Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense: The Rosary Girls, the Skin Gods, Merciless, Badlands

by Richard Montanari

  The victims couldn’t have been more different physically. Tessa was thin and blond. Nicole had been a Goth girl in her jet-black hair and piercings. Bethany had been heavy.

  He had to know them.

  Add to that the pictures of Tessa Wells found in his apartment, and it made Brian Parkhurst a prime suspect. Had he been seeing all three girls?

  Even if he was, the biggest question remained. Why was he doing it? Had these girls rebuffed his advances? Threatened to go public? No, Jessica thought. There would have been a pattern of violence somewhere in his past.

  On the other hand, if she could understand a monster’s mind-set, she would know why.

  Still, anyone whose pathology of religious insanity ran this deep must have acted on it before. And yet none of the crime databases had yielded even a remotely similar MO in the Philadelphia area, or anywhere nearby for that matter.

  Yesterday Jessica had driven up Frankford Avenue in the Northeast, near Primrose Road, and had passed St. Katherine of Siena. St. Katherine was the church that had been defaced with blood three years earlier. She made a note to look into the incident. She knew she was grasping at straws, but straws were all they had at the moment. Many a case had been made on such a tenuous connection.

  If anything, their doer had uncanny luck. He had picked three girls off the streets in Philly without anyone noticing.

  Okay, Jessica thought. Start at the beginning. His first victim was Nicole Taylor. If it was Brian Parkhurst, they knew where he met Nicole. At school. If it was someone else, then he must have met Nicole elsewhere. But where? And why was she targeted? They had interviewed the two people at St. Joseph’s who owned a Ford Windstar. Both were women; one in her late sixties, the other a single mother of three. Neither exactly fit the profile.

  Was it someone along the route Nicole took to school? The route had been thoroughly canvassed. No one had seen anyone hanging around Nicole.

  Was it a friend of the family?

  And if it was, how did the doer know the other two girls?

  All three girls had different doctors, different dentists. None of them played sports, so coaches and physical trainers were out. They had different tastes in clothes, in music, in just about everything.

  Every question brought the answer closer to one name: Brian Parkhurst.

  When had Parkhurst lived in Ohio? She made a mental note to check with Ohio law enforcement to see if there were any unsolved homicides with a similar MO in that time period. Because if there were—

  Jessica never finished the thought because, as she rounded a bend in the bridle trail, she tripped over a branch that had fallen from one of the trees during the previous night’s storm.

  She tried, but she couldn’t regain her balance. She fell, face-first, and rolled onto the wet grass, onto her back.

  She heard people approaching.

  Welcome to Humiliation Village.

  It had been a while since she had taken a spill. She found that her appreciation for being on the wet ground, in public, had not grown in the intervening years. She moved slowly, carefully, trying to determine if anything was broken or, at the very least, strained.

  “Are you okay?”

  Jessica looked up from her earthbound vantage. The man doing the asking approached with a pair of middle-aged women, both sporting iPods on their waist packs. They were all dressed in quality jogging clothes, the kind of matching outfits with reflective stripes and zippered closures at the hem of the pants. Jessica, in her fuzzy, pilled sweats and well-worn Pumas, felt like a slob.

  “I’m fine, thanks,” Jessica said. She was. Certainly nothing was broken. The soft grass had cushioned her fall. Except for a few grass stains and a contused ego, she was unharmed. “I’m the city acorn inspector. Just doing my job.”

  The man smiled, stepped forward, offered a hand. He was in his early thirties, blond and fair, nice looking in a collegiate way. She accepted the offer, rose to her feet, brushed herself off. The two women smiled in understanding. They had been jogging in place the whole time. When Jessica shrugged a we’ve all taken a header, haven’t we? response, they continued on down the path.

  “I just took a nasty fall myself the other day,” the man said. “Down by the band shell. Tripped over a child’s little plastic pail. Thought I’d fractured my right arm for sure.”

  “Embarrassing, isn’t it?”

  “Not at all,” he said. “It gave me a chance to be one with nature.”

  Jessica smiled.

