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

by Richard Montanari

  “Of course.”

  “I’m afraid it might sound a little strange.”

  “I am an inner-city priest,” Father Greg said. “Strange is pretty much my business.”

  “I have a question about the moon.”

  Silence. Jessica expected as much. Then: “The moon?”

  “Yes. When we spoke, you mentioned the Julian calendar,” Jessica said. “I was wondering if the Julian calendar addressed any issues relating to the moon, the lunar cycle, anything like that.”

  “I see,” Father Greg said. “Like I said, I’m not particularly scholarly on these matters, but I can tell you that, like the Gregorian calendar, which is also divided into months of irregular lengths, the Julian calendar is no longer synchronized to the phases of the moon. In fact, the Julian calendar is a purely solar calendar.”

  “So there is no particular significance given to the moon in Russian Orthodoxy or by the Russian people?”

  “I didn’t say that. There are many Russian folk tales and much Russian lore that address both the sun and the moon, but nothing I can think of regarding the phases of the moon.”

  “What sorts of folk tales?”

  “Well, one story in particular, one that is widely known, is the story called ‘The Sun Maiden and the Crescent Moon.’ ”

  “What is that?”

  “It is a Siberian folk tale, I believe. Maybe a Ket fable. Rather grotesque according to some.”

  “I’m an inner-city cop, Father. Grotesque is pretty much my business.”

  Father Greg laughed. “Well, ‘The Sun Maiden and the Crescent Moon’ is the story of a man who becomes the crescent moon, beloved of the Sun Maiden. Unfortunately—and this is the grotesque part—he is torn in half by the Sun Maiden and an evil sorceress as they fight over him.”

  “He’s torn in half?”

  “Yes,” Father Greg said. “And, as it turns out, the Sun Maiden got the half without the hero’s heart, and can only revive him for a week at a time.”

  “Sounds cheerful,” Jessica said. “This is a children’s story?”

  “Not all folk tales are for children,” the priest said. “I am sure there are other stories. I would be happy to ask around. We have many elderly parishioners. They will undoubtedly know much more than I do about these matters.”

  “I would really appreciate it,” Jessica said, mostly out of courtesy. She couldn’t imagine how any of this could be relevant.

  They said their good-byes. Jessica hung up the phone. She made a note to visit the Free Library and look up the story, as well as try to find a book of woodcuts or books dedicated to renderings of the moon.

  Her desk was covered with the photographs she had printed out from her digital camera, photographs taken at the Manayunk crime scene. Three dozen medium and close-up shots—the ligature, the crime scene itself, the building, the river, the victim.

  Jessica grabbed the pictures and stuffed them into her shoulder bag. She would look at them later. She had seen enough for today. She needed a drink. Or six.

  She glanced out the window. It was getting dark already. Jessica wondered if there would be a crescent moon this night.

  17

  There once lived a brave tin soldier, and he and all his brethren were cast from the same spoon. They dressed in blue. They marched in a line. They were feared and respected.

  Moon stands across the street from the alehouse, waiting for his tin soldier, patient as ice. The lights of the city, the lights of the season, sparkle in the distance. Moon idles in darkness, watching the tin soldiers come and go from the alehouse, thinking of the fire that would reduce them to tinsel.

  But this is not about the full box of soldiers—stacked and rigid and set at attention, tin bayonets fixed—just one. He is an aging warrior, still strong. It will not be easy.

  At midnight this tin soldier will open the snuffbox and meet his goblin. At that time, in that concluding moment, there will be just be him and Moon. There will be no other soldiers to help, no

  paper lady to grieve. The fire will be terrible and he will shed his tin tears.

  Will it be the fire of love?

  Moon holds the matches in his hand.

  And waits.

  18

  The crowd on the second floor of Finnigan’s Wake was fearsome. Assemble fifty or so cops in one room and you had the potential for serious mayhem. Finnigan’s Wake was a venerable institution on Third and Spring Garden streets, a celebrated Irish pub that drew officers from all districts, all parts of town. When you retired from the PPD there was a good a chance that your party would be held there. As well as your wedding reception. The catering at Finnigan’s Wake was as good as anywhere in the city.

