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

by Richard Montanari

  Sometimes Jessica hated the way cops thought. She’d been guilty of it herself in the past, the abbreviated notes you wrote to yourself in a case file, with the intention of fleshing them out at a later date. Detectives’ notebooks always went into evidence, and the thought that a case might hang on something you wrote in a hurry at a red light while balancing a cheeseburger and a cup of coffee in the other hand was always a challenge.

  But, when Walt Brigham had made these notes, he had no idea another detective would one day be reading and trying to make sense of them—a detective investigating his homicide.

  Jessica flipped over the first photograph again. Just those five numbers. The numbers 195 followed by what might have been a 72 or a 78. Perhaps 18.

  Did the farmhouse have something to do with Walt’s murder? It was dated a few days before his death.

  Gee thanks, Walt, Jessica thought. You go and get yourself killed and you leave the investigating detectives a Sudoku puzzle to figure out.

  195.

  ADC.

  Nicci stepped back in, handed Jessica her phone.

  “That was the lab,” she said. “We struck out on Walt’s car.”

  Square one, forensically speaking, Jessica thought.

  “But they told me to tell you that the lab ran some further tests on the blood found on your multiples,” Nicci added.

  “What about it?”

  “They said the blood is old.”

  “Old?” Jessica asked. “What do you mean, old?”

  “Old as in whoever it belonged to has probably been dead a long time.”

  67

  Roland wrestled with the devil. And while it was a daily occurrence for a man of faith such as himself, today the devil had him in a headlock.

  He had looked at all the photos at the police station, hoping for a sign. He had seen so much evil in those eyes, so many blackened souls. All of them spoke to him of their deeds. None had spoken of Charlotte.

  But it could not be coincidence. Charlotte had been found on the bank of the Wissahickon, posed as if she had been some doll in a story.

  And now the river killings.

  Roland knew that the police would eventually catch up with Charles and him. He had been blessed all these years, blessed with his stealth, his righteous heart, his endurance.

  He would receive a sign. He was sure of it.

  The good Lord knew that time was of the essence.

  “I’VE NEVER BEEN able to go back down there.”

  Elijah Paulson was telling the harrowing tale of the time he had been assaulted while walking home from the Reading Terminal Market.

  “Maybe one day, with the Lord’s blessing, I will be able to. But not now,” Elijah Paulson said. “Not for a good long while.”

  This day the victim’s group had only four participants. Sadie Pierce, as always. Old Elijah Paulson. A young woman named Bess Schrantz, a North Philly waitress whose sister had been brutally assaulted. And Sean. He sat outside the group, as he often did, listening. But this day there seemed to be something churning beneath his surface.

  When Elijah Paulson sat down, Roland turned to Sean. Perhaps at last this was the day that Sean was ready to tell his story. A hush fell upon the room. Roland nodded. After a minute or so of fidgeting, Sean stood, began.

  “My father left us when I was small. When I was growing up it was just my mother, my sister, and myself. My mother worked at a mill. We didn’t have a lot, but we got by. We had each other.”

  The members of the group nodded. No one here was well off.

  “One summer day we went to this small amusement park. My sister loved to feed the pigeons and the squirrels. She loved the water, the trees. She was gentle that way.”

  As Roland listened, he could not bring himself to look at Charles.

  “That afternoon she wandered off, and we couldn’t find her,” Sean continued. “We looked everywhere. Then it got dark. Later that night they found her in the woods. She … she had been killed.”

  A murmur skirted the room. Words of sympathy, sorrow. Roland found that his hands were trembling. Sean’s story was nearly his own.

  “When did this happen, Brother Sean?” Roland asked.

  After taking a moment to compose himself, Sean said, “This was in 1995.”

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER the meeting wrapped with a prayer and a blessing. The faithful filed out.

  “Bless you,” Roland said to all of them at the door. “See you on Sunday.” The last person through was Sean. “Do you have a few moments, Brother Sean?”

  “Sure, Pastor.”

