‘What’s up?’ Jessica asked.
‘We found the other girl who worked at Miss Emmaline’s shop.’
66
The Kilroy home was a white brick row house on Sixth Street near Washington.
Bridget Kilroy was a tall, skittish girl of about seventeen. She wore an oversized Swarthmore College sweatshirt and plaid flannel pajama bottoms. Jessica recognized her immediately as the other girl who had been in The Secret World that day.
With Bridget’s mother sitting in, they met in the cramped eating area of the kitchen. Placed between them, untouched, sat a plate of Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies.
‘What can you tell us about Cassandra?’ Jessica asked.
The girl looked confused. ‘Who’s Cassandra?’
‘The girl you worked with at The Secret World,’ Jessica said. ‘Her real name is Cassandra White.’
‘I only knew her as Anabelle,’ Bridget replied.
Jessica held up the photograph of Miss Emmaline and the two girls, the picture taken in the parlor at the rear of the shop. The girl to Miss Emmaline’s right was Bridget Kilroy.
‘Is this other girl the one you’re calling Anabelle?’
The girl just nodded.
‘Okay,’ Jessica said. ‘What can you tell us about her?’
Bridget coiled a strand of hair behind her left ear. ‘I don’t really know her that well.’
‘Let’s start with how you two met,’ Jessica said.
‘Okay,’ she began. ‘I think it was in June or July.’
‘Of this year?’
Bridget nodded. ‘Yeah. I needed to find a job, and I was walking down Lancaster and I saw the sign in the window.’
‘At Miss Emmaline’s shop?’
‘Yeah. I’d never been in there, but I always thought it was really cool.’
‘Are you a doll collector?’
‘Not really,’ Bridget said. ‘I mean, I have some dolls, but I was never a real fan girl or anything. Not like some of the people who come in the shop.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, some of the people seem a little …’
‘Obsessed?’ Jessica asked.
‘Oh yeah. Like really obsessed.’
‘Would you put Anabelle in that category?’
She thought for a few moments. ‘I guess so. She seemed to know a lot about them. But maybe that’s because she worked there, and hung around Miss Emmaline.’
‘So you met Anabelle that day?’
‘Yeah. She was working behind the counter when I went in.’
‘Did you two ever socialize?’
‘Not sure what you mean by that.’
‘Did you ever go to the movies together, go to the mall, hang out?’ Jessica asked.
‘No.’
‘So, you’ve never been to her house?’
The girl shook her head. ‘No. We were never really friends like that.’
‘Did she ever tell you where she lives?’
‘No, but I always thought it was nearby.’
‘Why is that?’
‘I mean, I never saw her drive up in a car or anything. I just assumed she walked to the shop.’
‘What about other things? Did she ever talk about her friends or family? Where she liked to eat?’
Bridget chewed on a nail for a few moments, considered all this. ‘She never mentioned any family. I think I asked her once and she changed the subject. She was kind of a secretive person.’
‘So, no one ever stopped by the store that she knew? No one ever showed up to give her a ride home?’
‘No.’
‘Did she ever mention someone named Mercy, or someone named Valerie Beckert?’
‘Sorry. I don’t know those people.’
‘That’s okay.’
‘Wait. I do remember something. I know that she likes to sew,’ Bridget said. ‘She would really perk up when she talked about sewing.’
Jessica thought about what Miss Emmaline had said about the stitching on the doll dressed as Nicole Solomon.
‘What kind of sewing?’ Jessica asked.
‘Well, sometimes she would come in to work with a new dress or a skirt or something, and I would ask her where she bought it. Most of the time she said she made it herself. She’s really good.’
‘Why do you think that this is important?’
‘Well, she once told me that she bought all her fabric and stuff at this store on East Fourth.’
‘Do you remember the name of the store?’
‘It has a funny name. Something with “Johnny” in it.’
Jessica took out her iPhone, tapped her browser icon. She put in a search string for Philadelphia fabric stores plus the name Johnny. In short order she had a hit.
‘There’s a fabric shop on Fourth called Johnny B. Dry Goods,’ Jessica said. ‘Does that sound right?’
‘Yeah,’ Bridget said. ‘That’s the one.’
67
I have always been happy to indulge Anabelle her interests and passions.
I don’t know much about the art and craft of sewing , but I have a keen interest in fashion. Whenever I see older films, I feel a sense of nostalgia – if indeed that is possible to feel for a time and place that predates, by many decades, the time of your birth – for stories that depict life in the 1940s and 1950s.
In these stories people dressed for an occasion in their finest. Attending a church service, enjoying a meal, even shopping. Indeed, in many of these stories, the father in a family would wear a suit and tie at the dinner table with his family.
Now, sadly, those practices are all but unheard of. Whenever I see a teenager walking down the street, wearing flannel pajama bottoms, I fear for the world.
It is for this reason and others that I have never minded at all coming to this shop with its bolts of fine gabardines, its rainbow of bright silk threads, its reams of fine lace.
While I find it enjoyable, Anabelle is in heaven here, and that is enough for me.
On the day of our final tea, I found myself at the back of the shop, daydreaming about the things to come, when I heard it. The two words made the blood freeze in my veins.