  This night it was a retirement party for Detective Walter Brigham. After nearly four decades in law enforcement, he was turning in his papers.

  JESSICA SIPPED HER beer, glanced around the room. She had been a police officer for ten years, the daughter of one of the most renowned detectives in the past three decades, and the sound of dozens of cops swapping war stories in a bar had become a lullaby of sorts. More and more she was beginning to accept the fact that, regardless of what she thought, her friends were, and would probably always be, fellow officers.

  Sure, she still talked to her old classmates from the Nazarene Academy, and sometimes some of the girls from her old South Philly neighborhood—at least, those who had moved to the Northeast like she had. But for the most part, everyone she relied upon carried a gun and a badge. Including her husband.

  Even though it was a party for one of their own, there was not necessarily a sense of unity in the room. The space was dotted with clusters of officers talking amongst themselves, the largest being a faction of gold-badge detectives. And although Jessica had certainly paid her entrance fee into that group, she was not quite there yet. As in any other large organization there were always internal cliques, subgroups that banded together for a variety of reasons: race, gender, experience, discipline, neighborhood.

  The detectives were gathered at the far end of the bar.

  Byrne showed up at just after nine. And even though he knew just about every detective in the room, had come up the ranks with half of them, when he walked in the room he chose to stake the near end of the bar with Jessica. She appreciated it, but she still sensed that he would rather be in with that pack of wolves—old and young alike.

  BY MIDNIGHT, WALT Brigham’s party had entered the serious drinking stage. Which meant it had entered the serious storytelling stage. Twelve PPD detectives bunched around the end of the bar.

  “Okay,” Richie DiCillo began. “I’m in a sector car with Rocco Testa.” Richie was a lifer out of North Detectives. Now in his fifties, he had been one of Byrne’s rabbis early on.

  “This is 1979, right around the time those little battery-operated portable televisions came out. We’re up in Kensington, Monday Night Football is on, Eagles and Falcons. Close game, back and forth. About eleven o’clock we get this knock on the window. I look up. Chubby transvestite, full regalia—wig, nails, false eyelashes, spangle dress, high heels. Name was Charlise, Chartreuse, Charmoose, something like that. Used to call him Charlie Rainbow on the street.”

  “I remember him,” Ray Torrance said. “He went about five seven, two-forty? Different wig for every night of the week?”

  “That’s him,” Richie said. “You could tell what day it was by the color of his hair. Anyway, he has a busted lip, a black eye. Says his pimp beat the shit out of him, and he wants us to personally strap the asshole in the electric chair. After we cut off his nuts. Rocco and me look at each other, at the TV. The game is right at the two-minute warning. With the ads and shit we’ve got maybe three minutes, right? Rocco is out of the car like a shot. He brings Charlie around the back of the car, tells him we’ve got a brand-new system. Real high-tech. Says you can tell the judge your story, right from the street, and the judge will send a special squad to pick up the evildoer.”

  Jessica glanced at
Byrne, who shrugged, even though they both had a pretty good idea where this was going.

  “Of course Charlie loves this idea,” Richie said. “So Rocco takes the TV out of the car, finds a dead channel with just snow and wavy lines on it, puts it on the trunk. He tells Charlie to look right at the screen and talk. Charlie fixes his hair, makeup, like he’s going on the Tonight Show, right? He gets up really close to the screen, tells all the sordid details. When he’s done, he leans back, like all of a sudden a hundred sector cars are gonna come screaming down the street. Except, right at that second, the TV speaker crackles, like it’s picking up another station. Which it is. Except there’s a commercial on.”

  “Uh-oh,” somebody said.

  “A commercial for StarKist Tuna.”

  “No,” somebody else said.

  “Oh, yes,” Richie said. “Outta nowhere the TV says, loud as hell, ‘Sorry, Charlie.’ ”

  Roars around the room.

  “He thought it was the fuckin’ judge. Off like a shot down Frankford. Wigs and high heels and sequins flying. Never saw him again.”