  Roland closed the door, stood in front of the young man. A few long moments later, he asked, “Do you know what an important day this has been for you?”

  Sean nodded. It was clear that his emotions were not far from the surface. Roland took Sean in an embrace. Sean sobbed softly. When the tears ran their course, they broke the embrace. Charles crossed the room, handed Sean a box of tissues, retreated.

  “Can you tell me more about what happened?” Roland asked.

  Sean bowed his head for the moment. When he looked up, he glanced around the room and leaned forward, as if to share a secret. “We always knew who did it, but they never could find any evidence. The police, I mean.”

  “I see.”

  “Well, it was the sheriff ’s office that did the investigating. They said they never found enough evidence to arrest anyone.”

  “Where are you from exactly?”

  “It was near a little village called Odense.”

  “Odense?” Roland asked. “Like the town in Denmark?”

  Sean shrugged.

  “Does this person still live there?” Roland asked. “The person you suspected?”

  “Oh, yes,” Sean said. “I can give you the address. Or I can even show you, if you like.”

  “That would be good,” Roland said.

  Sean looked at his watch. “I have to work today,” he said. “But I can go tomorrow.”

  Roland glanced at Charles. Charles left the room. “That will be fine.”

  Roland walked Sean toward the door, his arm around the young man’s shoulders.

  “Did I do the right thing in telling you, Pastor?” Sean asked.

  “Oh my, yes,” Roland said, opening the door. “It was the right thing to do.” He held the young man in another deep embrace. He found that Sean was shaking. “I’ll take care of everything.”

  “Okay,” Sean said. “Tomorrow then?”

  “Yes,” Roland replied. “Tomorrow.”

  68

  In his dream they have no faces. In his dream they stand in front of him, statuary, statuesque, unmoving. In his dream he cannot see their eyes, but nevertheless knows they are looking at him, accusing him, demanding justice. Their silhouettes cascade into the fog, one after the other, a grim, unflinching still-life army of the dead.

  He knows their names. He recalls the position of their bodies. He remembers their smells, the way their flesh felt beneath his touch, the way their waxy skin, in death, did not respond.

  But he cannot see their faces.

  And yet their names echo in his dream-chamber of remembrance. Lisette Simon, Kristina Jakos, Tara Grendel.

  He hears a woman crying softly. It is Sa’mantha Fanning, and there is nothing he can do to help her. He sees her walking down the hallway. He follows, but with every step the corridor grows, lengthens, darkens. He opens the door at the end, but she is gone. In her place is a man carved of shadows. He draws his weapon, levels, aims, fires.

  Smoke.

  KEVIN BYRNE WOKE with a start, his heart pounding in his chest. He glanced at the clock. It was 3:50 AM. He looked around his bedroom. Empty. No specters, no ghosts, no shambling parade of corpses.

  Just the dream-sound of water, just the knowledge that all of them, all the faceless dead in the world, were standing in the river.

  69

  On the morning of the last day of the year the sun was bone pale. The weather forecast predi
cted a snowstorm.

  Jessica was off duty, but her mind was not. Her thoughts jumped from Walt Brigham to the three women found on the banks of the river to Sa’mantha Fanning. Sa’mantha had still not been found. The department did not hold out much hope that she was still alive.

  Vincent was on duty; Sophie was bundled off to her grandfather’s house for New Year’s Eve. Jessica had the place to herself. She could do whatever she wanted.

  So why was she sitting in her kitchen, nursing her fourth cup of coffee, thinking about the dead?

  At just after eight o’clock there was a knock at her door. It was Nicci Malone.

  “Hey,” Jessica said, more than a little surprised. “Come on in.”

  Nicci stepped inside. “Man, it’s cold.”

  “Coffee?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  THEY SAT AT the dining room table. Nicci had brought a number of files.

  “There’s something here you should see,” Nicci said. She was pumped.

  She opened a large envelope, took out a few photocopied pages. They were pages from Walt Brigham’s notebook. Not his official detective’s book, but a second, personal notebook. The last entry regarded the Annemarie DiCillo case, dated two days before Walt’s murder. The notations were in Walt’s now familiar cryptic hand.

