‘Do you want me to read this out loud?’ she asked.
The man dabbed at his eyes again. ‘Yes. Please.’
Jessica cleared her throat.
‘My dear brother, if I have come to an untimely end, please take this to the police. To whom it may concern, if my brother James has preceded me in death, please destroy this without listening to it.’
A silence fell between them. Byrne spoke first. He pointed at the note.
‘Mr Delacroix, do you recognize this as your sister’s handwriting?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s Joan’s writing.’
‘Do you have any idea why she would have written something like this?’
Delacroix thought for a few moments. It was clear he had already spent some time on this question. ‘No,’ he said. ‘My sister helped people. She wouldn’t harm anyone. She didn’t have enemies.’
‘Why do you think she may have feared or anticipated an untimely death?’
Something seemed to dawn on the man. ‘Wait. This is why they tried to burn down her house, isn’t it? They were trying to destroy this tape.’
James Delacroix broke down crying. Jessica handed the note to Byrne. She once again took James Delacroix’s hands in hers.
‘Have you listened to this tape?’ Jessica asked.
‘No, I… I didn’t…’ he began. ‘I didn’t have the courage. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure I want to know what’s on it. Part of me does, but a greater part wants to remember my sister as she was. If there is something on this tape that helps you find the person who did this to her, that will be enough for me. I don’t need to know the details.’
Jessica reached into her coat pocket, retrieved a pair of latex gloves, snapped them on. She picked up the cassette tape box by its edges, opened it. She shook the tape onto the desk, then turned the tape so both she and Byrne could see what was written on the label. It was a name:
Eduard Kross
Jessica looked at the other side. The label was blank.
‘Mr Delacroix,’ Jessica said, ‘do you recognize this name? This Eduard Kross?’
Delacroix glanced at the tape, at the label, as if seeing it for the first time. He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘We know this is a terrible time for you,’ Jessica said. ‘With your permission, we’re going to listen to this. It certainly appears that this is what your sister wanted. Do we have your permission to listen to this recording?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You have my permission. What I mean is, it’s okay.’
Jessica glanced at Byrne. He had questions.
‘Just to make sure you understand,’ Byrne began. ‘Once we listen to this tape, it becomes part of the investigation. Part of the official record. That cannot be undone. Do you understand what I mean by this?’
The finality of what Byrne said took a moment to sink in. Once it did, Delacroix nodded again. ‘I understand.’
‘Good,’ Byrne said. ‘And there may be things on this tape that lead us in certain directions, down certain paths that we are bound by duty to follow. While we hope that these avenues of investigation are in your sister’s best interest – your best interest – we can’t guarantee that. Do you understand this as well?’
It appeared that Delacroix might suddenly be feeling that bringing this tape to the police might not have been such a great idea. It was too late for that now.
‘I do.’
‘Okay,’ Byrne said. He took out his notebook. ‘Just a couple more questions. Are you up for it?’
‘Sure.’
‘We know that your sister was employed as an RN,’ Byrne said. ‘Can you tell us about her work history?’
James Delacroix regrouped, began. ‘Well, she graduated at the top her class at Penn State. She worked as a registered nurse at Jefferson. But after a while she went back to school and became a psychiatric nurse.’
‘Do you know where she worked then?’
‘She moved to California, and I know she worked at Cedars-Sinai,’ Delacroix said. ‘You should know that by the time she got out of nursing school I was just starting junior high school, and a whole new set of personality and lifestyle conflicts came between us. Our parents died within just a few years of each other, and for maybe five years after that we kept in pretty close touch.’ Delacroix blotted a tear on his cheek.
‘So your sister worked as a nurse her entire professional life?’
Delacroix nodded. ‘Yes. But there was one stretch of time when we didn’t talk at all. It was not for lack of effort on my part, however. I sent her cards and letters, but they all came back Return to Sender.’
‘How long of a period of time was this?’ Byrne asked.
‘I don’t know. Maybe four years or so. Less.’
