Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense (20 page)

As they climbed the crumbling steps, Jessica noticed a sun-faded eight-by-ten photo in the living room window, a leached print made on a color copier. The photo was an enlargement of a school snapshot of a smiling black girl of about fifteen. There was a loop of fat pink yarn in her hair, beads in her braids. She wore a retainer and seemed to be smiling despite the serious hardware in her mouth.

The woman did not invite them in, but mercifully there was a small awning over her front stoop, shielding them from the downpour.

“Mrs. Pettigrew, this is my partner, Detective Balzano.”

The woman nodded at Jessica, but continued to bunch her housecoat to her throat.

“Have you . . . ,” she began, trailing off.

“Yes,” Byrne said. “We caught him, ma’am. He’s in custody.”

Althea Pettigrew’s hand covered her mouth. Tears welled in her eyes. Jessica could see that the woman wore a wedding ring, but the stone was gone.

“What . . . what happens now?” she asked, her body vibrating with anticipation. It was clear that she had prayed for and dreaded this day for a long time.

“That’s up to the DA’s office and the man’s attorney,” Byrne replied. “He’ll be arraigned, and then there will be a preliminary hearing.”

“Do you think he might . . .?”

Byrne took her hand in his, shaking his head. “He’s not getting out. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure he never walks free again.”

Jessica knew how many things could go wrong, especially in a capital murder case. She appreciated Byrne’s optimism and at this moment it was the right sentiment to convey. When she was in Auto, she’d had a hard time telling people she was sure they were going to get their
cars
back.

“Bless you, sir,” the woman said, then all but threw herself into Byrne’s arms, her whimpers morphing into full-grown sobs. Byrne held her gingerly, as if she were made of porcelain. His eyes met Jessica’s, saying:
This is why.
Jessica glanced over at the picture of Deirdre Pettigrew in the window. She wondered if the photo would come down today.

Althea composed herself somewhat, then said: “Wait right here, would you?”

“Sure,” Byrne said.

Althea Pettigrew disappeared inside for a few moments, reappeared, then placed something into Kevin Byrne’s hand. She wrapped her hand around his, closing it. When Byrne opened his hand, Jessica could see what the woman had handed him.

It was a well-worn twenty-dollar bill.

Byrne stared at it for a few moments, a bit bewildered, as if he had never seen American currency before. “Mrs. Pettigrew, I . . . I can’t take this.”

“I know it isn’t much,” she said, “but it would mean so much to me.”

Byrne straightened out the bill as he appeared to organize his thoughts. He waited a few moments, then handed the twenty back. “I can’t,” he said. “Knowing that the man who did that terrible thing to Deirdre is in custody is enough payment for me, believe me.”

Althea Pettigrew scrutinized the big police officer in front of her with a look of disappointment and respect on her face. Slowly, reluctantly, she took the money back. She put it into the pocket of her housecoat.

“Then you will have this,” she said. She reached behind her neck and took off the delicate silver chain. The chain held a small silver crucifix.

When Byrne tried to decline this, the look in Althea Pettigrew’s eyes told him she would not be refused. Not this time. She held it out until Byrne took it.

“I, uh . . . thank you, ma’am,” was all that Byrne could manage.

Jessica thought: Frank Wells yesterday, Althea Pettigrew today. Two parents separated by worlds and just a few blocks, joined in unimaginable grief and sorrow. She hoped they would have the same results for Frank Wells.

Although he was probably doing his best to mask it, as they walked back to the car Jessica noticed a slight spring in Byrne’s step, despite the downpour, despite the grimness of their current case. She understood it. All cops did. Kevin Byrne was riding a wave, a small ripple of satisfaction known to law enforcement professionals when, after a lot of hard work, the dominoes fall and they spell out a beautiful pattern, a clean, borderless image called justice.

Then there was the other side of the business.

Before they could get in the Taurus, Byrne’s phone rang again. He answered, listened for a few seconds, his face void of expression. “Give us fifteen minutes,” he said.

He snapped the phone shut.

“What is it?” Jessica asked.

Byrne made a fist, poised to smash it into the windshield, stopped himself. Barely. Everything he had just felt was gone in an instant.

“What?” Jessica repeated.

Byrne took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, said: “They found another girl.”

21

TUESDAY, 8:25 AM

B
ARTRAM GARDENS was the oldest botanical garden in the United States, having been frequented by Benjamin Franklin, after whom John Bartram, the garden’s founder, had named a genus of plant. Located at Fifty-fourth Street and Lindbergh, the forty-five-acre site boasted a landscape of wildflower meadows, river trails, wetlands, stone houses, and farm buildings. Today it hosted death.

A police cruiser and an unmarked were parked near the River Trail when Byrne and Jessica arrived. A perimeter had already been established around what appeared to be half an acre of daffodils. As Byrne and Jessica approached the scene, it was easy to see how the body could have been overlooked.

