Play Dead (25 page)

Jessica waited for Byrne at a Manayunk pub called Kildare’s. The place was lively, a little too loud for them to have a discussion about the day’s findings. They decided to have one beer and move on.

Byrne slipped onto a stool. He briefly told Jessica what he had learned from David Sinclair.
“I cruised a couple of the college campuses,” Jessica said. “Man, did I feel old.”
“Any hits?”
“Not a one.”
They both watched the baseball game on the flat- screen TV, neither really seeing it. Phillies up on the Dodgers, six to one.
“All these gaming and puzzle references can’t be coincidence,” Byrne said.
“You think our guy has a fetish?” Jessica asked. “You think that’s what this is all about?”
“I don’t know. I mean, if he drowned Caitlin O’Riordan and dismembered Monica Renzi as part of a plan, I’m not seeing the connection. The profile on these guys says their MO is always similar. Until we know either where he’s meeting these girls, or what twisted plan he’s basing this on, I don’t think we have a chance at predicting what’s next.”
Jessica made a finger gun, fired it. “Until he fucks up.” “Until he fucks up.” Byrne unknotted his tie, pulled it off, unbuttoned his collar. “Order me a Guinness. I’ll be right back.”
“You got it.”
Jessica flagged a waitress, ordered, spun her napkin around. She folded it in half, making a rectangle, unfolded it, refolded it. She pressed it into the damp bar surface, making a rectangular shape in the condensation. She then turned the napkin ninety degrees. It reminded her of the cross shape in the game Ludo, which reminded her of the old game Parcheesi.
Jessica looked at the flat- screen TV against the far wall. It was a news break- in, a helicopter shot over the city, cutting into the baseball game. The graphic at the bottom of the screen said “Ninth Street.”
The shot showed a rooftop, a building in North Philly. Near the edge of the roof, just a few feet in, was a white plastic tent, the kind PPD used to shield a scene from the elements. Jessica saw the CSU windbreakers on the people milling around.
She turned. Byrne stood behind her, watching the screen, along with everyone else in the pub. She glanced back at the TV. There was now a legend at the bottom of the screen.
the collector collects again?
There was no doubt in Jessica’s mind.
Within seconds, her phone rang.

FORTY-FIVE
A

t six thirty Lilly walked into the Thirtieth Street train station. She wandered over to the food court, scanned the area for Mr. Mushroom Teeth, thinking he might have come back looking for her. Not seeing him, she walked around the station, went into Faber Books, read a few magazines off the rack until the guy at the register gave her the eye. He’d probably seen his share of runaways.

She hit the ladies’ room, freshened up, or as much as possible with paper towels and liquid soap in a cramped toilet stall. She hoped she didn’t smell.

When she returned to the food court there was a man sitting at one of the tables. She had to look twice to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating. She wasn’t.

It was the man from outside the BigK.
Her savior.
“Oh my God! It’s you!”
The man looked up from the paper. At first he didn’t seem to recognize her, then recollection dawned.

“Hello again,” the man said.
“Hi,” Lilly replied. “I can’t ...I can’t believe, well,
hello.
” She turned in place. Twice. She felt like a schnauzer. She felt like an
idiot.
“Right, okay. I just want to say thanks. You know. For helping me with that guy.”
“That is quite all right,” he said. “I’ve never been able to countenance bullies.”
“Small world, huh?”
“Indeed.” The man gestured to the second half of the cheesesteak in front of him. “Look, I’m never going to finish this,” he said. “And you strike me as being a hungry and weary traveler. Are you?”
Against her better judgment—her stomach ruling her mind for the moment, as it just might do for some time to come—Lilly said, “Kinda.”
The man’s eyes shone, as if he understood. Maybe he did. Despite his expensive- looking suit and gold watch, maybe he had once been in her shoes. Maybe he had once been a “hungry and weary traveler” himself.
“Would you like the other half of this sandwich?” he asked.
“No thank you,” Lilly said. “That’s okay.”
“I understand,” he said. He went back to his paper. Then, a few moments later, as a coda: “But it’s terribly good. Unfortunately, at my age, one’s eyes are bigger than one’s stomach.”
Lilly looked a little more closely at the man. He wasn’t so old. “You’re sure you’re not going to eat it?”
The man gently patted his stomach. “Positive.” He glanced at his watch. It looked old and expensive. It might have been real gold. He wore cuff links, too. Lilly had never met anyone who actually wore cuff links. Hell, back home you were lucky if they wore shirts at all.
“Plus I’m meeting my wife for an early dinner,” he added. “She’ll absolutely
flay
me if I’m not hungry as a wolf. Or at least give the appearance.”
Lilly looked around the immediate area. Even though they were in a public place, and no one was paying attention, she still felt as if people might be watching her, as if she were some sort of charity case, as if she were the only one in the city who was hungry or needed shelter. Like a homeless person. Which she was most certainly
not.
“This is great,” she said, grabbing the sandwich. “Thanks.”
The man didn’t respond. He just winked.
Help yourself,
his eyes said.
For an older guy, he was kind of cool.

