The Doll Maker (25 page)

‘Wow,’ Byrne said.

‘What’s wrong?’

Byrne pointed to the small LCD monitor over the register. ‘That’s me, isn’t it?’

Jessica looked at the five-inch screen. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘That’s you.’

‘Am I that fat?’

‘You’re not fat.’

Byrne turned to the side, sucked it in. ‘So, what you’re saying is, if you were watching this on TV, and this guy walked across the screen, you wouldn’t think he was fat?’

Byrne had a point. He did look a little heavy on the monitor. But Jessica knew him well enough not to help him make that point.

‘Television always adds ten pounds,’ she said.

‘Yeah, well, this isn’t television. This is a security camera at Home Depot.’

‘Same thing. And they don’t really light a Home Depot all that well, unlike the
Real Housewives of Wherever
.’

Byrne seemed transfixed by the image. ‘I can’t believe I’m that big.’

Jessica was just about to continue with her intervention when she was saved by Tonya T approaching.

‘I found it,’ she said.

‘Someone had Candlelight mixed?’ Jessica asked.

‘They did indeed,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t here that day, but my associate Donte mixed a gallon of Candlelight a week ago Saturday at 10:06 a.m.’

‘Do you know who it was mixed for?’ she asked.

‘That I don’t know.’

‘What about your surveillance cameras? Might there be a recording of people checking out around that time?’

‘Now that’s something you
will
have to talk to the MOD about. His name is Rufus and he is most irascible. I recommend having your handcuffs at the ready.’

On the way back to the car, they took a moment to absorb what they’d learned. It was not a break, but if they could put their hands on surveillance video that showed whoever bought the Candlelight paint, they would have a direction. They’d put in a request to have the surveillance video from that morning retrieved and put on a disk.

‘Oh, I forgot to mention,’ Byrne said, as he was unlocking the driver’s side door.

‘What?’

‘I bought a house, and I might be getting back together with Donna.’

‘Are you out of your fucking
mind
?’

Byrne just stared for a moment. They were standing in the middle of the Home Depot parking lot. If he had expected to calmly discuss this on the way to the Roundhouse, he was clearly mistaken.

‘Is that a trick question?’ Byrne asked.

What Byrne had told Jessica – that he had bought a house once occupied by a murderer scheduled to be given a lethal injection in just a few weeks, no less – did not immediately compute.

‘Jesus
Christ
. I mean, there’s not enough real estate available in Philly?’ Jessica asked. ‘You have to buy a haunted house?’

‘I’m sure there is other real estate, Jess. It’s just that—’

‘I can’t
imagine
trying to sleep in a place like that. I’d levitate every time a branch hit a friggin’ window.’

Jessica wasn’t particularly superstitious, but that didn’t mean there
wasn’t
such things as ghosts. She’d always felt that there was plenty of trouble around without asking for it.

‘I don’t sleep anyway,’ Byrne said. ‘It will probably be a good fit.’

Byrne went on to tell her about his suspicions that Valerie Beckert had been responsible for the murders of other children. When he framed his decision in this way, it began to make
some
sense. Not a lot, but some. Jessica still wouldn’t do it, but she was beginning to understand why
he
was doing it.

Byrne also told her about meeting with Theresa Woodman, about driving all the way out to Muncy, about talking to Father Tom Corey, about his brief but exasperating call to Brandon Altschuld, Esq.

‘Why do you like her for the others?’ she asked. ‘Is there any evidence?’

Byrne looked out the window. ‘I don’t have anything except a feeling, Jess. Six kids are still out there. This house was ground zero.’

Jessica considered this. She knew how cases got under your skin. She had a few of her own. ‘I guess I understand the why
you
part,’ she said. ‘But why
now
? Because of her status?’

‘Partly,’ Byrne said. ‘Plus, If I didn’t buy it, it was going to be demolished.’

‘What do you expect to find there?’

Byrne took a few seconds. ‘I really don’t know. I just figure if I can walk the same hallways she did, maybe something will come to me. It’s worth a shot. I tried everything else I could think of.’

If it were anyone other than Kevin Byrne telling her this, she would take him to the nearest mental health facility and walk him through intake.

