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

by Richard Montanari

“I miss Daddy,” Sophie said. “Awfully.”

  Me, too, Jessica thought. “Time to go, sweetie.”

  “Okay, Mom.”

  Jessica leaned against the wall, smiling. She thought about what a huge, blank canvas her daughter was. Sophie’s new word: awfully. The fish sticks were awfully good. She was awfully tired. It was taking an awfully long time to get to Grandpa’s house. Where did she get it? Jessica looked at the stickers on Sophie’s door, her current menagerie of friends—Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, Piglet, Mickey, Pluto, Chip and Dale.

  Jessica’s thoughts of Sophie and Vincent were soon replaced with thoughts about the incident with Trey Tarver, and how close she had come to losing it all. Although she would never admit it to anyone—especially another cop—she had seen that Tec-9 in her nightmares every night since the shooting, had heard the crack of the slug from Trey Tarver’s weapon hitting the bricks above her head in every backfire, every slammed door, every television show gunshot.

  Like all police officers, when Jessica suited up before each tour, she had only one rule, one overriding canon that trumped all others: to come home to her family in one piece. Nothing else mattered. As long as she was on the force, nothing else ever would. Jessica’s motto, like most other cops, was as follows:

  You draw down on me, you lose. Period. If I’m wrong, you can have my badge, my weapon, even my freedom. But you don’t get my life.

  Jessica had been offered counseling but, seeing as it was not mandatory, she declined. Perhaps it was the Italian stubbornness in her. Perhaps it was the Italian female stubbornness in her. Regardless, the truth of the matter—and it scared her a little—was that she was fine with what happened. God help her, she had shot a man, and she was fine with it.

  The good news was that in the ensuing week, the review board had cleared her. It was a clean shoot. Today was her first day back on the street. In the next week or so there would be the preliminary hearing for D’Shante Jackson, but she felt ready. On that day she would have seven thousand angels on her shoulder: every cop in the PPD.

  When Sophie came out of her room, Jessica could see that she had another duty. Sophie was wearing two different-colored socks, six plastic bracelets, her grandmother’s clip-on faux-garnet earrings, and a hot pink hooded sweatshirt, even though the mercury was supposed to reach ninety today.

  While Detective Jessica Balzano may have been a homicide detective out there in the big bad world, in here she had a different assignment. Even a different rank. In here, she was still the commissioner of fashion.

  She took her little suspect into custody and marched her back into her room.

  THE HOMICIDE UNIT of the Philadelphia Police Department was sixty-five detectives strong, working all three tours, seven days a week. Philadelphia was consistently in the top twelve cities nationwide when it came to the homicide rate, and the general chaos and buzz and activity in the duty room reflected it. The unit was on the first floor of the police administration building at Eighth and Race streets, also known as the Roundhouse.

  As Jessica pushed through the glass doors, she nodded to a number of officers and detectives. Before she could round the corner to the bank of elevators she heard: ” ‘Morning, Detective.”

  Jessica turned to the familiar voice. It was Officer Mark Underwood. Jessica had been in uniform about four years when Underwood came to the Third District, her old stomping grounds. Fresh-faced and fresh out of the academy, he had been one of a handful of rookies assigned to the South Philly district that year. She had helped train a few officers in his class.

  “Hey, Mark.”

  “How are you?”

  “Never better,” Jessica said. “Still at the Third?”

  “Oh yeah,” Underwood said. “But I’ve been detailed to that movie they’re making.”

  “Uh-oh,” Jessica said. Everyone in town knew about the new Will Parrish flick they were shooting. That’s why every wannabe in town was heading to South Philly this week. “Lights, camera, attitude.”

  Underwood laughed. “You got that right.”

  It was a pretty common sight in the past few years. The huge trucks, the big lights, the barricades. Due to a very aggressive and accommodating film office, Philadelphia was becoming a hub for movie production. Although some officers considered it a plum detail to be assigned to security for the duration of the shoot, it was mostly a lot of standing around. The city itself had a love–hate relationship with the movies. Quite often it was an inconvenience. But then there was Philly pride.

