Shutter Man (18 page)

She was sitting on the floor in the back room, no more than fifteen feet from where the pipe bomb landed.

The projectile blasted through the old wooden lath and dry plaster, striking her on the right side of her face, between the right eye and her temple.

Firefighters responding to the call saw the hole in the wall, and subsequently found the victim. The woman had lain in an induced coma for the past two months. When the investigating detectives arrested Danny Farren, he was charged, among other things, with aggravated assault.

Now it was murder.

They stood on the sidewalk next to the window through which Danny Farren had thrown the pipe bomb. Zach Brooks had locked the building and made a DVD copy of the footage.

Byrne held up the DVD. ‘Thanks for this.’

‘Anything you need.’

As Zach climbed into his truck, Jessica and Byrne stood across from the store, each with their own thoughts. Even outside, two months after the bombing, the whole block smelled faintly of charred wood and plastic.

‘We’re not going to get Murder One out of this,’ Jessica said.

‘Why not?’

‘Mainly because Danny Farren didn’t load the bomb with ball bearings or small nails, which, as you know, is the preferred design when the criminal intent is to do bodily harm, the preferred design of homicide bombers,’ Jessica said. ‘The case for the defense will be that Farren’s intent was to do damage to the structure, not cause injury or death.’

The fact that he would be charged with causing the death of Jacinta Collins was foregone. It would be up to the DA to decide on the degree.

Still, if a case was going to be presented to a grand jury, anything was possible. Jessica knew her orders. Find anything and everything.

Byrne gave voice to the second thing they were both thinking.

‘If you’re extorting money from someone for protection, why would you destroy something that would generate income?’

The answer was in the mad-dog nature of men like Danny Farren. The message was in the force of his response. The man who owned the building, Kenneth Zelman, had refused to comment on the incident. He was clearly in the grip of Danny Farren’s extortion scheme, and telling the police would have incurred further wrath. Jessica figured that after the firebombing, the man somehow found the money to pay.

Before she could reply, Byrne’s phone rang. He took a few steps away, answered the call. A minute later he returned. He looked grim.

‘What is it?’

‘That was Captain Ross,’ he said.

‘What’s up?’

‘Even though the victim’s grandmother has already begun funeral preparations, I have to notify her officially. No one from the department has done it.’

‘Let’s go and make the visit,’ Jessica said.

Byrne looked up, a bit surprised. ‘You don’t have to go, Jess.’

Jessica opened the car door. ‘Says who?’

Muriel Davis lived in a block of houses in North Philly that had always broken Jessica’s heart.

Jessica reckoned she had gone through most of her life just this side of the glass being half full, an optimism she carried through her time in school, through the academy and then onto the street. When she got to Homicide, she noticed that the outlook had begun to erode, that she was suddenly trying to sweep the sand off the beach with a whisk broom. Working homicides, along with Special Victims, brought you into contact on a daily basis with the worst kind of human behavior.

Still, for many years she wanted to believe that people could rise above their circumstances, that being born into the kind of poverty and despair that was evident in this part of her city – a section she had not visited since her time in Homicide – was not necessarily a death sentence, or a ticket to prison.

Muriel Davis’s row house was struggling. Small touches such as lace curtains on the second-floor windows were grace notes. The old trinity was badly in need of repair.

The woman who answered the door was in much better shape. Muriel Davis was thin, no more than five-four. Her silver-white hair was pulled back in a bun. She wore a bright aqua cardigan and black slacks.

Before Jessica could introduce herself and Byrne, the woman ushered them in. She’d been expecting a visit.

The parlor was clean and dust free, with doilies on the old waterfall tables, as well as the back and arms of the camelback sofa. The mantelpiece was four deep in family photos. Above was a painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in a gilt frame.

Without formally offering, Muriel Davis had gone to the kitchen and returned with an array of butter cookies on a plate. Even the plate had a doily.

‘First of all, Mrs Davis, on behalf of the City of Philadelphia, let me say how sorry we are for your loss.’

The woman just nodded. Being so long after the moment Jacinta went into a coma, it looked as if Muriel Davis had done her grieving. Or maybe she’d gotten it done years ago in anticipation. There was pain in her eyes, but no tears.

‘Jacie’s mama Pearl was all part of that, you know,’ she said.

