Authors: Richard Montanari
Tags: #Thriller, #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #General, #Mystery
‘I appreciate it.’
Jessica slipped the new key onto her key chain, pulled on her coat, opened the door, turned. ‘You sure you’re okay?’
‘Top of the world.’
‘Right,’ Jessica said. ‘How come all Irish cops quote Jimmy Cagney?’
Byrne smiled, but it was sad.
‘Call me if you need me,’ Jessica said.
Byrne didn’t respond. Jessica hadn’t expected him to.
When she stepped through the doorway, she turned one last time. Byrne was still at the window, the old photograph in hand, looking out at the silent, snow-covered street.
The old man stands at the back of the auditorium. It is a large, rectangular room, decorated with bright streamers and multicolored bunting, with folding chairs aligned row by row, eighty in all. There is a small stage with risers at the front. The event is a chorale of first-and second-grade children singing songs that welcome spring, which is just a month or so away.
In the audience are scores of proud parents and grandparents, flip cameras in hand. Onstage thirty or so children are singing: ‘If You’re Happy and You Know It.’
She watches the man from the other side of the room – his eyes, his hands, the cant of his shoulders. He has the countenance of a kindly uncle, but she knows better. She knows what he is.
At the end of the song she walks across the room, sidles up next to him. He does not notice her.
‘Hi,’ she says.
The man turns to her, a bit startled. He quickly looks her up and down, tiny predator’s eyes assessing threat. He finds none. He fashions a smile. ‘Hello.’
She gestures toward the stage. ‘They are so precious when they are this age, aren’t they?’
The old man smiles again. ‘That they are.’ He looks more closely at her, this time with a flicker of remembrance. ‘Have we met before?’
They always ask. She shakes her head. ‘Where you’ve been I cannot go.’
The man looks at her quizzically. Before he can respond, she continues.
‘Is one of them your grandchild?’
The hesitation says so much. It says the truth.
‘No. I just come here to watch them. It makes me feel young again.’
‘You do more than watch though, don’t you?’
The man slowly closes his eyes. A moment later, when he opens them, he looks at her, and knows.
They are silent for a long time, the joyous singing of the children a backdrop to their transaction, one this man has awaited with dread for years.
‘I knew this day would come,’ the man says. ‘He is real after all.’
‘Oh, he is real,’ she echoes. ‘Did you doubt him?’
‘One lives in hope. Ever since I was a child, not much older than these children, I have believed in him, have known he walks with me.’
She points out the window, to the old church across the street. ‘He is waiting for you.’
‘In the church?’
‘Yes. And now is the time.’
The man glances back at the stage, knowing that this will be the last time. ‘I’m not ready.’
‘There will be no more negotiations.’
He turns to face her fully. ‘Is this the only way?’
The pedophile knows the answer to this. There is no need to respond. She does not.
A few minutes later they leave the auditorium. They cross the street, walk down the alley next to the church. The door is already open for them. They enter, descend the stairs into the basement.
‘I feel him,’ the man says.
She gestures to a small room, directly beneath the sacristy. ‘Remove your clothing.’
The man looks up, his eyes no longer those of the predator, but rather that of cornered prey. ‘This is something I must do?’
‘Is it not how you came into the world?’
Slowly, piece by piece, he removes his clothes. He folds them neatly, lays them on the floor, next to the pile of white stones.
She gestures for the man to sit. Naked, he eases himself to the frigid stone floor. He makes the sign of the cross. Soon, a single tear runs down his cheek. ‘I grew up in a very religious house,’ he says. ‘If we didn’t say our prayers we would be beaten.’
She says nothing. This is all known to her. They all have a devout background. It is why they know, in the end, there is only one penance.
‘May I make an Act of Contrition?’ he asks.
‘Yes.’
The old man clasps his hands. ‘O my God, I am heartily sorry …’
She waits for him to finish. When he does she asks the question. ‘Do you remember what you said?’
‘Yes.’
‘I want you to tell me. Word for word.’
