Shutter Man

by Richard Montanari

  Weaver cut the seal, and unlocked the door on the left.

  Byrne pointed to the door on the right. ‘Is Miss Joseph available for an interview?’

  ‘Not anytime soon. She decided to go stay with her sister in Meadville. I can give you contact information, but we’ve got her statement, and it’s pretty thorough.’

  Jessica did not notice any annoyance in Weaver’s tone, although no detective really wanted another investigator going over work that was done right the first time. She also knew that Byrne had to ask.

  Robert Kilgore’s front room was large and had too much furniture. There were two full-size couches, a loveseat, two large recliners. A bookcase ran along one wall, and Jessica noticed that many of the books were legal thrillers, with a few shelves dedicated to textbooks on estate planning law.

  In the center of the almond-colored carpeting was a large dark brown stain. Jessica noticed that the dining room table had only five chairs. She assumed that the chair in which the victim had been killed had been removed and processed at the crime lab.

  ‘Where was the bullet evidence collected?’ Byrne asked.

  Weaver crossed the room, pointed to a torn-out section in the drywall. ‘Went in here, hit the back of the brick facade. It’s not in great shape.’

  ‘Where is it now?’

  ‘I’ve got it in the trunk of my car.’

  Byrne stepped back, considered the trajectory, the angle of flight. While he did this, Jessica studied the rest of the first floor. Robert Kilgore, who, according to the summary, was unmarried, was neat but not to the point of obsession. There were only two dishes in the sink, and the appliances–all about fifteen years old–were clean and grease-free. She noted the pizza box on the table. She lifted a corner, saw that there was not one piece missing. Mold had begun to grow on the cheese.

  She stepped into a small room off the kitchen. In it was a large oak desk, an older-model tower desktop computer, a 20-inch LCD screen. Around the screen were a cascade of yellow Post-it notes. She read some of them.

  Mom’s b-day. Arc Digest sub?

  Darden will!!

  CD matures 8/19!

  Next to the desk was a three-drawer metal file cabinet. The drawers had been rifled. The floor beneath the desk and next to the cabinet was covered in documents.

  Jessica poked her head into the small room that led to the back porch. There was an old bookcase that held running shoes and hiking boots. The middle shelves were stuffed with gardening books and gardening supplies: fertilizers, natural bug sprays, seeds, ornamental bulbs. She could see a small fenced-in garden at the rear of the property.

  When she rejoined Byrne and Detective Weaver, they were poring over documents spread out on the dining room table.

  ‘I’ve got to ask,’ Weaver said. ‘And I’ll understand if you have to play it close.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Byrne asked.

  Weaver took a moment, looked at the photos of the victim. ‘The facial mutilation,’ he said. ‘I mean, I know Philly gets a lot more cases of homicide than we do, but I’ve got some time in. I’ve never seen anything like this.’

  Byrne nodded. ‘This is a new one for of all us.’ He went on to explain that the ViCAP search for similar crimes had come up empty.

  ‘When you searched the grounds and the premises, did you find anything that struck you as strange, or out of place?’ he asked.

  ‘Not sure what you mean.’

  Jessica saw Byrne hesitate for a moment. She understood. While Ted Weaver was a fellow cop, and by all appearances a thorough investigator, letting him in on something known only to the PPD and the killers was not necessarily a good idea.

  Byrne decided to do so.

  ‘Did you find a large linen handkerchief?’

  Weaver stared at him for a few seconds. He then picked up the thick folder, searched through it. When he reached the end he said simply: ‘No.’

  Byrne waited a few more seconds, then opened one of his own folders. He took out the two photographs of the linen handkerchiefs found at the Rousseau and Channing scenes. He placed them on the table. Jessica watched Detective Weaver as he looked at them. He seemed to blanch a little, then immediately recover. He had indeed seen a few things.

  ‘I can tell you without a doubt that we did not recover anything like this.’

  ‘Have you ever heard of something called the Sator Square?’

