Jessica and Byrne stood on the corner, amid the growing crowd. Because this street in Brewerytown was quite narrow, a number of residents on both sides of the street had been evacuated until the blaze had been brought under control.
While they waited to be cleared to reenter Joan Delacroix’s house, Jessica and Byrne compared notes. They agreed that, from the moment they entered the house – and the victim had called out from the basement – to the moment Byrne descended the steps, could not have been more than two minutes.
How had the victim been spirited away, right under their noses, in that amount of time?
Before they could begin to address that question, Jessica looked up to see James Delacroix come around the corner. Jessica wondered if the man had perhaps continued to search the neighborhood in ever-widening circles.
When he saw the police and fire trucks he ran across the street, ducked beneath the yellow crime scene tape, and attempted to enter his sister’s house. He was stopped by two young patrol officers.
Byrne stepped forward, took James Delacroix aside.
‘What… what happened?’ Delacroix asked.
Byrne made eye contact with Jessica, led Delacroix a few houses away. He squared himself in front of the man. ‘Mr Delacroix, I’m afraid I have some terrible news for you.’
‘About Joan?’
‘Yes,’ Byrne said. ‘I’m sorry to have to inform you that your sister is dead.’
Byrne caught the man as he was about to sag to the ground. He got the attention of one of the firefighters.
‘Mr Delacroix,’ Byrne said, ‘this man is going to look after you. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
Byrne saw the man’s eyes begin to roll back into his head. For a moment it looked as if he might be going into shock. He kept a hand on the man’s arm until the firefighter met his eye, giving him a look that both Jessica and Byrne knew well, one that said everything was under control.
Six detectives from the homicide unit conducted the neighborhood interviews. Many of the people were still on the street, having been prevented from entering their houses. Slowly they were being given permission to do so.
In addition to being the scene of a fire, the area was also the scene of an abduction, a kidnapping that ultimately ended in murder.
While the neighborhood interviews continued, Jessica and Byrne combed the long alleyway that ran behind the row houses and retail establishments on the street.
They saw a man standing at the end of the alley, arms folded, waiting impatiently. A stocky Asian man, he wore a chef’s jacket and a look of annoyance.
Byrne introduced himself and Jessica. The man’s name was Winston Kuo. He was the owner of the Saigon Garden Restaurant, a small place four doors down from Joan Delacroix’s house.
‘Is this about the fire?’ Kuo asked.
‘Yes and no,’ Byrne said.
The man just nodded.
‘Did you know the woman in the third house from the end of the block?’
Kuo thought for a few moments. ‘Older woman? Caucasian?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not really. I mean, I’d see her from time to time, and we’d nod hello. That sort of thing. I’d see her in the alley when we both were taking out trash.’
‘Do you remember when the last time you saw her was?’
‘A few days, at least. Maybe a week.’
‘You didn’t see her today?’
‘No.’
Jessica glanced down the street. There were two young busboys huddling in a doorway, trying to keep warm as they waited. ‘Do those young men work for you?’
Kuo looked over, back. ‘Yes.’
‘We’d like to speak to them, if we could.’
‘That wouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately, they don’t speak English.’
‘Could you ask them if they saw Ms Delacroix today at all? Especially in the hour or so before the fire started?’
‘No problem.’
Kuo shouted to the two young men. A few seconds later the busboys came down the street. The looks of apprehension on their faces said that they might be thinking that Jessica and Byrne were from ICE.
Kuo spoke to them in rapid-fire Vietnamese.
The two boys listened, glanced at each other, then back at their boss. They both shook their heads. Kuo asked a second question, and was met with the same response. He dismissed them. Kuo turned back to the detectives.
‘They did not see anything. The younger of the two just started yesterday. I don’t think he’s ever seen Miss…?’
‘Delacroix,’ Byrne said. ‘Her name was Joan Delacroix.’
The tense of Byrne’s verb was not lost on Kuo. ‘Ms Delacroix. I don’t think he knows who she was.’
‘Have you noticed any comings or goings from Ms Delacroix’s house for the past few days or weeks?’ Byrne asked. ‘Any visitors? Anything unusual?’
Kuo gave it some thought. ‘I can’t say that I have. But I’m usually pretty busy here. Right now I’m the only one on the line.’
Byrne took out a card, handed it to the man, made the usual request. Before they left, Kuo pointed to the second floor of the building at the other side of the alley, a former commercial space on the corner.
‘You might want to check with Old Tony,’ Kuo said.
‘Old Tony?’ Byrne asked. He looked up and saw a silhouette in the window.
‘He sees everything.’
‘You’re saying he usually sits up there?’
Kuo nodded. ‘For a while I thought maybe it was a mannequin or something, you know? Day or night he’d be up there. He never moved. Then one night I saw the ember of a cigar. Trust me, Old Tony doesn’t miss much.’
The apartment was crowded with furniture, commercial fixtures, paraphernalia. In the corner was a large City of Philadelphia trash can. Next to it were two enormous corkboards. Pinned to the boards were coupons and flyers for everything from pizza to massage parlors to Tai Chi classes. There had to be hundreds.
