Two patrol cars flashed in front of the crime scene house, midblock. A pair of uniforms stood guard at the steps, both covertly cupping cigarettes in their hands, ready to flick and stomp the moment a superior officer arrived.
A light rain had begun to fall. The deep violet clouds to the west threatened storms.
Across the street from the house a trio of wide-eyed black kids hopped from one foot to the other, nervous, excited, as if they had to pee, their grandmothers hovering nearby, chatting and smoking, shaking their heads at this, yet another atrocity. To the kids, though, this was no tragedy. This was a live version of COPS, with a dose of CSI thrown in for dramatic value.
Behind them loitered a pair of Hispanic teenaged boys—matching hooded Rocawear sweatshirts, thin mustaches, spotless, unlaced Timberlands. They observed the unfolding scene with casual interest, fitting it into the stories they would pitch later that night. They stood close enough to the theatrics to observe, but far enough away to paint themselves into the backdrop of the urban canvas with a few quick strokes if it appeared they might be questioned.
Huh? What? No man, I was sleepin’.
Gunshots? No man, I had my ’phones on, wicked loud.
Like many of the houses on the street, the front of this row house had plywood nailed over the entrance and the windows, the city’s attempt at closing the house to addicts and scavengers. Jessica took out her notebook, looked at her watch, noted their time of arrival. They exited the Taurus and approached one of the uniforms, badges out, just as Ike Buchanan rolled on the scene. Whenever there was a homicide and two supervisors were on shift, one went to the crime scene, one stayed at the Roundhouse to coordinate the investigation. Although Buchanan was the ranking officer, it was Kevin Byrne’s show.
“What do we have this fine Philly morning?” Byrne asked with a pretty good Dublin brogue.
“Female juvenile DOA in the basement,” said the officer, a stocky black woman in her late twenties. OFFICER J. DAVIS.
“Who found her?” Byrne asked.
“Mr. DeJohn Withers.” She pointed to a disheveled, clearly homeless black man standing near the curb.
“When?”
“Sometime this morning. Mr. Withers is a bit unclear of the time frame.”
“He didn’t consult his Palm Pilot?”
Officer Davis just smiled.
“He touch anything?” Byrne asked.
“He says no,” Davis said. “But he was down there scrapping for copper, so who knows?”
“He called it in?”
“No,” Davis said. “He probably didn’t have change.” Another knowing smile. “He flagged us down, we called radio.”
“Hang on to him.”
Byrne glanced at the front door. It was sealed. “Which house is it?”
Officer Davis pointed to the row house on the right.
“And how do we get inside?”
Officer Davis pointed to the row house to the left. The front door was torn from its hinges. “You have to walk through.”
Byrne and Jessica walked through the row house to the north of the crime scene, a long-since abandoned and stripped property. The walls were scarred with years of graffiti, pocked with dozens of fist-sized holes in the drywall. Jessica noticed that there wasn’t a single item left that might be worth anything. Switch plates, outlet plates, outlets, fixtures, copper wire, even the baseboards were long gone.
“Serious feng shui problem here,” Byrne said.
Jessica smiled, but a bit nervously. Her main concern at the moment was not falling through the rotted joists into the basement.
They emerged in the back and negotiated through the chain-link fence to the rear of the crime scene house. The tiny backyard, which abutted an alley that ran behind the block of houses, was besieged with derelict appliances and tires, all overgrown with a few seasons of weeds and scrub. A small doghouse at the rear of the fenced-in property stood guard over nothing, its chain rusted into the earth, its plastic dish filled to the brim with filthy rainwater.
A uniformed officer met them at the back door.
“You clear the house?” Byrne asked. House was a very loose term. At least a third of the rear wall of the structure was gone.
“Yes, sir,” he said. His tag read R. VAN DYCK. He was in his early thirties, Viking blond, pumped, and heavily muscled. His arms strained the material of his coat.