  The look on Weaver’s face told Jessica that he knew the theories were coming in like fastballs. He took a second before answering.

  ‘Can’t say I have.’

  Byrne pulled out the photocopy of the full Sator Square. Weaver took a moment to study it.

  ‘Palindromes,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  Weaver tapped the photographs of the handkerchiefs. ‘Where did you find these?’

  Byrne explained how the first handkerchief, TENET, was found on a hardy orange tree behind Edwin Channing’s house. The second, OPERA, on an apple tree at the back of the Rousseau property.

  ‘We looked around the exterior of the house, searching for footwear impressions, checked the hedges close to the house for any fiber that might have come from snagged clothing,’ Weaver said. ‘There was nothing like this.’

  ‘The tomato plants,’ Jessica said.

  Both men looked at her.

  ‘What tomato plants?’ Weaver asked.

  Jessica pointed in the direction of the small room at the rear of the house. ‘Mr Kilgore was a gardener. On one of the shelves is a bag of Burpee organic fertilizer with aragonite. My father uses it. It’s not cheap, so it looks like Kilgore was serious about his tomatoes. There have to be tomato plants around here somewhere.’

  Byrne caught her eye, nodded. He knew that she already knew that there were tomato plants, and where they were located. But she could not say so, could not be where new evidence was collected, if there was any to be found.

  ‘I’ve got a few calls to make,’ she said.

  She walked out of the house, toward the car, as the two detectives slipped on latex gloves and headed for the rear of the property. Although there was no reason to think that Ted Weaver, if called to the stand at any time in the future, would betray the trust of a fellow cop, Jessica was not on the record as saying anything other than that she had seen a bag of fertilizer.

  She made a few calls, one of them to Josh Bontrager, who told her that the ViCAP search for the Sator Square had come up empty. Before long, she saw Byrne and Ted Weaver walking down the driveway. She knew from her partner’s gait that they had found something. She’d seen it many times before.

  When they got to the car, Byrne reached into the back seat, took out a white paper bag. He slit it open, laid it across the hood. He then placed the handkerchief on the bag, gently untied the twine, unrolled it. When Jessica saw it, she felt her pulse quicken. It read:

  SATOR.

  Byrne took out the photocopy of the Sator Square, as well as the two photographs.

  ‘It fits with the other two,’ Weaver said.

  ‘Yes, it does.’

  ‘Don’t know how we could have missed it.’

  ‘We missed it too,’ Byrne said.

  Jessica noted that this handkerchief, having been exposed to the elements for a week, was a little more worse for wear than the others.

  ‘Robert Kilgore was killed first, then the Rousseaus, then Edwin Channing,’ Weaver said.

  Byrne just nodded.

  ‘Which means there will be two more.’

  ‘AREPO and ROTAS.’

  The fact that they’d just established that their killers had already begun their spree a week ago, and done so in another county, opened up the investigation to a whole new level of possibilities, none of them good.

  ‘By the way,’ Byrne said, ‘did you make a list of important documents that were missing from Mr Kilgore’s files?’

  ‘We did,’ Weaver said. ‘The only major document we couldn’t find was his birth certificate.’

  ‘Can
we get copies of everything you have so far?’ Byrne asked. It was asking a lot, but it had to be done.

  Weaver reached into his trunk, took out a shopping bag. He handed the bag to Jessica.

  ‘All yours. I already made the call. The Montgomery County district attorney’s office is here to assist. Anything you need. Bullet is in there too.’

  ‘Thanks, detective.’

  ‘You are more than welcome.’

  Everyone shook hands.

  ‘Next time you’re in Philly, dinner is on the PPD,’ Byrne said.

  Weaver smiled, patted his not insubstantial belly. ‘Sure you can afford it?’

  They stopped at a diner on Route 202. They tried to talk about something else beside the case. It didn’t last long.

  ‘Has Robert Kilgore come up anywhere in connection with the Farrens?’ Byrne asked.

  Jessica shook her head. ‘Not yet. But now that I have the name, we’ll see.’

