The Doll Maker (19 page)

The recorder recovered from the crime scene building sat on Mateo’s desk in a clear plastic evidence bag.

Mateo reached into a drawer, pulled out an old catalog, stopped at a page bookmarked with a blue Post-It note. He put the catalog on the desk. The third item from the top of the page was an identical cassette tape player to the one they had found at the Gillen crime scene.

‘Not one of the greats, but still working,’ Mateo said. ‘Obviously.’

‘So it’s no longer available,’ Byrne said.

‘No longer for sale in retail outlets, but there are plenty available on eBay and other sites.’

Mateo was ready with this information, too. He maximized a browser window on one of his laptops. It was open to an eBay page where a half-dozen of this model recorder were available to be bid upon. Two had a
Buy It Now
price of $9.99.

Mateo tapped his own cassette player, which was a far pricier Sony. Like all cassette recorders it was vintage, but state of the art for its time. Jessica wasn’t even sure if they made new ones anymore.

‘This is a 120, right?’ Byrne said.

‘That’s the label,’ Mateo said. ‘I think it’s closer to 125 minutes.’

‘I’m lost, guys,’ Jessica said.

‘Back in the day, audio cassettes were made in specific lengths. Sixty minutes, ninety minutes, one hundred twenty minutes. Hence the designations – C60, C90, C120.’

‘So, that’s total length?’ Jessica asked.

‘Yes,’ Mateo said. ‘One hundred twenty total. Sixty minutes per side.’

‘When we found this tape it was right near the end,’ Jessica said. ‘Are you saying it was started less than sixty minutes earlier?’

‘Not necessarily. This model has an auto-reverse feature, which meant the tape would begin to play side B when side A was over. This tape would continue to play on a loop until the batteries wore down.’ Mateo tapped the device. ‘And to anticipate your next question, the batteries are new.’

‘What about the flip side?’ Byrne asked. ‘Was there anything on it?’

‘This
is
the flip side. Same song. I listened from leader to leader.’

‘And side A?’

‘Halfway through,’ Mateo said. ‘I made a digital copy of it. I was just listening to it.’

Mateo tapped a few keys. The sound of the piano music came out of the speakers.

‘I have to say this is not the best quality recording I’ve ever heard,’ Jessica said.

‘Two reasons for that,’ Mateo said. ‘One is that the tape itself is old. All magnetic tape over ten years old or so is at risk due to the fact that the breakdown of the binder that holds the magnetic particles to the polyester base of tape deteriorates, and the magnetic material literally falls off. Some call this Sticky Shed Syndrome.’

‘Okay,’ Jessica said, lost again. She thought – and not for the first time – that the only person on the PPD who rivaled Hell Rohmer for Geek Boy Number One status was Mateo Fuentes. ‘What’s the other reason?’

‘The other reason is that this recording is not a direct recording.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What I mean is that this is a recording
of
a recording. Or it is a recording of someone playing piano live. Either way, it was probably made with this recorder’s built-in microphone. Hence the tinny sound and all the background hiss.’

Mateo turned it up a little. Jessica could now hear what he meant. There was a loud hiss, not to mention an echo.

The group stood in silence, listening to the recording. The longer it played, the more Jessica believed the song itself had significance, not just the placement of the device.

Jessica was just going to ask Mateo about the other recording they had brought to him about this case – the all too brief recording of David Solomon’s voicemail message to Mary Gillen, a piece of evidence that became a lot more crucial since the murder of the Gillen boys – when, from the recording, there suddenly came a voice.

A female voice: ‘
Shut the door
.’

The sound was so unexpected, Jessica nearly jumped.

‘Oh
hello
,’ Mateo said. He stopped the recording, move the scrubber bar back. ‘You all heard that, right?’

‘Yes,’ they all said in unison.

‘Thank God,’ Mateo said. ‘You do this stuff long enough, you start to wonder.’

Mateo put on headphones, hit Play. At the same moment in the recording they heard it again.

‘
Shut the door
.’

Again Mateo rewound the footage, let it play. This time he let it continue. They listened for a full minute, but there were no other spoken words, nor the sound of a shutting door.

He clicked Stop.

‘The voice is definitely female,’ Jessica said.

