by The Echo Man
The detectives divvied up the names and photographs of the four men, as well as the locations of the shelters. They would work these interviews solo, as there were too many places to visit in teams, and time was short.
Jessica would take Old City.
Chapter 36
The area beneath the Ben Franklin Bridge, at the interchange with 1-95, had long been a refuge for Philadelphia's homeless. For years the police referred to it as The Condos. Jessica parked, found a break in the chain-link fence, made her way beneath the overpass. There were a few dozen people congregated there. Stacked against the fence were stuffed cardboard boxes, bursting plastic bags. Nearby was a stroller with only three wheels. Cups, bottles, milk cartons, fast-food trash. No aluminum cans, of course. Cans were currency.
There were ten or twelve people on the north side of the encampment, mostly men. They glanced up at Jessica, not reacting in any way. Two reasons. One, she was a woman. Two, even though she was clearly a police officer, or at least a representative of the system, she was not coming in all guns blazing, with the obvious intention of uprooting them.
There were three distinct camps, with a few men off on their own. Jessica approached the first group, showed them the photographs. No one admitted recognizing anyone. The same with the second and third groups of men.
As Jessica walked away from the third group, one of the men called out to her. Jessica turned around. It was one of the older guys. He was lying on a thick bed of cardboard.
'Say, darling, you ever been with a homeless man?' He smiled his keyboard grin, broke into a phlegmy cough. The other two men in his posse chuckled. 'Guaranteed to change your life. You interested?'
'Sure,' Jessica said. 'All you have to do is take a shower and get a job.'
The man looked shocked. He got back under his blanket, turned on his side. 'You ain't all that.''
Jessica smiled, made her way back around the camp, asking the same questions, receiving nothing. The last man pointed to a man on the other side of the embankment, someone Jessica hadn't noticed before. As she approached she saw that the man - who was surrounded by carefully placed trash bags - had his legs covered with what appeared to be a new blanket. As Jessica got closer she saw that it still had its price tag.
The man was propped against the fence, reading a paperback. Its cover was missing but Jessica could read the spine. Great Expectations.
'Excuse me. Sir?'
He looked up. He was black, somewhere between fifty and seventy. He wore a tattered brown corduroy blazer and a yellowed shirt. His tie, like the blanket, looked new. Jessica wondered if there was a price tag on that, too. His eyes were bright and intelligent.
'Madam.'
'May I ask your name?'
'Abraham Coltrane.'
Jessica believed the Abraham part. 'Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?' Jessica held up her badge. The man scanned it.
'Not at all.'
Jessica held up three of the photographs. 'Do you know any of these men?'
Coltrane scanned the pictures. 'I do not. Are they men of leisure, such as myself?'
'They are.'
Abraham Coltrane nodded. Jessica held up the final picture, a photograph of the fourth man believed to have been involved with the
2004 murder of Marcellus Palmer. The man's name was Tyvander Alice. 'What about this man?'
Coltrane looked again. This time Jessica saw the slightest flicker of recognition. 'Again,' he said. 'My regrets.'
'This picture was taken a few years ago.'
'I remember everyone I have ever met, madam.'
She believed he did, which was why she didn't believe the part about him not knowing Tyvander Alice. She took out a five-dollar bill, making sure that the man saw it.
'Nice blanket,' she said.
'It provides.'
Jessica lifted the price tag. 'You have a receipt for this, Mr. Coltrane?'
'It was a gift from one of my many admirers.'
'They gave you a gift with the price tag still on it?'
Coltrane shrugged. 'The young have but a nodding acquaintance with custom, I fear.'
'Thank God the court system still does,' Jessica said. 'They're really big on it. Indictment, prosecution, conviction, incarceration. You might say they are sticklers for tradition.'
Coltrane stared at her for a moment. Jessica saw the man's will begin to fade. 'May I see that photograph again?'
'Of course.' Jessica showed him. He studied it for a moment, rubbing his stubbled chin.