  It was over coffee that Jessica said what was on both their minds. Neither had said it out loud because it was one more piece of this horrifying puzzle–including the Sator Square and the mutilating of faces–that added a new and opaque dimension.

  ‘They’re collecting their birth certificates.’

  32

  They spent the night in one of the featureless motels on the expressway, paying cash. Billy slept in his clothes, his Makarov in hand, a half-dozen photographs taped to the ceiling above him.

  Sean went out at dawn and returned with Egg McMuffins and orange juice. They watched the news. There was nothing on the cases.

  They parked the white van across the street from the row house. Two doors down was a pizza and hoagie shack. The aromas made Billy hungry again.

  ‘That’s her.’

  Billy turned to look at the driver. It was his brother Sean. He turned back to see the woman in the lobby of her building, taking mail out of the bank of mailboxes. She was slender and pretty.

  Red dress. Gold necklace. Short blond hair.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

  ‘Positive.’

  Billy looked at the photograph in his hand, the one he’d taken of the woman on the SEPTA train eight days earlier. Her face was a blank.

  ‘Isn’t she supposed to be at work?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah. She’s supposed to be.’

  They were there, at the woman’s apartment building, to do reconnaissance, to find a way in and a way out. They were not supposed to see the woman, not until later that night.

  ‘Let’s light her up now,’ Sean said.

  ‘No.’

  It was the middle of the morning. There were too many people. They would be caught, and there would be hell to pay.

  ‘We need to know the layout.’

  Sean reached for his Phillies cap, his sunglasses. He put a hand on the door.

  ‘Wait,’ Billy said. ‘I’ll go.’

  Billy attached the suppressor to his Makarov. He pinned the photograph inside his coat and stepped out of the van.

  ‘Can I help you with something?’

  Red dress. Gold necklace. Short blond hair.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Billy asked. He wanted to reach into his coat, take out the photograph of the woman–Danielle Spencer was her name–but he couldn’t do it, not while she was in front of him. She was standing next to the door to her apartment, keys in hand.

  ‘I was just looking for someone who lives here.’ As he said this, he pointed over his shoulder, back down the hallway.

  ‘I know everyone in this building. Who are you looking for?’

  Billy needed to come up with a name.

  ‘Emily,’ he said. ‘My friend Emily.’

  The woman thought for a moment. ‘There’s no one in the building with that name. Are you sure you have the right building?’

  Billy glanced at the lobby and saw it. There was a camera pointing at him.

  He looked out the front door, at the man in the van. It was Sean. Sean was right. They had to do this now.

  ‘Maybe I do have the wrong place,’ he said. ‘What is the address here?’

  He could see the suspicion growing in the woman; in her posture, the way she pulled the slightest bit away from him.

  Before she could respond, the door to her apartment opened. Billy looked over her shoulder to see a man–a big man–standing there. The man wore a gray uniform and had a revolver on his hip, strapped into a gun belt.

  ‘Hey, baby,’ he said to the woman.

  ‘Hi,’ she replied.

  Red dress. Gold necklace. Short blond hair

  ‘Who’s your friend?’ the man asked.

  Billy could tell by the condescending tone, the way the man all but spat the word friend, that he looked on him as a lowlife. He felt the fury start to build.

  ‘I think I may have made a mistake,’ he said. ‘Sorry to have troubled you.’

  Billy turned to walk away. He unbuttoned his coat. The man stepped fully into the hallway, put a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Hang on a minute, pal.’

  As the man spun him around, Billy closed his hand on the grip of the Makarov. Facing the man fully, he said, ‘Pal? Are we friends already?’

  For a moment, the man was stopped by Billy’s words. Then he dropped his hand toward his service weapon. It only took a second, but a second was long enough. Billy set his weight, reeled back and slammed a shoulder into the center of the man’s chest, knocking him backward into the apartment. Before the man could recover, Billy drew the Makarov and shot him twice in the head.