‘And you don’t know where your sister worked during this time?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I didn’t even know where she was living during those years. When we got back in touch there were many other things to talk about, and I didn’t ask.’
‘Do you recall when this was?’ Byrne asked.
He is going to say 1992 to 1996, Jessica thought. The same missing years from Robert Freitag’s resume.
‘I think it was right around nineteen ninety-two,’ Delacroix said. ‘From nineteen ninety-two to ’ninety-six.’
‘Is it possible your sister worked at the Delaware Valley State Hospital during those years?’
‘You mean Cold River?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s possible, I suppose. I don’t know.’
‘There’s only one more thing I need to ask for right now,’ Byrne said. ‘It may happen that there will be things on this recording that we don’t understand, things that, as a family member, you may be uniquely qualified to explain. Will you be willing to talk to us again on this matter?’
James Delacroix took a deep breath, released it slowly. In doing this, Jessica saw a measure of resolve returning. He seemed a little bigger. ‘Absolutely, Detective. I want you to find the man who did this terrible thing.’
‘We will do our very best, Mr Delacroix,’ Byrne said. ‘I give you my word.’
James Delacroix stood up on legs steadier than those with which he’d entered the room. They all shook hands. Byrne took the opportunity to propose something Jessica knew needed to be done.
Holding Delacroix’s right hand in his own, Byrne pointed to the cassette tape on the desk with his left. ‘I take it that, when you removed that tape from the safe deposit box, you were not wearing gloves.’
Delacroix shook his head. ‘No. I wasn’t.’
Byrne released the man’s hand. They began to walk toward the door. ‘What we’d like to do, if you don’t mind, is to get a set of your fingerprints while you’re down here. That way, when we process the tape and the box for fingerprints, we can eliminate yours.’
‘I understand,’ Delacroix said. ‘Where do you want me to go?’
‘I’ll walk you down there,’ Byrne said. ‘It will only take a few minutes.’
Jessica watched the two men leave the duty room, and disappear around the corner, heading to the ID unit. She turned and walked back to her desk. She glanced at the tape, reading again the label through the clear plastic box.
Who is Eduard Kross? She picked up the note, reread it.
An untimely end.
What did Joan Delacroix know about the grotesque and bloody act that ended her life?
Perhaps that answer was on this tape.
They huddled in a corner of the duty room. Byrne spoke softly. ‘We’ve got Robert Freitag in medical sales, we’ve got Joan Delacroix as a nurse, we’ve got Dr Richmond. All three of our victims had a tidy little meal set up in their kitchens, each with a spoon from Cold River.’
Both detectives had the same thought. Jessica voiced it.
‘Do you think these people were that research group Miriam talked about? This Die Traumkaufleute?’
‘It’s possible. And this Dr Kirsch died in a fire. Remind me to ch
eck the obituary archives in the Inquirer.’
While Jessica made the note, Byrne held up the cassette.
‘Have you ever wanted to listen to anything more than this?’ he asked.
‘Maybe Blind Man’s Zoo when it came out in nineteen eighty-nine.’
‘What’s Blind Man’s Zoo?’
‘It was a 10,000 Maniacs album.’
‘Really?’ Byrne asked. ‘10,000 Maniacs?’
‘Hey,’ Jessica said. She snatched the tape from his hand. ‘The Maniacs rocked.’
The Audio Visual Unit of the PPD was located in the Roundhouse basement. Among its many duties was the supply and maintenance of A/V equipment and support material – cameras, televisions, recording devices, collateral audio and video gear. In addition, the unit analyzed surveillance audio and video evidence for every unit in the department, as well as keeping an official record of every public event in which the mayor or police department was involved.
Now forty, the commander of the unit, Sergeant Mateo Fuentes, was a true denizen of the dark confines of the basement, and suffered fools not at all, especially when it came to his time and equipment. Fuentes had helped set up and create the Video Monitoring Unit, which monitored police cameras throughout the city. The unit’s value had proven to be immeasurable over the past few years.
