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

by Richard Montanari

  The first shot hit Diablo dead center in his forehead, slamming into his skull, rocking him back on his heels, exploding the back of his head into a crimson blast of blood and bone and brain matter that sprayed halfway across the room. The second and third bullets caught him in his lower jaw and throat. Diablo’s right arm jerked upward, reflexively firing the Uzi. The burst threw a dozen rounds into the floor, just inches to the left of Kevin Byrne. Diablo collapsed, a few more rounds smashing into the ceiling.

  And in that instant it was over.

  Byrne held his position for a few moments, weapon out front, seemingly frozen in time. He had just killed a man. His muscles slowly relaxed and he cocked his head to the sounds. No sirens. Yet. He reached into his back pocket, retrieved a pair of latex gloves. From his other pocket he removed a small sandwich bag with an oil rag inside. He wiped down the revolver, then placed it on the floor, just as the first siren rose in the distance.

  Byrne found a can of spray paint and tagged the wall next to the window with JBM gang graffiti.

  He looked back at the room. He had to move. Forensics? This would not be high priority for the team, but they would show. As far as he could tell, he was covered. He grabbed his Glock off the table and ran for the door, carefully skirting the blood on the floor.

  He made his way down the back stairs as the sirens drew nearer. Within seconds he was in his car and heading toward the Caravan Serai.

  That was the good news.

  The bad news was, of course, that he had probably missed something. He had missed something important, and his life was over.

  THE MAIN BUILDING of the Delaware Valley School for the Deaf was an early American design, constructed of fieldstone. The grounds were always well groomed.

  As they approached the grounds, Byrne was once again struck by the silence. There were more than fifty kids between the ages of five and fifteen, all running around, expending more energy than Byrne could remember ever having at their age, and it was all completely quiet.

  When he had learned to sign, Colleen had been nearly seven and already proficient in the language. Many times, at night, when he tucked her in, she had cried and decried her fate, wishing she could be normal, like the hearing kids. Byrne had just held her at those times, not knowing what to say, not being able to say it in his daughter’s language even if he had. But a funny thing happened when Colleen turned eleven. She stopped wishing she could hear. Just like that. Total acceptance and, in some odd way, arrogance about her deafness, proclaiming it to be an advantage, a secret society composed of extraordinary people.

  It was more of an adjustment for Byrne than it was for Colleen, but this day, when she kissed him on the cheek and ran off to play with her friends, his heart almost burst with love and pride for her.

  She would be fine, he thought, even if something terrible happened to him.

  She was going to grow up beautiful and polite and decent and respectable, despite the fact that one year, on Holy Wednesday, while she sat in a pungent Lebanese restaurant in North Philadelphia, her father had left her there, and gone off to commit murder.

  52

  WEDNESDAY, 4:15 PM

  She is summer, this one. She is water.

  Her white-blond hair is long, pulled back into a ponytail, fastened with an amber cat’s-eye bolo. It reaches the middle of her back in a glistening waterfall. She wears a faded denim skirt and a burgundy wool sweater. She carries a leather jacket over her arm. She has just emerged from the Barnes & Noble at Rittenhouse Square, where she works part time.

  She is still quite thin, but it looks like she has put on weight since the last time I saw her.

  Good for her.

  The street is crowded, so I am sporting a ball cap and sunglasses. I walk right up to her.

  “Remember me?” I ask, lifting the sunglasses momentarily.

  At first, she is not sure. I am older, so I belong to that world of adults who could, and usually do, mean authority. As in—the end of the party. After a few seconds, recognition alights.

  “Sure!” she says, her face brightening.

  “Your name is Kristi, right?”

  She blushes. “Yep. You have a good memory!”

  “How have you been feeling?”

  The blush deepens, morphing from the demure demeanor of a confident young woman to the embarrassment of a little girl, her eyes ringed with shame. “I’m, you know, a lot better now,” she says. “That was—”

  “Hey,” I say, holding up a hand, stopping her. “There’s nothing for you to be ashamed of. Not one single thing. I could tell you stories, believe me.”

