The Doll Maker (17 page)

Not so surprisingly, Sophie had taken to swimming – competitive swimming – with a great deal of skill and enthusiasm. It was not unexpected to Jessica, because a few years before the swimming craze Sophie had wanted to take up the study of the flute. She had since won a number of competitions, and was actually making music of her own.

Since Sophie had taken up swimming she had gotten stronger and better at the sport, and now had her sights set on medals.

Now, at just after ten on a Saturday morning, Jessica and Sophie were at the Aquatic and Fitness Center preparing for Sophie’s two competitive events.

While Jessica was waiting for Sophie’s first meet, her phone rang. It was Vincent.

‘Hey, babe.’

‘How’s she doing?’ Vincent asked.

‘Her first race is coming up. She’s got her game face on.’

It was true. Sophie was sitting by herself, at the far end of the pool, her thousand-yard stare in place. She was practicing her square breathing, another recent interest.

‘I found your magic mushroom dealer,’ Vince said. ‘Word is, if you want the kind of high-end psychedelics found in your victim, he’s the man to see. We’ve got a meet set up.’

Yes
, Jessica thought. ‘You know, you just might have a future in this narco thing.’

‘Tell my captain to give me a raise.’

‘I’m having a late lunch with my father,’ Jessica said. ‘I’ll bring home something for dinner. We won’t be late.’

She clicked off, looked at her watch. There was still another half-hour to go before Sophie’s race.

After the first few six-hour meets, Jessica discovered that one of the best ways to stay awake was to become a timer.

At most meets there were three people, usually mothers of the competitors, who volunteered to time the competitions. Each were given stopwatches, and positioned at the center, as well as each side of the starting/finish line.

The reason for having three different timers was that the judges would take an average of each score, thereby softening the possibility of bias or cheating. As if the parent of a child athlete would ever do such a thing.

In her second event, the fifty meter breaststroke, Sophie came in second. It was her best finish ever.

The three women tasked with timing gathered at the official’s table. The numbers were added, an average was taken.

Before the final tallies were posted on the digital board, Jessica sensed a woman standing close to her. A little
too
close to her. It seemed that the woman was scrutinizing Jessica’s recorded times.

‘Um, excuse me?’ the woman asked.

Jessica turned. The woman standing next to her was about her own age, a little shorter and heavier, and apparently shopped at Carmela Soprano’s garage sales. The woman was a study in three different shades of aqua. She probably figured it went with the water.

‘Yes?’ Jessica asked.

‘You have my daughter winning by 2.5 seconds,’ the woman said.

‘That’s right.’

‘I don’t think so, hon.’

Hon?
Hon?
The only people Jessica let call her
hon
were her husband and any diner waitress over fifty. Miss Paramus Outlet 1992 was neither.

‘What are you saying?’ Jessica asked, knowing she was baiting the woman, trying to find a way to care. ‘Are you saying it was closer than that? I can make it closer.’

The woman snorted. ‘It was more like
4
.5 seconds. You need to change it.’

Jessica took a half-step back. ‘You’re taking a tone with me,’ she said. ‘You have no cause to take a tone with me.’

The woman squared her shoulders, balled her fists. ‘What are you, a friggin’
cop
?’

Jessica bit her tongue. Literally. She thought she tasted a little blood.

‘Please tell your daughter congratulations for us,’ Jessica said. The woman, whose name was Vicki Alberico, turned around, looking for her precious little fish.

Jessica pointed to the other side of the room.

‘She’s right over there,’ Jessica said, putting a towel around Sophie’s shoulders. ‘She’s the one puking pool water in the corner.’

They sat on the bench outside the girls’ locker room. Sophie was crushed. Jessica combed the tangles from her daughter’s hair.

‘What’s the matter?’ Jessica asked.

‘Nothing.’

Jessica knew, but she wasn’t sure how to handle this one. She knew that Sophie liked to win, probably even more than her mother, which was saying a lot.

‘You did great, baby girl. I’m really proud of you.’

Sophie Balzano would not be consoled.

‘I came in second,’ she said.

‘What? Are you
kidding
? Second is awesome. That’s better than everybody in the world, except for one person. Eight billion people is a lot of people to beat.’