‘Part of what, ma’am?’ Byrne asked.

‘Doing the drugs, acting out. She was barely out of grade school when I lost my hold on her. Pearl had Jacie at sixteen, went in and out of jail, court-ordered rehab.’

‘Where is she now?’

Muriel picked up a photograph from the end table, a faded picture of a tall, lanky girl, clearly in the grip of the Pointer Sisters fashion craze, posing in front of a vintage Delta 88. ‘Oh, she passed. Long time now. Wasn’t no drugs killed her, though.’

‘How did she die, if I may ask?’

Muriel ran a finger over the photograph. ‘She stay with this violent boy. Called him Ray Ray on account he had this stutter. He come home one night, found Pearl had spent the last of his drug money on food and medicine for Jacie. Took a steak knife to her. Had to bury her closed. Couldn’t fix her face.’

‘I’m so sorry, ma’am,’ Byrne said.

‘Thank you.’

‘What about Jacie’s father?’

Muriel put the photograph down. ‘Jacie’s daddy was never part of her life. I don’t think she ever met him but twice. And that was when he came around to get his benefits. When that ran out he was long gone, off to his next baby mama.’

She sat back, crossed her hands on her lap.

‘You raise them up the best you can with what the good Lord give you to work with. Only got but two hands, and one of them don’t work with the arthritis.’

‘Before the incident when she was injured, when was the last time you saw Jacinta?’ Byrne asked.

Muriel thought for a few moments. ‘It was two days before. She dropped off her babies, told me she was going on a job interview.’

‘Two children?’

Muriel nodded. She pointed to the Olan Mills-type photograph on the wall. It was one of those settings where the older sibling was sitting behind the infant. An adorable girl and boy.

‘Tia is five now,’ Muriel said. ‘Little Andre is three.’

Jessica saw Byrne take a moment, gather his thoughts. ‘I want you to know that before, when the case against Danny Farren was aggravated assault, it was one thing. There were some very good detectives on that investigation, and they did a great job. With the work they did, Danny Farren was going to go away for a long time.’

He paused for a moment, continued.

‘Now it’s different. Now it’s a charge of murder, as it should be. I want you to know that Danny Farren will never take one breath as a free man.’

‘Every breath he takes is one that my granddaughter has been denied. If I could have her alive and in jail, I’d choose that.’

Jessica and Byrne said nothing.

Muriel pointed to a spot in the center of the worn living room rug. ‘Jacie used to sit there, under the Lord’s watchful eye, and open her Christmas presents. Every year she’d take the longest time opening her gifts.’ She looked up at Jessica. ‘You know how some children just tear off the paper, like they think the gift might be gone by the time they get inside the box?’

Jessica did. She had two of them at home. ‘Oh yes.’

‘Not Jacie. She’d peel back the tape and gently slide out the box. Then she’d fold the paper, make a neat pile of it. See, she knew we didn’t have much, and she saw no reason to waste. Every year, for years – birthdays, Christmas, Easter – we’d reuse that paper. Still have some.’

Muriel pointed to a bookshelf. On the bottom was an oversized atlas. Sticking out were a dozen sheets of brightly colored paper.

Jessica stood, wanting to leave before her emotions crept up on her.

They made their goodbyes.

At the door, Byrne handed Muriel a card. ‘If there’s anything the city can do to make your arrangements easier, please don’t hesitate to call.’

Muriel took the card, nodded a thanks. She opened the door for them, paused.

‘I know what Jacie did, Mr Byrne, who she was, who she ran with,’ she said. ‘I could not find a way to love her any less. Didn’t want to, didn’t even try. Got my own reckoning coming soon.’

‘Not for years,’ Byrne said.

Muriel smiled. ‘Oh Lord. Listen to you.’

They sat at the curb, in silence, for a long time. Each of them received phone calls. They both looked at their phones, hit ignore.

Finally Byrne spoke. ‘You okay?’

Jessica wasn’t okay. ‘I haven’t made a notification in a while. This was tough. I don’t ever want to forget this feeling.’

Byrne nodded. ‘It’s amazing how they never get easier. I mean, you know the words to say, but each time is just as difficult.’

‘This poor woman,’ Jessica said. ‘She lost her daughter to violence, lost her granddaughter to violence.’

