Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense (148 page)

Byrne looked into Matthew Clarke’s eyes. He had seen so many criminals in his time, so many men who had no regard for anyone’s property or human life.

Matthew Clarke did not belong in jail. He needed help.

“Yes,” Byrne said, “there is.”

THE AIR OUTSIDE
the courthouse had warmed since morning. The weather in Philadelphia was incredibly fickle, but somehow it was nearing forty-two degrees.

As Byrne exited the building he looked up and saw Jessica approaching.

“Sorry I couldn’t make it,” she said.

“No problem.”

“How’d it go?”

“I don’t know.” Byrne shoved his hands into his coat pockets. “I really don’t.” They fell silent.

Jessica watched him for a while, wondering what was going through his mind. She knew him well, and knew that the matter of Matthew Clarke would weigh heavily on his heart.

“Well, I’m heading home.” Jessica knew when the walls went up with her partner. She also knew there would eventually come a day when Byrne would talk about it. They had all the time in the world. “Need a ride?”

Byrne looked at the sky. “I think I’m going to walk for a while.”

“Uh-oh.”

“What?”

“You start walking, the next thing you know you’ll be running.”

Byrne smiled. “You never know.”

Byrne turned up his collar, descended the steps.

“See you tomorrow,” Jessica said.

Kevin Byrne didn’t answer.

PADRAIG BYRNE STOOD
in the front room of his new home. The boxes were stacked everywhere. His favorite chair was positioned across from his new 42-inch plasma television, a housewarming gift from his son.

Byrne walked into the room, a pair of glasses in hand, glasses containing two inches of Jameson each. He handed one to his father.

They stood, strangers in a strange place. They had never been in a moment like this before. Padraig Byrne had just left the only house in which he had ever lived. The house into which he had carried his bride, raised his son.

They lifted their glasses.

“Dia duit,”
Byrne said.

“Dia is Muire duit.”

They clinked glasses, downed the whiskey.

“You going to be okay?” Byrne asked.

“I’m
fine,
” Padraig said. “Don’t you worry about me.”

“Right, Da.”

Ten minutes later, as Byrne was pulling out of the driveway, he glanced up to see his father standing in the doorway. Padraig looked a little smaller in this place, a little further away.

Byrne wanted to freeze the moment in his mind. He didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, how much time they would have together. But he knew that, for the moment, for the foreseeable future, everything was okay.

He hoped his father felt the same way.

BYRNE RETURNED THE
moving van, retrieved his car. He got off the expressway and headed down to the Schuylkill. He got out, stood at the riverbank.

He closed his eyes, reliving the moment when he pulled the trigger in that house of madness. Had he hesitated? He honestly couldn’t remember. Regardless, he had taken the shot, and that was what mattered.

Byrne opened his eyes. He watched the river, contemplated the secrets of a thousand years as it flowed silently past him; the tears of desecrated saints, the blood of broken angels.

The river never tells.

He got back into his car, reached the entrance to the expressway. He looked at the green and white signs. One led back to the city. One led west, toward Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, and points northwest.

Including Meadville.

Detective Kevin Francis Byrne took a deep breath.

And made his choice.

100

There was purity in his darkness, a clarity underscored by the serene weight of permanence. There were moments of relief, as if it had all happened—all of it, from the moment he first stepped onto that damp field, to the day he first turned the key in the door of that ramshackle row house in Kensington, to the stinking breath of Joseph Barber as he bid good-bye to this mortal coil—to lead him to this black, seamless world.

But darkness was not darkness to the Lord.

Every morning they came to his cell and led Roland Hannah to the small chapel, where he would hold service. At first he did not want to leave his cell. But soon he realized that this was just a diversion, a stopover on his road to salvation and glory.

He would be in this place the rest of his life. There had been no trial. They had asked Roland what he had done, and he had told them. He would not lie.

But the Lord came here too. In fact, the Lord was here this very day. And in this place were many sinners, many men in need of correction.

Pastor Roland Hannah would deal with them all.

101

Jessica arrived at the Devonshire Acres facility at just after four o’clock on February 5. The imposing fieldstone complex was set atop a gently rolling hill. A few outbuildings dotted the landscape.