They gave their information to this officer, who was taking the crime scene log. They entered through the back door and as they descended the narrow stairs to the basement, the stench greeted them first. Years of mildew and wood rot dallied beneath the smells of human by-products—urine, feces, sweat. Beneath that there was an ugliness suggesting an open grave.
The basement was long and narrow, mirroring the layout of the row house above, perhaps fifteen by twenty-four feet, with three support columns. As Jessica ran her Maglite over the space she saw it was littered with rotting drywall, spent condoms, crack bottles, a disintegrating mattress. A forensic nightmare. In the damp grime were probably a thousand smeary footprints if there were two; none, at first glance, pristine enough for a usable impression.
In the midst of this was a beautiful dead girl.
The young woman sat on the floor in the center of the room, her arms wrapped around one of the support pillars, her legs splayed on either side. It appeared that, at some point, a previous tenant had tried to make the supporting columns into Doric-style Roman columns with a material that might have been Styrofoam. Although the pillars had a cap and a base, the only entablature was a rusted I-beam above, the only frieze, a tableau of gang tags and obscenities spray-painted along the length. On one of the walls of the basement was a long-faded mural of what was probably supposed to be the Seven Hills of Rome.
The girl was white, young, perhaps sixteen or seventeen. She had flyaway strawberry-blond hair cut just above her shoulders. She wore a plaid skirt, maroon knee socks, and white blouse beneath a maroon V-neck with a school logo. In the center of her forehead was a cross made of a dark, chalky material.
At first glimpse Jessica could not see an immediate cause of death, no visible gunshot or stab wounds. Although the girl’s head lolled to her right, Jessica could see most of the front of her neck, and it did not appear as if she had been strangled.
And then there were her hands.
From a few feet away, it appeared as if her hands were clasped in prayer, but there was a much darker reality. Jessica had to look twice just to be sure that her eyes were not playing tricks on her.
She glanced at Byrne. He had noticed the girl’s hands at the same moment. Their eyes met and engaged a silent knowledge that this was no ordinary rage killing, no garden-variety crime of passion. They also silently communicated that they would not speculate for the time being. The horrible certainty of what was done to this young woman’s hands could wait for the medical examiner.
The girl’s presence, in the middle of this ugliness, was so out of place, jarring to the eye, Jessica thought; a delicate rose pushed through the musty concrete. The weak daylight that struggled through the small, hopper-style windows caught the highlights in her hair and bathed her in a dim sepulchral glow.
The one thing that was clear was that this girl had been posed, which was not a good sign. In 99 percent of homicides, the killer can’t get away from the scene fast enough, which is usually good news for the investigators. The concept of blood simple—people getting stupid when they see blood, therefore leaving behind everything needed to convict them, scientifically speaking—was usually in effect. Anybody who stops to pose a dead body is making a statement, offering a silent, arrogant communication to the police who will investigate the crime.
A pair of officers from the Crime Scene Unit arrived, and Byrne greeted them at the base of the steps. A few moments later, Tom Weyrich, a longtime veteran from the medical examiner’s office, arrived with his photographer in tow. Whenever a person died under violent or mysterious circumstances, or if it was det
ermined that there might be a need for a pathologist to testify in a court of law at some later date, photos documenting the nature and extent of the external wounds or injuries were a routine part of the examination.
The medical examiner’s office had its own staff photographer who took scene photos wherever indicated in homicides, suicides, fatal accidents. He was on call to travel anywhere in the city at any time of the day or night.
Dr. Thomas Weyrich was in his late forties, a meticulous man in all areas of his life, right down to the razor crease in his tan Dockers and perfectly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard. He bagged his shoes, gloved his hands, and carefully stepped over to the young woman.
While Weyrich did his preliminary exam, Jessica hung close to the damp walls. She had always believed that simple observation of people who were good at their jobs was a lot more informative than any textbook. On the other hand, she hoped her behavior was not seen as reticence. Byrne took the opportunity to go back upstairs to consult with Buchanan and determine the path of entry for the victim and her killer or killers, as well as to direct the canvass.