  “I got a smile!” the man said. “I’m usually far more inept with pretty women. Usually takes months to get a smile.”

  Now, there’s a line, Jessica thought. Still, he looked harmless.

  “Mind if I jog along with you?” he asked.

  “I’m just about done,” Jessica said, although this wasn’t true. She had the feeling that this guy was the chatty type and, in addition to the fact that she didn’t like to talk while she ran, she had enough on her mind to think about.

  “No problem,” the man said. His face said otherwise. It looked as if she had slapped him.

  Now she felt bad. He had stopped to lend a hand, and she shut him down rather unceremoniously. “I’ve got about a mile left in me,” she said. “What kind of pace do you keep?”

  “I like to keep the meter just under myocardial infarction.”

  Jessica smiled again. “I don’t know CPR,” she said. “If you grab your chest, I’m afraid you’ll be on your own.”

  “Not to worry. I’ve got Blue Cross,” he said.

  And with that, they took off down the path at a leisurely pace, artfully dodging road apples, the warm, dappled sunlight blinking through the trees. The rain had stopped for a while, and the sunshine dried the earth.

  “Do you celebrate Easter?” the man asked.

  If he could see her kitchen, with its half a dozen egg-coloring kits, its bags of Easter grass, the jelly beans, cream eggs, chocolate bunnies, and little yellow Marshmallow Peeps, he would never ask that question. “I sure do.”

  “Personally, it’s my favorite holiday of the year.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I like Christmastime. It’s just that Easter is a time of . . . rebirth, I suppose. Of growth.”

  “That’s a nice way of looking at it,” Jessica said.

  “Ah, who am I kidding?” he said. “I’m just addicted to Cadbury chocolate eggs.”

  Jessica laughed. “Join the club.”

  They jogged in silence for about a quarter mile, then rounded a soft curve, and headed into a long straightaway.

  “Can I ask you a question?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Why do you think he’s picking Catholic girls?”

  The words were a sledgehammer to Jessica’s chest.

  In one fluid move she had her Glock out of her holster. She pivoted, lashed out with her right foot, and swept the man’s legs out from under him. In a split second she had him on his face, in the dirt, the weapon to the back of his head.

  “Don’t fucking move.”

  “I just—”

  “Shut up.”

  A few other joggers caught up to them. The expressions on their faces wrote the whole story.

  “I’m a police officer,” Jessica said. “Back up, please.”

  Joggers became sprinters. They all looked at Jessica’s gun and took off as fast as they could down the path.

  “If you just let me—”

  “Did I stutter? I told you to shut up.”

  Jessica tried to catch her breath. When she did, she asked: “Who are you?”

  There was no reason to wait for an answer. Besides, the fact that her knee was on the back of his head and his face was smashed into the turf probably precluded a response.

  Jessica unzipped the back pocket of the man’s jogging pants, pulled out a nylon wallet. She flipped it open. She saw the press card and wanted to pull the trigger even more.

  Simon Edward Close. The Report.<
br />
  She kneeled on the back of his head a little longer, a little harder. It was at times like these that she wished she weighed in at about 210.

  “You know where the Roundhouse is?” she asked.

  “Yes, of course. I—”

  “Good,” Jessica said. “Here’s the deal. If you want to talk to me, you go through the press office there. If that’s too much trouble, then stay the fuck out of my face.”

  Jessica eased the pressure on his head by a few ounces.

  “Now, I’m going to get up and go to my car. Then I’m going to leave the park. You are going to remain in this position until I am gone. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes,” Simon replied.

  She put all her weight on his head. “I mean it. If you move, if you even lift your head, I’m going to take you in for questioning on the Rosary Killings. I can lock you up for seventy-two hours without having to explain myself to anyone. Capeesh?”

  “Ga-beetch,” Simon said, the fact that he had a pound of wet sod in his mouth inhibiting his attempt at speaking Italian.

  A little while later, when Jessica started her car and headed for the park exit, she glanced back at the trail. Simon was still there, facedown.

  God, what an asshole.

  45

  WEDNESDAY, 10:45 AM

  CRIME SCENES ALWAYS LOOKED DIFFERENT in daylight. The alley looked benign and peaceful. A pair of uniforms stood at its entrance.