The sandwich was delicious. She wanted another one, or fries, or something, but she would never ask. Asking meant invitation. She’d been
there.

A few minutes later the man folded the paper, glanced at his watch, glanced at her. “At the risk of being terribly forward, may I ask your name?” he asked.

Lilly wiped her lips with a paper napkin, swallowed the last bite of the sandwich. She sat a little straighter in her chair. She had always done this when she was getting ready to lie. “It’s Lilly,” she said, a little surprised at how easily it rolled off her tongue now, as if she’d been saying it for years.

The man looked surprised and delighted. “I have a
daughter
named Lilly,” he said. “She’s only three months old.” He reached into his suit coat, pulled out a beautiful wallet. He opened it, took out a photograph. “This is she.”

The picture was of the most adorable, apple- cheeked, blue- eyed baby she’d ever seen. “Oh my God! What a beautiful little girl.”
“Thank you. I would like to say she takes after her father, but I know this would be self- flattery.” He put the photograph away, looked at his watch. “Well, I’m afraid I must be off.” He stood, took his briefcase off the chair next to him. “Thank you
so
much for the chat. It was very nice to meet you.”
“You too.”
“And beware scary boys on street corners.”
“I will.”
With that the man gave her a slight bow, turned, and walked toward the Thirtieth Street entrance. In a moment, he was gone.
Lilly knew what she was going to do. Somehow, she wasn’t afraid.
He was a
father.
She got up from the table and ran across the station. She found him on the corner.
She told him everything.

FORTY-SIX
T

he white tent sat near the edge of the roof, shielding the murder victim from the sun, and the prying eyes of the media hovering overhead like red- tail hawks. There were no fewer than thirty people on the roof: detectives, supervisors, crime- scene technicians, investigators from the medical examiner’s office. Photographs were taken, measurements recorded, surfaces dusted.
When Jessica and Byrne arrived, the other personnel deferred to

them. This could only mean one thing. The homicide that had occurred here was clearly connected to their investigations.

When Jessica opened the flap on the plastic tent, she knew it to be true. She felt the gorge rise in her throat. In front of her was a girl, no more than seventeen, with long dark hair, deep hazel eyes. She wore a thin black sweater and blue jeans, a pair of sandals on her small feet. None of this made her much different from any of the other young murder victims Jessica had seen in her career. What set this girl apart, what tied her irrevocably to the case she and her partner were working on, was the manner in which she was killed.

Protruding from the girl’s chest and abdomen were seven steel swords.

Jessica stared at the girl’s pallid face. It was clear that in life she had been exotically pretty, but here, on a blistering rooftop in North Philadelphia, drained of all her blood, she looked almost mummified. The good news, for the investigators, was that according to the

ME’s office this victim had been dead little more than twenty- four hours. It was the closest they had come to the Collector. This was no cold case. This time they could amass evidence unadulterated by time. The very scent and presence of the murderer lingered.

Jessica snapped on a pair of gloves, stepped closer to the body. She gently examined the girl’s hands. Her nails had recently been manicured and painted. The color was a deep red. Jessica looked at her own nails through the latex, and wondered if she and the victim had been sitting in a manicurist’s chair at the same time.

Even though she was seated, Jessica determined that the girl was about five- three, less than a hundred pounds. She sniffed the girl’s hair. It smelled of mint. It had been recently shampooed.