‘And young,’ Mateo added. ‘A teenager.’

‘Is there any way of telling when that was recorded?’

‘I can tell you that it was probably spoken during the recording of the piano music, so it was recorded at the same time,’ he said. ‘That was no splice, and I doubt that this was made on a multi-track machine.’

‘So whoever made the recording of the music …’

‘Was in the room with the person who said that,’ Mateo said. ‘Or is one and the same person.’

Jessica thought about this. It would follow. Someone was playing the piano, noticed that someone else was watching them, and told them to shut the door.

‘What about the voicemail recording?’ Jessica asked.

Mateo tapped a few fingers on his desk. ‘There’s not too much to work with on that recording. Once again, I’m working with an iPhone app recording of a digital recording from an answering machine.’

Jessica had considered asking Mary Gillen for the answering machine itself, but the sound quality was no better on that device.

‘And without a sample of David Solomon’s voice, there’s nothing to compare it to,’ Mateo said.

Jessica made a note to check and see if there were any home movies or videos to be found at the Solomon home, perhaps one from which they could pull an exemplar of David Solomon’s voice.

‘But I
can
tell you that he’s not saying the words “not now,”’ Mateo added.

‘He isn’t?’

‘No.’

‘Any idea what he is saying?’

Mateo just glared.

‘I’ll take that as a no.’

‘If you can find another recording of this subject, one I can use as a control, I might be able to tell you more,’ Mateo said. ‘But I’ll keep at it, though. There are a few things I haven’t tried yet.’

As Mateo continued to clean up the recording, moving forward with new purpose now that the element of the human voice on the recording of the piano music had entered his milieu, the four detectives met at the foot of the stairs.

‘We made notification before coming here,’ Bontrager said. ‘Turns out the boys were staying with their father this weekend, a man who is conveniently out of town.’

‘He left two boys their age on their own?’ Jessica asked.

Bontrager nodded. ‘Apparently not up for Dad of the Year.’

‘I put in a call to St. Jerome’s,’ Maria added. ‘I’m going to stop there and see what I can find out about the Gillen boys and their routines.’

Bontrager and Maria Caruso took the elevator up. Jessica and Byrne stayed behind.

‘The batteries were fresh in that recorder,’ Jessica said. ‘We were
supposed
to find it.’

‘Yes we were.’

When Jessica saw her father sitting at the table in Ralph’s – the famous Italian eatery on Ninth Street – she almost didn’t recognize him. His hair, which had years ago turned a lustrous silver, was a little longer than usual. As an ex-cop – one of the most decorated in PPD history – he had always kept his hair military short. Even in retirement, he visited Dominic Farinacci’s barber shop on Eleventh Street every three weeks for a trim.

Now his hair curled over the collar of his white dress shirt. It suited him. He looked five years younger.

In addition, her father was tan and looked to have lost a few pounds. Twice a year Peter Giovanni went to Pompano Beach, Florida to visit family and friends. He always came back with a deep tan, and always seemed to be refreshed and happy. A widower for more than thirty years, Jessica often wondered just what Peter Giovanni was doing down there that cheered him so.

As a good Catholic girl, Jessica never asked.

The
giambotte
, as always, was out of this world. After getting the small talk out of the way, while they waited for coffee, they got down to business. Family business.

‘What did Vince have to say about it?’ Peter asked.

Jessica had debated with herself about how to tell her father that she had decided not to take the bar exam for a while. In the end she just blurted it out.

‘You know Vince, Dad. He told me we could make ends meet. Eventually he came around, though. If I stay on the job two more years, we should be in good shape. The DA’s office isn’t going anywhere.’

Peter thought for a few moments. ‘So, how much do you owe? I mean, total?’

‘A lot.’

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Just a round figure, then.’

‘A lot
is
a round figure.’

‘Jess.’

Reluctantly, Jessica told him. Her father did not react in any way. It was one of the reasons he had been a great detective, and an even better lieutenant. He reached into his coat pocket, took out his checkbook.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ Jessica said.

‘Honey, it’s not that much.’

‘Just put it away, Dad. We’ll be fine.’

‘Let me give you half, then.’