She glanced down the street, at the hundreds of row houses, as far as she could see. She knew there was a personal drama playing out in all of them. She knew that in many of them there were stories not dissimilar to Muriel Davis’s, stories of heartbreak and sorrow and anger.

She wondered if she and Byrne and all the people who spoke on behalf of these people would ever make a difference. She glanced at Muriel Davis’s house and knew that she had to focus on
this
case,
this
story,
this
life.

Grief, she had come to believe, had a half-life. It might lessen by degree over the years, but it never fully left your heart. What had once been a case, a case she’d gotten less than twenty-four hours earlier, now had a face.

She would find justice, wherever it was hiding, for Jacinta Collins.

Billy paced in front of the library. He had taken two showers, washed and conditioned his hair, combed and re-combed it many times. He wore new jeans and a white dress shirt he had not taken from the closet in two years.

As he walked back and forth, he saw a man in the library watching him. He had noticed the man watching him and Emily in the past.

Gray jacket. Patched elbows. Black frame glasses.
 

When Emily came out the front doors, Billy found that he was holding his breath. She wore a peach-colored dress.

As they walked, she took his arm.

They stopped in front of Circuit World, an old-school electronics and ham-radio emporium that had been at this location for more than fifty years. The store could not compete with the big box stores and chain outlets like Radio Shack and Best Buy, but it did carry exotic and hard-to-find items for the radio and home hobby enthusiast

‘Would you like to come in with me?’ Billy asked.

Emily raised her face to the sun. ‘I think I’ll stay out here. It’s such a nice day.’

Billy assisted her to a nearby bus stop bench. She sat down.

‘I won’t be long,’ he said.

Emily smiled. She touched her watch. ‘I’ll count the minutes.’

Billy entered the store, soon found what he needed, paid cash, as always, and was out of the building in short order. He sat down next to Emily on the bench. When he saw the SEPTA bus coming, he took her hand. They walked in silence toward Federal.

As they crossed the street, Emily asked: ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’

‘I did,’ Billy said. ‘They have everything in there.’

When Emily didn’t respond, Billy glanced at her. She was smiling.

‘What?’ Billy asked.

‘Aren’t you going to tell me?’

‘Tell you what?’

‘What you bought?’

Billy looked at the package. ‘It’s nothing really.’

‘Is it something naughty?’ she asked. ‘Will I be scandalized and led to a life of debauchery and hedonistic pursuits?’

Billy reddened. ‘Nothing like that. It’s a motion detector,’ he said. ‘Battery-operated. The kind with an alarm.’

‘A motion detector?’

‘Yes,’ Billy said. ‘What you do is, you put it in the corner of a room and turn it on. Then, if anyone walks across its field, it goes off with a really loud alarm.’

Emily stopped walking and waved a hand. ‘Well you don’t need it,’ she said. ‘You can just take it back.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Take it back to the store and hire me.’

‘Hire you?’

‘Don’t be fooled by my girlish looks and retiring nature. I am an expert motion detector.’

Billy laughed. ‘Are you now?’

‘I am,’ she said. She offered a hand. ‘Walk me over to this building.’

Billy took her hand. They crossed the sidewalk. They stood in front of a storefront church.

A few moments passed. When the traffic slowed, two people crossed the street, walking west on Federal.

‘Two people just went by,’ Emily said. ‘An adult and a child.’

She was right. ‘Yes. That’s pretty good.’

‘I’m not done.’

‘Okay.’

‘The adult was a woman. I’d say in her mid-to-late twenties. The child was a girl, not much older than two. And I’d say they were both dressed up.’

She was right about this, as well. ‘How do you know?’

‘I’ve had a lot of practice being blind,’ she said. ‘But since you ask, I knew it was a woman because I smelled her perfume. It was a modern fragrance, nothing an older woman would buy. As to the child, I heard the sound of short footsteps. I knew they were dressed up because the woman was wearing heels, and the child was wearing hard-soled shoes.’

Billy was stunned. ‘You’re hired. I’m taking this back.’

Emily laughed.

After their walk, they sat in silence on the stone bench outside the main entrance to the library. At one o’clock, Emily touched her watch. ‘I have to get back.’

