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

by Richard Montanari

  Jessica and Byrne both snapped on a pair of latex gloves. They checked the doorjambs, doorknobs, switch plates, looking for visible blood evidence. Given the amount of blood generated by the murder on the videotape, the possibility of splatters and smears throughout the motel room was great. They found none. None that was visible to the naked eye, that is.

  They entered the bathroom, flipped on the light. After a few seconds, the fluorescent fixture over the mirror flickered to life, settling into a loud hum. For a moment, Jessica’s stomach lurched. The room was identical to the bathroom on the Psycho tape.

  Byrne, at six three, looked at the top of the shower rod with relative ease. “Nothing here,” he said.

  They poked around the small bathroom—lifting the toilet seat, running a gloved finger around the drain in both the tub and the sink, checking the grout in the tile around the tub as well as in the folds of the shower curtain. No blood.

  They repeated the procedure in room eight, with similar results.

  When they entered room ten, they knew. It was nothing obvious, or even something that most people would have noticed. They were seasoned police officers. Evil had walked here, and the malevolence all but whispered to them.

  Jessica flipped on the light in the bathroom. This bathroom had been recently cleaned. There was a slight film on everything, a thin layer of grit left from too much cleanser and not enough rinse water. They had not found this coating in the other two bathrooms.

  Byrne checked the top of the shower rod.

  “Bingo,” he said. “We’ve got our tag.”

  He held up the still photograph taken from the freeze-frame of the video. It was identical.

  Jessica followed the sight line from the top of the shower rod. On the wall, where the camera must have been mounted, was an exhaust fan, located just a few inches from the ceiling.

  She retrieved the desk chair from the other room, dragged it into the bathroom, stood on it. The exhaust fan had clearly been tampered with. Some of the enamel paint was chipped away from the two screws that held it in place. It appeared that the grate had recently been removed and replaced.

  Jessica’s heart began to race with that special rhythm. There was no other feeling in law enforcement like it.

  TERRY CAHILL STOOD near his car in the Rivercrest Motel parking lot, talking on his cell phone. Detective Nick Palladino, who was now assigned to the case, began a canvass of the few neighboring businesses as they waited for the Crime Scene Unit. Palladino was about forty, roughly handsome, old-school South Philly Italian—meaning he ate his salad at the end of the meal, had a copy of Bobby Rydell’s greatest hits in the tape deck in his car, and didn’t take down his Christmas lights before Valentine’s Day. He was also one of the best detectives in the unit.

  “We need to talk,” Jessica said, approaching Cahill. She noticed that, even though he was standing directly in the sun, and the temperature had to be in the mideighties, he had his suit coat on, tie up, and there wasn’t a single drop of sweat on his face. Jessica was ready to dive into the nearest pool. Her clothes were sticky with perspiration.

  “I’ll have to get back to you,” Cahill said into the phone. He closed it, turned to Jessica. “Sure. What’s up?”

  “You want to tell me what’s going on here?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “It was my understanding that you were here to observe and make recommendations to the bureau.”

  “That’s correct,” Cahill said.

  “Then why were you down in the AV Unit before we were briefed on the tape?”

  Cahill looked at the ground for a moment, sheepish, caught. “I’ve always been a bit of a video nut,” he said. “I’d heard you have a very good AV Unit and I wanted to see for myself.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you cleared these things with me or Detective Byrne in the future,” Jessica said, already feeling the anger begin to diminish.

  “You’re absolutely right. It won’t happen again.”

  She really hated it when people did that. She had been ready to go upside his head, and he instantly took all the wind out of her sails. “I’d appreciate it,” she repeated.

  Cahill glanced around the area, letting his scolding dissipate. The sun was high and hot and merciless. Before the moment became awkward, he waved a hand in the general direction of the motel. “This is really good casework, Detective Balzano.”

