Before coming out of the crawlspace, Byrne had dry-swallowed a pair of Vicodin, his last two. He’d have to make a call.
The outside air was a mélange of acrid exhaust fumes and the rich tang of barbecue.
Still no rain.
“What do you think?” Jessica asked.
Byrne shrugged, stalling. His head seemed ready to implode. “Did you talk to the officer who discovered the victim?”
“I did.”
“Do you think she contaminated the scene in any way?”
Jessica shook her head. “No. She’s sharp. She’s young, but she knows what she’s doing.”
Byrne glanced back at the building. “So, why this place? Why here?”
“Good question.”
They were being led around North Philadelphia. There was no doubt about that, and few things made detectives angrier. Except, perhaps, having a murderer go underground and never get caught.
Who would do such a thing? After the killer’s rage had died, after the fire went out, why not dispose of the remains in plastic bags, or dump them in the river? Hell, Philadelphia had two very usable rivers for such purposes. Not to mention Wissahickon Creek. The PPD fished bodies, and parts of bodies, out of the rivers all the time.
Byrne had run into dismemberment a few times when the victim was killed by one of the various mobs in Philly—the Italians, the Colombians, the Mexicans, the Jamaicans. When it came to hyper-violent gangland homicide, all styles were served in the City of Brotherly Love.
But this had nothing to do with the mob.
Two runaways. One drowned, one dismembered.
Was there enough to tie this to the murder of Caitlin O’Riordan? They were a long way from getting any forensic details—hair, fibers, blood evidence, fingerprints—but the phone call to the CIU hotline and the cryptic clue in the Bible could not be ignored.
“This is one killer.”
“We don’t know that yet,” Byrne said, playing devil’s advocate.
Jessica uncrossed her arms, recrossed them. Now she tapped both forefingers on both biceps. “Yeah, well. I know we’re in the Badlands, partner, but this is beyond the pale. Way beyond.” She took off her sunglasses, tossed them into the car. “That was Monica Renzi’s heart. You know it and I know it. The DNA’s going to match. It’s going to hit the papers, and then hell will break its subterranean bonds.”
Byrne just nodded. She was probably right.
“Want to know what happened?” she continued. “I’ll tell you what happened. This sick bastard killed Monica, cut her up, stuck her in boxes, then put her heart in a jar and put it in that refrigerator. Then he put his psycho clue in that Bible, hoping we would figure out the Jeremiah Crosley ruse and we would come here to find his little treasure. We did. Now he’s out there having a good laugh at how clever he is.”
Byrne bought into the entire theory.
“He’s targeting runaways, Kevin. Lost kids. First this girl, then Caitlin. He just hid Monica Renzi a little too well. When no one found her, he had to ratchet up the game. He’s still out there and he’s going to do it again. Fuck him, fuck this job, and fuck this place.”
Byrne knew that his partner sometimes ran on emotion—she was Italian, it came with the genes—but he rarely saw her get this worked up at a scene. Stress eventually got to everyone. He put a hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”
“Oh, yeah. Top of the world, Ma.”
“Look. We’re going to get this freak. Let’s get the lab work back on this one. There are a million ways to fuck up with a crime like this. This guy may be evil, but he’s no genius. They never are.”
Jessica stared at the ground for a few moments, simmering, then reached into the car, pulled out a folder. She opened it, retrieved a sheet. “Look at this.”
She handed Byrne the paper. It was a photocopy of the activity log for the O’Riordan case.
“What am I looking for?”
She tapped the page. “These three names.” She pointed to a trio of names on the log. They were first names, nicknames at that, no last names. Three people who were interviewed on the day after Caitlin O’Riordan’s body was found. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.”
“What about them?” Byrne asked.
“They were interviewed back in May. Nothing was typed up, and the notes are missing.”
Byrne saw that all the interviews were conducted by Detective Freddy Roarke. The late Freddy Roarke. “You checked the binder?” he asked. “There’s no notes?”
“Nope. Not for these three people. Everything else is there. These notes are gone.”
As a rule, when a detective conducted a neighborhood survey, or an interview in the field, he or she made handwritten notes in their official notebook, which was called their work product. Most detectives also carried a personal notebook, which was not included in the file. The work product, when filled, was put in the binder, which was the official and only file on a homicide case. If a detective wrote notes for two or three different jobs, the pages would be torn out and placed in the corresponding file. If the interviews became important, they were typed up. If not, the notes became the only record of the interview.
“What about Freddy’s partner?” Jessica asked. “What was his name?”
“Pistone,” Byrne said. “Butchie Pistone.”
“Butchie. Jesus. You know him well?”
“Not well,” Byrne said. “He was kind of a hard-ass. He was a hotshot when I was coming up, but it all went to shit after he was involved in a questionable shoot. He was comatose near the end. Drinking on the job, chewing Altoids by the case.”
“Is he still around?”
“Yeah,” Byrne said. “He owns a bar on Lehigh.”
Jessica glanced at her watch, at the entrance to 4514 Shiloh Street. CSU was just getting started. “Let’s go talk to him.”