The tenant of the second-floor corner space – Anthony Giordano – was in his mid-eighties. He was thin but still wiry, had a thick head of unruly white hair, chaotic eyebrows.
Byrne introduced himself and Jessica. They navigated their way to the corner where Old Tony kept neighborhood vigil. Winston Kuo was right. You could see a lot from up here.
‘I saw her with this guy,’ Tony said. ‘The car was around the corner, but I saw him pull away.’
‘Did you recognize the man?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Sorry. I pretty much only saw the top of his head.’
‘White guy? Black guy?’
‘White.’
‘What about the car?’ Byrne asked. ‘Have you seen it before?’
‘Oh yeah. It’s been around here before.’
‘Can you describe it?’
Tony ran a hand over his stubbled chin. ‘Well, I’ve never been too good with make and model. I was never that into cars. Motorcycles were my thing.’
‘What color was the car?’
‘Easy. It was black. Big car. Not new.’
‘We’re talking old-school big here?’ Byrne asked. ‘Olds, Pontiac, Caddy?’
‘Caddy I would know.’
‘Anything distinguishing about it? Any dents, bumper stickers, primer?’
The old man thought for a few moments. ‘Can’t say as I recall.’
‘Now, Ms Delacroix, the woman who was with the man, did it seem that she was going with him willingly?’
‘You mean like they were friends?’
Byrne nodded.
‘I don’t think so. He had her by the arm. I thought at first she might have been the guy’s mother. You know how some young people treat their parents these days?’
‘I do.’
‘Yeah, well, like that. I wanted to slap him.’
Byrne made a few notes, picked up a photograph from the congested bookshelf. It was a picture of a much younger Anthony Giordano in uniform. He was standing between a pair of enormo
us marble columns. ‘You’re a vet?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Tony said. ‘I was an MP. Nuremberg.’
‘At the trials?’
Tony nodded. ‘Deployed at the Palace of Justice. I got into the Army right at the end of the war. Too young to fight, too old for my ma’s house. There were nine of us.’
Byrne smiled. ‘Where were you in that lineup?’
‘Dead last. My hand-me-downs were throw-me-downs. Nothing ever fit.’
Byrne pointed at the photograph. ‘What was it like there?’
‘Bastards on trial ate better than we did. And we ate pretty good.’
Byrne put the photograph back.
‘Was your father in the war?’ Tony asked.
‘Between them,’ Byrne said. ‘He served, though.’
‘Good man.’
‘He is.’
‘Still with us?’
‘Both feet.’
Tony nodded. ‘Let me ask you something. This guy with the car?’
‘What about him?’
‘He do something bad to that lady?’
‘Yeah,’ Byrne said. ‘I’m afraid he did.’
Tony nodded. He pointed at the carbine mounted on the wall. To Jessica, it looked to be fully functioning. ‘Tell you what. If I see the son of a bitch again, can I take him out? I can still draw a bead.’
‘It would be better if you just gave me a call,’ Byrne said. He handed the man his business card. ‘Me or my partner. We’ll take it from there.’
Tony nodded, considering his options. He smiled at Jessica. ‘Okay.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Tony pinned the card on the cork board, dead center in the mass of offers for gutter cleaning, bathtub resurfacing and unlimited indoor tanning.
When Jessica and Byrne returned to Joan Delacroix’s house, PFD was just wrapping up, securing the building. Captain Mickey Dugan noticed the two detectives, stepped forward. He and Byrne had known each other almost thirty years, and there was no need to stand on ceremony.
‘You can go in,’ Dugan said. ‘First floor only, and then only the north side. We’ve got it roped off in there. The basement is off limits.’
‘Okay,’ Byrne said.
‘Kevin, I’m serious. You walk upstairs and fall through I’m here all fucking night.’
As they prepared to enter the house, Byrne took Jessica aside. He spoke softly. ‘Jess, I think we should —’
Jessica held up a hand, stopping him. She knew what was coming. ‘I know what you’re going to say.’
‘You do?’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Look, these cases are linked. There’s no question about that.’
‘I know,’ Byrne said. ‘But you’re SIU now. You have another life. You have school.’
‘So?’
It was the lamest response possible, Jessica thought, especially to someone who knew her as well as her partner did.
‘So you can’t put in the time on both cases.’
‘I’ll make up the classes,’ Jessica said. ‘I’ll find the time.’
‘And what if you can’t?’
Jessica was afraid he would ask this. She’d had her answer locked and loaded, although she was certain it wouldn’t come out the way she’d rehearsed it. It did not. ‘Then I’ll just recycle until next semester, Kevin. It’s no big deal.’
Byrne knew this wasn’t true, of course, just as he knew there was no point trying to talk her out of it. It was a big deal. It was also her choice.
The conversation, for the moment, was over.
Jessica and Byrne stood near the bottom of the stairs as the CSU officers began taking photographs. There were no bloody footprints, no blood spatter on the stairs, or in the short hallway leading to the back door. When it was dark enough, they would perform a Luminol test, the process by which investigators could detect trace evidence of blood all but invisible to the naked eye.
‘Why didn’t we hear anything?’ Jessica asked.