  God, the feds were arrogant, Jessica thought. She didn’t need him to tell her that. The break had come from Mateo’s good work with the tape, and they had simply followed up. On the other hand, maybe Cahill was just trying to be pleasant. She looked at his earnest face, thinking: Lighten up, Jess.

  “Thanks,” she said. And left it at that.

  “Ever think about the bureau as a career?” he asked.

  She wanted to tell him that it would be her second choice, right after monster truck driver. Besides, her father would kill her. “I’m pretty happy where I am,” she said.

  Cahill nodded. His cell phone rang. He held up a finger, answered. “Cahill. Yes, hi.” He glanced at his watch. “Ten minutes.” He closed the phone. “Got to run.”

  There goes the investigation, Jessica thought. “So we have an understanding?”

  “Absolutely,” Cahill said.

  “Okay.”

  Cahill got into his fed car, slipped on his fed aviator sunglasses, tossed a fed smile her way, and, observing all traffic laws—state and local—pulled onto Dauphin Street.

  AS JESSICA AND Byrne watched the Crime Scene Unit unload their equipment, Jessica thought of the popular television show Without a Trace. Criminalists loved that term. There was always a trace. The officers in the CSU lived for the fact that nothing ever vanished completely. Burn it, soak it, bleach it, bury it, wipe it down, chop it up. They’d find something.

  Today, along with the other standard crime scene procedures, they were going to perform a Luminol test in the bathroom of room ten. Luminol was a chemical that revealed blood traces by causing a light-producing chemical reaction with hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying element in blood. If trace blood evidence was present, Luminol, when viewed under a black light, would produce a chemiluminescence, the same phenomenon that causes fireflies to glow.

  In short order, with the bathroom dusted for prints and photographs taken, the CSU officer began to spritz the liquid on the tile surrounding the tub. Unless the room had been washed down repeatedly with scalding-hot water and bleach, blood evidence would remain. When the officer was finished, he plugged in the UV arc lamp.

  “Lights,” he said.

  Jessica flipped off the bathroom light, closed the bathroom door. The CSU officer turned on the black light.

  In an instant, they had their answer. There was no trace evidence of blood on the floors, the walls, the shower curtain or the tile, no minute telltale specks of evidence.

  There was blood everywhere.

  They had found the killing ground.

  “WE’RE GOING TO need the registration records for that room for the past two weeks,” Byrne said. They were back in the motel’s office and, for any number of reasons—not the least of which was that there were now a dozen members of PPD at his formerly quiet place of illicit business—Karl Stott was sweating big time. The small, cramped space had taken on an acrid, monkey-house smell.

  Stott glanced at the floor, back up. It looked like he was going to disappoint these very scary cops, and that notion seemed to be making him ill. More sweat. “Well, we don’t really keep detailed records, if you know what I mean. Ninety percent of the people who sign the register are named Smith, Jones, or Johnson.”

  “Is every rental on the books?” Byrne asked.

  “What … what do you mean?”

  “I mean, do you sometimes let friends or acquaintances use these rooms off the books?”

  Stott looked shocked. The crime scene techs had examined the lock on the door to room ten and determined it had not recently been jimmied or picke
d. Anyone entering that room recently had used a key.

  “Of course not,” Stott said, indignant at the suggestion he might be guilty of petty larceny.

  “We’ll need to see your credit card receipts,” Byrne said.

  He nodded. “Sure. No problem. But as you might expect, this is mostly a cash business.”

  “Do you remember renting these rooms?” Byrne asked.

  Stott ran a hand over his face. It was clearly Miller time for him. “They all kind of look alike to me. And I’ve got a bit of a, well, drinking problem, okay? I ain’t proud of it, but there it is. By ten o’clock I’m in my cups.”

  “We’d like you to come down to the Roundhouse tomorrow,” Jessica said. She handed Stott a card. Stott took it, his shoulders sagging.

  Cops.