Jessica and Byrne found him in the editing bay, working on a recording of the mayor’s recent speech.
‘When are you going to Hollywood?’ Byrne asked.
Mateo stopped the recording, turned in his chair. ‘When they bring Billy Wilder back from the dead. Everything after him sucked.’
Byrne smiled. ‘You’ll get no argument from me.’
Jessica held up the audio cassette. ‘We’d like to listen to this tape.’
‘I live to serve.’
Jessica handed Mateo the cassette. Mateo scrutinized it. ‘Old-school,’ he said. ‘I haven’t seen C-90s in a long time.’ He held up the tape. ‘Has this been processed?’
‘It has,’ Byrne said.
Mateo took the tape from its box. ‘Well, it looks like it’s still in good shape.’ He glanced at Byrne. ‘What are we listening for?’
‘Don’t really know,’ Byrne said. ‘We haven’t listened to it yet.’
‘Okay then.’ Mateo sat a little straighter in his chair. ‘So it might be the covertly obtained animal ruttings of a sitting Philadelphia councilperson in some one-star motel down the shore?’
Byrne looked at Jessica, back at Mateo. ‘It’s certainly possible,’ he said. ‘But I doubt it.’
‘One lives in hope. What’s the job?’
Byrne told Mateo about the murder of Joan Delacroix, as well as the note that accompanied the tape. Accordingly, Mateo took his role in the investigation a lot more seriously now.
‘And that’s what the note said?’ Mateo asked. ‘In the event of my death?’
‘In the event of my untimely death,’ Byrne corrected. ‘We sent the document over to Hell Rohmer to see if he can lift anything from it.’
Mateo absorbed the details of the note for a moment. He glanced up at the two detectives. ‘Do you want to listen to this now?’
‘If we could,’ Byrne said.
Mateo put down the tape, opened a desk drawer, retrieved a ballpoint pen. At first, Jessica thought he was going to begin making out a form, a receipt for the evidence. Instead, he inserted the ballpoint cap in the left-hand spool, tightening the slackened tape.
‘I can’t tell you how many times people have managed to ruin the tape by not tightening the leader.’
Jessica knew that Mateo was pretty much talking to himself at this point. He opened the larger drawer in the file cabinet to his left, took out a Panasonic tape player, probably as old-school as the C-90 tape. Mateo plugged it in, opened the top, slipped in the cassette tape, and clicked it shut.
He hit REWIND, making sure the tape would roll from its start.
‘Shall we?’ Mateo asked.
‘By all means,’ Byrne said.
Mateo hit PLAY. A few seconds later the recording engaged. At first it was just a low hiss. Then, a click. Although Jessica was no expert at any of this, she could tell just by the difference in sound that the acoustics had changed. Moments later, someone began speaking.
It was a man with a deep voice, speaking another language.
‘Träumen Sie?’
As the recording continued, it became clear that whatever this was, it was all in a foreign tongue.
‘Do you know what language this is?’ Byrne asked Mateo.
Mateo held up a forefinger. He adjusted the volume on the tape player. A few seconds later he stopped the tape, rewound it, reached behind to one of the shelves next to his desk, retrieved an audio cable, plugged it into the side of the tape deck then into the back of one of the laptops on the desk. When the tape was fully rewound, he hit FAST-FORWARD for just a few seconds, stopped it again. He then opened a program on the laptop, clicked one of the controls, and started the tape again.
‘Träumen Sie?’
Mateo adjusted some of the meters in his audio program. Both Jessica and Byrne listened for a full minute, understanding and comprehending nothing. Jessica was just about to say something when there was a break in the audio, and another man began to speak. He, too, was speaking in a foreign language.
Great, Jessica thought. Their murder victim had a Berlitz tape, wrapped in a cryptic note about her death.
‘Do you know what language this is?’ Byrne repeated. Before Mateo could respond a voice came from behind them.
