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

by Richard Montanari

  “Man? Woman?”

  “Man, I think. It was still kind of dark.”

  “There was just the one person?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see a vehicle?”

  “No. No cars,” he said. “None I noticed, anyway.”

  The two abandoned vehicles were behind the building. They were not visible from the road. A third vehicle could have been back there.

  “Where was he standing?” Byrne asked.

  Pedersen pointed to a spot at the end of the lot, just above where the victim was found. “Right to the right of those trees.”

  “Closer to the river, or closer to the building?”

  “Closer to the river.”

  “Can you describe this person you saw?”

  “Not really. Like I said, it was still kind of dark and I couldn’t see too well. I wasn’t wearing my glasses.”

  “Exactly where were you when you first saw him?” Jessica asked.

  Pedersen pointed to an area a few feet away from where they stood.

  “Did you get any closer?” Jessica asked.

  “No.”

  Jessica glanced toward the river. You could not see the victim from that vantage point. “How long were you here?” she asked.

  Pedersen shrugged. “I don’t know. A minute or two. Had my Danish and coffee, walked back to the site to set up.”

  “What was this person doing?” Byrne asked.

  “Nothing, really.”

  “He didn’t move from where you saw him? He didn’t walk down toward the river?”

  “No,” Pedersen said. “But now that I think about it, it was a little weird.”

  “Weird?” Jessica asked. “Weird how?”

  “He was just standing there,” Pedersen said. “I think he was staring up at the moon.”

  7

  As they headed back to Center City, Jessica scrolled through the photographs on her digital camera, looking at each one on the small LCD screen. At that size, the young woman on the bank of the river looked like a doll posed in a miniature setting.

  A doll, Jessica thought. It was the first image she’d had when she saw the victim. The young woman looked like a porcelain doll on a shelf.

  Jessica had given Will Pedersen a business card. The young man promised to call if he remembered anything else.

  “What did you get from the driver?” Jessica asked.

  Byrne glanced at his notebook. “The driver is one Reese Harris. Mr. Harris is thirty-three, lives in Queen Village. He said he hits Flat Rock Road three or four mornings a week, now that those condos are going up. He said he always parks with the open side of the truck facing away from the river. Keeps the wind off the merchandise. He said he didn’t see anything.”

  Detective Joshua Bontrager, late of the Traffic Unit, armed with Vehicle Identification Numbers, was off to check on the two abandoned vehicles parked in the lot.

  Jessica scrolled through a few more pictures, looked up at Byrne. “What do you think?”

  Byrne ran a hand over his beard. “I think we have a sick son of a bitch running around Philly. I think we have to shut this fucker down fast.”

  Leave it to Kevin Byrne to break the case down to the essentials, Jessica thought. “Full-blown nut job?” she asked.

  “Oh, yeah. With icing.”

  “Why do you think she was posed on the bank? Why not just dump her in the river?”

  “Good question. Maybe she’s supposed to be looking at something. Maybe it’s a ‘special place.’ ”

  Jessica could hear the acid in Byrne’s voice. She understood. There were times, in their job, when you wanted to take the unique cases—the sociopaths some people in the medical community wanted to preserve and study and quantify—and throw them off the nearest bridge. Fuck your psychosis. Fuck your rotten childhood and your chemical imbalance. Fuck your whack-job mother who put dead spiders and rancid mayonnaise in your underwear. If you’re a PPD homicide cop and somebody kills a citizen on your beat, you’re going down—horizontal or vertical, it didn’t much matter.

  “Have you run across this amputation MO before?” Jessica asked.

  “I’ve seen it,” Byrne said, “but not as an MO. We’ll run it, see if anything flags.”

  She looked back at her camera’s screen, at the victim’s outfit. “What do you make of the dress? I suppose the doer dressed her like that.”

  “I don’t want to think about that yet,” Byrne said. “I really don’t. Not before lunch.”