  Somehow Mark Underwood still looked like a college kid. Somehow she was already over thirty. Jessica remembered the day he joined the force like it was yesterday.

  “I heard you’re in the Show,” Underwood said. “Congratulations.”

  “Captain by forty,” Jessica replied, inwardly wincing at the word forty. “Watch and see.”

  “No doubt.” Underwood looked at his watch. “Gotta hit the street. Good seeing you.”

  “Same here.”

  “We’re getting together at Finnigan’s Wake tomorrow night,” Underwood said. “Sergeant O’Brien’s retiring. Stop by for a beer. We’ll catch up.”

  “Are you sure you’re old enough to drink?” Jessica asked.

  Underwood laughed. “Have a safe tour, Detective.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “You, too.”

  Jessica watched him square his cap, sheathe his baton, make his way down the ramp, skirting the ever-present row of smokers.

  Officer Mark Underwood was a three-year vet.

  Man was she getting old.

  WHEN JESSICA ENTERED the duty room of the Homicide Unit, she was greeted by the handful of detectives hanging on from the last-out shift, the tour that began at midnight. Rare was the shift that ran only eight hours. Much of the time, if your shift began at midnight, you managed to get out of the building around 10:00 AM, then head right over to the Criminal Justice Center, where you waited in a crowded courtroom until the afternoon to testify, then caught a few hours’ sleep, then returned to the Roundhouse. It was for reasons like these, among many others, that the people in this room, this building, were your true family. The rate of alcoholism supported that fact, as did the rate of divorce. Jessica had vowed to become a statistic of neither.

  Sergeant Dwight Buchanan was one of the day-watch supervisors, a thirty-eight-year veteran of the PPD. He wore every minute of it on his badge. After the incident in the alley, Buchanan had arrived on the scene and taken Jessica’s weapon, directing the mandatory debriefing of an officer involved in a shooting, running liaison with Internal Affairs. Although he was not on duty when the incident occurred, he had gotten out of bed and rushed down to the scene to look out for one of his own. It was moments like this that bound the men and women in blue in a way most people would never understand.

  Jessica had worked the desk for nearly a week and was glad to be back on the Line Squad. She was no house cat.

  Buchanan handed her back her Glock. “Welcome back, Detective.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Ready for the street?”

  Jessica held up her weapon. “The question is, is the street ready for me?”

  “There’s someone here to see you.” He pointed over her shoulder. Jessica turned around. There was a man leaning against the assignment desk, a big man with emerald-green eyes and sandy hair. A man with the bearing of someone stalked by powerful demons.

  It was her partner, Kevin Byrne.

  Jessica’s heart fluttered for a moment as their eyes met. They had only been partnered a few days when Kevin Byrne had been shot this past spring, but what they had shared that terrible week was so intimate, so personal, that it went beyond something even lovers felt. It spoke to their souls. It appeared that neither of them, even over the course of the past few months, had time to reconcile these feelings. It was unknown whether Kevin Byrne was going to return to the force and, if he did, whether or not he and Jessica would be partnered again. She had meant to call him in the past
few weeks. She had not.

  The bottom line was that Kevin Byrne had taken one for the company—had taken one for Jessica—and he deserved better from her. She felt bad, but she was really glad to see him.

  Jessica crossed the room, arms out. They embraced, a little awkwardly, separated.

  “Are you back?” Jessica asked.

  “The doctor says I’m on forty-eight, off forty-eight. But yeah. I’m back.”

  “I can hear the crime rate dropping already.”

  Byrne smiled. There was sadness in it. “Got room for your old partner?”

  “I think we can find a bucket and a crate,” Jessica said.

  “That’s all us old-school guys need, you know. Get me a flintlock and I’ll be all set.”

  “You got it.”

  It was a moment Jessica had both longed for and dreaded. After the bloody incident on Easter Sunday, how would they be together? Would it, could it, be the same? She had no idea. It looked like she was going to find out.

  Ike Buchanan let the moment play out. When he was certain it had, he held up an object. A videocassette. He said: “I want you two to see this.”

