Ten minutes later, Brooks called back. Byrne put him on speaker.
‘What do we have, Zach?’
‘Well, obviously I can’t make any concrete findings without walking the scene and collecting my own samples, but based on what you’ve sent me, and the findings of the arson unit up there, I’d say we have the same device.’
‘You’re saying it might be the same bomber?’ Byrne asked.
‘I can’t tell you that, but the device used looks to have been identical. The blast seat is a mirror image, and the blast pattern seems to be indistinguishable. I can take a ride up there if you want. If the place hasn’t been remodeled or demolished, I’ll be able to tell you more.’
Byrne gave it a moment. ‘I don’t think we’ll need that right now,’ he said. ‘But thanks, Zach.’
‘You got it, brother.’
Byrne crossed the room to the terminal at which Tim Gallagher was sitting. Gallagher looked up. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I haven’t seen the guy. They’re all starting to look alike.’
‘No problem,’ Byrne said. He leaned over, tapped a few keys. A second later, a mug shot came up, front view and side view.
‘Holy shit,’ Gallagher said. ‘That’s the guy.’
Jessica felt a surge of adrenalin. She walked around to the front of the LCD monitor.
There, on the screen, was a familiar face.
The man who had been extorting money from Tim Gallagher was Danny Farren.
‘Are you certain this is the man?’ Byrne asked.
‘One hundred percent.’
‘And you say that the men who actually picked up the protection money were younger?’
‘Yes.’
Byrne crossed the duty room, came back with a folder. He opened it, put a photograph on the table. It was a still taken from the surveillance cameras in front of the Sadik Food King.
‘Are these the men, Mr Gallagher?’
‘That’s them,’ he said. ‘They’re older here, but that’s them.’
Six detectives met at the back of the duty room. On a whiteboard was a picture of Danny Farren and his two sons, Michael and Sean. Both sons had been in and out of jail over the last twenty years, ever since they were juveniles, but neither had done hard time.
Each detective took a few moments to read the Farrens’ sheets – their known associates, their last-known addresses, their life histories in and around the criminal justice system. Nothing leapt out that would tie them to the Rousseaus or Edwin Channing.
As Josh Bontrager and Maria Caruso hit the phones, coordinating the various units, Jessica and Byrne met near the captain’s office.
‘Let’s get that warrant,’ Byrne said.
‘If you’re talking about an arrest warrant, it’s not going to happen.’
‘Of course it will.’
‘How am I supposed to walk an arrest warrant through with what we have?’ Jessica asked. ‘Or, more accurately, what we don’t have?’
Byrne gave it a moment. ‘We’ve got the Farrens on the CCTV footage outside the Channing scene. We’ve just put the murder weapon in their hands.’
‘Number one, that footage near the Channing scene is so far away and so dark that it could be anybody. Plus, the SUV looks like ten thousand other banged-up dark SUVs in Philly. The fact that the Farrens were a few blocks away two hours earlier in a remotely similar vehicle isn’t going to fly. We arrest them, we have six hours to charge them. If we could find that Acadia, we might have something to work with.’
Byrne just listened. They both knew that the Acadia was probably chopped for parts by now.
‘Two, that gun was stolen a long time ago, in another county,’ Jessica continued. ‘We don’t exactly have it in their hands. Plus, Gallagher’s testimony, if it comes to that, about knowing who broke into his store would get ripped to shreds. You know how guns are bought and sold on the street. On top of everything, I’m not sure we could even compel Gallagher to take the stand on this matter.’
Jessica knew that Byrne knew all this. The two of them had tried to work the system for years together.
Figuring she was in for the pound as well as the penny, she went on. ‘We’ve got no forensics, no DNA, no solid eyewitnesses. We arrest them, and don’t charge them, they walk. Everything after that becomes harassment.’
The two of them let the fury of the moment ebb.
‘So what are you saying?’ Byrne asked.
‘I’m saying that I’m going to make the call right now.’
Twenty minutes later, Jimmy Doyle walked into the duty room. Byrne briefed him on what they had.
The two prosecutors and three detectives huddled in a corner.
‘What do you think, Jess?’ Jimmy asked.
Jessica thought of everything they had, and did not have. ‘I think we can get a search warrant for The Stone. It’s Michael Farren’s last known address. I’d say we have probable cause. We search the place, we find a shell casing, the weapon itself, or any property belonging to Edwin Channing or the Rousseaus, the arrest warrant will fly.’
‘I agree.’
‘Who’s available?’ Jessica asked.
Jimmy glanced at his watch. ‘I think Judge Salcer is in chambers now.’ He looked at Jessica. ‘If you type it up, I’ll get it over.’
‘You got it.’
Within a half-hour, Jessica’s phone rang. It was Jimmy.
‘This is Jessica,’ she said. ‘You’re on speaker.’
‘Who am I speaking to, Jess?’
‘Detectives Byrne and Shepherd.’
‘We have the search warrant,’ he said. ‘I’ve been in touch with Captain Ross and Inspector Mostow. They’re gearing up the fugitive squad to serve an arrest warrant if we need it.’