  Byrne badged the officers, slipped under the tape. When the two detectives saw him, they each gave the homicide wave—palm down, a slight dip to the ground, then straight out. Everything’s cool.

  Xavier Washington and Reggie Payne had been partnered so long, Byrne thought, they were beginning to dress alike and finish each other’s sentences, like an old married couple.

  “We can all go home,” Payne said with a smile.

  “What do you have?” Byrne asked.

  “Just a little thinning of the gene pool.” Payne pulled back the plastic sheet. “This is the late Marius Green.”

  The body was in the precise position it had been in when Byrne left it the previous night.

  “It’s a through and through.” Payne pointed to Marius’s chest.

  “Thirty-eight?” Byrne asked.

  “Could be. Looks more like a nine, though. Haven’t found the brass or the slug yet.”

  “He’s JBM?” Byrne asked.

  “Oh yeah,” Payne replied. “Marius was a very bad actor.”

  Byrne glanced at the uniformed officers looking for the slug. He looked at his watch. “I have a few minutes.”

  “Oh, now we can really go home,” Payne said. “The face is on the case.”

  Byrne walked a few feet toward the Dumpster. The mound of plastic trash bags obscured him from view. He picked up a short piece of lumber, began poking around. When he was sure he was unobserved, he took the baggie from his pocket, opened it, turned it upside down, and dropped the bloodied slug to the ground. He continued to nose around, but not too carefully.

  After a minute or so, he returned to where Payne and Washington stood.

  “I’ve got my own psycho to catch,” Byrne said.

  “Catch you at the house,” Payne replied.

  “Got it,” one of the uniforms standing by the Dumpster bellowed.

  Payne and Washington looked at each other, high-fived, walked over to where the uniform stood. They had found the slug.

  Facts: Marius Green’s blood was on the slug. It had caromed off brick. End of story.

  There would be no reason to look farther or dig deeper. The slug would now be bagged and tagged, taken down to ballistics, where a property receipt would be issued. Then it would be compared to other bullets recovered from crime scenes. Byrne had the distinct feeling that the Smith & Wesson he had taken off Diablo was used in other unsavory undertakings in the past.

  Byrne exhaled, looked heavenward, slipped into his car. Only one more detail to address. Finding Diablo and imparting to him the wisdom of leaving Philadelphia forever.

  His pager went off.

  The call was from Monsignor Terry Pacek.

  The hits just keep on coming.

  THE SPORTING CLUB was Center City’s biggest fitness club, located on the eighth floor at the historic Bellevue, the beautifully ornate building at Broad and Walnut Streets.

  Byrne found Terry Pacek on one of the LifeCycles. The dozen or so stationary bikes were arranged in a square, facing each other. Most were occupied. Behind Byrne and Pacek, the slap and shriek of Nikes on the basketball court below offset the whir of the treadmills and hiss of the cycles, as well as the grunts and groans and grumbles of the fit, near fit, and ain’t never gonna be fit.

  “Monsignor,” Byrne said in greeting.

  Pacek didn’t break rhythm, nor seem to acknowledge Byrne in any way. He was perspiring, but he wasn’t breathing hard. A quick glance at the readout on the cycle showed that he had already put in forty minutes, and was still maintaining a ninety-rpm pace. Incredible. Byrne knew Pacek to be in his midforties, but he was in great shape, even for a man ten years younger. In here, out of his cassock and collar, dressed in stylish, Perry Ellis jogging pants and sleeveless T-shirt, he looked more like a slowly aging tight end than a priest. Actually, a slowly aging tight end is precisely what Pacek was. As Byrne understood it, Terry Pacek still held the Boston College record for receptions in a single season. They didn’t call him the Jesuit John Mackey for nothing.

  Looking around the club, Byrne saw a well-known news anchor puffing away on a StairMaster, a pair of city councilmen plotting on parallel treadmills. He found himself self-consciously sucking in his stomach. He would start a cardio regimen tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow. Or maybe the day after.

  He had to find Diablo first.