  7

  JESSICA, BYRNE, AND Ike Buchanan huddled in the cramped snack room that held a bank of small video monitors and VCRs. After a few moments, a third man entered.

  “This is Special Agent Terry Cahill,” Buchanan said. “Terry is on loan from the FBI’s task force on urban crime, but just for a few days.”

  Cahill was in his midthirties. He wore the standard-issue navy-blue suit, white shirt, burgundy-and-blue-striped tie. He was fair-haired, combed and collegial, good-looking in a J.-Crew-catalog, buttondown kind of way. He smelled like strong soap and good leather.

  Buchanan finished the introductions. “This is Detective Jessica Balzano.”

  “Nice to meet you, Detective,” Cahill said.

  “Same here.”

  “This is Detective Kevin Byrne.”

  “Good to meet you.”

  “My pleasure, Agent Cahill,” Byrne said.

  Cahill and Byrne shook hands. Cool, mechanical, professional. You could slice the interagency rivalry with a rusty butter knife. Cahill then turned his attention back to Jessica. “You’re the boxer?” he asked.

  She knew what he meant, but still it sounded funny. Like she was a dog. You’re the schnauzer? “Yes.”

  He nodded, apparently impressed.

  “Why do you ask?” Jessica asked. “Plan on getting out of line, Agent Cahill?”

  Cahill laughed. He had straight teeth, a single dimple on the left. “No, no. I’ve just done a little boxing myself.”

  “Professional?”

  “Nothing like that. Golden Gloves mostly. Some in the service.”

  Now it was Jessica’s turn to be impressed. She knew what it took to square off in the ring.

  “Terry is here to observe and make recommendations to the task force,” Buchanan said. “The bad news is that we need the help.”

  It was true. Violent crime, across the board, was up in Philadelphia. Still, there wasn’t an officer in the department who wanted any outside agencies butting in. Observe, Jessica thought. Right.

  “How long have you been with the bureau?” Jessica asked.

  “Seven years.”

  “Are you from Philadelphia?”

  “Born and raised,” Cahill said. “Tenth and Washington.”

  The whole time, Byrne just stood back, listening, observing. This was his style. On the other hand, he’d been on the job more than twenty years, Jessica thought. He had a lot more experience distrusting feds.

  Sensing a territorial skirmish, good-natured or otherwise, Buchanan inserted the tape into one of the VCRs and hit PLAY.

  After a few seconds, a black-and-white image rolled to life on one of the monitors. It was a feature film. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, the 1960 film starring Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh. The picture was a little grainy, the video signal blurry around the edges. The scene that was cued up on the tape was well into the film, beginning where Janet Leigh, having checked into the Bates Motel, and having shared a sandwich with Norman Bates in his office, was preparing to take a shower.

  As the film unspooled, Byrne and Jessica glanced at each other. It was clear that Ike Buchanan wouldn’t have called them in for a horror classic morning matinee but, at the moment, neither detective had the slightest clue what this was all about.

  They continued to watch as the movie rolled on. Norman removing the oil painting from the wall. Norman peeking through the crudely cut hole in the plaster. Janet Leigh’s character—Marion Crane—undressing, slipping on her robe. Norman walking up to the Bates house. Marion stepping into the bathtub and shutting the curtain.

  Everything seemed normal until there was a glitch in the tape, the type of slow, vertical roll produced by a crash edit. For a second the screen went black; then a new image appeared. It was immediately clear that the movie had been recorded over.

  The new shot was static, a high-angle view of what looked like a motel bathroom. The wide-angle lens showed a sink, toilet, bathtub, a tile floor. The light level was low, but there was enough brightness thrown by the fixture above the mirror to illuminate the room. The black-and-white image had a coarse look to it, like the image produced by a webcam or an inexpensive camcorder.

  As the tape continued, it appeared that someone was in the shower with the curtain pulled closed. The ambient sound on the tape yielded the faint noise of water running, and every so often the shower curtain billowed out with the movement of whoever was standing in the tub. A shadow danced on the translucent plastic. Beneath the sound of the water was a young woman’s voice. She was singing a song by Norah Jones.