  Jessica knew what he meant. She didn’t want to think about it either, but of course they both knew they would have to.

  DELAWARE INVESTMENT PROPERTIES, Inc. was in a freestanding building on Arch Street, a three-story steel and glass box with mirrored windows, and something resembling modern sculpture out front. The company employed about thirty-five people. Their main focus was buying and selling real estate, but in the past few years had branched out into riverfront development. At the moment, the prize in Philadelphia was the carrot of casino development, and it seemed that anyone with a Realtor’s license was rolling the dice.

  The man in charge of the Manayunk property was David Hornstrom. They met in his second-floor office. The walls were covered with pictures of Hornstrom on various mountaintops around the world, sunglasses in place, climbing gear in hand. One picture frame bore an MBA from Penn State.

  Hornstrom was in his late twenties, dark hair and eyes, well dressed and a little too confident, the poster boy for energetic junior executive types. He wore a two-button charcoal suit, expertly tailored, white shirt, blue silk tie. His office was small, but well appointed with contemporary furniture and furnishings. In one corner was a rather expensive-looking telescope. Hornstrom sat on the edge of his sleek metal desk.

  “Thanks for taking the time to see us,” Byrne said.

  “Always happy to help Philly’s finest.”

  Philly’s finest? Jessica thought. She didn’t know anyone under fifty who used that phrase.

  “When was the last time you were at the Manayunk property?” Byrne asked.

  Hornstrom reached over to a desk calendar. Considering the wide-screen monitor and desktop computer, you’d think he wouldn’t be using a paper calendar, Jessica mused. He looked the BlackBerry type.

  “About a week ago,” he said.

  “And you haven’t been back?”

  “No.”

  “Not even just to drive by and check on things?”

  “No.”

  Hornstrom’s answers were coming a little too fast and a little too pat, not to mention curt. Most people were at least somewhat rattled by a visit from the homicide police. Jessica wondered why this man was not.

  “The last time you were there, was there anything out of the ordinary?” Byrne asked.

  “Not that I noticed.”

  “Were those three abandoned vehicles on the lot?”

  “Three?” Hornstrom asked. “I remember two. Is there another one?”

  Byrne flipped back his notes, for effect. Old trick. This time it didn’t work. “You’re right. My mistake. Were the two vehicles there last week?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to make the call to get them towed. Is that something you guys can take care of for me? That would be super.”

  Super.

  Byrne glanced at Jessica, back. “We’re with the police department,” Byrne said. “I may have mentioned that earlier.”

  “Ah, okay.” Hornstrom leaned over, made a note on his calendar. “No problem at all.”

  Cocky little bastard, Jessica thought.

  “How long have the cars been there?” Byrne asked.

  “I really don’t know,” Hornstrom said. “The man who was handling that property recently left the company. I’ve only had the listing for a month or so.”

  “Is he still in the city?”

  “No,” Hornstrom said. “He’s in Boston.”

  “We’ll need his name and contact information.”

 
; Hornstrom hesitated a second. Jessica knew that if someone was going to start to resist this early in an interview, and over something seemingly minor, they might be in for a battle. On the other hand, Hornstrom did not look stupid. The MBA on his wall confirmed his education. Common sense? Another story.

  “That’s doable,” Hornstrom finally said.

  “Has anyone else from your company visited the property in the past week?” Byrne asked.

  “I doubt it,” Hornstrom said. “We have ten agents and over one hundred commercial sites in the city alone. If another agent had shown the property I would know about it.”

  “Have you shown the property recently?”

  “Yes.”

  Awkward moment number two. Byrne sat, pen poised, waiting for more information. He was the Irish Buddha. No one Jessica had ever met could outlast him. Hornstrom tried to match his gaze, failed.

  “I showed it last week,” Hornstrom finally said. “A commercial plumbing company out of Chicago.”

  “Do you think anyone from that company has been back?”

  “Probably not. They weren’t too interested. Besides, they would have called me.”