  Out front, Jessica drew a time line on her notepad. “I think we’ve got the time frame down to a ten-day window. These shower rods were installed two weeks ago, which means that between the time Isaiah Crandall returned Psycho to The Reel Deal and Adam Kaslov rented it, our doer got the tape off the shelf, rented this motel room, committed the crime, and got it back on the shelf.”

  Byrne nodded in agreement.

  In the next few days they would be able to narrow this down further, based on the results of the blood evidence. In the meantime, they would start with the missing-person database and see if there was someone matching the general description of the victim on the tape, someone who hadn’t been seen in a week.

  Before returning to the Roundhouse, Jessica turned and looked at the door to room ten.

  A young woman had been murdered in this place, and a crime that might have gone undetected for weeks or maybe months was, if their calculations were correct, only a week or so old.

  The madman who did this might have thought he had a pretty good lead on the dumb old cops.

  He was wrong.

  The chase was on.

  14

  THERE IS A moment in Double Indemnity, the great Billy Wilder noir based on the novel by James M. Cain, when Phyllis, played by Barbara Stanwyck, looks at Walter, played by Fred MacMurray. The moment comes when Phyllis’s husband unwittingly signs an insurance form, thereby sealing his fate. His untimely death, by certain means, would now produce an insurance settlement that was twice the normal payoff. A double indemnity.

  There is no great music cue, no dialogue. Just a look. Phyllis looks at Walter with a secret knowledge—and no small measure of sexual tension—and they know they have just crossed a line. They have reached a point of no return, after which they will be murderers.

  I am a murderer.

  There is no denying or escaping that now. No matter how long I live, or what I do with the rest of my life, this will be my epitaph.

  I am Francis Dolarhyde. I am Cody Jarrett. I am Michael Corleone.

  And I have much to do.

  Will any of them see me coming?

  Perhaps.

  Those who accept their guilt, yet refuse their penance, might feel me approach, like an icy breath on the nape of their necks. And it is for this reason I must be careful. It is for this reason I must move through the city like a ghost. The city might think that what I am doing is random. It is anything but.

  “It’s right here,” she says.

  I slow the car.

  “It’s kind of a mess inside,” she adds.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” I say, knowing full well that it will soon get messier. “You should see my place.”

  She smiles as we pull into her driveway. I glance around. No one is watching.

  “Well, here we are,” she says. “Ready?”

  I smile back, turn off the engine, touch the bag on the seat. The camera is inside, batteries charged.

  Ready.

  15

  “HEY, HANDSOME.”

  Byrne took a quick breath, braced himself before turning around. It had been awhile since he had seen her, and he wanted his face to reflect the warmth and affection he truly felt for her, not the shock and surprise most people revealed.

  When Victoria Lindstrom arrived in Philadelphia from Meadville, a small town in northwestern Pennsylvania, she had been a vibrant seventeen-year-old beauty. Like a lot of pretty girls who made the journey, at that time her fantasy was to become a model, to live the American dream. Like many of these girls, the dream quickly turned sour, becoming instead the grim nightmare of urban street life. The street was Victoria’s introduction to a violent man who would all but destroy her life. A man named Julian Matisse.

  For a young woman like Victoria, Matisse had possessed a certain enameled charm. When she refused his repeated advances, he followed her home one night, to the two-room apartment on Market Street she shared with her cousin Irina. Matisse stalked her, on and off, for weeks.

  And then one night he attacked.

  Julian Matisse had cut Victoria’s face with a box cutter, jigsawing her perfect flesh into a rough topography of gaping wounds. Byrne had seen the crime scene photographs. The amount of blood was staggering.

  After nearly a month in the hospital, with her face still heavily bandaged, she had bravely testified against Julian Matisse. He received a sentence of ten to fifteen years.

  The system being what it was, and still is, Matisse was released after forty months. His grim handiwork lasted much longer.