  “Thanks for meeting with me,” Pacek said.

  “Not a problem,” Byrne said.

  “I know you’re a busy man,” Pacek added. “I won’t keep you too long.”

  Byrne knew that I won’t keep you long was code for Get comfortable, you’re gonna be here a while. He just nodded, waited for a moment. The moment played out empty. Then: “What can I do for you?”

  The question was as rhetorical as it was rote. Pacek hit the COOL DOWN button on the cycle, rode it out. He slipped off the seat, threw a towel around his neck. And although Terry Pacek was far more toned than Byrne, he was at least four inches shorter. Byrne found cheap solace in this.

  “I’m a man who likes to cut through the layers of bureaucracy when possible,” Pacek said.

  “What makes you think it’s possible in this instance?” Byrne asked.

  Pacek stared at Byrne for a few, uncomfortable seconds too long. Then he smiled. “Walk with me.”

  Pacek led the way to the elevator, which they took to the third floor mezzanine and its jogging track. Byrne found himself hoping that Walk with me meant precisely that. Walking. They got out on the carpeted track, which ringed the fitness room below.

  “How is the investigation going?” Pacek asked as they began their way around at a reasonable pace.

  “You didn’t call me here for a status report.”

  “You’re right,” Pacek replied. “I understand that there was another girl found last night.”

  This was no secret, Byrne thought. It was even on CNN, which meant that no doubt people in Borneo knew. Great publicity for Philly’s tourism board. “Yes,” Byrne said.

  “And I understand that your interest in Brian Parkhurst remains high.”

  An understatement. “We’d like to talk to him, yes.”

  “It is in everyone’s interest—especially the heartbroken families of these young girls—that this madman be caught. And that justice is done. I know Dr. Parkhurst, Detective. I find it hard to believe that he has had anything to do with these crimes, but that is not for me to decide.”

  “Why am I here, Monsignor?” Byrne was in no mood for palace politics.

  After two full circuits of the jogging tr
ack, they were back at the door. Pacek wiped the sweat from his head, and said: “Meet me downstairs in twenty minutes.”

  ZANZIBAR BLUE WAS A CHIC JAZZ CLUB and restaurant in the basement of the Bellevue, just beneath the lobby of the Park Hyatt, nine floors beneath the Sporting Club. Byrne ordered a coffee at the bar.

  Pacek entered, bright-eyed, flushed with his workout.

  “Vodka rocks,” he said to the bartender.

  He leaned against the bar next to Byrne. Without a word, he reached into his pocket. He handed Byrne a slip of paper. On it was an address in West Philly.

  “Brian Parkhurst owns a building on Sixty-first Street, near Market. He’s renovating it,” Pacek said. “He’s there now.”

  Byrne knew that nothing was free in this life. He pondered Pacek’s angle. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “It’s the right thing to do, Detective.”

  “But your bureaucracy is no different from mine.”

  “I have done judgment and justice: leave me not to mine oppressors,” Pacek said with a wink. “Psalms, One Hundred and Ten.”

  Byrne took the piece of paper. “I appreciate this.”

  Pacek sipped his vodka. “I wasn’t here.”

  “I understand.”

  “How are you going to explain obtaining this information?”

  “Leave it to me,” Byrne said. He would have one of his CIs make a call to the Roundhouse, logging it in about twenty minutes.

  I seen him . . . that guy youse are lookin’ for . . . I seen him up around Cobbs Creek.

  “We all fight the good fight,” Pacek said. “We choose our weapons early in life. You chose a gun and a badge. I chose the cross.”

  Byrne knew this wasn’t easy for Pacek. If Parkhurst turned out to be their doer, Pacek would be the one to take the flak for the Archdiocese having hired him in the first place—a man who’d had an affair with a teenaged girl being put in proximity to, perhaps, a few thousand more.

  On the other hand, the sooner the Rosary Killer was caught—not only for the sake of the Catholic girls in Philadelphia, but also for the church itself—the better.

  Byrne slid off the stool, towering over the priest. He dropped a ten on the bar.

  “Go with God,” Pacek said.