The man closes his eyes for a moment, perhaps remembering, perhaps taking a moment for a second silent Act of Contrition. ‘I said, “If you keep me out of prison, I will do anything. I will even make a pact with the devil.”’
‘The devil.’
‘Yes.’
‘When you made this deal, did you think it would never come due?’
The man remains silent. For him, and all his sins of the flesh, the story is told.
A moment later, without another word, he opens his mouth and swallows the first stone.
Byrne was hungry, but he did not feel like eating. He wanted a drink, but he did not feel like drinking. When he felt this way, he always drove down to the river. This time he parked in the lot of an old warehouse in Port Richmond.
What was the connection between Danny Palumbo and Cecilia Rollins?
Byrne thought
. Was Danny the baby’s father?
Byrne and Jessica had discussed this and dismissed it. Danny Palumbo could not have killed the little girl. When the baby was placed in that tub in the basement of St Damian’s, Danny Palumbo was strapped to that chair.
Or was he? They didn’t have a precise time of death on the baby. They might never have this data.
Byrne had called Loretta Palumbo, and she said she’d never heard Danny mention a girl named Adria.
The two victims were from different parts of the city, different worlds. Were they both selected at random?
No. These killings were not random.
Byrne looked down the street. Sometimes it seemed like the blight didn’t end. He had seen good neighborhoods go bad, burn to the ground, then rebuild, only to go bad again. Block after block; mile after mile. And, if that were the case, what was he doing with his life if he knew it would never end?
They were all gone, all the old school cops. Jimmy Purify, Byrne’s rabbi when he first came to the unit, was in the ground more than five years now. The retirements of Nick Palladino, Ike Buchanan, Rocky Wade and Sal Aspite over in Major Crimes. And then there was Marcus Haines.
The future belonged to detectives like Jessica, Josh Bontrager, and Maria Caruso.
Maria reminded Byrne a lot of Jessica when Jessica first came up. He remembered the day he walked into the duty room and saw Jessica standing there for the first time, the South Philly in her stance, her attitude. At the time she seemed too young to be doing the job, but Byrne realized then, as he did now, that this was just arrogance on his part. He wasn’t all that much older than Jessica or Maria Caruso when he had come up. The two of them, as it turned out, knew a lot more about the job than he did.
Homicide work was about instinct, the ability to divine motive in a desert of evidence, a wasteland of bullshit. Jessica was as good as, or better than, anyone he had ever met at this. The good cops could walk into a room full of citizens and pick out the one bad actor every time.
An unnerving thought suddenly occurred to him
. Was he the oldest detective still on the Line Squad?
He probably was. There were a couple of guys on the Fugitive Squad and in SIU that had a few years on him, but as far as the Line Squad went – the
unit that handled the new homicide cases as they came in – Detective Kevin Francis Byrne was The Sphinx.
Great.
He opened the glove compartment, was happy to find a pint of Old Forester in there. He opened it, took a long pull.
Two churches. Two
closed
churches.
Byrne shut his eyes, laid his head back on the head rest. It was impossible to shake the image of that child in the wash tub. He thought about the strength, the
commitment
, it must have taken to do something like that. Every human instinct must fight the urge to carry out such an act.
Byrne took out his phone, dialed. The woman answered, and Byrne asked for Gabriel. A few seconds later the boy came on the line.
‘Hey, Gabriel. How’s it going?’
Pause. ‘I’m okay.’
He wasn’t. ‘Something wrong?’ No answer. ‘Listen, the reason I’m calling is that I might be able to wrangle a pair of courtside tickets. Sixers and Lakers. This guy I know owes me big time. What do you say?’
Silence. Something
was
wrong. Byrne glanced at the screen on the phone. Yes, they were still connected.
‘Gabriel?’
‘I … I don’t know.’
‘Okay, man, now I
know
something is up. Why don’t you tell me? Maybe I can help.’
‘Maybe we shouldn’t hang out no more.’
The words stung. ‘What do you mean? Why not?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I thought we had fun. Didn’t we have fun?’