Billy took a deep breath. ‘I need to tell you something.’

‘Of course,’ she said.

‘I think I’m going away for a while.’

‘Okay.’

‘I just wanted to let you know.’

Emily reached out, touched his shoulder. ‘I hope it’s nothing bad.’

Billy had no idea what it was going to be. He said, simply: ‘No. I’m just going to France.’

‘Oh my goodness! How exciting!’

He wanted to explain it all to her – she was the only person in the world for whom he cared enough to tell – but he had no idea where to begin.

He glanced away for a second. When he looked back, a tear was running down Emily’s cheek.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I’m going to miss my flowers.’

Billy hadn’t expected this. ‘Well, I can —’

‘I always know when you come into the library. Did you know that?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘How?’

‘I can smell the roses when you walk past the front desk.’

Billy suddenly felt embarrassed. He felt like a stalker. He had often walked right in front of her and waited hours to find the courage to talk to her. Now he knew that
she
knew that.

Before he could respond, he sensed someone approaching. He instinctively brought his hand near his pocket, his weapon.

‘Is everything okay, Em?’ the stranger asked.

Billy turned to see a short, thick-waisted man in his thirties.
Gray jacket. Patched elbows. Black frame glasses.
It was the man who worked at the library. The man who had watched him.

‘She’s fine,’ Billy said.

The man took a step closer.

‘Emily? Are you okay?’ he repeated.

‘I said —’

The man put a hand on Billy’s chest. ‘I’d like to hear it from her.’

Billy bladed his body to the man, opened his coat. The man looked down, saw the Makarov.

‘I’m fine, Alex,’ Emily said. ‘Really.’

Billy stared at the man’s featureless face, mouthed the words:
Walk away now.

The man backed slowly away. A few seconds later, he disappeared around the corner.

‘I have to go,’ Billy said. There was more he wanted to say, much more. He had even thought he might have the courage to ask Emily if she wanted to go to France with him. He thought that, somehow, if she stood in front of the painting with him…

It no longer mattered.

‘I understand,’ she said.

‘You’ll get back okay?’

Emily laughed, wiped the last tear. ‘I’ve been doing it for six years. I’ll make it, Michael.’

Michael
.

He had never told her his other name, but she had found out because he needed a library card to access the reference books. He’d had the same library card since he was sixteen.

As he walked down Federal Street, his anger began to grow. It soon became a furious, writhing thing inside him.

Ten minutes later, he returned to the library. There, parked in front of the main entrance, was a police car. Through the window Billy could see Emily and the man she called Alex –
gray jacket, patched elbows. black frame glasses
– standing next to the magazine area, talking to two policemen.

As the white squall built inside, Billy knew two things.

One: he could never go back to the library. He would never see Emily again.

Two: the police would know his name and address.

Billy spent the rest of the afternoon in a dive bar on Wharton called The Jade Kettle. It was dark, with only a handful of patrons, hardcore midday drinkers.

Billy needed it dark. He needed the quiet.

As he nursed his sixth bourbon, a woman walked over.

‘Hi,’ she said. Billy turned to face her.

White T-shirt. Auburn hair. Silver bracelets.
 

‘Hi.’

‘Okay if I sit down?’ she asked.

‘I’m afraid I’m not going to be very good company.’

‘Having a bad day?’

‘When bad days have a bad day, it’s better than this.’

She laughed. ‘Sounds like a challenge.’

She slipped onto the stool.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

Billy leaned back, tried to take better measure of this girl in the dim light. She was in her early twenties, too pretty for The Jade Kettle by a prison yard. The bars in Center City and Northern Liberties drew them, certainly Old City and the Sugar House, maybe Fishtown, the hotel bars. No girl this pretty who wasn’t a working girl wandered into The Jade Kettle unescorted. Certainly not in the middle of the day.

Her accent said south Jersey.

‘Billy,’ he said. ‘My name is Billy.’

‘I’m Megan.’

They shook hands.

Megan leaned back, assessed him once again. ‘You don’t look like a Billy.’

‘Really now?’

‘Really.’

Billy drained his glass, called for another. It would be his seventh. He ordered one for the girl.

When they were served, he glanced at the door. He was hot. Cops any minute now. The Makarov was heavy in his waistband. His feet were on the floor.