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely,” I say.

  We walk down Walnut Street. Her posture changes slightly. A little self-conscious now.

  “So, what are you reading?” I ask, pointing to the bag she carries.

  She blushes again. “I’m embarrassed.”

  I stop walking. She stops with me. “Now, what did I just tell you?”

  Kristi laughs. At this age, it is always Christmas, always Halloween, always the Fourth. Every day is the day. “Okay, okay,” she concedes. She reaches into the plastic bag, takes out a pair of Tiger Beat magazines. “I get a discount.”

  On the cover of one of the magazines is Justin Timberlake. I take the magazine from her, scrutinize the cover.

  “I haven’t liked his solo stuff as much as ’NSYNC,” I say. “What about you?”

  Kristi looks at me, her mouth half-open. “I can’t believe you know who he is.”

  “Hey,” I say in mock rage. “I’m not that old.” I hand the magazine back, mindful of the fact that my prints are on the glossy surface. I must not forget that.

  Kristi shakes her head, still smiling.

  We continue up Walnut.

  “All ready for Easter?” I ask, rather inelegantly changing the subject.

  “Oh, yes,” she says. “I love Easter.”

  “Me, too,” I say.

  “I mean, I know it’s still real early in the year, but Easter always means summer is coming, to me. Some people wait till Memorial Day. Not me.”

  I fall behind her for a few steps, allowing people to pass. From the cover of my sunglasses, I watch her walk, as covertly as I can. In a few years, she would have been what people refer to as coltish, a long-legged beauty.

  When I make my move, I am going to have to be fast. Leverage will be paramount. I have the syringe in my pocket, its rubber tip firmly secured.

  I glance around. For all the people on the street, lost in their own dramas, we might as well be alone. It never fails to amaze me how, in a city like Philadelphia, one can go virtually unnoticed.

  “Where are you headed?” I ask.

  “Bus stop,” she says. “Home.”

  I pretend to search my memory. “You live in Chestnut Hill, right?”

  She smiles, rolls her eyes. “Close. Nicetown.”

  “That’s what I meant.”

  I laugh.

  She laughs.

  I have her.

  “Are you hungry?” I ask.

  I watch her face as I ask this. Kristi had done her battles with anorexia, and I know that questions like this will always be a challenge to her in this life. A few moments pass, and I fear I have lost her.

  I have not.

  “I could eat,” she says.

  “Great,” I say. “Let’s get a salad or something, then I’ll drive you home. It’ll be fun. We can catch up.”

  A split second of apprehension settles, veiling her pretty face in darkness. She glances around us.

  The veil lifts. She slips on her leather jacket, gives her ponytail a flip, and says: “Okay.”

  53

  WEDNESDAY, 4:20 PM

  EDDIE KASALONIS RETIRED IN 2002.

  Now in his early sixties, he had been on the force nearly forty years, most of them in the zone, and had seen it all, from every vantage, in every light, having worked twenty years on the streets before moving to South detectives
.

  Jessica had located him through the FOP. She hadn’t been able to reach Kevin, so she went to meet Eddie on her own. She found him where he was every day at this time. At a small Italian eatery on Tenth Street.

  Jessica ordered a coffee; Eddie, a double espresso with a lemon peel.

  “I saw a lot over the years,” Eddie said, clearly as a preface to a walk down memory lane. A big man, with moist gray eyes, a navy tattoo on his right forearm, and shoulders rounded with age. Time had slowed his stories. Jessica had wanted to get right to the business about the blood on the door at St. Katherine but, out of respect, she listened. Eventually, he drained his espresso, called for another, then asked: “So. What can I do for you, Detective?”

  Jessica took out her notebook. “I understand you investigated an incident at St. Katherine a few years ago.”

  Eddie Kasalonis nodded. “You mean the blood on the door of the church?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t know what I can tell you about it. Wasn’t much of an investigation, really.”