‘Pa, the only Italian I know with a harder head than you is my husband. A real
testa dura
. You
know
Vince. He won’t take the money.’

Peter opened the checkbook, took out a pen. ‘Tell you what. I’ll make out the check, you take it. If you can sweet-talk him into it, you deposit it. If not, tear it up. It’s only paper.’

Jessica shook her head. ‘We’ve been married more than ten years. He’s impervious to sweet talk.’

‘Make him your
sfogiatelle
.’

‘Pa.’

‘Okay.’ Peter held up a hand in defeat, just as the coffee was poured. Still, he didn’t put his checkbook away.

They let the matter settle. Jessica told her father about the Nicole Solomon and Gillen homicides. When Peter heard about these cases – murdered children – Jessica could see the anger gather on his face. Once a cop.

‘And they left a doll?’ he asked.

Jessica nodded, sipped her coffee. ‘The doll was made up to look like Nicole. Right down to what she was wearing.’

Despite his Italian heritage, and the fact that he was a cop for nearly three decades, Jessica had heard her father utter the f-word only once in her presence. Had to be some kind of record. She could see that he was mightily resisting saying it now. Instead, Peter Giovanni poured a packet of sugar into his cup, stirred it. And stirred it. Jessica knew that this was one of his affectations, one that meant he was putting something together. She waited him out.

He put down the spoon, asked: ‘Have you ever heard of something called the Nutshell Studies?’

‘No.’

‘Well, they were a little before your time. Actually, they were a bit before my time, too.’

‘So, we’re talking the mid-1800s here?’

Peter smiled. ‘Laugh it up, Jess. You’re going to be my age one day.’

‘If’n the creek don’t rise.’

‘Anyway, the studies were created by a woman named Frances Glessner Lee. She founded Harvard’s Department of Legal Medicine.’

‘As in forensic medicine?’

‘Yes. As I understand it, she was born into money, but made it her life’s work to create these incredibly detailed representations of crime scenes.’

‘Drawings?’

‘No,’ Peter said. ‘She made little dollhouse-sized dioramas that were composites of real court cases. She used miniature dolls to depict the victims.’

Her father now had her undivided attention. ‘She used dolls.’

Peter nodded. ‘We had someone in Philly who was doing much the same thing. His name was Carl Krause.’

‘He was a police officer?’

‘No, he worked for the sanitation department, believe it or not. I’m pretty sure he wanted to be a cop at one time, but for some physical limitation couldn’t get into the academy. Word is he studied with Mrs Lee, then came back to Philly and began to do the same work she did. I’ve seen some of them. Amazing stuff.’

‘He built these himself?’

‘He did. I heard that he got a lot of the material – the wood, the metal, even the fabric he used for the victims’ clothing – out of the trash he picked up.’

The waiter poured them more coffee, put the check on the table. Before Jessica could move her father had the check on his lap. He continued.

‘So I’m working out of West detectives, a string of burglaries in and around Cobb’s Creek. One of them went too far and the owner of this pet store was murdered. Bad scene. They stabbed him in the back. Anyway, we worked the case with the homicide unit. They brought in Krause and he studied the crime scene, snapped dozens of pictures, took a hundred dimensions. Two weeks later he comes back with this one-tenth-scale diorama of the pet store.
Incredible
work. Like nothing you’ve ever seen.’

‘What did you do with it?’

‘Well, the guys in homicide studied it, and, I’m not sure what it was, but one of the guys in the squad saw something in the recreation he didn’t notice at the scene itself, and it broke the case.’

‘They collared the guy.’

‘They did,’ Peter said. ‘Twenty-five to life. The guy is still in Graterford.’

Jessica wondered why she’d never heard of this. It sounded like last-call, cop bar PPD legend.

‘Is the guy still around?’ Jessica asked. ‘This Carl Krause?’

Peter shrugged. ‘No idea. I doubt it, though. He was no kid, even back then.’

Before Jessica could ask, Peter read his daughter’s face. The look he gave her was one she hadn’t seen in a long time.

‘Let me make a few calls,’ he said.

They walked down the narrow staircase, with Bethany Krause Quinn on point. The cellar was clearly unheated, and Jessica wrapped her scarf a little more tightly around her neck, pulled on her gloves.