Authors: Richard Montanari
35
When Jessica got back to the Roundhouse, before she could get her coat off and sit down, her phone rang. The duty officer in the lobby of the Roundhouse told her that someone was on the way up to see her. A few minutes later a uniformed officer entered with Will Pedersen, the brick mason from the Manayunk crime scene. This time Pedersen was dressed in a three-button blazer and jeans. His hair was neatly combed, and he wore tortoiseshell glasses.
He shook hands with both Jessica and Byrne.
“What can we do for you?” Jessica asked.
“Well, you had said that if I remembered anything else, I should get
in touch.”
“That’s correct,” Jessica said.
“I was thinking about that morning. The morning we met in Manayunk?”
“What about it?”
“Like I said, I’ve been down there a lot lately. I’m pretty familiar with all the buildings. The more I thought about it, the more I realized something was different.”
“Different?” Jessica asked. “Different how?”
“Well, with the graffiti.”
“The graffiti? On the warehouse?”
“Yes.”
“How so?”
“Okay,” Pedersen said. “I used to be a bit of a tagger, right? Ran with
the skateboard boys in my teenage years.” He seemed a bit reluctant to talk about this, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. “I think the statute of limitations may have run out on that,” Jessica said.
Pedersen smiled. “Okay. I’m still kind of a fan though, you know? With all the murals and things around town, I’m always looking, taking pictures.”
The Philadelphia Mural Arts Program had started in 1984 as a plan to eliminate destructive graffiti in the poorer neighborhoods. In its effort, the city reached out to graffiti writers in an attempt redirect their creative urges into making murals. Philadelphia had hundreds, if not thousands, of murals.
“Okay,” Jessica said. “What does this have to do with the building on Flat Rock?”
“Well, you know how you see something every day? I mean, you see it, but you don’t really look at it closely?”
“Sure.”
“I was wondering,” Pedersen said. “Did you take pictures of the south side of the building by any chance?”
Jessica sorted through the photographs on her desk. She found a picture of the south side of the warehouse. “What about it?”
Pedersen pointed to an area on the right side of the wall, next to a large red and blue gang tag. With the naked eye it looked like a small white smudge.
“See this here? That was not there two days before I met you guys.”
“So you’re saying it might have been painted the morning the body was put on the riverbank?” Byrne asked.
“Maybe. The only reason I noticed it was because it was white. It kind of stands out.”
Jessica glanced at the photo. The picture had been taken with a digital camera, at a fairly high resolution. The print, however, was small. She would send her camera down to the AV unit and have them make an enlargement from the original file.
“Do you think it might be important?” Pedersen asked.
“It might,” Jessica said. “Thanks for bringing this to our attention.”
“Sure.”
“We’ll give you a call if we need to speak to you again.”
When Pedersen left, Jessica got on the phone to CSU. They would dispatch a tech to collect a paint sample from the building.
Twenty minutes later, an enlarged version of the JPEG file was printed and sitting on Jessica’s desk. She and Byrne looked at it. The painted image on the wall was a larger, cruder version of the one found on Kristina Jakos’s abdomen.
The killer had not only posed his victim on the bank of the river, but he had taken the time to tag the wall behind him with a symbol, a symbol meant to be seen.
Jessica had wondered if the telltale
gotcha
was in one of the crimescene pictures.
Maybe it was.
while waiting for the lab report on the paint, Jessica’s phone rang again. So much for the Christmas break. She wasn’t even supposed to be there. Death goes on.
She punched the button, answered. “Homicide, Detective Balzano.” “Detective, this is PO Valentine, I work out of the Ninety-second.” Part of the Ninety-second District bordered the Schuylkill River.
“What’s up, Officer Valentine?”
“We’re on the Strawberry Mansion Bridge right now. We found
something you should see.”
“Found something?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When you’re in homicide, the call is usually about a some
body,
not
a some
thing
. “What is it, Officer Valentine?”
Valentine hesitated a moment. It was telling. “Well, Sergeant Majette
asked me to give you a call. He says you should get down here right away.”