‘Yeah,’ Gabriel said. ‘It’s just …’
Byrne waited for the next words. There were divides between them – race, class, heritage – that might not ever be bridged. Byrne had known this going in. It had not stopped him.
‘It’s just what?’ he asked.
‘It’s just not … a good idea.’
And suddenly Byrne knew. ‘Gabriel, I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to tell me the truth. Okay?’
Silence.
‘Gabriel?’
‘Okay.’
Byrne had to get the words right, or he would lose the boy forever. And that could not happen.
‘Has someone told you not to see me?’ Byrne asked. ‘And I don’t mean someone from social services, or someone from Philly Brothers, I mean someone from the neighborhood.’
Gabriel didn’t answer.
‘Listen to me. If someone told you that you should not hang out with me, if someone threatened you, you have to tell me. We’ll deal with it.’
Byrne flashed on the first time he had dropped Gabriel off, on the thugs on the corner. He also flashed on the second time, when he braced the punk standing behind his car. He thought of Gabriel’s brother Terrell, and the notes on the activity sheet about Terrell’s suicide. The
name
on the activity sheet. DeRon Wilson. It all fell into place.
‘Someone told you to stay away from me, right?’ Byrne asked.
After a long, silent eternity, Gabriel said, softly, ‘Yeah.’
Byrne gripped the steering wheel. He felt as if he could rip it from the column. ‘Were you threatened?’
‘No. I don’t know. Not really.’
‘Okay, okay,’ Byrne said. ‘Here’s what we’ll do. I don’t want you to say his name.
I’ll
say his name, and you just tell me if I’m right. Okay?’
Nothing.
‘Gabriel, is it this guy DeRon Wilson? Is it DeRon Wilson who told you to stay away from me?’
No response.
Byrne had his answer.
Byrne parked on the corner of Third and Westmoreland. According to information he had gotten from a friend of his named Joe Miciak, a detective in North, Wilson maintained three apartments. Word was, on this night, that he could be found at this one.
Byrne looked at the sheet on the seat next to him. He had breezed into the office, run DeRon Wilson’s name. Besides being a person of interest in Terrell Hightower’s shooting, he had two counts of possession with intent, five counts of misdemeanor assault, lewd vagrancy, shoplifting, possession and passing of counterfeit currency. And that was just the first page.
Byrne entered the building, took the back steps. The walls were covered in tags, the stair platforms were stacked knee-high in plastic bags and loose debris. The smell was all but toxic.
He pushed open the door to the second floor. Byrne noted that more than half the doors had jimmy marks along the
jambs, splintered wood that indicated a break-in. Some of the apartments had padlocks on the outside. Sounds filled the hallway – hip hop, game shows, radio ads, arguments, barking dogs.
DeRon Wilson’s was the last apartment on the right. Byrne opened the window at the end of the hall, checked to see if there was a fire escape. There was, so he left the window open. If Wilson decided to jump out, at least Byrne wouldn’t have to break the window to chase him.
Byrne stepped up to the door, knocked. He heard the volume of the television lower, footsteps padding to the door. He saw the peephole go from light to dark, then light. Nothing. He knocked again.
‘Philly PD,’ he said.
Byrne was just about to knock a third time when he heard the bolts turn. A girl opened the door. She was light-skinned, pretty, no more than seventeen. She wore a short silk kimono.
Byrne showed his ID. ‘I’m looking for DeRon Wilson.’
‘Don’t know him.’
She went to close the door, but Byrne got a foot inside the jamb. ‘Miss, it’s very important that I speak to him.’
‘I
said
, I don’t
know
him.’
Again she tried to slam the door, but this time Byrne got a shoulder into it. He heard doors open in the hallway behind him. He glanced inside the apartment. The walls were covered in a vinyl, wood-grain wallpaper. A 60-inch plasma TV against the far wall showed an old music video. The floor was littered with brightly colored toddler toys.
Before the girl said another word a man came out of one of the bedrooms.
‘It’s cool, baby,’ the man said.