  “Can I ask how it was that you came to be involved? I mean, it’s a long way from your stomping grounds.”

  Jessica had asked around. Eddie Kasalonis was a South Philly boy. Third and Wharton.

  “A priest from St. Casimir’s had just gotten transferred up there. Nice kid. Lithuanian, like me. He called, I said I’d look into it.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Not much, Detective. Someone painted the lintel over the main doors with blood while the congregation was celebrating midnight mass. When they came out, it dripped onto an elderly woman. She freaked, called it a miracle, called an ambulance.”

  “What kind of blood was it?”

  “Well, it wasn’t human, I can tell you that. Some kind of animal blood. That’s about as far as we pushed it.”

  “Did it ever happen again?”

  Eddie Kasalonis shook his head. “That was it, far as I know. They cleaned the door, kept an eye out for a while, then they eventually moved on. As for me, I had a lot on my plate in those days.” The waiter brought Eddie’s coffee, offered Jessica a refill. She declined.

  “Did it happen at any other churches?” Jessica asked.

  “No idea,” Eddie said. “Like I said, I looked into it as a favor. Church desecration wasn’t exactly my beat.”

  “Any suspects?”

  “Not really. That part of the Northeast ain’t exactly a hotbed of gang activity. I rousted a few of the local punks, threw a little weight. No one copped to it.”

  Jessica put her notebook away, finished her coffee, a little disappointed that this hadn’t led to anything. On the other hand, she hadn’t really expected it to.

  “Now it’s my turn to ask,” Eddie said.

  “Sure,” Jessica replied.

  “What is your interest in a three-year-old vandalism case in Torresdale?”

  Jessica told him. No reason not to. Like everyone else in Philly, Eddie Kasalonis was highly aware of the Rosary Killer case. He didn’t press her on the details.

  Jessica looked at her watch. “I really do appreciate your time,” she said as she stood up, reached into her pocket to pay for her coffee. Eddie Kasalonis held up his hand, meaning: Put it away.

  “Glad to help,” he said. He stirred his coffee, a wistful look coming over his face. Another story. Jessica waited. “You know how, at the racetrack, you sometimes see the old jockeys hanging over the rail, watching the workouts? Or how when you go by a building site and you see the old carpenters sitting on a bench, watching the new buildings go up? You look at these guys and you know they’re just dying to get back into the game.”

  Jessica knew where he was going. And she certainly knew about carpenters. Vincent’s father retired a few years ago and these days he sat around, in front of the television, beer in hand, heckling the lousy remodeling jobs on HGTV.

  “Yeah,” Jessica said. “I know what you mean.”

  Eddie Kasalonis put sugar in his coffee, settled even more deeply into his chair. “Not me. I’m glad I don’t have to do it anymore. When I first heard about this case you’re working, I realized that the world had passed me by, Detective. The guy you’re looking for? Hell, he comes from a place I’ve never been.” Eddie looked up, fixing her in time with his sad, watery eyes. “And I thank God I don’t have to go there.”

  Jessica wished she didn’t have to go there, either. But it was a little late for that. She got out her keys, hesitated. “Is there anything else you can tell me about the blood on the church door?”

  Eddie seemed to be deliberating over whether or not to say anything. “Well, I’ll tell you. When I looked at the bloodstain, the morning after it happened, I thought I saw something. Everyone else told me I was imagining things, the way people see the face of the Virgin Mary in oil slicks on their driveways, things like that. But I was sure I saw what I thought I saw.”

  “What was it?”

  Eddie Kasalonis hesitated again. “I thought it looked like a rose,” he finally said. “An upside-down rose.”

  JESSICA HAD FOUR STOPS TO MAKE before going home. She had to go to the bank, stop at the dry cleaners, pick up something for dinner at a Wawa, and send a package to her Aunt Lorrie in Pompano Beach. The bank, the grocery store, and UPS were all within a few blocks of Second and South.

  As she parked the Jeep, she thought about what Eddie Kasalonis had said.

  I thought it looked like a rose. An upside-down rose.