  “I can top that story!” someone said, shouting over the laughter. “We’re running this sting in Glenwood …”

  And so the stories ran.

  Byrne glanced at Jessica. Jessica shook her head. She had a few stories of her own, but it was getting late. Byrne pointed at her nearly empty glass. “One more?”

  Jessica glanced at her watch. “Nah. I’m out,” she said.

  “Lightweight,” Byrne replied. He drained his glass, motioned to the barmaid.

  “What can I say? A girl needs her beauty sleep.”

  Byrne remained silent, rocked on his heels, bopped a bit to the music.

  “Hey!” Jessica yelled. She rammed a fist into his shoulder.

  Byrne jumped. Although he tried to mask the pain, his face betrayed him. Jessica knew how to throw a punch. “What?”

  “This is the part where you say, ‘Beauty sleep? You don’t need beauty sleep, Jess.’ ”

  “Beauty sleep? You don’t need beauty sleep, Jess.”

  “Jesus.” Jessica slipped on her leather coat.

  “I thought that was, you know, understood,” Byrne added, treading water, his expression a caricature of virtue. He rubbed his shoulder.

  “Nice try, Detective. You good to drive?” It was a rhetorical question.

  “Oh, yeah,” Byrne answered by rote. “I’m good.”

  Cops, Jessica thought. Cops could always drive.

  Jessica crossed the room, said her good-byes and good lucks. As she neared the door, she caught Josh Bontrager, standing by himself, smiling. His tie was askew; one pants pocket was turned out. He looked a little wobbly. When he saw Jessica, he extended a hand. They shook. Again.

  “You doing okay?” she asked.

  Bontrager nodded a little too forcefully, perhaps trying to convince himself. “Oh yeah. Fine. Fine. Fine.”

  For some reason Jessica was already feeling motherly about Josh. “Okay, then.”

  “Remember how I said I had heard all the jokes already?”

  “Yes.”

  Bontrager waved an inebriated hand. “Not even close.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Bontrager stood at attention. He saluted. More or less. “I’ll have you know that I have the distinct honor of being the very first Amishide detective in the history of the PPD.”

  Jessica laughed. “See you tomorrow, Josh.”

  On the way out she saw a detective she knew from South showing a picture of his infant grandson to another cop. Babies, Jessica thought.

  There were babies everywhere.

  19

  Byrne made himself a plate from the small buffet, put the food on the bar. Before he could take a bite, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned, saw the boozy eyes, the damp lips. Before Byrne knew it, Walt Brigham had him in a bear hug. Byrne found the gesture a little strange because they had never been that close. On the other hand, this was a special night for the man.

  They finally broke, did the manly, postemotional things: cleared throats, straightened hair, smoothed ties. Both men stepped back, scanned the room.

  “Thanks for coming, Kevin.”

  “Wouldn’t have missed it.”

  Walt Brigham was as tall as Byrne, a little round-shouldered. He had a thicket of pewter gray hair, a neatly trimmed mustache, big nicked hands. His ocean blue eyes had seen a lot, and all of it floated there.

  “Can you believe this collection of thugs?” Brigham asked.

  Byrne looked around. Richie DiCillo, Ray Torrance, Tommy Capretta, Joey Trese, Naldo Lopez, Mickey Nunziata. All longtimers.

  “How many sets of brass knuckles you figure there are in this room?” Byrne asked.

  “Counting mine?”

  Both men laughed. Byrne ordered a round for the two of them. The barmaid, Margaret, brought over a pair of drinks Byrne didn’t recognize.

  “What are these?” Byrne asked.

  “These are from the two young ladies at the end of the bar.”

  Byrne and Walt Brigham looked over. Two female patrol officers—fit and pretty and still in uniform, somewhere in their mid-twenties—stood at the end of the bar. They each raised a glass.

  Byrne looked back at Margaret. “You sure they meant us?”

  “Positive.”

  Both men looked at the concoction in front of them. “I give up,” Brigham said. “What are they?”

  “Jager Bombs,” Margaret said with a smile, the one that always signaled a challenge in an Irish pub. “Part Red Bull, part Jägermeister.”

  “Who the hell drinks this?”