But her partner for these many years had never once been wrong about these intuitions – feelings he had never really discussed with her, and that was okay – so she did all she could do in a situation like this. She put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, and said:

‘If something
does
come to you, or you need a sounding board, even in the middle of the night, you call me. You don’t even look at the clock.’

Byrne said nothing.

‘Kevin Francis?’

He turned to her and smiled. He knew that she only used both names when she was serious, just as his mother had.

‘I will, partner,’ he said. ‘And thanks.’

Back at the Roundhouse the task force met. In addition to Jessica and Byrne were Dana Westbrook, Josh Bontrager, Maria Caruso, and John Shepherd. Shepherd was a veteran detective who had retired a few years earlier, gone into hotel security, then came back. An extreme rarity for the homicide unit, but they were extremely fortunate to have him back.

Byrne began with their findings at the ME’s office.

‘Do we have any idea what that number mark means?’ Westbrook asked. ‘By that I mean the context.’

‘Not yet,’ Byrne said. ‘Jess is going to revisit the doll shop, and see if the owner there can shed some light on it.’

Westbrook nodded at Bontrager.

‘Josh?’

‘I tracked down the father,’ Bontrager said.

‘The boy’s father?’ Westbrook asked.

Bontrager nodded. ‘His name is Michael John Gillen, forty-eight, late of Torresdale and Miquon. He used to be—’

‘A judge,’ Byrne said. ‘Judge Gillen.’

‘Right,’ Bontrager said. ‘You know him?’

‘Not exactly, but I testified in his courtroom a few times,’ Byrne said. ‘They used to call him Killin’ Gillen.’ Byrne turned to Shepherd. ‘You remember him, don’t you, John?’

‘Oh yeah,’ Shepherd said.

‘Where is he, Josh?’

‘Well, he was in Germany at a conference,’ Bontrager said. ‘They’ve had some serious weather there in the past few days, apparently. He’s been trying to get back to Philly. He should be here tomorrow.’

‘So he knows about his boys,’ Westbrook said.

Bontrager nodded. ‘I talked to him early this morning.’

‘How did he react?’

Bontrager shrugged. ‘Dead silence for a long time. For a while there I thought the call was dropped. I tried to ask a few questions, but I didn’t get far. I asked if he had any ideas about who might have done this.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He said he was on the bench for thirteen years. He said there were probably a thousand people who wanted to.’

It was true. A day didn’t go by when members of the law enforcement community, as well as the judiciary, weren’t threatened in some manner. But a cop’s or a judge’s family? There were stone-cold gangsters who would find this off limits.

‘He was a municipal court judge?’ Westbrook asked.

Byrne nodded. ‘Yeah. Common pleas too, I think.’

Bontrager looked at his notes. ‘He was both. About three years ago he ran for the Superior Court and lost. He went into private practice after that.’

‘Criminal defense?’ Westbrook asked.

‘No,’ Bontrager said. ‘Real estate law. Some copyright stuff. No violence.’

They all knew that what was done to the Gillen boys, and Nicole Solomon, transcended street violence.

‘Let’s take a look at his cases for the last few years he was on the bench,’ Westbrook said. ‘Let’s isolate the worst of the worst offenders he ruled on, and cross-reference them with what we have so far.’

Jessica thought this was a reasonable avenue of investigation, but she wasn’t sure how this was going to connect with Nicole Solomon’s murder.

Westbrook nodded at Jessica.

Jessica looked at her notes. ‘We’ve tracked down the color and brand of the paint that was used at both the Solomon and Gillen murder scenes. It’s called Candlelight and the Home Depot on Cheltenham Avenue mixed a gallon of it the day Nicole Solomon was killed.’

‘They only mixed that color once?’ Westbrook asked.

Jessica nodded. ‘The records in the paint department only go back ten days, and only the records for that store are logged on the computer there. But, yes. Only one customer had that color mixed in the previous ten days.’

The detectives took this in.

‘We’ve got a request of surveillance footage for the hour or so after the paint was mixed.’

‘Of the checkout lanes.’

‘Yes,’ Jessica said. ‘We should have it today.’

Westbrook nodded at Maria Caruso. She went through her notes. ‘We’ve got preliminary results back on the cigarette Nicole was holding. It’s a specialty brand called Gitanes Brunes. French manufacture, not available anymore in the U.S.’

‘Why not?’ Westbrook asked.