‘Yeah,’ Sophie said. ‘Except for Angie Alberico.’

‘Okay. Except for Angie Alberico. But there’s always next time, right? And think of how sweet it’s going to be when you blow past her to win. Think about that scrunched-up little lemon face she’s going to have.’

It took a few moments, but Sophie beamed. ‘It
will
be sweet, won’t it?’

‘Oh yes,’ Jessica said.

‘Chlorine is my perfume.’

Jessica smiled. ‘Go get dressed. We’ll stop at Capogiro.’

Capogiro was an artisanal gelato shop on Thirteenth Street.

‘Before lunch?’ Sophie asked.

‘What are you, a cop?’

Sophie laughed, and headed to the locker room.

Jessica sat at the light at Fifth and Washington. She had dropped Sophie at home. It was her afternoon off, but there was paperwork piling up on her. She intended to stop by the office for an hour.

The city had other ideas.

Jessica’s phone rang. She thought about letting it go to voicemail, but she saw it was Byrne. She answered.

‘Hey.’

‘Where are you?’ Byrne asked.

Jessica was so distracted she had to look at the street signs. ‘Fifth and Washington,’ she said. ‘Why?’

‘Meet me at Fifth and Christian. I’ll pick you up.’

Jessica knew her partner’s tone. This was not good. ‘Don’t tell me there’s another body.’

‘Times two.’

There was little doubt as to which building on this blighted block of the Strawberry Mansion section of North Philadelphia was the crime scene.

Once home to jazz legend John Coltrane, the community was bounded by Fairmount Park to the west, Lehigh Avenue to the north, Sedgley Avenue and the SEPTA rail tracks to the east, and Cecil B. Moore Avenue to the south.

At one time a mixed-income, mostly Jewish enclave, over the past fifty years the neighborhood had gone through a steep decline, although signs of gentrification were occurring on the southern end of the large neighborhood, mostly as it transitioned into Brewerytown.

And while the community got its name from a restaurant that at one time served strawberries and cream, the block on which Jessica and Byrne arrived reflected none of that gentility.

The block – on Monument Street between 32nd and 33rd Streets – had only a handful of dilapidated structures. One row house, the only building that looked occupied, stood bravely between four vacant lots, all of which were dotted with urban detritus – tires, discarded appliances, broken storm windows.

The building on the corner was a two story, dirty brick building with a high gable peak facing 33rd Street. Its Palladian windows were covered in delaminated plywood and spray painted with years of gang lore.

There was a sector car parked at all four corners of the block, lights flashing. Although the day was a brisk forty degrees, there seemed to be a crowd of onlookers surrounding the building. Never an easy task for patrol officers whose job it was to preserve the crime scene for the detectives and crime scene technicians.

Jessica and Byrne parked on Monument Street, about fifty feet from where the other personnel had gathered. Jessica clipped her badge on her jeans belt, then slipped on her leather gloves.

They entered the building by way of a side door, an opening made by a sheet of rotted plywood roughly torn from its nailing. They walked down the narrow hallway that was pocked with what looked to be bullet holes made by many different caliber weapons.

In addition, there was graffiti sprayed and carved into the walls by every known gang in this part of North Philadelphia.

Josh Bontrager stood just outside the doorway. He had his hands on his hips, lost in thought. Jessica knew the look well. With all kinds of people milling around you, sometimes a circus atmosphere, it was possible to be isolated in the middle of the mayhem. Every new job was a puzzle. Some were easier to solve than others. Most, in fact, were. Somewhere around half of the homicides in the city were drug or gang-related, and there was not a lot of loyalty involved. People talked.

Those homicides that were committed in the course of a robbery were rather straightforward. Watch the surveillance tape; follow the tips.

The ability to put the pieces together – be they large or small pieces – in these first crucial minutes and hours, was a talent and ability that, if you were adept at it, you would excel at the job of being a homicide detective. Jessica had met more detectives who were unable to do this than she had met detectives who could.

Josh Bontrager, who had grown up Amish, brought a singularly unique perspective to the job. The younger detectives in the unit – those who got the job since Josh came to Homicide – had no idea that this street-savvy detective had at one time lived on a dairy farm in rural Pennsylvania.