  Byrne had first met her in her late teens, not long before she met Matisse; he had seen her literally stop traffic one day on Broad Street. With her silver eyes and raven hair and lucent skin, Victoria Lindstrom was once a stunningly beautiful young woman. She still was, if you could look past the horror. Kevin Byrne found that he could. Most men could not.

  Byrne struggled to get to his feet, reaching for the cane halfway up, the pain shrieking through his body. Victoria put a gentle hand on his shoulder, leaned over, kissed him on the cheek. She eased him back down into the chair. He let her. For a brief moment, Victoria’s perfume filled him with a potent mixture of desire and nostalgia. It brought him back to the first time they had met. They had both been so young then, and life had yet to sling its arrows.

  Now they were on the second-floor food court of Liberty Place, the office and shopping complex at Fifteenth and Chestnut streets. Byrne’s tour had officially ended at six o’clock. He had wanted to follow the Rivercrest Motel blood evidence for a few more hours, but Ike Buchanan had ordered him off duty.

  Victoria sat down. She wore tight faded jeans and a fuchsia silk blouse. If time and tide had brought a few small crinkles to the corners of her eyes, they’d done nothing to her figure. She looked as trim and sexy as the first time they’d met.

  “I read about you in the papers,” she said, opening her coffee. “I was very sorry to hear of your troubles.”

  “Thank you,” Byrne replied. In the past few months, he had heard this many times. He had stopped reacting to it. Everyone he knew—well meaning, all—had a different term for it. Troubles, incident, accident, confrontation. He had been shot in the head. That was the reality. He guessed most people had trouble saying Hey, I heard you were shot in the head. You okay?

  “I wanted to … get in touch,” she added.

  Byrne had heard this many times, too. He understood. Life flowed. “How have you been, Tori?”

  She butterflied her hands. Not bad, not good.

  Byrne heard giggling nearby, derisive laughter. He turned to see a pair of teenaged boys sitting a few tables away, wannabe bangers, suburban white kids in the standard baggy hip-hop drag. They kept glancing over, mimicking horror-mask faces. Perhaps the presence of Byrne’s cane meant they believed he was no threat. They were wrong.

  “I’ll be right back,” Byrne said. He started to rise, but Victoria put a hand on his arm.

  “It’s okay,” she said.

  “No it isn’t.”

  “Please,” she said. “If I got upset every time … “

  Byrne turned fully in his chair, glared at the punks. They held his gaze for a few seconds, but w
ere no match for the cold green fire of his eyes. None but the hardest of the hard cases were. A few seconds later, they seemed to understand the wisdom of leaving. Byrne watched them walk the length of the food court, then get on the escalators. They didn’t even have the balls to take one final shot. Byrne turned back to Victoria. He found her smiling at him. “What?”

  “You haven’t changed,” she said. “Not one bit.”

  “Oh, I’ve changed.” Byrne gestured to the cane. Even that simple movement brought a sword of agony.

  “No. You are still gallant.”

  Byrne laughed. “I’ve been called many things in my life. Never gallant. Not once.”

  “It’s true. Do you remember how we met?”

  Like it was yesterday, Byrne thought. He was working vice out of Central when they got the call to raid a massage parlor in Center City.

  When they rounded up the girls that night, Victoria had descended the steps into the front room of the row house wearing a blue silk kimono. She had taken his breath away, along with that of every other man in the room.

  A detective—a weasel-faced little shit with bad teeth and worse breath—made a derogatory remark about Victoria. Although he would have been hard-pressed to explain why at the time, or even now, Byrne had braced the man against a wall so hard that the drywall had caved in. Byrne didn’t remember the detective’s name, but he could easily recall the color of Victoria’s eye shadow that day.

  Now she counseled runaways. Now she talked to girls who had stood in her shoes fifteen years earlier.

  Victoria stared out the window. The sunlight highlighted the bas-relief network of scars on her face. My God, Byrne thought. The pain she must have endured. A deep anger at the brutality of what Julian Matisse did to this woman began to rise within him. Again. He battled it back.