Jessica assessed the scene, trying to plug in her training. Who was this girl? What happened to her? How did she get down here? Who did this? And, for what it was worth, why?
Fifteen minutes later, Weyrich cleared the body, meaning that the detectives could approach and begin their investigation.
Kevin Byrne returned. Jessica and Weyrich met him at the base of the steps.
Byrne asked: “You have an ETD?”
“No rigor yet. I’d say around four or five this morning.” Weyrich snapped off his rubber gloves.
Byrne glanced at his watch. Jessica made the note.
“What about a cause?” Byrne asked.
“Looks like a broken neck. I’m going to have to get her on the table to know for sure.”
“Was she killed here?”
“Impossible to tell at this point. But my guess is she was.”
“What about her hands?” Byrne asked.
Weyrich looked grim. He tapped his shirt pocket. Jessica could see the outline of a pack of Marlboros there. He would not, of course, smoke at a crime scene, even this crime scene, but the gesture told her that a cigarette was warranted. “Looks like a steel bolt and nut,” he said.
“Was the bolt done postmortem?” Jessica asked, hoping the answer would be yes.
“I’d say it was,” Weyrich said. “Very little blood. I’ll get on it this afternoon. I’ll know more then.”
Weyrich looked at them, found no more immediate questions pending. Walking up the steps, his cigarette was out and lit by the time he reached the top tread.
Silence owned the room for a few moments. Many times, at a homicide scene, when the victim was a gang member shot by a rival warrior, or a tough guy laid out behind a bar by a fellow tough guy, the mood among the professionals delegated to probe, investigate, examine, and clean up after the carnage was one of brisk politeness, sometimes even lighthearted banter. The gallows humor, the off-color joke. Not this time. Everyone in this damp and hideous place went about his or her task with a grim determination, a common purpose that said: This is wrong.
Byrne broke the silence. He held out his hands, palms skyward. “Ready to check for ID, Detective Balzano?”
Jessica took a deep breath, centering herself. “Okay,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound as wobbly as she felt. She had anticipated this moment for months, but now that it was here, she found herself unprepared. Putting on a pair of latex gloves, she carefully approached the girl’s body.
She had, of course, seen a number of corpses in her time on the street and in the Auto Unit. One time she had babysat a dead body in the backseat of a stolen Lexus on a ninety-five-degree day on the Schuylkill Expressway, trying not to watch the body, which seemed to bloat by the minute in the stifling car.
In all those instances, she knew she was handing the investigation off.
Now it was her turn.
Someone was asking her for help.
In front of her was a dead young girl whose hands were bolted together in eternal prayer. Jessica knew that the victim’s body, at this stage, had much to offer, by way of clues. She would never again be this close to the murderer: to his method, his pathology, his mind-set. Jessica opened her eyes wide, her senses on high alert.
In the girl’s hands was a rosary. In Roman Catholicism, the rosary is a string of beads forming the shape of a circle, with a pendent crucifix, usually consisting of five sets of beads called decades, each composed of one large and ten smaller beads. On the large beads, the Lord’s Prayer is said. On the smaller beads, the Hail Mary.
As Jessica approached, she saw that this rosary was made of black carved wood oval beads, with what appeared to be a Madonna of Lourdes center. The rosary was looped around the girl’s knuckles. It appeared to be a standard, inexpensive rosary, but on closer inspection Jessica noted that two of the five decades were missing.
She gently examined the girl’s hands. Her nails were short and clean, exhibiting no evidence of a struggle. No breakage, no blood. There appeared to be no material beneath her nails, although they would bag her hands anyway. The bolt that passed through her hands entered and exited at the center of the palms, and was made of galvanized steel. The bolt appeared to be new, and was about four inches in length.
Jessica looked closely at the mark on the girl’s forehead. The smudge formed a blue cruciform, as the ashes did on Ash Wednesday. Although Jessica was far from devout, she still knew and observed the major Catholic holy days. It had been nearly six weeks since Ash Wednesday, but this mark was fresh. It seemed to be made of a chalky substance.