  An hour later, when the death song had been sung, Billy knelt in front of the woman. She was tied up in a chair in the middle of her living room. They had found her birth certificate. They had everything they needed to complete her line in the square.

  AREPO.

  Red dress. Gold necklace. Short blond hair.

  ‘Do you know my face?’ Billy asked.

  The woman didn’t move.

  As Sean unfolded his razor, Billy stood, circled behind the woman. When he was done reciting the prayer, he put both hands on her shoulders, drawing in her essence, closed his eyes as…

  … the afternoon sun filters through the trees, the sound of Billy Joel’s ‘Captain Jack’ afloat on the breeze, the dark blue sedan parked on South Taney Street, doors open, the man in the black leather coat kneeling in front of the girl, her mouth a twist of fear and distress, tears streaming down her face as the man turns, a bag of M&Ms in hand…

  Billy opened his eyes.

  After he carefully placed the handkerchief, Sean paced the small living room. He hit the vial twice in rapid succession. Billy wondered if Sean had slept at all in the past two days.

  Sean stopped pacing, reached into Billy’s coat, unpinned his photograph. He handed it to Billy.

  ‘I need you to hold this in your hand. You have to keep my picture in your hand. We’re almost done. We can’t have any mistakes.’

  ‘Okay,’ Billy said, but his voice sounded far away.

  ‘We’re going to get the last of the money. Then we’ll draw the final line in the square.’

  To Billy, it didn’t seem possible. The feeling filled him with something he had never felt before, something buoyant.

  He imagined it was what other people called hope.

  33

  The message on Byrne’s voicemail was from an old friend from his academy days, Ron Cimaglio. Ron was a captain in the 17th District. He had seen the alert posted for Michael and Sean Farren, and the names triggered a recent memory.

  Michael Farren had crossed Captain Cimaglio’s radar just a few days earlier.

  Emily Carson was a willowy, pretty woman in her late twenties. She wore a lemon-yellow dress and a delicate gold sweater pendant in the shape of a rose.

  Before leaving the Roundhouse, Byrne read the summary written by the two officers who had spoken to Emily Carson on the day in question. The officers underlined the entry that Emily was legally blind.

  Byrne met the woman in a
small study cubicle off the main room of the Queen Memorial Library. He made notes as Emily told him how she had met Michael Farren, and how Michael had come to the library on an almost weekly basis for many months.

  ‘He always brought me roses,’ she said. ‘Every time.’

  As she said this, her fingers played over the gold pendant.

  ‘Did he say where he bought them?’ Byrne asked.

  ‘It never occurred to me to ask.’

  ‘I understand,’ Byrne said. ‘Do you recall your conversation with the police officers? About why they wanted to talk to you?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Alex said Michael had a gun. It was Alex who called the police.’

  ‘Did you have any reason to doubt what Mr Kiraly was saying?’

  ‘I had many reasons to doubt what he said,’ she said. ‘I guess I just didn’t want to believe it. I mean, I don’t know Alex that well, but I don’t know him to be a liar or a teller of tall tales. I didn’t know what to think.’

  ‘And that’s the last time you spoke to Michael Farren?’

  ‘Yes. It was after we went for a walk on my lunch break.’

  Byrne flipped through his notes. ‘You told the officers that you and Michael went to a store a few blocks from here. Is that right?’

  Emily nodded. ‘Yes. It was some kind of electronics store.’

  ‘Do you recall where it was?’

  Emily gave him walking directions.

  ‘Do you remember anything Michael said at the time that might have sounded strange, or out of the ordinary?’

  ‘I’m not sure I know what you mean.’

  ‘Did he seem agitated, or different from usual?’

  Emily remained silent for a few moments. ‘I’m sorry, detective. I just can’t think straight.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Byrne said. ‘Take your time. I know this must be a difficult conversation for you to have.’

  Emily took a deep breath, slowly released it. ‘No. I don’t remember anything out of the ordinary.’

  ‘Did Michael tell you what he bought at the store?’

  ‘Yes. He told me he bought a motion detector.’