Jessica came to the facility to speak with Roland Hannah’s mother, Artemisia Waite. Or to try to. Her boss had left it up to her whether or not to conduct the interview, to put a period at the end of the report, the story that began on a bright spring day in April 1995, a day when two little girls went to the park for a birthday picnic, the day when a long litany of horrors began.

Roland Hannah had pled out, and was serving eighteen life sentences, no parole. Kevin Byrne, along with a retired detective named John Longo, had helped compile the state’s case against the man, much of it based on Walt Brigham’s notes and files.

It was unknown whether Roland Hannah’s stepbrother Charles had been involved in the vigilante murders, or whether he had been with Roland that night in Odense. If he had, one mystery remained: How had Charles Waite gotten back to Philly? He could not drive. It was the court-appointed psychologist’s opinion that the man functioned at the level of a bright nine-year-old.

Jessica stood in the parking lot, next to her car, her mind swirling with questions. She sensed a presence approaching. She was surprised to see it was Richie DiCillo.

“Detective,” Richie said. It was almost as if he had been expecting her.

“Richie. Good to see you.”

“Happy New Year.”

“Same to you,” Jessica said. “What brings you all the way out here?”

“Just following up on something.” He said it with the sort of finality Jessica recognized in all veteran cops. There would be no more questions about it.

“How’s your father?” Richie asked.

“He’s good,” Jessica said. “Thanks for asking.”

Richie glanced at the complex of buildings, back. The moment drew out. “So, how long have you been on the job now? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“I don’t mind at all,” Jessica said, smiling. “It’s not like you’re asking my age. It’s been more than ten years.”

“Ten years.” Richie mugged, nodded. “I’ve been at it almost thirty. Flies by, doesn’t it?”

“It does. You don’t think it will, but it seems like just yesterday I put on the blues and hit the street for the first time.”

It was all subtext, and they both knew it. Nobody saw through or created bullshit better than cops. Richie rocked on his heels, glanced at his watch. “Well, I’ve got bad guys waiting to be caught,” he said. “Good seeing you.”

“Same here.” Jessica wanted to add a great deal to that. She wanted to say something about Annemarie, about how sorry she was. She wanted to say how she understood that there was a hole in his heart that would never be filled, no matter how much time passes, no matter how a story ends.

Richie got out his car keys, turned to go. He hesitated for a moment, as if he had something to say, but had no idea how to say it. He glanced at the main building of the facility. When he looked back at Jessica, she thought she saw something in the man’s eyes she had never seen before, not in a lifer, not in a man who had seen as much as Richie DiCillo had seen.

She saw peace.

“Sometimes,” Richie began, “justice is done.”

Jessica understood. And the understanding was a cold dagger in her chest. She probably should have let it lie, but she was her father’s daughter. “Didn’t someone once say that we get justice in the next world, but in this world we have the law?”

Richie smiled. Before he turned and walked across the parking lot, Jessica glanced at his overshoes. They looked new.

Sometimes justice is done.

A minute later Jessica saw Richie pull out of the parking lot. He waved one last time. She waved back.

As he drove away, Jessica found she was not all that surprised to find that Detective Richard DiCillo drove a large green SUV, an SUV with yellow fog lamps and extensive detailing.

Jessica looked at the main building. On the second floor were a series of small windows. In the window she spotted two people watching her. It was too far away to make out their features, but there was something about the tilt of their heads, the set of the shoulders, that told her she was being observed.

Jessica thought about StoryBook River, about that heart of madness.

Had Richie DiCillo been the one who tied Marius Damgaard’s hands behind him and hanged him? Had Richie driven Charles Waite back to Philadelphia?

Jessica decided that she just might take another ride to Berks County. Maybe justice had not yet been done.

FOUR HOURS LATER
she found herself in her kitchen. Vincent was in the basement with two of his brothers watching a Flyers game. Dishes were in the dishwasher. Leftovers were put away. She had a glass of Montepulciano working. Sophie sat in the living room, watching a DVD of
The Little Mermaid.

Jessica walked into the living room, sat next to her daughter. “Tired, sweetie?”

Sophie shook her head and yawned. “No.”

Jessica held Sophie close. Her daughter had that little-girl bubble-bath smell. Her hair was a bouquet of flowers. “Time for bed anyway.”

“Okay.”

Later, with her daughter snuggled under the covers, Jessica kissed Sophie on the forehead, reached over to turn out the light.