Lastly, Jessica looked at the label at the back of the girl’s sweater. Sometimes dry cleaners left a tag with all or part of the patron’s name. There was none.
She stood up a little shakily, but confident she had done a competent examination. At least for a preliminary look.
“Any ID?” Byrne stayed along the wall, his clever eyes scanning the scene, observing, absorbing.
“No,” Jessica replied.
Byrne grimaced. Whenever a victim was not identified at the scene, it tacked hours, sometimes even days onto the investigation. Precious time that could never be recovered.
Jessica stepped away from the body as the CSU officers began their ceremony. They would slip on their Tyvek suits and make a grid of the space, taking detailed photographs of the scene, as well as a video. This place was a petri dish of subhumanity. There were probably prints of every derelict in North Philly here. The CSU team would be here all day. Probably well into the night.
Jessica headed up the steps, but Byrne stayed behind. She waited for him at the top of the stairs, partly because she wanted to see if there was anything else he wanted her to do, partly because she really didn’t want to have to direct the investigation out front.
After a short while, she walked a few treads back down, peering into the basement. Kevin Byrne stood over the young girl’s body, head down, eyes closed. He fingered the scar over his right eye, then dropped his hands to his waist, knit his fingers.
After a few moments, he opened his eyes, made the sign of the cross, and started toward the steps.
ON THE STREET more people had gathered, rubbernecking, drawn to the strobing police lights like moths to flame. Crime came often to this part of North Philly, but it never ceased to beguile and fascinate its residents.
Emerging from the crime scene house, Byrne and Jessica approached the witness who had found the body. Although the day was overcast, Jessica gulped the daylight like a starving woman, grateful to be out of that clammy tomb.
DeJohn Withers might have been forty or sixty; it was impossible to tell. He had no lower teeth, and only a few up top. He wore five or six flannel shirts and a pair of filthy cargo pants, each pocket bulging with some mysterious urban swag.
“How long I gotta stay here?” Withers asked.
“Got some pressing engagements, do you?” B
yrne replied.
“I ain’t gotta talk to you. I did the right thing by doing my civic duty and now I get treated like some criminal.”
“Is this your house, sir?” Byrne asked, pointing to the crime scene house.
“No,” Withers said. “It is not.”
“Then you are guilty of breaking and entering.”
“I didn’t break nothin’.”
“But you entered.”
Withers tried to wrap his mind around the concept, as if breaking and entering, like country and western, were somehow inseparable. He remained silent.
“Now, I’m willing to overlook this serious crime if you answer a few questions for me,” Byrne said.
Withers looked at his shoes, defeated. Jessica noted that he had a ripped black high-top on his left foot and an Air Nike on his right.
“When did you find her?” Byrne asked.
Withers screwed up his face. He pushed up the sleeves of his multitude of shirts, revealing thin, scabby arms. “It look like I got a watch?”
“Was it light out, or was it dark out?” Byrne asked.
“Light.”
“Did you touch her?”
“What?” Withers barked with true outrage. “I ain’t no goddamn pervert.”
“Just answer the question, Mr. Withers.”
Withers crossed his arms, waited a moment. “No. I didn’t.”
“Was anyone with you when you found her?”
“No.”
“Did you see anyone else around here?”
Withers laughed, and Jessica caught a full blast of his breath. If you blended rotten mayonnaise and week-old egg salad, then tossed it with lighter fluid vinaigrette, it would have smelled a little bit better. “Who comes down here?”
It was a good question.
“Where do you live?” Byrne asked.
“I’m currently at The Four Seasons,” Withers replied.
Byrne suppressed a smile. He kept his pen an inch over the pad.
“I stay at My Brother’s House,” Withers added. “When they got room.”
Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense: The Rosary Girls, the Skin Gods, Merciless, Badlands Page 5