'Now that I've had a moment to reflect, I believe I have made the acquaintance of this gentleman.'
'Is this Tyvander Alice?'
'Tyvander?' he asked. 'No. I knew him by another name. I know him as Hoochie.'
'Hoochie?'
'Yes. An unfortunate and undignified sobriquet based on his love of the lesser vintages, I believe.'
Jessica handed Coltrane the five. The man touched it to his forehead, sniffed it, then spirited it away under his blanket.
Before Jessica could ask another question she saw the blanket move. A few seconds later a Jack Russell terrier poked his snout out.
His gray snout. The dog blinked a few times, adjusting its eyes to the light.
'And who is this?' Jessica asked.
'This is the irascible Biscuit. He is my oldest friend.' Coltrane patted the dog's head. Jessica saw the blanket bounce up and down with the movement of the pooch's tail. 'Is there anything in the world better than a warm biscuit?'
Jessica tried to think of something. She could not. There was as good, but not better. She returned to the business at hand. 'Do you know where I might find Hoochie?'
Coltrane shrugged. '"I wander'd lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er vales and hills.'"
Jessica raised an eyebrow, expecting more. There was no more. 'Bon Jovi?'
Coltrane smiled. 'Wordsworth.'
In other words, the answer was no. Homeless were just that. Jessica took out the photograph of Marcellus Palmer, the original victim found at Second and Poplar in 2004. 'Did you know this gentleman?'
'Oh yes,' Coltrane said. 'Marcellus. We shared many a tankard of kill-devil. But that was a long time ago.'
'Do you know what happened to him?'
Coltrane nodded sadly. 'I heard he came to an unfortunate end. City buried him.'
'Do you know where?'
Coltrane looked up at the concrete embankment. For a moment there was only the sound of the cars passing overhead. 'Now, I did know at one time. The recollection seems to be pirouetting just at the edge of my memory.'
Jessica produced another five, held it back. 'Think we could coax it back onto the dance floor?'
'I believe we can.'
The money was gone in an instant.
'Up around Parkwood, I believe.'
Jessica's phone rang. She looked at the screen. It was Byrne.
'Thank you for your time, Mr. Coltrane.'
'Always willing to do my part,' he said.
Jessica took a few steps away, answered her phone.
'Where are you?' she asked.
'Still in West Philly.'
Jessica told him what she had learned from Abraham Coltrane. Byrne filled her in on what she had missed. Two of the other homeless men who had been questioned in the murder of Marcellus Palmer were dead. The third man was long gone. Someone told someone that someone's friend had told someone that he was in Florida. Two someones was about the extent of any network worth exploring.
When they met back at the Roundhouse, Jessica checked a roster of the city's graveyards.
There was no cemetery in Parkwood.
Chapter 37
Finnigan's Wake, the popular Irish pub at Third and Spring Garden Streets, in the Northern Liberties section of the city, was packed with a who's who from the department and the DA's office, as well as defense attorneys, paralegals, FBI agents, commissioners, medical examiner's investigators. As always, everyone clustered with their tribe. David Albrecht
was there, shooting from the sidelines. Russ Diaz was with his new team. Tom Weyrich was there, looking a little better than Jessica had seen him look in a long time. Maybe it was the Guinness. Dennis Stansfield stood in the corner with two of his old squad mates.
The jampacked party was held on the second floor, also known as the Lincoln Level. After Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, his body was transported to Philadelphia to lie in state at Independence Hall. That night his body had been kept in a Northern Liberties funeral parlor, and the doors from that establishment became part of the second floor at Finnigan's Wake. More than one pint had been lifted to Honest Abe in this room.
As the evening wore on a number of people got up and told their Michael Drummond stories. Like all leaving parties, the first hour's worth of stories were mild, only somewhat ribald recounts of incidents that happened around the office. The second hour, seeing as Michael Drummond was about to become part of the opposition to most of the people in the room, became a little more adventurous, if not downright drunkenly libelous.
