . . rosary psycho.”

I cover my mouth in horror. “Seriously? Right here?”

They nod solemnly, mostly out of a smug sense of pride in being the ones to tell me the news. They are the sort people who watch Entertainment Tonight and immediately race to the phone to be the first to tell their friends about the celebrity death du jour.

“I do hope they catch him soon,” I say.

“They won’t,” the wife says. She is wearing an expensive white wool cardigan. She carries an expensive umbrella. She has the tiniest teeth I’ve ever seen.

“Why do you say that?” I ask.

“Between you and me,” she says, “the police are not always the sharpest knives in the drawer.”

I look at her jawline, the slightly sagging skin on her neck. Does she know that I could reach out, right now, take her face in my hands and snap her spinal cord in one second?

I feel like it. I really do.

Arrogant, self-righteous bitch.

I should. But I won’t.

I have work to do.

Perhaps I’ll follow them home, and pay her a visit when this is all over.

40

TUESDAY, 10:30 PM

T
HE CRIME SCENE stretched fifty yards in all directions. The traffic on the parkway was now bottlenecked to a single lane. Two uniformed officers directed the flow.