He looked at the girl.

White T-shirt. Auburn hair. Silver bracelets.
 

‘What do I look like?’ he asked.

‘I think you look like a Malcolm.’

‘I once had an uncle named Malcolm.’

She sipped her drink. ‘See? I’m prescient.’

She didn’t expect him to know the word. He did, of course. He’d learned it at the library. The thought of Emily’s co-worker Alex brought a fresh shard of anger.

‘Actually, my uncle’s name was Desmond.’

‘Now you’re trying to confuse me.’

‘I am,’ he said. ‘It’s all part of my master plan.’

‘So where is Uncle Desmond these days?’

‘Long below the sod. A victim of low morals and evil intent.’

She didn’t know what he meant. As the bourbon took hold, he found he didn’t care.

‘His middle name was Malcolm,’ he added.

‘I get it,’ she said. ‘So. Billy. Billy what?’

Billy drained his drink, rattled the cubes, got the bartender’s attention. He had a pair of hundreds on the bar. They would not cut him off here.

He leaned in, whispered: ‘Billy the Wolf.’

She snorted a laugh into her hand. Billy handed her a napkin. She took it.

As she finished her drink she asked: ‘Tell me, Billy the Wolf.’

‘What?’

‘You have a place nearby?’

He took her to Sean’s old room in the basement of The Stone, now just a single bed and a nightstand, a few years of dust and mildew on the floor and drapes.

He found that he had been right. She was a working girl.

He settled with her before they made love.

It was the dream of the dream.

In it he is cold and afraid. His father’s hand is on his shoulder. As always, there are two men – big men in long winter coats – standing nearby. One man is on the sidewalk, one man is just on the street, at the curb, standing between two parked cars.

Uncle Pat is standing in the middle of the road.

Snow is falling.

From somewhere in the distance comes the sound of a reggae version of ‘The Little Drummer Boy’.

There is an explosion of gunfire. Four blinding white lights come out of the darkness. He is flying, falling. He finds himself in the pitch dark, his face against cold stone. When he sits up, it feels as if the ceiling is very high, almost as high as the sky. But there are no stars. It is a hall of black mirrors, but every time he looks into one, there is no one there.

He hears voices. Familiar voices. He hears people praying in both English and Irish. He hears music. It seems to be coming down a long metal pipe, has a carnival sound. He hears a hissing noise, like vapor from a teakettle. It seems to surround him.

And he walks. Mile after mile. Sometimes the walls are closer, and feel like metal: cold and smooth and unblemished. Sometime he feels the presence of other people, perhaps animals, but they dart from shadow to shadow, and he never gets a good look. In the darkest places, the long distances between the mirrors, he hears them keening and crying, mournful sounds that reach the endless night sky, and fall like rain.

And he walks. River to river. He can hear the gulls, the slap of the water against the piers.

Beneath it all, beneath the sounds of keening animals and escaping vapor, beneath the sobbing and reciting of prayers, there is always music.

He hears songs about a white room. He hears songs about blood running cherry red. He hears songs about a woman named Virginia Plain, a song about how the boys are back in town.

One night he hears a song that speaks to him in a way that no song ever has.

That’s who he is. He is Billy the Wolf.

One day, as he is walking, he sees a faint light ahead. At first it is burning red; it shimmers to orange and then to gold.

As the light grows in intensity, drawing him ever nearer, he hears the scream. It is far away, but it begins to grow in volume and urgency —

Billy opened his eyes.

A woman was screaming. Billy sat up, disoriented, drenched in sweat.

White T-shirt. Auburn hair. Silver bracelets.
 

He tore off the covers, naked, groping in the darkness. Where was the girl?

He heard the sound of breaking glass, a struggle. He reached for the Makarov, found it, chambered a round. The sounds were coming from the next room.

His
room.

He opened the door, saw her standing by his bed. She had turned on the lights and they hurt his eyes.

‘What… what is all this?’ she asked.

Billy tried to focus. The walls were covered with his photographs. On one wall, the wall devoted to the death songs, there were pictures of people, people with no faces, people with their faces drawn in. Beneath some of them were newspaper clippings.

Drug dealer found murdered.
 

Torresdale lawyer dead at 50.
 

Gang leader shot to death.