Byrne didn’t answer right away. Perhaps there was no answer to that question. But one thing Jessica knew was that, as soon as this made it to the press, their lives were going to be pure hell. A woman is kidnapped and murdered while two homicide detectives were standing in her living room.
It was a public relations nightmare.
Jessica and Byrne couldn’t think about that now. Right now they had to protect this crime scene, and put in motion the investigation.
‘Come with me,’ Byrne said.
Jessica followed Byrne down the short hallway to the living room. They positioned themselves in exactly the same place they were standing when Byrne began calling Joan Delacroix’s name.
‘We were right here, right?’ Byrne asked.
Jessica found her spot on the floor. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Exactly.’
Byrne turned his body, blading it toward the hallway that led to the stairs and the kitchen. He was at a forty-five-degree angle to the opening, his left side pointing to the rear of the row house.
‘I was facing this way,’ Byrne said, ‘right?’
‘Right.’
‘How long would you say it was between the time she yelled “I’ll be right up” and the time I went down the stairs?’
Jessica thought about it. ‘I think it was about two minutes, max.’
Byrne glanced at his watch. He repositioned himself to the approximate place they had been standing when the woman yelled from the basement. Byrne hit a button on his watch. ‘I’ll be right up,’ he said, echoing the woman. They stood in silence for a full minute, while CSU officers made their way in and out of the house. It was not the ideal atmosphere to attempt to re-create those crucial few minutes, but it would have to do.
Byrne looked at his watch, hit a button.
‘He was already down there, Jess. He was fucking down there waiting for her. He was probably down there when we were across the street.’
The thought sent a shiver through Jessica. The idea of walking through your house, doing common everyday chores, not knowing that in the shadow, or closet, there was someone hiding, waiting to commit unspeakable violence.
‘Let’s assume, for the moment, that he was down there waiting for her,’ Jessica said. ‘During those two minutes he subdues her, threatens to kill her if she doesn’t come with him.’
‘Okay.’
‘But how does he get away? How does he get her out of the house?’
Byrne pointed to the short hallway leading to the back door, a section that was now cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape. ‘It’s not possible. I would have seen them. The answer is in the basement. It has to be.’
Jessica agreed. But they wouldn’t be able to go down there until the entire structure was cleared for safety, and that could be days.
‘You didn’t look away, even for a few seconds?’ Jessica asked.
Byrne said nothing.
They would process every square centimeter between the basement steps and the back door. If ever there was a case where the law of transference mattered – the basic premise being that wherever people go, they carry some physical evidence with them, and leave some behind – this was it.
‘We didn’t get here soon enough,’ Byrne said.
‘Kevin.’
‘It’s our job, Jess. Jesus Christ, we were right here.’
They stood in the small kitchen, preparing to leave. Before they could button their coats, and prepare for the rain, they both looked at the kitchen table. They saw it at the same time.
There, on the table, was a bowl with a mug upside down in the center. Next to it, on the right, was a tarnished silver spoon.
‘Was this here before?’ Jessica asked.
‘No.’
Jessica took out her phone, scrolled through the photographs she had taken of Robert Freitag’s small eating area. She found the picture she wanted. It was the same setup. ‘Look.’
‘Identical,’ Byrne said.
‘Same spoon.’
‘Same spoon.’
‘It’s definitely silver,’ Jessica said. ‘And it definitely is some sort of commemorative.’
‘This was set up after we left,’ Byrne said. ‘This fucker came back. He came back to burn the place down.’
Jessica slipped the spoon into a paper evidence bag.
‘Let’s take a ride.’
23
The fourth pawnshop they visited was an old three-ball on Germantown Avenue, near East York Street. The front windows were jammed full of radios, acoustic guitars, speakers, inexpensive watches, even an old instrument that looked like a zither. Just about everything had the word ‘Sale’ on it, as if it would be any other way.
Jessica had visited Mr Gold Pawn many times when she was young, with her father, who had once been a patrol officer in the district. The original owner – Moises Gold – had always been good for a free water ice.
The shop was now run by the late Moises Gold’s sons, twin brothers, Sam and Sanford Gold.
Announced by a bell over the door, Jessica and Byrne entered the shop. To Jessica, it smelled exactly the same as it had when she was ten years old, a combination of glass cleaner, strawberry air freshener and Lemon Pledge, with a top note of bottom-shelf cologne.
Perched behind the counter at the back of the shop was Sammy Gold. Probably in his fifties now, Sammy was shaped like a huge Bosc pear – small head, narrow shoulders, broad chest, corpulent waist. Jessica almost did a double-take when she saw him. Sammy Gold had turned into his father, right down to the black polo shirt, dusted with dandruff, and a hound’s-tooth sport jacket. It might have even been the same jacket.
Sammy looked up from his Daily News. ‘Oh my God. As I live and wheeze.’
‘Sammy,’ Jessica said. ‘How are you?’
‘One foot in the grave, the other on a banana peel.’
His father used to say the same thing twenty-five years ago, Jessica thought. You go with what works.
‘This is my partner, Kevin Byrne.’
The two men shook hands.
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