At eleven p.m. Michael Drummond himself took the microphone. Although Drummond was not yet forty, there was a lot of fresh blood in the DA's office and he was referred to as the old man.
'Yes, it's true that I joined the office after an unfortunate incident with a Model A Ford,' he said, drawing polite laughter.
He went on to thank just about everyone he'd ever worked with, on both sides of the aisle, taking particular care to heap praise upon all the judges - men and women in front of whom he would shortly be arguing for the defense - regardless of whether they were at the party or not.
Soon it became time for him to spill the beans. With a clank of a spoon on a crystal glass, he got everyone's undivided attention.
'Folks, I have an announcement to make,' Drummond said.
Everyone quieted down. This was, more or less, the reason they had gathered.
'In two weeks I will start work as a junior partner at Paulson Derry Chambers. Until then, I'm on the job. So watch yourselves.'
A rumble went through the room. Paulson Derry Chambers was one of the most prominent firms in the city. Everyone expected Mike Drummond to go for the dollar, but a junior partnership at Paulson Derry was like stepping into Valhalla. Applause followed.
'Although I didn't know him personally, I'd like to leave you with the wise words of Pericles,' Drummond added. 'He said: "What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others."'
'Hear, hear,' someone said.
Everyone raised a glass.
'Here's to old dogs,' a slightly inebriated Nick Palladino added.
Drummond laughed. 'And soft bones.'
Everyone returned to their small groups. The detectives gathered near the tall windows overlooking Spring Garden Street and the view of the Ben Franklin Bridge.
'Ah, shit,' Dino said after everyone sat down.
'What?' Jessica asked.
Dino stood up, looked in his pockets, patted himself down like a suspect. 'I can't believe this.'
'What's wrong?'
Deadpan: 'I think I left my lip gloss at home.'
Someone snorted.
Dino pointed at Byrne's man bag, hanging off the back of his chair. 'Hey, Kev. You wouldn't happen to have any in there, would you?'
Muffled laughs around the table. Byrne shook his head. 'I'm a lot bigger than you are, you know that, right?'
'I know,' Dino said. 'But you're also older.'
'By what, five or six months?'
'Still.'
'That just means it will take me a few seconds longer to get across the room.'
Dino held up both hands. 'Just don't hit me with your man bag.'
Byrne shot to his feet.
Nick Palladino ran to the bar.
By midnight most of the younger players had moved on or gone home. It was a work night. There were young families waiting. After the midnight hour the floor was left to the serious drinkers.
Jessica, who was just about out the door, stood with Byrne near the elevator. Michael Drummond found them, crossed the room. He'd had his share of cheer, and more.
'Thanks for coming, guys.'
Drummond gave Jessica a brotherly hug, shook Byrne's hand, clapped him on the shoulder.
'You do realize we'll probably go up against each other one of these days,' Byrne said.
Drummond nodded. 'Yeah. I feel like I've gone over to the dark side.'
'The money should help ease your pain.'
Drummond smiled. He glanced at his watch. 'I've got to be up in about three hours,' he said. 'We're moving my mother into an assisted- living facility.'
'Do you need another pair of hands?' Byrne asked.
'No, we're good. Thanks.' Drummond slipped on his overcoat. 'I just have to be in Parkwood around six-thirty.'
Jessica looked at Byrne, then back. 'Parkwood?'
'What about it?'
'Well, it's just come up twice in one day.'
'What do you mean?' Drummond asked.
Jessica explained what they had done that afternoon, about Abraham Coltrane's claim that Marcellus Palmer, the 2004 victim found in the Dumpster just a few blocks from where they now stood, was buried in or around Parkwood. Drummond thought for a few moments.
'Well, I'm pretty sure there used to be a potter's field in Parkwood,' he said. 'It closed a while back.'
'Closed?'
'Yeah. I think the bodies were disinterred and either moved to other cemeteries or cremated. I think there was supposed to be some kind of development that went in that spot, but nothing ever happened.' Drummond drained his glass, put it on the bar. 'Can you imagine living on top of a former cemetery?'
