Authors: The Echo Man
On
the way out she saw that the bottom drawer in the dresser was slightly open.
She looked at the door, then back.
Before
she could stop herself she eased open the drawer. Inside were three folded
dress shirts. There was something glossy beneath them. She pushed the shirts
aside, and saw it.
At
the bottom of the drawer was a picture of her mother.
Byrne
sat in his van. On the way to Chestnut Hill he had planned it all out: how he
would present himself, how he would talk to Christa-Marie, how he would get the
information he needed from her. He would walk in, the veteran investigator, Mr.
Cool, Master of the Universe, and walk out with what he needed.
He
had failed miserably.
He
was leaving without one shred of information. He wondered what his next move
would be. He could talk to Michael Drummond or Paul DiCarlo in the DA's office.
They, in turn, would get in touch with Benjamin Curtin, and the request would
be made to have Christa- Marie come into the city for a formal statement.
Byrne
could all but see the attendant circus.
As
soon as he started the van he saw Adele Hancock crossing the wide driveway.
Byrne lowered his window as she approached.
'She
wanted you to have this.'
Adele
Hancock handed him a sealed CD. The cover photo was a picture of Christa-Marie
at a cafe in Italy. Behind her was the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore.
'She
told me to tell you that if you want to know her, you should listen to this.'
'What
do you think she means by that?'
Hancock
offered a thin smile. 'If you have a few years to spare, I could probably
scratch the surface of that question for you.'
Fifteen
minutes later Byrne found himself on the expressway. He couldn't head back to
the city. Not yet. He had another stop to make.
Inside
his head the urges combusted. One urge told him what he had to do, what he
should do. The other told him what he ultimately
would
do.
Heading
west, he opened the CD and pushed it into the player. In moments his world was
filled with the soaring majesty of Christa- Marie Schönburg's cello.
Tommy
Archer had never gotten used to the smell. Probably never would. This did not
bode well for someone with a dream of one day owning his own beauty salon.
Today's
offending odor - there were so many from which to choose in this line of work -
was the cloying aftermath of the perm he had just finished doing on old Mrs.
Smith. The perm smell was mostly ammonia, which, if he remembered correctly
from his chemistry classes, came from ammonium thioglycolate.
Tommy
just called it skunk.
He
always told his customers that, seeing as the perm solution was very alkaline,
the best way to get rid of the smell was with an acid- based product like
tomato juice. He told them to apply it to their hair, leave it on for ten to
twenty minutes, then shampoo and rinse.
His
customers all thought he was some kind of genius when he explained this to
them, but it was pretty basic science. Still, he let them believe what they
wanted to believe. In his twenty-six years there hadn't been too many people
who considered Tommy Archer a genius. Especially his father. On the other hand,
considering what he had once done for his father, he had earned the man's
undying gratitude, if not his respect. Not that the man would ever show it.
While
getting the perm smell out of hair was one thing, getting the smell out of the
tiny shop, the sum total of six hundred square feet that made up Country Cutz
(inarguably the worst salon name in the history of the business), was something
else.
Even
though the temperature was around forty-five degrees, Tommy opened the two
windows overlooking the street. Mrs. Smith had been his last customer for the
day.
Tommy
popped a tape into the player behind the register and began to sweep up. He
felt a chill cross the salon. It was getting near the holiday season, which
meant more work, more money, but it also meant that the loneliness would begin
to descend again. He was the poster boy for Seasonal Affective Disorder.
He
was not allowed to smoke in the shop. After the floor was swept and the sinks
rinsed, with combs and brushes cleaned, he stepped outside and lit a cigarette.
Dark already. The main street of the town was all but deserted. The lights from
Patsy's Diner two blocks away and the Aamco shop across the street were all
that were on.
'Are
you still open?'
Tommy
nearly jumped a foot. He turned to locate the source of the voice. There was a
man standing right next to him. As in
right
next to him. He hadn't heard
him walk up the sidewalk.
The
man wore a dark overcoat.
Tommy
glanced at his watch. 'Actually, we close in about five minutes.'
The
man ran a hand over the back of his hair. 'I was hoping to get a quick trim.
You see, I have a wedding reception tonight - I'm the cool uncle, the one with
the big wallet - and, while I could probably show up in a rainbow wig, I do
like to make an entrance.'
Tommy
looked again at his watch, as if the answer was going to be there. He liked the
man's style, though, and the
big wallet
reference was clearly meant to
imply some sort of huge tip. Plus, it wasn't like he had anywhere to go. His
little hamlet didn't exactly have a thriving gay community, or even a seedy
part of town. All he had to look forward to was a bottle of cheap Orvieto and
the DVD box set of the second season of
Jericho. Thank God for Netflix.