  From her readings, she knew that the term rosary itself was based on Mary and the rose garden. Thirteenth-century art depicted Mary holding a rose, not a scepter. Did any of this have anything to do with her case, or was she just being desperate?

  Desperate.

  Definitely.

  Still, she’d mention it to Kevin and get his take on it.

  She got the box she was taking to UPS out of the back of the Jeep, locked it, headed up the street. When she walked by Cosi, the salad-and-sandwich franchise at the corner of Second and Lombard, she looked in the window and saw someone she recognized, even though she really didn’t want to.

  Because the someone was Vincent. And he was sitting in a booth with a woman.

  A young woman.

  Actually, a girl.

  Jessica could only see the girl from the back, but that was enough. She had long blond hair, pulled back into a ponytail. She wore a leather jacket, motorcycle style. Jessica knew that badge bunnies came in all shapes, sizes, and colors.

  And, obviously, ages.

  For a brief moment, Jessica experienced that strange feeling you get like when you’re in another city and you see someone you think you recognize. There’s that flutter of familiarity, followed by the realization that what you’re seeing can’t be accurate, which, in this instance, translated as:

  What the hell is my husband doing in a restaurant with a girl who looks about eighteen years old?

  Without having to think, the answer came roaring into her head.

  You son of a bitch.

  Vincent saw Jessica, and his face told the story. Guilt, topped by embarrassment, with a side order of shit-eating grin.

  Jessica took a deep breath, looked at the ground, then continued up the street. She was not going to be that stupid, crazed woman who confronts her husband and his mistress in a public place. No way.

  Within seconds, Vincent burst through the door.

  “Jess,” he said. “Wait.”

  Jessica stopped, trying to rein in her anger. Her anger would not hear it. It was a rabid, stampeding herd of emotion.

  “Talk to me,” he said.

  “Fuck you.”

  “It’s not what you think, Jess.”

  She put her package on a bench, spun to face him. “Gee. How did I know you were going to say that?” She looked at her husband, up and down. It always amazed her how different he could look, based on her feelings at any given moment. When they were happy, his bad-boy swagger and tough-guy posturing were so very sexy. Wh
en she was pissed, he looked like a thug, like some street-corner Goodfella wannabe she wanted to slap the cuffs on.

  And, God save them both, this was about as pissed off as she’d ever been with him.

  “I can explain,” he added.

  “Explain? Like you explained Michelle Brown? I’m sorry, what was that, again? A little amateur gynecology in my bed?”

  “Listen to me.”

  Vincent grabbed Jessica by the arm and, for the first time since they had met, for the first time in their volatile, passionate love affair, it felt as if they were strangers, arguing on a street corner; the kind of couple who, when you are in love, you vow never to become.

  “Don’t,” she warned.

  Vincent held on tighter. “Jess.”

  “Take . . . your fucking . . . hand . . . off me.” Jessica was not at all surprised to find that she had formed both of her hands into fists. The notion scared her a little, but not enough to unclench them. Would she lash out at him? She honestly didn’t know.

  Vincent stepped back, putting up his hands in surrender. The look on his face, at that moment, told Jessica that they just crossed a threshold and entered a shadowy territory from which they might never return.

  But at the moment, that didn’t matter.

  All Jessica could see was a blond ponytail and the goofy smile Vincent had on his face when she caught him.

  Jessica picked up her package, turned on her heels, and headed back to the Jeep. Fuck UPS, fuck the bank, fuck dinner. All she could think about was getting away from there.

  She hopped in the Jeep, started it and jammed the pedal. She was almost hoping that some rookie patrolman was nearby to pull her over and try to give her some shit.

  No luck. Never a cop around when you needed one.

  Except the one she was married to.

  Before she turned onto South Street she looked in the rearview mirror and saw Vincent still standing on the corner, hands in pockets, a receding, solitary silhouette against the red brick backdrop of Society Hill.

  Receding, along with him, was her marriage.

  54

  WEDNESDAY, 7:15 PM