36
The Strawberry Mansion Bridge was built in 1897. It was one of the first steel bridges in the country, spanning the Schuylkill River between Strawberry Mansion and Fairmount Park.
This day, traffic was stopped at both ends. Jessica, Byrne, and Bontrager had to walk to the center of the bridge, where a pair of patrol officers met them.
Two boys, perhaps eleven or twelve years old, stood near the officers. The boys seemed a vibrating combination of fear and excitement.
On the north side of the bridge was something covered in a white plastic evidence sheet. Officer Lindsey Valentine approached Jessica. She was about twenty-four, bright-eyed, fit.
“What do we have?” Jessica asked.
Officer Valentine hesitated a moment. She may have worked out of the Ninety-second, but whatever was under the plastic had unnerved her a little. “Citizen called this in about a half hour ago. These two young men came across it while crossing the bridge.”
Officer Valentine lifted the plastic. On the sidewalk was a pair of shoes. They were women’s shoes, deep crimson in color, approximately size seven. Ordinary in all ways, except these red shoes had a pair of severed feet in them.
Jessica looked up, met Byrne’s gaze.
“The boys found this?” Jessica asked.
“Yes, ma’am.” Officer Valentine waved the boys over. The boys were white kids, just on the tip of hip-hop style. Mall rats with attitudes, but not right at this moment. Now they looked a little traumatized.
“We were just looking at them,” the taller one said.
“Did you see who put them here?” Byrne asked.
“No.”
“Did you touch them?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Did you see anyone around them when you were walking up?” Byrne asked.
“No, sir,” they said together, shaking their heads for emphasis. “We were here for like a minute or something and then a car stopped and told us to get away. They called the police after that.”
Byrne glanced at Officer Valentine. “Who placed the call?”
Officer Valentine pointed to a new Chevrolet parked about twenty feet from the circle of crime-scene tape. A fortyish man in a business suit and topcoat stood next to it. Byrne held up a finger to him. The man nodded.
“Why did you stay here after the police were called?” Byrne asked the boys.
The two boys shrugged in unison.
Byrne turned to Officer Valentine. “Do we have their information?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay,” Byrne said. “You guys can go. We may want to talk to you again, though.”
“What’s going to happen to them?” the smaller boy asked, pointing to the body parts.
“What’s going to
happen
to them?” Byrne asked.
“Yeah,” the bigger one said. “Are you going to take them with you?”
“Yes,” Byrne said. “We’re going to take them with us.”
“How come?”
“How
come
? Because this is evidence of a serious crime.”
182
RICHARD Montanari
Both boys looked crestfallen. “Okay,” said the smaller boy. “Why?” Byrne asked. “Did you want to put them on eBay?” He looked up. “Can you do that?”
Byrne pointed to the far side of the bridge. “Go home,” he said.
“Right now. Go home, or I swear to
God
I’ll arrest your whole family.” The boys ran.
“Jesus,” Byrne said. “Fucking
eBay.
”
Jessica knew what he meant. She could not imagine herself at eleven
years old, coming across a pair of severed feet on a bridge, and
not
freaking out. For these kids it was like an episode of
CSI
. Or some video game. Byrne talked to the 911-caller while the frigid waters of the Schuylkill River flowed beneath. Jessica glanced at Officer Valentine. It was a strange moment, the two of them standing over what was certainly the severed remains of Kristina Jakos. Jessica recalled her own days in uniform, times when a detective would show up at a homicide she had secured. She remembered looking at the detective in those days with a small measure of envy and awe. She wondered if Officer Lindsey Valentine looked at her that way.
Jessica knelt down for a closer look. The shoes were low-heeled,
round-toed, with a thin strap across the top, a wide toe-box. Jessica took a few pictures.