  “All the kids,” Margaret said. “Gives them a boost so they can keep partying.”

  Byrne and Brigham looked at each other, mugged. They were Philly detectives, which meant they were nothing if not game. The two men raised their glasses in thanks. They both downed a few inches of the drink.

  “Holy shit,” Byrne said.

  “Slainte,” Margaret said. She laughed as she made her way back to the taps.

  Byrne glanced at Walt Brigham. He was handling the strange potion with a little more ease. Of course, he was knee-shot drunk already. Maybe the Jager Bomb would help.

  “Can’t believe you’re putting in your papers,” Byrne said.

  “It’s time,” Brigham said. “The street is no place for an old man.”

  “Old man? What are you talking about? Two twenty-somethings just bought you a drink. Pretty twenty-somethings, at that. Girls with guns.”

  Brigham smiled, but it sank fast. He got that remote look all retiring cops get. The look that all but shouted I’m never going to saddle up again. He spun his drink a few times. He started to say something, checked himself. Finally he said, “You never get them all, you know?”

  Byrne knew exactly what he meant.

  “There’s always that one case,” Brigham continued. “The one that won’t let you be.” He nodded across the room. At Richie DiCillo.

  “You’re talking about Richie’s daughter?” Byrne asked.

  “Yeah,” Brigham said. “I was the primary. Worked that case for two straight years.”

  “Oh, man,” Byrne said. “I didn’t know that.”

  Richie DiCillo’s nine-year-old daughter Annemarie had been found murdered in Fairmount Park in 1995. She had been attending a birthday party with a friend, who was also killed. The brutal case had made headlines in the city for weeks. The file was never closed.

  “Hard to believe all these years have passed,” Brigham said. “I’ll never forget that day.”

  Byrne glanced over at Richie DiCillo. He was telling another of his stories. When Byrne had met Richie, back in the Stone Age, Richie was a monster, a street legend, a drug cop to be feared. You said the name DiCillo on the streets of North Philadelphia with a hushed reverence. After his daughter was killed he got smaller somehow, an abridged version of his former self. These days, he was just going through the motions.

&nbs
p; “Ever catch a lead?” Byrne asked.

  Brigham shook his head. “Got close a few times. I think we interviewed everyone in the park that day. Must have got a hundred statements. No one ever came forward.”

  “What happened to the other girl’s family?”

  Brigham shrugged. “Moved away. Tried to track them down a few times. No luck.”

  “What about the forensics?”

  “Nothing. But that was back in the day. Plus there was that storm. It rained like crazy. Whatever might have been there was washed away.”

  Byrne saw the deep pain and regret in Walt Brigham’s eyes. He understood, having a folder of the bad ones tucked away on the blind side of his heart himself. He waited a minute or so, tried to change the subject. “So, what’s in the fire for you, Walt?”

  Brigham looked up, fixed Byrne with a stare he found a little unsettling. “I’m gonna get my license, Kevin.”

  “Your license?” Byrne asked. “Your private investigator license?”

  Brigham nodded. “I’m gonna start working the case on my own,” he said. He lowered his voice. “In fact, between you, me, and the barmaid, I’ve been working it off the books for a while now.”

  “Annemarie’s case?” Byrne had not expected this. He’d thought he was going to hear about some fishing boat, some RV plans, or maybe that standard setup that all cops have about one day buying a bar somewhere tropical—somewhere bikini-clad nineteen-year-old girls went to party on spring break—the plan on which no one ever seemed to pull the pin.

  “Yeah,” Brigham said. “I owe Richie. Hell, the city owes him. Think about it. His little girl is murdered on our beat and we don’t close it?” He slammed his glass on the bar, raised an accusatory finger to the world, to himself. “I mean, every year we pull the file, make a few notes, put it back. It ain’t fair, man. It ain’t fucking fair. She was just a kid.”

  “Does Richie know your plans?” Byrne asked.

  “No. I’ll tell him when the time is right.”

  For a minute or so they fell silent, listening to the chatter, the music. When Byrne looked back at Brigham, he saw that far-off look again, the shine in his eyes.