The young woman lay on her back amid the bright flowers, her hands clasped in prayer at her waist, holding a black rosary. Jessica could see immediately that one of the decades of beads was missing.

Jessica looked around. The body was placed about fifteen feet into the field and, except for a narrow path of tramped flowers, probably caused by the medical examiner, there was no obvious ingress into the field. The rain had certainly washed away any footprints. If there was an abundance of forensic possibilities in the row house on Eighth, out here, after hours of torrential rain, there would be none.

Two detectives stood at the edge of the immediate crime scene: a slender Hispanic man in an expensive-looking Italian suit and a shorter, powerfully built man whom Jessica recognized. The cop in the Italian suit seemed equally concerned with the rain ruining his Valentino as with the investigation. At least at the moment.

Jessica and Byrne approached, considered the victim.

The girl wore a navy blue and green plaid skirt, blue knee socks, penny loafers. Jessica recognized it as the uniform belonging to Regina High School, a Catholic girls school on Broad Street in North Philly. She had raven-black hair cut into a pageboy style and, from what Jessica could see, had about a half dozen piercings in her ears and one in her nose, piercings that bore no jewelry. It was clear that this girl played the Goth role on weekends, but, due to the strict dress code at her school, wore none of her hardware in class.

Jessica looked at the young woman’s hands and although she didn’t want to accept the truth, there it was. The hands were bolted together in prayer.

Out of earshot of the others, Jessica turned to Byrne and asked, softly: “Have you ever had a case like this before?”

Byrne didn’t have to think long about it. “No.”

The two other detectives approached, thankfully bringing their big golf umbrellas with them.

“Jessica, this is Eric Chavez, Nick Palladino.”

Both men nodded. Jessica returned the greeting. Chavez was the Latin pretty boy, long lashes, smooth skin, midthirties. She had seen him at the Roundhouse the day before. It was clear that he was the unit’s fashion plate. Every squad had one: the type of cop who, on a stakeout, would bring along a fat wooden hanger on which to hang his suit coat in the backseat, along with a beach towel he would tuck into his shirt collar when he ate the crap food you were forced to eat on a stakeout.

Nick Palladino was well dressed, too, but in a South Philly style—leather coat, tailored slacks, polished loafers, gold ID bracelet. He was about forty, with deep-set dark chocolate eyes, stone-set features; his black hair was combed straight back. Jessica had met Nick Palladino a few times before; he had partnered with her husband in Narcotics before moving over to Homicide.

Jessica shook hands with both men. “Nice to meet you,” she said to Chavez.

“Likewise,” he responded.

“Nice to see you again, Nick.”

Palladino smiled. There was much danger in that smile. “How are you, Jess?”

“I’m good.”

“The family?”

“All good.”

“Welcome to the Show,” he added. Nick Palladino had been with the squad less than a year himself, but he was solid blue. He had probably heard about her and Vincent separating, but he was a gentleman. Now was neither the time nor place.

“Eric and Nick work out of the Fugitive Squad,” Byrne added.

The Fugitive Squad was one-third of the Homicide Unit. Special Investigations and the Line Squad—that section that handled the new cases—were the other two. When a big case came along, or whenever the wheel began to spin out of control, every homicide cop caught.

“Any ID?” Byrne asked.

“Nothing yet,” Palladino said. “Nothing in her pockets. No purse or wallet.”

“She went to Regina,” Jessica said.

Palladino wrote it down. “That’s the school on Broad?”

“Yeah. Broad and CB Moore.”

“This the same MO as your case?” Chavez asked.

Kevin Byrne just nodded.

The idea, the very notion, that they might be up against a serial killer set all their jaws tight, throwing an even heavier pall over the day.

It had been less than twenty-four hours since this scene had played out in a dank and putrid basement of a row house on Eighth Street, and here they were again in a lush garden of cheerful flowers.

Two girls.

Two
dead
girls.

All four detectives watched as Tom Weyrich knelt next to the body. He pushed up the girl’s skirt, examined her.

When he stood and turned to look at them, his face was grim. Jessica knew what it meant. This girl had suffered the same indignity in death as had Tessa Wells.

Jessica looked at Byrne. There was a deep anger rising within him, something primal and unrepentant, something that reached far beyond the job, his sense of duty.

A few moments later Weyrich joined them.

“How long has she been here?” Byrne asked.

“At least four days,” Weyrich said.

Jessica did the math and a cold frost crept over her heart. This girl was dumped here right around the time Tessa Wells was kidnapped. This girl was killed first.

One decade of beads was missing from this girl’s rosary. Two were missing from Tessa’s.

Which meant that, of the hundreds of questions that floated above them, like the dense gray clouds, there was one truth here, one reality, one horrific fact apparent in this morass of uncertainties.

Someone was killing the Catholic schoolgirls of Philadelphia.

From all appearances, the rampage had just begun.

PART
THREE

22

TUESDAY, 12:15 PM

T
HE ROSARY KILLER task force was assembled by noon.