A canvass yielded the expected. Nobody had seen or heard anything. But one thing was obvious to the detectives. Something they did not need witness statements to tell them. These body parts had not been flung here randomly. They had been carefully placed.
within an hour they had the preliminary report back. To no one’s surprise, blood tests presumptively indicated that the recovered body parts belonged to Kristina Jakos.
there is a moment in all homicide investigations—investigations where you don’t find the killer standing over the body, dripping knife or smoking gun in hand—when everything grinds to a halt. Calls don’t come in, witnesses don’t show, forensic results lag. On this day, at this time, it was just such a moment. Perhaps the fact that it was Christmas Eve had something to do with it. No one wanted to think about death. Detectives stared at computer screens, they tapped their pencils to some unheard beat, crime-scene photographs stared up from the desk: accusing, questioning, expecting,
waiting.
It would be forty-eight hours before they could effectively question a sampling of people who took the Strawberry Mansion Bridge at approximately the time the remains were left there. The next day was Christmas Day and the usual traffic pattern would be different.
At the Roundhouse, Jessica gathered her things. She noticed that Josh Bontrager was still there, hard at work. He sat at one of the computer terminals, scrolling through arrest-history data.
“What are your Christmas plans, Josh?” Byrne asked.
Bontrager glanced up from his computer screen. “I’m going home tonight,” he said. “I’m on duty tomorrow. New guy, and all.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, what
do
the Amish do for Christmas?”
“That depends on the group.”
“Group?” Byrne asked. “There are different kinds of Amish?”
“Oh, sure. There’s Old Order Amish, New Order Amish, Mennonite, Beachy Amish, Swiss Mennonites, Swartzentruber Amish.”
“Are there parties?”
“Well, they don’t put up lights, of course. But they do celebrate. It’s a lot of fun,” Bontrager said. “Plus they have second Christmas.”
“Second Christmas?” Byrne asked.
“Well, it’s really just the day after Christmas. They usually spend it visiting their neighbors, eating a lot. Sometimes they even have mulled wine.”
Jessica smiled. “Mulled wine. I had no idea.”
Bontrager blushed. “How you gonna keep ’em down on the farm?”
As Jessica made the rounds of the hapless souls on the next shift, relaying her holiday wishes, she turned at the door.
Josh Bontrager sat at a desk, looking at the photos of the horrific scene they’d found on the Strawberry Mansion Bridge earlier that day. Jessica thought she saw a slight trembling in the young man’s hands.
Welcome to Homicide.
Moon’s book is the most precious thing in his life. It is large and leather-bound, heavy, with gilded edges. It had belonged to his grandfather, and
his
father before that. Inside the front, on the title page, is the signature of the author.
This is more valuable than anything.
Sometimes, late at night, Moon carefully opens the book, looking at the words and drawings by candlelight, savoring the fragrance of the old paper. It smells of his childhood. Now, as then, he is careful not to get the candle too close. He loves the way the golden edges wink in the soft yellow glow.
The first illustration is of a soldier climbing a great tree, his knapsack slung over his shoulder. How many times had Moon been that soldier, the strong young man in search of the tinderbox?
The next illustration is of Little Claus and Big Claus. Moon had been both men, many times.
The next drawing is of Little Ida’s flowers. Between Memorial Day and Labor Day, Moon used to run through the flowers. Spring and summer were magic times.
Now, as he enters the great structure, he is filled with magic again.
The building stands above the river, a lost majesty, a forgotten ruin not far from the city. The wind moans across the wide expanse. Moon carries the dead girl to the window. She is heavy in his arms. He places her on the stone windowsill, kisses her icy lips.
As Moon goes about his business, the nightingale sings, complaining of the cold.
I know, little bird,
Moon thinks
.
I know.
Moon has a plan for this, too. Soon he will bring the Snow Man, and winter will be banished forever.
“I’ll be in the city later,” Padraig said. “I’ve got to stop at Macy’s.” “What do you need from there?” Byrne asked. He was on his cell
phone, not five blocks from the store. He was on call, but his tour had
ended at noon. They had gotten the call from CSU on the paint used at
the Flat Rock crime scene. Standard marine paint, available everywhere.
The graffiti image of the moon—although an important development—
had led nowhere. As yet. “I can get whatever you need, Da.” “I’m out of the scruffing lotion.”
My God,
Byrne thought.