As Jessica and Byrne reached the room where the victims were, they stopped. Jessica saw the shadows spill through the door, and knew what she was going to see. It filled her with rage.

She hoped she was wrong, but the look on Josh Bontrager’s face told her she was not.

‘Dana says it’s a double,’ Jessica said.

Bontrager nodded. He gestured to Jessica and Byrne to take a look.

Jessica removed her leather gloves, replaced them with latex gloves. She took a deep, calming breath, peered around the door jamb into the room.

In the center of the room two young teenaged boys were seated on makeshift swings. The swings were attached to the ceiling with loops of nylon rope, threaded through four large steel eyelets. Their victims’ heads lolled forward. Around each of their necks was what looked to be tightly knotted silk stockings. Their hands were tied to the ropes with what looked like similar stockings, holding them in place.

The boys were white, dressed in a similar fashion – faded jeans, new-looking running shoes, long-sleeved polo shirts. One boy’s shirt was red and blue striped. The other, a solid green. There was an identical crest on the left breast pocket of each shirt.

The seats of the swings were painted in a pale yellow color, a color Jessica had no doubt would be the same color used to paint the bench at the Shawmont station.

Mindful to not fully cross the threshold – the crime scene unit had yet to begin to process the scene – Jessica got down on her knees to get a better look at the boys’ faces. When she saw them her heart stammered. She sat back on her heels. Hard.

‘
No
.’

‘What is it, Jess?’ Byrne asked.

Jessica knew what she wanted to say, but for a moment the words would not come. She took a deep breath, her head filled with the chemical scent of the paint.

‘I know who they are,’ she said.

This, of course, got Josh Bontrager’s attention. He walked the few steps down the hall to where Jessica was kneeling.

‘You know them?’ Bontrager asked.

Jessica nodded, held up a hand, took another moment. Then she shook her head.

‘I don’t
know
them,’ she said. ‘But I think I know who they are.’

Bontrager exchanged a glance with Byrne, looked back at Jessica. Jessica reached into her back pocket, pulled out her notebook. She flipped a few pages until she found the entry she wanted.

‘The woman I interviewed,’ Jessica began. ‘The woman whose phone number David Solomon called right before he shot himself.’

‘I thought that was a dead-end,’ Byrne said. In another circumstance, most notably some gang hit, or drug-related murder, his choice of words would’ve been taken as gallows humor. Not today.

‘I thought so, too,’ Jessica said. She found what she was looking for, silently berating herself for not remembering the woman’s name. ‘Mary Gillen.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Bontrager said. ‘Who’s Mary Gillen?’

Byrne gave Bontrager a brief rundown on the details of the Nicole Solomon case.

‘And you’re saying that Nicole’s father called this woman? This Mary Gillen?’ Bontrager asked.

‘He called her number,’ Jessica said. ‘Her landline. We confirmed with the phone company that the call was made at almost the precise moment Solomon pulled the trigger.’

‘And the call came from his phone?’ Bontrager asked. ‘Solomon’s phone?’

‘Yeah,’ Byrne said. ‘I hit the redial on his cordless phone at his house.’

‘So, Nicole Solomon’s father spoke to Mary Gillen just before he killed himself?’

‘No,’ Jessica said. ‘He got her answering machine. We’ve got a copy of the recording, but Mateo hasn’t been able to clean it up enough for us to get anything out of it.’

Sgt. Mateo Fuentes was the commander of the PPD’s A/V Unit.

Bontrager thought for a few moments. ‘I’m feeling pretty thick here, guys. I’m not seeing the connection.’

‘When I interviewed Mary Gillen, she said she didn’t know anybody named David Solomon,’ Jessica said. ‘I asked her who else lived in the house. She then told me she’s divorced, and said the only other people living in her house were her boys. She said her boys are—’

‘Twins,’ Bontrager said. ‘She has twin boys.’

Jessica nodded. ‘Twin boys about twelve. She said that they were at soccer practice.’

Bontrager took out his cell phone. He scrolled through some photographs. He studied one of them for a few moments, then tapped it to enlarge it. He turned the phone so that Jessica and Byrne could see it.

Jessica put on her glasses, looked at the picture. She could see it was a photograph of one of the boys in the other room, a somewhat pixelated close-up of the boys shirt, the one wearing green and white.