Jessica felt a chill at the idea. 'Do you know where the cemetery was located?'
Drummond shrugged. 'No idea. Sorry. I might even be wrong about this.'
'Counselor!' someone shouted drunkenly from across the room. 'You're needed for a voir dire.'
It was two old-timers from the DA's office. The voir dire was a process of jury selection, generally involving the judge and attorneys asking potential jurors about their experiences and beliefs. On the table in front of the two ADAs was one of every different kind of drink in the bar. There had to be fifty full glasses. Drummond looked back at Jessica and Byrne. 'Looks like the night isn't over for me yet. Thanks again for coming.'
Drummond slipped off his coat and staggered across the room.
Downstairs, a few minutes later, Byrne held the door for Jessica. They stepped out onto Spring Garden Street.
'So, what time do you want to meet me at L & I?' Byrne asked. The License & Inspections division had city-zoning archives going back more than two hundred years. If there had once been a cemetery in or around Parkwood it would be recorded there.
'As soon as they open, detective,' Jessica said.
Chapter 38
Thursday, October 28
The city's last official potter's field had opened in 1956 in Philadelphia's Northeast. Prior to its opening, the most active potter's field had been in a section now used as a police parking lot at Luzerne Street and Whitaker Avenue, adjoining Philadelphia Municipal Hospital, where it became the final resting place for thousands who died in the 1918 flu epidemic. At various times in the city's history, indigent or unclaimed deceased were buried in a number of places, including Logan Square, Franklin Field, Reyburn Park, even at the corner of 15th and Catharine, just a few blocks from where Jessica had grown up.
These days, in the interest of logistics and expense, many of the unidentified and indigent were being cremated, with remains stored in a room off the morgue at the medical examiner's office.
Jessica and Byrne visited the zoning-archives department of Licenses and Inspections at just after eight a.m. The L & I office was located in the Municipal Services Building at 15th and JFK. What they learned was that there had once been a potter's field located in the Parkwood section of Northeast Philadelphia, a field that had
since closed.
They stopped for coffee and got onto 1-95 at just after nine a.m.
The field was located near the intersection of Mechanicsville Road and Dunks Ferry Road at the southern end of Poquessing Valley Park.
On the south side of Dunks Ferry Road were blocks of two-story twin row homes, their fasciae festooned with Halloween decorations ranging from the elaborate (one had a skeleton about to climb down the chimney) to the ordinary (an already dented plastic pumpkin stuck on a gas light).
Jessica and Byrne got out of the car, crossed the road. They walked through the trees into a large open field. Here the ground was rippled - the uneven remnants of graves that had been there a long time.
There were no headstones, no crypts, no vaults, no mausoleum. The field had indeed been closed, the bodies moved or cremated, the area planted over.
Jessica looked at the rutted sod. She considered the generations of kids to come, flying kites, playing kickball, unaware that at one time the ground beneath their feet had held the remnants of the city's homeless, its indigent, its lost.
They walked slowly across the undulating earth, looking for any sign of what had once been there - a buried headstone, a grave marker of any kind, a stake in the ground indicating the boundaries of the cemetery. There was nothing. The earth had long ago begun to reclaim the area with life.
'Was this the only city field in this area?' Jessica asked.
'Yeah,' Byrne said. 'This was it.'
Jessica looked around. Nothing looked promising, at least as it might concern the cases. 'We're wasting our time up here, aren't we?'
Byrne didn't reply. Instead he crouched down, ran his hand over a bare patch of ground. A few moments later he stood, dusted off his hands.
Jessica heard a rustling in the nearby trees. She looked up to see a half-dozen crows perched tenuously on a low branch of a nearby maple. A murder of crows, she had once learned, and had ever since thought how odd a term that was. A flock of geese, a herd of cattle, a murder of crows. Soon another black bird landed, rustling the others, who responded with a series of loud caws and flapping wings. One of them took off and swooped toward the low shrubs at the other side of the field. Jessica followed the pattern of flight.