Scruffing lotion.
His father was in his sixties, tough as oak plank, and was just now entering a phase of unbridled
narcissism.
Ever since the previous Christmas, when Byrne’s daughter Colleen
had purchased her grandfather an array of Clinique facial products,
Padraig Byrne had been obsessed with his skin. Then, one day, Colleen
had written a note to Padraig saying that his skin looked great. Padraig
had beamed, and from that moment, the Clinique ritual had become a
mania, an orgy of sexagenarian vanity.
“I can get it for you,” Byrne said. “You don’t have to drive in.” “I don’t mind. I want to see what else they have. I think they have a
new M Lotion.”
It was hard to believe he was speaking to Padraig Byrne. The same
Padraig Byrne who had spent nearly forty years on the docks, a man
who had once taken on a half dozen drunken Italian Mummers with
only his fists and a gutful of Harp lager.
“Just because you don’t care about your skin, doesn’t mean that I
have to look like a lizard in my autumn years,” Padraig added.
Autumn?
Byrne thought. He checked his face in the rearview mirror.
Maybe he
could
take better care of his skin at that. On the other hand,
he had to admit that the real reason he offered to stop at the store was
that he really didn’t want his father driving across town in the snow. He
was getting overprotective, but he couldn’t seem to help it. His silence
won the argument. This time.
“Okay, you win,” Padraig said. “Pick it up for me. But I want to
stop by Killian’s later, though. To say good-bye to the boys.” “You’re not moving to California,” Byrne said. “You can go back
anytime.”
In Padraig Byrne’s eyes, moving to the Northeast was the equivalent
of moving out of the country. It had taken the man five years to make
the decision, and five more to make the first move.
“So you say.”
“Okay. I’ll pick you up in an hour,” Byrne said.
“Don’t forget my scruffing lotion.”
Christ,
Byrne thought as he clicked off his cell phone.
Scruffing lotion.
killian’s was a rough and tumble bar near Pier 84, in the shadow of the Walt Whitman Bridge, a ninety-year-old institution that had survived a thousand donnybrooks, two fires, and a wrecking ball. Not to mention four generations of dockworkers.
A few hundred feet from the Delaware River, Killian’s was a bastion of the ILA, the International Longshoreman’s Association. These men lived, ate, and breathed the river.
Kevin and Padraig Byrne entered, turning every head in the bar toward the door and the icy blast of wind it brought with it.
“Paddy!”
they seemed to yell in unison. Byrne took a seat at the bar while his father made the rounds. The bar was half full. Padraig was in his element.
Byrne surveyed the gang. He knew most of them. The Murphy brothers—Ciaran and Luke—had worked side by side with Padraig Byrne for nearly forty years. Luke was tall and robust; Ciaran was short and thickset. Next to them were Teddy O’Hara, Dave Doyle, Danny McManus, Little Tim Reilly. If this hadn’t been the unofficial home of ILA Local 1291, it could have been the meetinghouse of the Sons of Hibernia.
Byrne grabbed his beer, made his way over to the long table. “So, what, you need a passport to go up there?” Luke asked Padraig. “Yeah,” Padraig said. “I hear they have armed checkpoints on Roosevelt. How else we gonna keep out the South Philly riffraff from the Northeast?”
“Funny, we look at it exactly the opposite. Seems to me you did too. Back in the day.”
Padraig nodded. They were right. He had no argument for it. The Northeast was a foreign country. Byrne saw that look cross his father’s face, a look he had seen a number of times over the past few months, the look that all but screamed
Am I doing the right thing?
A few more of the boys showed up. Some brought houseplants with bright red bows on pots covered in bright green foil. This was the tough guy version of a housewarming gift, the greenery undoubtedly purchased by the distaff half of the ILA. It was turning into a Christmas party/going-away party for Padraig Byrne. The juke played “Silent Night: A Christmas in Rome” by the Chieftains. The lager flowed.
An hour later Byrne glanced at his watch, slipped his coat on. As he was saying his good-byes, Danny McManus approached with a young man Byrne didn’t know.
“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.