  Nicci had also signed out the DiCillo PPD homicide case file. Jessica scanned it.

  Byrne had told Jessica about the case, but seeing the details made her sick. Two little girls at their birthday party in Fairmount Park in 1995. Annemarie DiCillo and Charlotte Waite. They had walked into the forest, and never walked out. How many times had Jessica taken her own daughter to the park? How many times had she taken her eyes off Sophie just for a second?

  Jessica looked at the crime-scene photographs. The girls were found near the base of a pine tree. Close up photographs showed what appeared to be a makeshift nest built around them.

  There were a few dozen witness statements from families that were in the park that day. No one seemed to have seen anything. The little girls were there one minute, and the next they were gone. Police were called at about 7 PM that evening, and a tender-age search was conducted, involving two officers and dogs from the K-9 unit. At 3 AM the next morning the girls were found near the bank of the Wissahickon Creek.

  Over the next few years there were periodic entries into the file, mostly from Walt Brigham, some from his partner John Longo. Each of the entries was similar. Nothing new.

  “Look.” Nicci took out the photographs of the farmhouse, flipped them over. On the back of one picture was the partial zip code. On the other were the three letters ADC. Nicci pointed to a timeline in Walt Brigham’s notes. Among the many bits of shorthand were the same letters: ADC.

  ADC was Annemarie DiCillo.

  A jolt of electricity shot through Jessica. The farmhouse had something to do with Annemarie’s murder. And Annemarie’s murder had something to do with Walt Brigham’s death.

  “Walt was getting close.” Jessica said. “He was murdered because he was closing in on the killer.”

  “Bingo.”

  Jessica considered the evidence and the theory. Nicci was probably right. “What do you want to do?” she asked.

  Nicci tapped the picture of the farmhouse. “I want to take a ride to Berks County. Maybe we can find this house.”

  Jessica was on her feet in an instant. “I’ll go with you.”

  “Aren’t you off duty?”

  Jessica laughed. “What’s off duty?”

  “It’s New Year’s Eve.”

  “As long as I’m home and in my husband’s arms by midnight, I’m good.”

  At just after 9 AM on December 31, Detectives Jessica Balzano and Nicolette Malone of the Philadelphia Police Department’s Homicide Division got on the Schuylkill Expressway. They headed to Berks County, Pennsylvania.

  They headed upriver.

  PART FOUR

  WHAT THE MOON SAW

  70

  You stand where the waters meet, at the confluence of two great rivers. The winter sun is low in a salt-colored sky. You choose a path, follow the smaller river north, winding among lyrical names and historic places—Bartram’s Garden, Point Breeze, Grays Ferry. You float past sullen row houses, past the majesty of the city, past Boathouse Row and the Museum of Art, past the train yards, the East Park Reservoir, and the Strawberry Mansion Bridge. You slide northwest, whispering in your wake ancient incantations—Miquon, Conshohocken, Wissahickon. You leave the city now, and hover among the phantoms of Valley Forge, Phoenixville, Spring City. The Schuylkill snakes into history, the nation’s remembrance. Yet still, it is the hidden river.

  You soon bid farewell to the river main, entering a haven of silence, a thin, meandering tributary heading southwest. The waterway narrows, widens, narrows again, a twisting tangle of rock and shale and water willow.

  Suddenly, from the silted winter mist appears a handful of buildings. A huge trellis spans the canal, once grand, now fallen into neglect and disrepair, its bright colors dour and flaked and dry.

  You see an old structure, at one time a proud boathouse. The fragrance of marine paint and varnish still lives in the air. You enter a room. It is a tidy place, a place of deep shadow and sharp angles.

  In this room you find a workbench. On the bench is an old, but sharp saw. Next to it, a coil of blue and white rope.

  You see a dress laid out on a daybed, waiting. It is a beautiful gown, pale strawberry in color, shirred to the waist. A dress for a princess.