  Not if they were dumping a mutilated body, Jessica thought.

  “We’ll also need their contact information,” Byrne said.

  Hornstrom sighed, nodded. Whatever cool he may have projected at Center City happy hours, whatever Sporting Club macho he floated with the Brasserie Perrier crowd, he was no match for Kevin Byrne.

  “Who has keys to the building?” Byrne asked.

  “There are two sets. I have one, the other set is kept in a safe here.”

  “And everyone here has access?”

  “Yes, but like I said—”

  “When was the last time that building was operational?” Byrne asked, interrupting him.

  “Not for a few years.”

  “And all the locks were changed since then?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll need to look inside.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

  Byrne pointed to one of the photographs on the wall. “You’re a climber?”

  “Yeah.”

  In the photograph, Hornstrom stood alone on a mountaintop, with a bright blue sky behind him.

  “I’ve always wondered, is all this gear heavy?” Byrne asked.

  “Depends on what you bring,” Hornstrom said. “If it’s a one-day climb you can get away with the minimum. If you’re camping at base camps, it can get cumbersome. Tents, cooking gear, et cetera. But, for the most part, it’s designed to be as lightweight as possible.”

  “What do you call this?” Byrne pointed at the photograph, to a belt-like loop hanging from Hornstrom’s jacket.

  “That’s called a dogbone sling.”

  “It’s made out of nylon?”

  “I believe it’s called Dynex.”

  “Strong?”

  “Very strong,” Hornstrom said.

  Jessica knew where Byrne was headed with this line of apparently innocent, conversational questioning, even though the belt around the victim’s neck had been a light gray, and the sling in the photograph was a vibrant yellow.

  “Thinking about climbing, Detective?” Hornstrom asked.

  “God, no,” Byrne said with his most winning smile. “I have enough trouble with the stairs.”

  “You should try it sometime,” Hornstrom said. “It’s good for the soul.”

  “Maybe one of these days,” Byrne said. “If you can find me a mountain with an Applebee’s halfway up.”

  Hornstrom laughed his corporate laugh.

  “Now,” Byrne said, standing, buttoning his coat. “About getting into the building.”

  “Sure.” Hornstrom shot his cuff, looked at his watch. “I can meet you out there, say, around two o’clock. Would that be okay?”

  “Actually, now would be much better.”

  “Now?”

  “Yeah,” Byrne said. “Is that something you can take care of for us? That would be super.”

  Jessica stifled a laugh. Hornstrom, clueless, looked to her for help. He found none.

  “Can I ask what this is all about?” he asked.

  “Give me a ride, Dave,” Byrne said. “We’ll talk on the way.”

  BY THE TIME they reached the crime scene the victim had been moved to the medical examiner’s office on University Avenue. Tape circled the parking lot, down to the riverbank. Cars slowed, drivers gawked, were waved on by Mike Calabro. The food-service truck across the street was gone.

  Jessica watched Hornstrom closely as they ducked under the crime scene tape. If he was in any way involved in the crime, or had any knowledge of it whatsoever, there would almost certainly be a tell, a behavioral tic that would give him away. She saw nothing. He was either good or innocent.

  David Hornstrom unlocked the back door of the building. They stepped inside.

  “We can take it from here,” Byrne said.

  David Hornstrom held up a hand as if to say, “Whatever.” He pulled out his cell phone and dialed.

  THE LARGE FRIGID space was all but empty. A few fifty-gallon drums were scattered about, a few stacks of wooden pallets. Cold daylight peered in through the cracks in the plywood over the windows. Byrne and Jessica roamed the floor with their Maglites, the thin shafts of light being swallowed by the darkness. Because the space had been secure, there was no evidence of break-ins or squatting, no telltale signs of drug use—needles, foil, crack vials. Moreover, there was nothing to indicate a woman had been murdered in this building. In fact, there was little evidence that any sort of human activity had ever taken place in this building.