Jessica and Byrne said nothing.
‘I’ve also talked to the district attorney,’ Jimmy continued. ‘This is all one investigation now. Four counts of conspiracy to commit murder. Danny Farren and his two sons. We are going to bury these fucking animals.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Jessica said. The word ‘sir’ slipped out before she could stop herself. Jimmy Doyle didn’t seem to notice.
‘I’ll meet the PPD there,’ he said. ‘Jess, I’ll need you back here on point.’
‘On my way,’ Jessica said.
As the entire duty room got ready for the detail, the sense of forward motion was palpable.
‘Good work, counselor,’ Byrne said to Jessica.
‘Wait until you get my bill.’
Byrne smiled as he put on a Kevlar vest. Jessica helped strap him in.
‘Be safe, detective,’ she said.
‘Always.’
She held up her phone. It meant, call me ASAP.
‘Copy that,’ Byrne said.
As Jessica watched the officers leave the duty room, she thought about what had just happened, and what they believed to be true.
The killers they sought now had names.
Sean and Michael Farren.
The building was a derelict clapboard row house on Montrose Street, at one time a tavern called The Stone.
In the past decade or so, the neighborhood had become gentrified, especially after the old Naval Home had been remodeled into Naval Square, a condominium and retail complex.
But that was a few streets over. Here, in this section of of the neighborhood, between 26th Street and Grays Ferry Avenue, it looked much the same as it had fifty or sixty years ago.
As detectives fanned out along the block, Byrne met Jimmy Doyle about a hundred feet from the front of the building.
‘Christ, does this take me back,’ Jimmy said.
Byrne pointed at the tavern. ‘Did you ever go inside?’
Jimmy nodded. ‘My mother made me go there a few times to drag my stepfather out. Place always gave me the creeps.’
Byrne remembered The Stone well. It had had a long-standing reputation for being a hard place for hard men. When you were ten years old, that status grew into something of a myth.
‘I saw Patrick Farren literally pick up a guy and throw him out the door,’ Jimmy said. ‘A two-hundred-pound man and he lifted him off a stool. Dead weight.’
Byrne glanced down the block. There he saw an idling CSU van, holding back in case they were needed to process the scene. He turned back and asked the question that had begun to fester inside.
‘Jimmy,’ he said. ‘Do you know Graham Grande?’
Jimmy looked over. For an instant Byrne thought he saw the wheels turning. The
legal
wheels. Just as quickly, the old Jimmy Doyle was back.
‘Sure I know him,’ he said. ‘Good man. Old-school pro. Precious few left these days.’
Before Byrne could respond, he got the go command on his two-way. The team was in place.
Jimmy handed him the search warrant. ‘Let’s do this.’
While Jimmy got on the phone to give his boss a status report, Byrne checked the action on his service weapon.
As he approached the tavern, he noticed that the front door was double-padlocked, and the sign above, at one time spelling out
The Stone
in green neon, had broken tubes. The front window still boasted a pair of beer signs from the sixties or seventies.
The door, which was just a few feet from the street, looked even worse close up. Decades of carved names and sprayed graffiti marked it.
With Josh Bontrager, John Shepherd, and Bình Ngô behind him, flanked by four tactical officers, Byrne knocked and said, loud enough to be heard through the door: ‘Philadelphia Police! Search warrant!’
He waited a few moments, and repeated the process.
No response.
The four tactical officers cautiously moved to the rear of the structure, their AR-15 rifles high.
As Byrne and Shepherd walked along the right side of the building, Byrne noticed that the boarded-up windows on the first and second stories had rusted iron bars over them. At ground level there were two windows of glass block.
At the rear of the property was a small patio. As Byrne recalled, it was at one time surrounded by a white picket privacy fence. The boards had long ago been ripped from the cross rails. The back door to the bar, as with the front door, was padlocked. There did not appear to be any other entrances to the structure; no coal chute, no delivery doors. Byrne walked up to the two windows and tugged on the iron bars. They were secure.
He got on his two-way and suggested Josh Bontrager do the same thing on the other side. In short order, Bontrager got back to him with the news he expected. The bars on the windows on that side were secure.
When the entry team was ready, Byrne knocked on the rear door, listened for any sound coming from inside the building. There was none. No television, no radio, no conversation. Best of all, no dogs.
He keyed his handset, raised Josh Bontrager. A minute later, Bình Ngô and Bontrager rounded the building.
Bontrager had a large crowbar. He made eye contact with everyone and, seeing that the team was ready, inserted the crowbar into the door jamb, right near the padlock, and pushed. It took two or three attempts, but on the final attempt the door splintered open.
‘Philadelphia Police!’ Byrne yelled. ‘Search warrant!’
The four detectives all drew their weapons, held them at their sides. The four tactical officers entered the building. Because they did not know if the suspects were present, the detail would be a methodical search of the premises, not a dynamic entry.
The tactical officers would search the first and second floors; Byrne and Shepherd would take the basement. Josh Bontrager and Bình Ngô would cover the exterior.