‘It’s German.’
Both Jessica and Byrne turned to see Josh Bontrager standing at the back of the room.
‘German?’ Byrne asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘I didn’t know you spoke German,’ Jessica said.
Bontrager crossed the room, sat on a stool. ‘I don’t, really. But if you grow up around Pennsylvania Dutch, you hear enough of it.’
‘Okay, I’ll bite,’ Jessica said. ‘I always thought Pennsylvania Dutch was, well, Dutch.’
‘Lots of people do,’ Bontrager said. ‘I’m certainly no expert on this, but I’m pretty sure that it comes from Deutsche. Hence, the German.’
‘So, the Amish and the Mennonites speak German?’ Jessica asked.
‘Not really. The Amish and the Mennonites are religious faiths. Pennsylvania Dutch is a language of sorts. It’s kind of a smash-up between English and German. Believe it or not, I think there may be a little Yiddish involved. Don’t quote me on that, though.’
Jessica pointed at the paused recorder. ‘Do you know what these guys are saying?’
‘Gosh, no,’ Bontrager said. ‘I just know a couple of words and phrases. Stuff like schnickelfritz and wonnernaus. When we were kids schrecklich was a big one.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I think it means scary,’ Bontrager said. ‘It gets pretty dark in Berks County at night.’
‘Do you know anyone who might be able to help us with this?’ Jessica asked.
Bontrager thought for a few moments. ‘Well, ever since I left the church, there aren’t a lot of people in Bechtelsville who are too crazy about me. My family is cool, but that’s about it. Let me make a few calls. I’ll find someone.’
Bontrager stepped out of the room, his phone already in hand.
‘So, schrecklich means scary?’ Jessica asked.
‘Apparently.’
‘And that’s where Shrek gets his name?’
Byrne laughed. ‘I think you’ve been hanging around little kids too much.’
‘Tell me about it.’
Byrne turned to Mateo, got his attention. Mateo took off his headphones.
‘Is there a way to clean up the sound on these recordings?’ Byrne asked.
Mateo just stared.
‘Okay, dumb question. What about putting all of this on a single disc, or making it an MP3?’
Mateo pointed at his screen, at the progress bars, and the dig
ital readout of audio levels. It was already in the works.
Byrne just nodded. For a guy so knowledgeable about all things audio, Mateo Fuentes was able to communicate a great deal without a single word.
‘Call me,’ Byrne whispered.
On the way back upstairs they saw Josh Bontrager on the phone. He held up a finger, finished his conversation, clicked off.
‘I’ve got someone who can translate your recording,’ Bontrager said.
‘That was fast,’ Jessica said.
‘It’s the goatee.’
Bontrager took out his notebook, scribbled in it, tore off the page and handed it to Jessica. ‘Her name is Elizabeth Troyer. She’s in the language department at Villanova.’
‘Does she know we’ll be contacting her?’ Byrne asked.
‘I just talked to her. I told her one of you will be there this afternoon.’
An hour later Byrne talked to the woman, who said she would be happy to help. He had a copy of the cassette sent over by what would have been a messenger if the PPD had any kind of budget. Instead, Byrne gave it to a detective who had business in Radnor Township.
50
Rachel had been a sophomore at college when she got the frantic call from her mother about Marielle running away. By then, her mother had slipped into raging alcoholism, and told Rachel that she was going to put all of Marielle’s belongings on the curb for trash pickup.
Rachel raced back home to find that she was too late. When she walked into her old room, a room she shared for many years with her sister, a room that held all her memories of childhood, everything was gone.
Rachel found her mother sitting in the kitchen that day, a half-empty bottle of bottom-shelf whiskey on the table. They argued for what seemed like an hour, her mother all but incoherent.
It would be their final fight.
Two hours later her mother – with a blood alcohol content of 0.16 – flipped her car on the westbound lane of the Vine Street Expressway, right near the turnoff onto I-76.
She was pronounced dead on the scene.
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