Nicci Malone stepped onto the roof, saw Jessica.
“We’ve got an ID,” Nicci said.
She handed Jessica an FBI printout. The girl’s name was Katja

Dovic. She was seventeen. She had last been seen at her house in New Canaan, Connecticut, on June twenty- sixth.
Dr. Tom Weyrich approached.
“I take it this is not the primary scene,” Jessica said.
Weyrich shook his head. “No. Wherever she was killed she bled
out, and was cleaned up. The hearts stops, that’s it. The dead don’t
bleed.” He paused for a moment. Jessica knew him to be a man not
given to hyperbole or arch comment. “And, as bad as that is, it gets
worse.” He pointed to one of the slices in the girl’s sweater. “It looks
like she was run through with these swords at the primary scene, they
were removed, and reinserted here. This guy re-created the murder on
this rooftop.”
Jessica tried to wrap her mind around the image of someone stabbing this girl with seven swords, removing them, transporting the body,
and doing it all over again.
While Nicci went off to advise the other investigators on the ID,
Byrne sidled silently next to Jessica. They stood this way while the mechanics of a murder investigation swirled around them.
“Why is he doing this, Kevin?”
“There’s a reason,” Byrne said. “There’s a pattern. It looks random,
but it isn’t. We’ll find it, and we’ll fucking put him down.”

227 BADLANDS

“Now there’s three girls. Three methods. Three different dump sites.”
“All in the Badlands, though. All runaways.”
Jessica shook her head. “How do we warn these kids when they don’t want to be found?”
There was no answer.

FORTY-SEVEN
L

illy had started talking and she just couldn’t seem to stop herself. When she stopped, she felt five pounds lighter. She also felt like crying. She probably did. She couldn’t remember. It was kind of a fog.

Lilly had expected one of two reactions from the man. She expected him either to turn on his heels and walk away from her, or call the police.

He did neither. Instead, he was silent for a few moments. He said he would help her, but only if this was something she really wanted to do. He told her to sleep on it, but only for one night. He said the best decisions in life are made after waiting twenty- four hours, never longer. He then gave her one hundred dollars and his phone number. She promised to call him one way or another. She never broke a promise.
She went back to the hostel. It was as good a place as any.
Despite the early hour, despite the insanity of her day, for the first time in as long as she could remember, she put her head down on a pillow and fell fast asleep.

FORTY-EIGHT
J
essica stood outside Eve Galvez’s apartment. It was a small suite on the third floor of a nondescript, blocky brick building on Bustleton Avenue.

She stepped inside, and almost turned the lights on. But then she thought that doing so might be disrespectful. The last time Eve left these rooms she had every intention of returning.

Jessica danced the beam of the flashlight around the space. There was a card table in the dining area, one folding chair, a loveseat in the living room, a pair of end tables. There were no prints or framed posters on the wall, no houseplants, no area rugs. Black fingerprint powder claimed every surface.

She stepped into the bedroom. There was a double bed on a frame, no footboard or headboard. There was a dresser, but no mirror. Jimmy Valentine was right. Eve was a Spartan. The nightstand next to the bed held a cheap lamp and what looked like a photo cube. Jessica glanced in the closet: a pair of dresses, a pair of skirts. Black and navy blue. A pair of white blouses. They’d all been taken off the hangers, searched, and carelessly replaced. Jessica reached inside, smoothed the clothing, more out of habit than anything else.

The entire apartment was tidy, almost sterile. It seemed that Eve Galvez didn’t so much live here as stay here.
Jessica crossed the bedroom, picked up the photo cube. There were pictures on all six sides. One photo showed a picture of Eve at five or so, standing next to her brother on a beach. There was another that had

230 RICHARD MONTANARI

to be Eve’s mother. They had the same eyes, the same cheekbones. One looked like Eve in, perhaps, eleventh grade. She was heavier in this snapshot than the others. Jessica turned it over, looked again at all sides. There were no photographs of Eve’s father.

Out of habit, or training, or just nosiness that had at least something to do with her becoming a police officer to begin with, Jessica shook the cube. Something inside rattled. She shook it again. The rattle was louder. There
was
something inside.

It took a few moments, but she found the way to open it. Inside was a ball of tissue and a plastic object, perhaps two inches long by a half inch wide. Jessica put her flashlight beam on it.