According to the plot plan they had acquired from the Department of Licenses and Inspections, the kitchen had been at the rear of the structure. Byrne and Shepherd quickly found the stairs leading to the cellar, keeping their flashlights out and away from center.
While there was some light on the first floor, sifting through the boarded windows, the cellar was pitch black. Byrne felt along the wall, found no light switch.
As they descended the steps, the old and dried-out treads announced their arrival, as did the bright white beam from their flashlights. It made the two detectives perfect targets in this confined space.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Byrne took in the area.
A narrow hallway. Two doors. One on the right, one on the left. Both were closed. No light spilled into the corridor from beneath them. Ahead, at the end of the hall, was an old oil furnace.
Byrne shone his flashlight at the ceiling, made eye contact with Shepherd, who nodded. There were three bare bulbs in the unfinished ceiling. Byrne reached up and touched one of them. It was cold.
He could hear the other officers moving up to the second floor.
The two men flanked the door on the right. John Shepherd reached out, soft-checked the doorknob. He shook his head. It was not locked.
With a nod, he swung the door inward. As it opened fully, Byrne rolled the jamb, his weapon in close-contact firing position. With his other hand he shone his flashlight floor to ceiling in rapid arcs, taking it all in.
Against the far wall was an army cot, a small table, a lamp. Another corner held a pile of dirty clothes. At the foot of the bed was a table, which held a hotplate. The device had a cord that ran up to the light socket in the ceiling. There was a closet with no door. The room was unoccupied.
The two detectives moved to the second door. They would reverse roles. Byrne checked the doorknob. This door too was unlocked. When Shepherd was ready, Byrne opened the door, flanked Shepherd on the right.
‘Holy shit,’ Shepherd said.
A few moments later, the area cleared, Shepherd holstered his weapon. Byrne stepped into the room and saw what the man meant.
As a K-9 officer and his dog made a pass through the structure, searching for possible booby traps and explosives, Byrne met John Shepherd at the back door. They exchanged a look known to veteran law enforcement officers the world over, members of the military and first responders of every discipline. It was one of relief and purpose. They’d gone into the abyss and emerged unscathed. There was always this moment of deceleration.
‘The fatal funnel,’ Shepherd said. ‘You never get used to it.’
Byrne just nodded. The fatal funnel was a search term used when breaching a door into a room where the threat was unknown. He put a hand on his old friend’s shoulder. They’d survived another one.
With the building cleared and secured, Byrne went back to the main floor, while the other detectives and officers stood down.
The layout of the tavern proper was a U-shaped bar with what had at one time been benches around the walls that faced the street. The windows had long ago been boarded up.
Only a few barstools remained. The area behind the bar was a deadfall of broken furniture, rotting drywall, severed electrical conduits. A pile of framed posters lay on the floor near what was once the hallway that led to the restrooms, Irish tourist attractions.
Everywhere was the smell of age, of blight, of decay.
The first room to which Byrne and Shepherd had gained entry in the basement had been used as a bedroom, but clearly not for years. Discarded clothing, both men’s and women’s, along with fast-food trash, beer cans, magazines, none newer than five years old. A fairly typical crash pad.
It was the other room that spoke of a deep and disturbing pathology.
While it did contain a single bed and table, it was something other than just a place to sleep. Every square inch of the wall space, doors and ceiling was covered in photographs, news clippings, drawings, each with some kind of hand-written note attached. Some of the areas were ten or fifteen pictures deep, attached to the wall with ten-penny nails. Many of the people in the pictures had had their faces removed. Others had faces drawn in. Everywhere were arrows pointing from faces to buildings, identifying store owners, waitresses, mail carriers, people on the street.
There had to be thousands.
And the printers. There were more than two dozen photo printers of varying vintage strewn around the room. One corner held a half-dozen, stacked halfway up the wall, covered in dust. Byrne had stood in his share of rooms occupied by people with every imaginable obsession, but he had never seen anything like this.
‘Kevin.’
He turned to see Josh Bontrager standing in the doorway. ‘Yeah, Josh.’
‘Found something.’
Byrne followed him into the hallway, over to the base of the steps. Bontrager shone his flashlight on the wall. There Byrne saw what was obviously blood. Above it, a hole in the plaster that looked to have been made by a large-caliber bullet. The blood was not wet, but it glistened. It was fresh.
Byrne got Jimmy Doyle on the two-way.
‘Jimmy,’ he said.
‘Yeah, Kevin.’
‘You better get down here.’
With the portable halogen lamps in place, they saw much more. In addition to the first blood pattern they’d found, there was what looked to be human tissue streaked on the walls, as well as auburn hair attached to a patch of scalp. A small pool of blood was still damp beneath the steps.
Jimmy and Byrne stood away from the area at the end of the hall as CSU officers began to process what was clearly the scene of a homicide.
After a few moments Jimmy took out his phone. He pointed at the fresh blood.
‘I’ll have the arrest warrant before it dries.’