‘Miss White?’
It was spoken by the woman behind the counter. I had not been paying her any mind because my attention was on other things, that being the preparations for our tea later today. The woman had dark eyes, long dark hair managed into a ponytail. She was very pretty, and had about her an air of competence.
If I’m not mistaken, when we entered the shop, this woman had been sorting through a pile of old buttons on the countertop, separating them as to material and style. Old buttons and lace were one of the reasons Anabelle had chosen this shop.
‘Anabelle?’ the woman said.
I quickly stepped through the curtains into the back of shop. Once there, hidden from sight, I peered through the opening. Anabelle did not look my way, nor did the man and woman now standing on either side of her.
A few moments later they all left the shop together. I did not move for the longest time, the dark reality of what had just happened descending upon me.
It had been many years since Anabelle and I had spent more than just a few hours apart, and the thought of it made me feel sick inside.
They had my Anabelle.
They had my life.
68
The girl sat quietly in Interview A, her feet crossed beneath the table, her hands clasped above, fingers interlaced. The door was propped open.
She wore a navy blue skirt, a navy pullover in an argyle pattern, a white blouse.
In her time in the homicide unit Jessica had probably seen every criminal type sitting in that chair. She had seen dead-eyed gangbangers; men who had come home to find their wives in flagrante, and picked up the nearest blunt object; drunk drivers who had no idea that they had taken someone’s life.
This girl, if she was culpable in the deaths of Nicole Solomon, Robert and Edward Gillen, and Andrea Skolnik, was a cipher.
She just sat there, her expression blank.
The old police adage of knowing whether or not someone was guilty of a crime by how relaxed they were in the box was true.
If you did the crime, and you knew you were caught, you got some rest. The next day or so were going to be taxing to say the least.
The girl in the room now – a girl whose identity and connection to a series of homicides, if she was connected at all, was still a mystery – was as calm as Jessica had ever seen anyone in that claustrophobic, windowless, six by eight foot room. A space that was, not by accident, the same size as a prison cell.
Jessica had never seen anything like it.
Jessica and Byrne reentered the room. Jessica sat to the girl’s left; Byrne sat across the small table from her.
‘Are you comfortable?’ Byrne asked.
‘Quite comfortable,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
‘As I said earlier, we just need to ask you a few questions.’
‘We have to wait for Mr Marseille, of course.’
Mr Marseille, Jessica thought. This is the man named ‘Mercy’ that the drug dealer, Denny Wargo, had mentioned.
‘I’m sorry?’ Byrne asked.
‘We must wait for Mr Marseille.’
‘Mr Marseille?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t know who that is.’
The girl looked up at Byrne. She smiled. When she did this her eyes brightened and her face seemed to light up. Jessica had initially thought the girl was very pretty. But when she smiled she was beautiful. She had delicate features, flawless skin. Her eyes were a midnight blue. She looked like—
Don’t think it, Jessica.
She did anyway.
She looked like a doll.
‘Don’t be silly,’ the girl said. ‘Of course you know who Mr Marseille is.’
Byrne took a moment. ‘What I meant to say, of course, is that I know a few different men named Mr Marseille. I’m just not sure which one you mean.’
The girl wagged a finger. ‘There is only one.’
‘Is Mr Marseille on his way here now?’ Byrne asked.
The girl shrugged. ‘I don’t know for certain, but he has never been late for tea, and we are never apart for very long.’
‘May I ask your relationship to Mr Marseille?’
‘My relationship?’
‘Yes,’ Byrne said. ‘Is Mr Marseille your boyfriend, your husband, your brother?’
Another smile. ‘A gentleman would not ask such a question.’
Byrne nodded. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘You mentioned tea. Can we get you a cup?’
The girl looked up. ‘Oh I don’t think you have our favorite kind. It is very special. We brew it ourselves. Thanks for the offer, though.’
Jessica thought: She’s talking about the magic mushrooms.
Byrne clicked his pen, leaned forward, and asked: ‘You haven’t yet told us your name.’
‘How could you not know my name?’
Byrne returned the smile. ‘Well, when you get to be my age, you forget things all the time,’ he said.
‘My name is Anabelle.’
Byrne wrinkled his brow. ‘That’s odd, because I have here that your name is Cassandra.’
Jessica watched the girl closely. No reaction.
‘Cassandra? That is a perfectly lovely name, but it is not mine.’
‘Your name isn’t Cassandra White?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘You see?’
‘See what?’
‘You have the wrong girl. This is a big misunderstanding. It’s Cassandra White you want!’
‘You might be right about that. But we’ll go with Anabelle for the time being.’ Byrne made a note. ‘It’s nice to meet you, Anabelle.’
Another sly smile. ‘We haven’t quite met yet, sir. All I know is that you call yourself Detective Byrne. I don’t know your first name.’
‘How rude of me,’ Byrne said. ‘My name is Kevin.’
‘Another perfectly lovely name.’ She extended one small, delicate hand. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance.’
Byrne offered a hand. ‘Charmed, I’m sure.’
They shook hands.
‘May I know your last name?’ Byrne asked, his pen poised over his notebook.
