Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense (128 page)

“The second reason is, and I’m sorry to have to say this, is that things have had a way of making it into the media from this office lately. I don’t want to start any rumors or any panic,” Buchanan said. “Besides, as far as the city is concerned, we’re not sure we have a compulsive out there. Right now, the media thinks we have two unsolved homicides that may or not be related. Let’s see if we can keep it that way for a while.”

It was always a delicate balance with the media. There were a lot of reasons not to give them too much information. Information had a way of rapidly becoming
dis
information. If the media ran with a story that a serial killer was walking the streets of Philadelphia, many things could result, most of them bad. Not the least of which was the possibility of a copycat killer taking the opportunity to get rid of a mother-in-law, husband, wife, boyfriend, boss. On the other hand, there had been a number of occasions when the newspapers and television stations had broadcast a suspect sketch for the PPD and within days—sometimes hours—they’d had their man.

As of this morning, the day after Christmas, the department had not yet released any specific details about the second victim.

“Where are we on the ID on the Shawmont victim?” Buchanan asked.

“Her name was Tara Grendel,” Bontrager said. “She was identified through her DMV records. Her car was found half in, half out of a parking space at an indoor lot on Walnut. We’re not sure if that was the abduction site or not, but it looks good for it.”

“What was she doing in that garage? Did she work nearby?”

“She was an actress, working under the name Tara Lynn Greene. She had an audition the day she went missing.”

“Where was the audition?”

“At the Walnut Street Theater,” Bontrager said. He flipped back through his notes. “She left the theater alone at around 1
PM
. Parking lot attendant said she walked in about ten after one, took the steps to the basement.”

“Do they have surveillance cameras?”

“They do. But nothing is taped.”

The maddening news was that there was another “moon” painting on Tara Grendel’s abdomen. A DNA report was in the works to determine if there was a match to the blood and semen found on Kristina Jakos.

“We showed Tara’s picture around Stiletto, and to Natalya Jakos,” Byrne said. “Tara was not a dancer at the club. Natalya didn’t recognize her. If she’s connected to Kristina Jakos, it’s not from her place of employment.”

“What about Tara’s family?”

“No family in town. Father deceased, mother living in Indiana,” Bontrager said. “She’s been notified. She’s flying in tomorrow.”

“What do we have on the crime scenes?” Buchanan asked.

“Not much,” Byrne said. “No footprints, no tire tracks.”

“And the clothes?” Buchanan asked.

The consensus now was that the killer was dressing his victims. “Both vintage dresses,” Jessica said.

“We’re talking thrift-store stuff?”

“Could be,” Jessica said. They had a list of more than one hundred secondhand clothing and thrift stores. Unfortunately, the turnover in both product and personnel at such stores was quick, and none of the stores kept any detailed records of what came in and went out. It was going to take a lot of shoe leather and interviews to gather any information.

“Why these particular dresses?” Buchanan asked. “Are they from a play? A movie? A famous picture?”

“Working on it, Sarge.”

“Walk me through it,” Buchanan said.

Jessica went first. “Two victims, both white women in their twenties, both strangled, both left on the bank of the Schuylkill. Both victims had a drawing on their bodies, a detailed painting of the moon rendered in semen and blood. Both crime scenes had a similar drawing painted on a wall nearby. The first victim had her feet amputated. These body parts were recovered on the Strawberry Mansion Bridge.”

Jessica flipped her notes back. “First victim was Kristina Jakos. Born in Odessa in the Ukraine, moved to the United States with her sister Natalya and brother Kostya. Parents deceased, no other relatives in the States. Until a few weeks ago Kristina lived with her sister in the Northeast. Kristina recently moved to North Lawrence with her roommate, one Sonja Kedrova, also from the Ukraine. Kostya Jakos is pulling a ten-year stretch in Graterford for aggravated assault. Kristina recently got a job at a Center City gentlemen’s club called Stiletto, where she worked as an exotic dancer. On the night she went missing she was last seen at the All-City Launderette at approximately 11
PM
.”

“Do you think there’s any connection to the brother?” Buchanan asked.

“Hard to say,” Park said. “Kostya Jakos’s victim was an elderly widow from Merion Station. Her son is in his sixties, no grandchildren in the area. It would be a pretty brutal payback if that was the case.”

“What about something he stirred up inside?”

“He hasn’t been a model prisoner, but nothing jumps over the wall as a motive to do this to his sister.”

“Have we gotten DNA back on this blood-moon drawing on Jakos?” Buchanan asked.

“DNA on Kristina Jakos’s drawing is in,” Tony Park said. “The blood is not hers. The workup on the second victim is still out.”

“Have we run it through CODIS?”

“Yes,” Park said. The FBI Laboratory’s Combined DNA Index System enabled federal, state, and local crime labs to exchange and compare DNA profiles electronically, thereby linking crimes to each other and to convicted offenders. “Nothing yet on that front.”

“What about some crazy son of a bitch from the strip club?” Buchanan asked.

“I’m talking later today or tomorrow to some of the girls from the club who knew Kristina,” Byrne said.

“What about this bird that was found at the Shawmont site?” Buchanan asked.

Jessica glanced at Byrne.
Found
was the word that stuck. No one had mentioned that the bird had flown away due to Byrne’s prodding open the victim’s hands.

“The feathers are at the lab,” Tony Park said. “One of the techs is an avid birder, and he says he is not familiar with it. He’s on it right now.”

“Good,” Buchanan said. “What else?”

“It looks like the killer used a carpenter’s handsaw on the first victim,” Jessica said. “Trace of sawdust was found in the wound. So, maybe a boat-builder? Dock builder? Dock
worker
?”

“Kristina had been working on building sets for a Christmas play,” Byrne said.

“Have we interviewed people she worked with at the church?”