  You continue, winding though a maze of narrow canals. You hear the echo of laughter, the lap of waves against small brightly colored boats. You smell the aroma of carnival foods—elephant ears, cotton candy, the glorious tang of sauerbraten on fresh seeded rolls. You hear the lilt of the calliope.

  And further on, further still, until all is silent again. Now it is a place of darkness. A place where graves chill the earth.

  It is here that Moon will meet you.

  He knows you are coming.

  71

  Throughout southeastern Pennsylvania there were small towns and villages scattered among the farms, most with just a handful of commercial enterprises, a pair of churches, a small school. In addition to growing cities like Lancaster and Reading there were bucolic villages like Oley and Exeter, hamlets virtually untouched by time.

  As they passed though Valley Forge, Jessica realized how much of her state she had not experienced. As much as she hated to admit it, she had been twenty-six before she had actually seen the Liberty Bell up close. She imagined it was like that for a lot of people who lived near history.

  THERE WERE MORE than thirty zip codes in Berks County. The area covered by the 195 zip code prefix covered a large area at the southeastern end of the county.

  Jessica and Nicci took a few back roads and began to ask about the farmhouse. They had debated involving local law enforcement in their quest, but things like that at times entailed red tape, jurisdictional issues. They kept it open, available as an option, but decided to do it on their own for the time being.

  They inquired at small shops, gas stations, the occasional roadside stands. They stopped at a church on White Bear Road. People were pleasant enough, but no one seemed to recognize the farmhouse, or have any idea where it was located.

  At noon the detectives took a road heading south through Robeson Township. A few wrong turns put them on a rough two-lane that wound through the woods. Fifteen minutes later they came upon an auto body and collision shop.

  The fields surrounding the enterprise were a necropolis of corroded vehicle shells—fenders and doors, long rusted bumpers, engine blocks, aluminum truck caps. To the right was an outbuilding; a sulking corrugated shed pitching at about a forty-five degree angle to the ground. Everything was overgrown, neglected, covered with gray snow and grime. If it hadn’t been for the lights in the windows—including a struggling neon sign advertising Mopar—the building would have looked derelict.

  Jessica
and Nicci pulled into the parking lot, itself populated with broken-down cars, vans, trucks. There was an RV on blocks. Jessica wondered if that was where the proprietor lived. A sign above the entrance to the garage read:

  DOUBLE K AUTO / TWICE THE VALUE

  An ancient, disinterested mastiff, chained to a pole, gave a cursory woof as they approached the main building.

  JESSICA AND NICCI entered. The three-bay garage was jammed with automotive debris. A greasy radio on the counter played Tim McGraw. The place smelled like WD40, grape candy, and old lunch meat.

  The bell on the door announced them, and after a few seconds two men approached. They were twins in their early thirties. They wore matching grimy blue overalls, had disheveled blond hair, blackened hands. Their nametags read KYLE and KEITH.

  Hence the Double K, Jessica suspected.

  “Hi,” Nicci said.

  Neither man answered. Instead, they slowly ran their eyes over Nicci, then Jessica. Nicci plowed ahead. She showed her ID, introduced herself. “We’re with the Philadelphia Police Department.”

  Both men pulled faces, mugging, mocking. They remained silent.

  “We’d like a few minutes of your time,” Nicci added.

  Kyle smiled a big yellow grin. “I’ve got all day for you, darlin’.”

  Here we go, Jessica thought.

  “We’re looking for a house that might be located around here,” Nicci said, unfazed. “I’d like to show you a few pictures.”

  “Oooo,” Keith said. “We like pitchers. Us country folk need pitchers cuzz’n we cain’t read.”

  Kyle snorted laughter.

  “Are they dirty pitchers?” he added.

  The two brothers bumped grimy fists.

  Nicci just stared for a moment, unblinking. She took a deep breath, regrouped, began again. “If you could just take a look at these, we’d really appreciate it. Then we’ll be on our way.” She held up a photograph. The two men glanced at it, went back to ogling.