  Jessica and Byrne looked at each other again, this time with the knowledge that this was one of those situations when you know you are watching something you shouldn’t be seeing, and by the very fact that you were watching it, something bad was imminent. Jessica glanced at Cahill. He seemed riveted. A vein pulsed in his temple.

  On the screen, the camera remained stationary. Steam emerged from above the shower curtain, slightly blurring the top quarter of the picture with condensation.

  Then, suddenly, the bathroom door opened and a figure entered. The slender person appeared to be an elderly woman with gray hair pulled back into a bun. She wore a flower-print calf-length housedress and a dark cardigan sweater. She held a large butcher knife. The woman’s face was not visible. The woman had a man’s shoulders, a man’s deportment and bearing.

  After a few seconds’ hesitation the figure drew back the curtain, and it became clear that there was a naked young woman in the shower, but the angle was too steep, and the picture quality too poor, to even begin to ascertain what she looked like. From this vantage, all that could be determined was that the young woman was white and probably in her twenties.

  Instantly the reality of what they were watching settled upon Jessica like a pall. Before she could react, the knife held by the shadowy figure descended upon the woman in the shower over and over, ripping at her flesh, slicing her chest, arms, stomach. The woman screamed. Blood spouted, splashing the tile. Gobbets of torn tissue and muscle slapped the walls. The figure continued to viciously stab the young woman, over and over and over, until she slumped to the floor of the tub, her body a horrible crosshatch of deep, gaping wounds.

  Then, as quickly as it began, it was over.

  The old woman ran from the room. The showerhead washed the blood down the drain. The young woman didn’t move. A few seconds later there was a second crash edit, and the original movie resumed. The new image was the extreme close-up of Janet Leigh’s right eye as the camera began to turn and move backward. The film’s original soundtrack soon returned to Anthony Perkins’s chilling scream from the Bates house:

  Mother! Oh God Mother! Blood! Blood!

  When Ike Buchanan shut off the tape, silence embraced the small room for nearly a full minute.

  They had just witnessed a murder.


  Someone had videotaped a brutal, savage killing and inserted it into the precise place in Psycho where the shower scene murder occurred. They had all seen enough true carnage to know that this was not some special-effects footage. Jessica said it out loud.

  “This is real.”

  Buchanan nodded. “It sure looks like it. What we just watched is a dubbed copy. AV is going over the original tape now. It’s of a little better quality, but not much.”

  “Is there any more of this on the tape?” Cahill asked.

  “Nothing,” Buchanan said. “Just the original movie.”

  “Where is this tape from?”

  “It was rented at a small video store on Aramingo,” Buchanan said.

  “Who brought it in?” Byrne asked.

  “He’s in A.”

  THE YOUNG MAN sitting in Interview Room A was the color of sour milk. He was in his early twenties, had close-cropped dark hair, pale amber eyes, fine features. He wore a lime-green Polo shirt and black jeans. His 229—a brief report detailing his name, address, place of employment—revealed that he was a student at Drexel University and worked two part-time jobs. He lived in the Fairmount section of North Philadelphia. His name was Adam Kaslov. The only prints on the videotape were his.

  Jessica entered the room, introduced herself. Kevin Byrne and Terry Cahill observed through the two-way mirror.

  “Can I get you anything?” Jessica asked.

  Adam Kaslov offered a thin, bleak smile. “I’m okay,” he said. There was a pair of empty Sprite cans on the scarred table in front of him. He had a piece of red cardboard in his hands, twisting it and untwisting it.

  Jessica placed the Psycho videocassette box on the table. It was still in a clear plastic evidence bag. “When did you rent this?”

  “Yesterday afternoon,” Adam said, his voice a little shaky. He had no police record and this was, perhaps, the first time he had ever been in a police station. A Homicide Unit interrogation room no less. Jessica had made sure to leave the door open. “Maybe three o’clock or so.”

  Jessica glanced at the label on the tape housing. “And you got this at The Reel Deal on Aramingo?”