“Yeah,” Byrne said. “No one of interest.”

“Any mutilation of the second victim?” Buchanan asked.

Jessica shook her head. “Body was intact.”

At first they had entertained the possibility that their killer was taking body parts as souvenirs. It looked less likely now.

“Any sexual angle?” Buchanan asked.

Jessica wasn’t sure. “Well, despite the presence of the semen, there was no evidence of sexual assault.”

“Similar murder weapon in both cases?” Buchanan asked.

“Identical,” Byrne said. “Lab thinks it’s the type of rope they use to separate the lanes in a swimming pool. However, they haven’t found any trace of chlorine. They’re running some more tests on the fibers now.”

There were plenty of industries linked to the water trades in Philadelphia, a city that had two rivers to nurture and exploit. Sailing and powerboating on the Delaware. Sculling on the Schuylkill. Each year there were a number of events on both rivers. There was the Schuylkill Sojourn, a seven-day float up the entire length of the river. Then there was the Dad Vail Regatta, the largest collegiate regatta in the United States, with more than one thousand athletes taking part in the event, held the second week of May.

“The dump sites on the Schuylkill indicate that we are probably looking for someone with a pretty good working knowledge of the river,” Jessica said.

Byrne thought of Paulie McManus, and his Leonardo da Vinci quote.
In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes.

What the hell was coming?
Byrne wondered.

“What about the sites themselves?” Buchanan asked. “Any significance?”

“Plenty of history in Manayunk. Same with Shawmont. So far, nothing has clicked.”

Buchanan sat down, rubbed his hands over his eyes. “One singer, one dancer, both white and in their twenties. Both public abductions. There’s a connection between these two victims, detectives. Find it.”

There was a knock on the door. Byrne opened it. It was Nicci Malone.

“Got a minute, boss?” Nicci asked.

“Yeah,” Buchanan said. Jessica thought she had never heard anyone sound quite so exhausted. Ike Buchanan was the link between the unit and the brass. If it happened on his watch, it came through him. He nodded to the four detectives. It was time to get back to work. They exited the office. Just as they were leaving, Nicci poked her head back through the doorway.

“There’s someone downstairs to see you, Jess.”

46

“I’m Detective Balzano.”

The man waiting for Jessica in the lobby was in his mid-fifties—rust flannel shirt, tan Levi’s, duck boots. He had thick fingers, bushy eyebrows, a complexion that complained of too many Philly Decembers.

“My name is Frank Pustelnik,” he said, extending a callused hand. Jessica shook it. “I own a restaurant supply business on Flat Rock Road.”

“What can I do for you, Mr. Pustelnik?”

“I’ve been reading about what happened at the old warehouse. And then of course I’ve seen all the activity over there.” He held up a videocassette. “I have a surveillance camera on my lot. The lot that faces the building where … you know.”

“That’s a surveillance tape?”

“Yes.”

“What’s on it, exactly?” Jessica asked.

“I’m not really sure, but I think there’s something you may want to see.”

“When was the tape recorded?”

Frank Pustelnik handed Jessica the cassette. “It’s from the day the body was found.”

THEY STOOD BEHIND
Mateo Fuentes in the editing bay of the AV Unit. Jessica, Byrne, and Frank Pustelnik.

Mateo popped the tape into a time-lapse VCR. He forwarded the tape. The images sped by. Most surveillance video machines recorded at a much slower speed than a regular VCR, so when they were played back on a consumer machine they were far too fast to watch.

The static, nightimages rolled. Finally the picture got a little lighter.

“Right about there,” Pustelnik said.

Mateo stopped the tape, hit
PLAY
. It was a high-angle shot. The time code indicated 7:00
AM
.

In the far background was the parking lot of the crime-scene warehouse. The image was fuzzy, sparsely lighted. On the left side of the screen, near the top, was a small, light-colored blur near the area where the parking lot sloped down to the river. The image sent a shiver through Jessica. The blur was Kristina Jakos.

At the 7:07
AM
mark, across the top of the screen, a car entered the parking lot. It moved right to left. It was impossible to tell the color, let alone the make or model. The car pulled around the back of the building. They lost sight of it. A few moments later a shadow lurched across the top of the screen. It appeared that someone was crossing the lot, heading toward the river, toward Kristina Jakos’s body. Soon after, the dark shape blended into the darkness of the trees.

Then the shadow detached from the background, moved again. This time, quickly. Jessica deduced that whoever had driven in had crossed the lot, spotted Kristina Jakos’s body, and then returned to his or her vehicle at a run. Seconds later, the car circled out from behind the building and sped for the exit onto Flat Rock Road. Then the surveillance video returned to its static status. Just the small light-colored smear near the river, the smudge that had once been a human life.

Mateo rewound the tape until the point just before the car drove away. He hit
PLAY
and let it run until they had a good angle on the rear of the automobile as it turned onto Flat Rock Road. He froze the image.

“Can you tell what kind of car that is?” Byrne asked Jessica. Her years in the Auto Unit made her the resident automobile expert. Although she didn’t know some of the 2006 and 2007 models, she was good with luxury cars over the past decade. The auto unit dealt with a lot of stolen luxury cars.

“Looks like a BMW,” Jessica said.

“Can we move in on that?” Byrne asked.

“Does
ursus americanus
defecate in its natural habitat?” Mateo asked.

Byrne glanced at Jessica, shrugged. Neither of them had any idea what Mateo was talking about. “I suppose it does,” Byrne said. Sometimes you had to humor Officer Fuentes.

Mateo worked his dials. The image increased in size, but did not become significantly clearer. It was definitely the BMW logo on the car’s trunk.

“Can you tell what model that is?” Byrne asked.

“It looks like a 525i,” Jessica said.

“What about the plate?”