He
glanced at the man.
Nice eyes. Nice smile.
'Just
a trim?'
'Yes,'
the man said. 'And I'm willing to pay double the going rate.'
'That
won't be necessary,' Tommy said. 'Besides, what would I do with all that money
in a dump like this town?'
The
man didn't really need too much work, but if Tommy understood anything - about
both himself and most of the people he had ever styled - it was that personal
grooming was just that. Personal. Everyone had a right to look exactly the way
he or she wanted.
'Nice
little town you have here,' the man offered.
Tommy
snorted. 'Yeah, well, it is if you don't mind living in a place where you call
the wrong number and end up talking to that person for an hour anyway.'
The
man laughed. 'I'll bet it's not
that
bad.'
Tommy
took out his hair dryer, blew the hair from the man's shoulders. When he was
done he dusted the man's neck with powder.
'So,
you're going to a wedding reception?' Tommy asked.
'Yes,'
the man said.
'Whereabouts?
Over at the Legion Hall?' Tommy took off the cape. He picked up his brush,
brushed off the last stray hairs from the man's shoulders and neck.
'No,'
the man said. 'This is at the Crystal Room.'
Tommy
had never heard of the Crystal Room. 'Is that around here somewhere?'
'It's
in Philadelphia.'
Tommy
shrugged. He figured that the man was on his way across the state. They got a
lot of travelers here, being so close to the Flight 93 memorial. Tommy wondered
how the man had managed to find the shop.
The
man stood up, straightened the crease in his trousers. 'I really appreciate
this. I feel like a new man.'
A
new man, Tommy thought. I wish
.
'It
was my pleasure.'
The
man slipped on his coat. 'How much do I owe you?'
Tommy
told him. The man doubled the price, as promised.
At just
after eight Tommy locked the shop. As per his explicit instructions, he left
the register open, drawer out, under a solitary spotlight.
He
walked quickly to the parking lot. The temperature had dropped in the past hour
or so.
'Thomas?'
He spun
around. He saw no one, just the long-shadowed street.
Thomas
?
Who the hell called him Thomas? The last person to call him Thomas had been his
ex, Jeremy. But that had been in York, and that was three years ago.
'Hello?'
Silence.
Tommy
stepped back around the corner. A car trundled past, one person inside, never
glancing his way. He looked both ways down the street. And saw him. The man he
had just given the trim to. Except now the man was wearing a dark jumpsuit,
zipped to the throat.
'
Benvenuto
al carnevale
.'
The
man lifted something into the air, an object about the size and shape of a
large old-school garage-door opener. Tommy heard a loud crackling sound,
smelled something burning. Then his legs went south.
In a van.
Moving.
Tommy
blanked out. Came back.
He
could not move his head.
The
van was stopped. The man climbed into the back, put on a pair of thin latex
gloves, shut the doors. Classical music was playing on the car stereo. Violins
or something.
Tommy
heard something else. It sounded like a drill.
Tommy
screamed.
Byrne
stopped for coffee in North Philly. He washed his face and hands in the
bathroom. Fatigue was a shambling monster within. When he slipped back into the
van he turned on his cellphone and saw that he had five messages. All from
Jessica. He called her. 'Where are you?' Byrne asked.
'I'm
at Jefferson Hospital,' Jessica said.
Jefferson?
Why?'
'I
ran into an old friend of mine today.'
'What
are you talking about? Who?'
'Lucas
Anthony Thompson.'
'What?
How?'
Jessica
gave him a brief recap, starting with the suicide of Joseph Novak, the
voicemail from the dead, the existence of Novak's journal, and the assault by
Lucas Thompson on her. Byrne took a moment to absorb it all.
'Man,
I leave the city for one minute,' he said.
'Tell
me about it.'
'Is
Thompson in custody?'
'No,'
Jessica said. 'He's dead. And Novak's journal is gone.' She filled him in on the
rest of the details.
'Where
did it happen?'
Jessica
told him.
'That
was the Kimmelman crime scene, wasn't it?' 'Yeah.'
'Have
they moved him yet?'
'Yeah.
CSU is all over the place.'
'I'm
going to stop there,' Byrne said. 'When did they say you could get out of
there?'
'About
an hour or so. Vincent is with Sophie. Can you pick me up?' 'I'll be there.'
Byrne
arrived in front of the hospital at about nine-thirty.
Jessica
was waiting, forced to sit in a wheelchair - which made everything seem so much
worse than it was. Spotting his van, she got out of the chair, crossed the
driveway, and slid into the passenger seat.
'You
look
okay,' Byrne said.
'I
am
okay. You know how it is. You break a fingernail and they want to do
exploratory surgery. Keeps the premiums up.'