‘Not sure,’ Maria said. ‘I talked to the owner of a specialty shop on Sansom called Avril 50, and he told me that both Gitanes and Gauloises are not allowed to be imported anymore. They might be available at duty-free shops, or through the mail. I’m looking into it.’

‘Nicole was a smoker?’ Westbrook asked.

‘No,’ Jessica said. ‘Autopsy showed no signs of it. But what is strange is that there is lipstick on the filter, and it doesn’t match the lipstick Nicole was wearing. CSU collected everything in the drawers in Nicole’s bathroom – makeup, perfumes, cosmetics – and none of it matched.’

Westbrook looked to John Shepherd. He stepped forward.

‘The stockings that were used to strangle Nicole Solomon – and it looks like the Gillen boys, too – are vintage, as well,’ he said.

Shepherd pinned six photographs on the whiteboard. Three of them showed the heels of the stockings in close up. The others showed the tops.

He pointed to the close-up of the heel.

‘The stockings are all the same manufacture, in two different shades. The material is a pure silk chiffonette,’ Shepherd said. ‘Reinforced Lisle tops with what’s known as a French heel.’

Jessica took this in. The stockings were more than seventy years old.

‘There are stains on all three that do not match the DNA profile of the victims. Two of the three have been mended with a contrasting silk thread. By that I mean mended
recently
.’

He pointed to the top of the stocking used in the Solomon murder. ‘All three of the stockings have identical initials embroidered at the top. They all have
FdP
.’

‘Do those initials show up anywhere else in the investigation?’ Westbrook asked.

‘Not yet.’

‘Are silk stockings like these available anywhere? Maybe eBay or vintage clothes stores?’

‘Both,’ Shepherd said. ‘I’m checking eBay now to see if transactions for any stockings with these initials were recently closed with these initials. Nothing so far.’

Jessica made a column in her notepad, drawing the common elements in the murders.

All the victims were sitting on a recently painted seat. Nicole Solomon on a train depot bench; the Gillen boys on swings, crudely made of a pine two-by-eight.

All the victims had a mark drawn into their scalps – the numbers 10, 11, and 12 – all made with a sharp needle, all made post-mortem.

At both crime scenes were found handwritten invitations, apparently inviting one victim to the next tea dance, the next murder scene.

At the Gillen crime scene was found a porcelain doll, an almost perfect replica of the first victim, Nicole Solomon.

Before meeting with the task force, Jessica had received a fax from Hell Rohmer. In it he said there was no doubt that the author of the second invitation was the same person who wrote the first.

After the meeting ended, Jessica and Byrne caught up to Josh Bontrager near the elevators.

‘Hang on, Josh,’ Byrne said.

‘What’s up?’

‘How long ago were Gillen and his wife divorced?’ Byrne asked.

Bontrager flipped through his notes. ‘Around ten years ago.’

‘And he moved out then?’

‘I can’t say for sure, but that would be my guess.’

Byrne thought for a few moments. ‘Maybe David Solomon wasn’t calling Mary Gillen,’ Byrne said. ‘Maybe he was calling Judge Gillen, and it was the last phone number he had for him.’

‘David Solomon had no criminal record,’ Jessica said. ‘Neither did Nicole.’

‘It had to be something else. Do we know how long David Solomon had been a social worker?’

‘I don’t know about that, but I know he worked at AdvantAge for nine years,’ Bontrager said.

‘What about before then?’

‘No idea,’ Bontrager said. ‘I’ll find out.’

‘Let’s see if he ever did any work for the city or the county.’

Before leaving for the day, Jessica revisited the ViCAP database, inputting the new data – the presence of a doll, victims posed on swings, victims given magic mushrooms. She found no signature that even came close to the combination of these elements.

She also did a general keyword search with some of the data. The results seemed to be even more scattershot. She got hits for songs by Ella Fitzgerald and Big Joe Turner, videos on how to paint a swing set, as well as a link to the 1957 film
Silk Stockings
with Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse.

The one hit that seemed to have an outside chance of relevance – as in way outside – was a painting called
The Swing
by a man named Jean-Honoré Fragonard. In it, a young man hides in the bushes, watching a young woman being pushed on a swing by an elderly man.

Jessica put her notes on all this into an email to Byrne, shut down the terminal.