The girl looked quizzically at him. ‘I don’t have a last name, of course.’
‘My boss is rather picky about such things. She always wants to know the full names of our visitors here. Is there some kind of last name I can just put in the blank here?’
The girl perked. ‘Your boss is a woman?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh my,’ she said. ‘How very modern.’
Byrne waited a few seconds. He asked again. ‘Anabelle? Is there a last name I can put down here?’
She thought for a few moments. ‘There simply is not. I am, and always have been, simply Anabelle.’
Jessica saw Byrne write N/A in the box for last name. He clicked his pen again, put it down on the notepad. He then reached into his folder, took out a form they used in circumstances similar to this, rare as they may be.
‘If I don’t do this, I’ll will be in a world of trouble,’ he said.
‘We don’t want that.’
‘I just need you to write your first name, and today’s date on here. Then we’ll be done with this portion of the interview, and we can move on. Can you do that for me?’
‘Of course.’
Byrne turned the document to face the girl. On it were two lines of text. My name is _____. Today’s date is _____.
Before the girl could ask for Byrne’s ballpoint pen, he reached into his suit coat pocket, took out a different pen. A Staedtler Calligraph Duo. Black ink.
Anabelle took the Staedtler, uncapped it, wrote her first name on the appropriate line. She did the same for the date. She then capped the pen, and handed it back to Byrne.
‘I can’t thank you enough for this,’ he said, returning the pen to his pocket. ‘You’ve saved me a lot of grief.’
‘We couldn’t have your boss be angry with you, could we?’
Byrne smiled. On cue there was a knock at the door. The door opened; Josh Bontrager popped his head in.
‘Sorry to bother you,’ Bontrager said. ‘Jess, you’ve got a call.’
Jessica stood, gathered a few documents, including the form Anabelle had just filled out.
‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I’ll be right back.’
She stepped out of the interview room, closed the door behind her. Sitting at a nearby desk, just a few feet away, was Hell Rohmer. In front of him were photocopies of the invitations they had found beneath the bench at the Shawmont train station, on Sansom Street, beneath one of the swings at the Gillen crime scenes, as well as Ezekiel Moss’s truck.
Jessica put the exemplar that Anabelle had just made down on the desk.
Hell Rohmer put on his glasses, studied the documents side by side. He took out a lighted magnifying glass, pored over the documents one by one. He took off his glasses, sat back.
‘No,’ he said. He picked up a photocopy of one of the invitations, as well as the newly created form. ‘These two documents were not written by the same person.’
Shit, Jessica thought. It was the kind of evidence they would need to hold this girl.
They would have to find something else.
Jessica reentered the interview room, sat down. She studied the girl for a few moments. The girl did not look away, did not break eye contact with Byrne.
Who is this girl? Jessica wondered.
‘While we’re waiting for Mr Marseille, are you sure I can’t get you something to eat or drink?’ Byrne asked. ‘Maybe a water?’
‘A water would be lovely.’
At this, Jessica again walked out of the interview room, turned the corner into the small coffee room next door, the room with the two-way mirror. Sgt. Dana Westbrook and Josh Bontrager were watching.
Jessica took a bottled water from the small refrigerator, as well
as a fresh clear plastic cup from the stack. She walked back into the room, put the cup on the table, opened the bottle and poured half a cup of water. She put the cap back on the bottle, set it down.
‘Thank you very much,’ the girl said. She picked up the cup, sipped daintily from it.
Byrne made a dramatic gesture of looking at his watch. ‘You know, I’m not sure that Mr Marseille knows you’re here,’ he said. ‘I’d be happy to call him if you like.’
The girl put down her cup of water. ‘I’m afraid he does not have a telephone.’
‘Was he nearby when we met at the fabric shop?’
‘Of course.’
‘How could he know where we’ve gone?’
‘He just knows,’ the girl said. ‘He has always known.’
‘Now, Anabelle, I’d like to mention a few names to you, and see if you know these people. Would that be okay?’
‘Like a game?’
‘Something like that,’ Byrne said.
‘Okay.’
‘I’ll mention a name, and you just tell me – yes or no – if you know the person.’
‘I will.’
‘Nicole Solomon.’
‘No.’
‘David Solomon.’
‘No.’
‘Robert Gillen.’
‘No.’
‘Edward Gillen.’
‘No.’
‘Andrea Skolnik.’
‘No.’
‘Ezekiel Moss.’
Jessica had been watching the girl carefully. At the mention of this name – the name of a man they were all but certain was this girl’s biological father – there was the slightest hesitation. Then:
‘No.’
‘What about Valerie Beckert?’
This time, it seemed, the girl was ready. She didn’t even flinch.
For the past few questions Byrne had been nudging his notebook ever nearer the girl. Especially the plastic cup in front of her. On top of his notepad sat his iPhone. Right on cue, the iPhone rang. Byrne reached for it. In doing this, he knocked over the plastic cup spilling the inch or so of water onto the table.
‘Oh my God,’ Byrne said. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Byrne reached for the box of Kleenex on the other side of the table. He handed a few of them to the girl.
The Doll Maker Page 33