  Satisfied, at least for the moment, they met at the rear entrance. Hornstrom was just outside, still on his cell. They waited until he clicked off.

  “We may need to get back inside,” Byrne said. “And we’re going to have to seal the building for the next few days.”

  Hornstrom shrugged. “It’s not like the tenants are lining up,” he said. He glanced at his watch. “If there’s anything else I can do, please don’t hesitate to call.”

  The standard crock, Jessica thought. She wondered how cocky he would be if they dragged him down to the Roundhouse for a more detailed interview.

  Byrne gave David Hornstrom a business card and repeated his request for contact information for the previous agent. Hornstrom grabbed the card, jumped into his car, and sped away.

  The last image Jessica had of David Hornstrom was the license plate on his BMW as he turned onto Flat Rock Road.

  HORNEE1.

  Byrne and Jessica saw it at the same moment, looked at each other, then shook their heads and headed back to the office.

  BACK AT THE Roundhouse—the police administration building at Eighth and Race streets, where the homicide unit occupied part of the first floor—Jessica ran an NCIC and PDCH check on David Hornstrom. Clean as an operating room. Not even a moving violation in the past ten years. Hard to believe, considering his taste in fast cars.

  She then entered the victim’s information into the Missing Person database. She didn’t expect much.

  Unlike television cop shows, there was no twenty-four-to-forty-eight-hour waiting period when it came to missing persons. Usually, in Philadelphia, a person called 911 and an officer went to the house to take the report. If the missing person was ten years old or under, police immediately began what was called a “tender age search.” The officer directly searched the residence and any other residence at which the child lived, in the event of shared custody. Then each sector patrol car would be given the description of the child and began a grid method search for him or her.

  If the missing child was eleven to seventeen years old, a report with description and photo was taken by the first officer, and that report was taken back to the district to be put into the computer and sent to a national registry. If a missing adult was mentally challenged, the report was also quickly put into the computer, and sector searches were done.

&n
bsp; If the person was a regular Joe or Jane and just didn’t come home—as was probably the case with the young woman found on the riverbank—the report was taken, given to the detective division and the case was looked at again in five days, then again in seven days.

  And sometimes you got lucky. Before Jessica could pour herself a cup of coffee, there was a hit.

  “Kevin.”

  Byrne hadn’t even gotten his coat off yet. Jessica held the digital camera’s LCD screen next to the computer screen. On the computer screen was a missing person report with a photograph of a pretty blond woman. The picture was a little fuzzy, a driver’s license or state ID photo. On Jessica’s camera was a close-up of the victim’s face. “Is that her?”

  Byrne looked closely, from the computer screen to the camera, back. “Yeah,” he said. He pointed to the small beauty mark above the right side of the young woman’s upper lip. “That’s her.”

  Jessica scanned the report. The woman’s name was Kristina Jakos.

  8

  Natalya Jakos was a tall, athletic woman in her early thirties. She had dove gray eyes, smooth skin, and long, elegant fingers. Her dark hair was tipped with silver, cut into a pageboy style. She wore pale tangerine sweats and new Nikes. She had just returned from a run.

  Natalya lived in an older, well-kept brick twin row house on Bustleton Avenue in the Northeast.

  Kristina and Natalya were sisters, born eight years apart in Odessa, the coastal city in the Ukraine.

  Natalya had filed the missing person report.

  THEY MET IN the living room. On the mantel over the bricked-in fireplace was a number of small, framed pictures, mostly slightly out of focus, black-and-white snapshots of a family, posed in snow, on a sad-looking beach, around a dining table. One was of a pretty blond girl in a black-and-white checked sunsuit and white sandals. The girl was clearly Kristina Jakos.

  Byrne showed Natalya a close-up photograph of the victim’s face. The ligature was not visible. Natalya calmly identified her as her sister.

  “Again, we are terribly sorry for your loss,” Byrne said.