As they pulled away, a pair of news teams arrived on scene. This was going to make the evening news.
| TWENTY-EIGHT |
ROCCO “BUTCHIE” PISTONE HAD BEEN A PHILADELPHIA POLICE OFFICER for thirty years. In his time he had worked as a patrol officer in the Fifth District, as well as a detective in West Division before coming to homicide. When he retired, two months ago, he bought into the Aragon Bar on Lehigh Avenue, a tavern owned by his brother Ralph, also a retired cop. It was a halfway popular cop stop for the officers in the Twenty-sixth District.
Now in his sixties, Butchie lived above the tavern and, rumor had it, held court in the club a few nights per week, running a medium-stakes poker game in the basement.
Jessica and Byrne parked the car, walked the half block to the bar. The entrance to the apartment on the second floor was a doorway about twenty feet west of the entrance to the tavern.
As they approached, beefy white guys in their twenties—knit watch caps, sleeveless T-shirts, fingerless gloves. Two drank from brown paper bags. The smell of pot smoke was thick in the air. Real House of Pain types. A boom box on the sidewalk played some kind of budget white-boy rap. As Jessica and Byrne got closer—and it became clear that they were heading for the doorway—the three guys went a little chesty, like this was their piece of geography, their inch of Google Earth, that needed to be defended.
“Yo. Excuse me. Somethin’ I can help you with?” one asked. He was the smallest of the trio, but clearly the alpha male in this pack. Built like a Hummer. Jessica noted that he had a crucifix tattooed on the right side of his neck, just below the ear. The cross was a switchblade with a drop of blood on its tip. Charming.
“Yo?” Byrne said. “Who are you, Frank Stallone?”
The kid smirked. “Funny stuff.”
“It’s a living.”
The kid cracked his knuckles, one at a time. “I repeat. Somethin’ I can help you with?”
“I don’t believe there is,” Byrne said. “But thanks for asking.”
The biggest of the three, the one wearing a bright orange ski vest in eighty-degree weather, stepped into the doorway, bloc
king their access. “It wasn’t really a question.”
“And yet I answered,” Byrne said. “Must be my upbringing. Now, if you’ll step aside, we’ll go about our business, and you can go about yours.”
The big guy laughed. It was apparent that this was going to continue. He pushed a stiff finger into Byrne’s chest. “I don’t think you’re hearing me, Mick.”
Bad idea, Jessica thought. Very, very bad idea. She unbuttoned the front of her blazer, took a few steps back, flanking the other two.
In a flash, Byrne had the big goon by the right wrist. He brought the arm down, twisted it under, turned the young man around, jammed the arm skyward and slammed him face-first into the brick wall. Hard. The other two went on alert, but didn’t make a move. Not yet. Byrne hauled out the kid’s wallet, tearing a pants seam in the process. He tossed the billfold to Jessica. She opened it.
One of the other two thugs took a step toward Jessica. She flipped back the hem of her jacket without looking up. The butt of her Glock was exposed, along with the badge clipped to her belt. The punk backed off, hands out to his sides.
“What are you gonna do? Fuckin’ shoot me?”
“Just the once,” Jessica said. “They have us buying our own bullets now. It’s a cutback thing.” Jessica tossed the wallet back to Byrne. “This gentleman is one Flavio E. Pistone.”
Byrne patted the kid down, spun him back around. Flavio’s nose gushed blood. It might have been broken. Byrne stuffed the wallet into Flavio’s vest pocket, looked him in the eye. Inches away now. “I’m a police officer. You put your hands on me. That’s assault. That’s three to five. You don’t go home tonight.”
The kid tried to maintain eye contact, but he couldn’t hold on to Byrne’s gaze. Jessica had never seen anyone actually do it.
“My uncle’s an ex-cop,” Flavio said. The word cop came out gop. His nose was broken.
“He has my condolences,” Byrne said. “Now, Flavio, I can cuff you right here on the street, in front of your little Eminem social club, haul your ass down to the Roundhouse, or you can step aside.” Byrne stepped back, squared off. It was almost as if he wanted the kid to make a move. “Out of respect for your uncle, I’m willing to forget about this. But it’s your call. Anything else?”
Flavio smirked, but it didn’t play. He was clearly in a world of hurt, but doing his macho best not to show it. He shook his head.
“Good,” Byrne said. “It was nice meeting you. A true delight. Now get the fuck out of my way.”
Byrne stepped forward. The three thugs nervously shuffled to the side. Byrne opened the door, held it for Jessica. They entered the building, crossed the small lobby and headed up the stairs.
August, Jessica thought. It brings out the best in everybody. “Not bad for a guy with sciatica.”
“Yeah, well,” Byrne said. “We do what we can.”
BUTCHIE PISTONE WAS A SHORT squat man; thick arms and bull neck, navy tats on both forearms. He had a stubbly head and a boozer’s eyes, ringed with crimson. Liver spots dotted his hands.
They met in his small living room overlooking Lehigh Avenue. Butchie’s chair was right in front of the window. Jessica imagined him looking out onto the street all day, in his retirement, a street he used to patrol, watching the neighborhood go through its throes of change. Cops never strayed too far from the curb.
The room was stacked with cartons of liquor, napkins, swizzle sticks, Beer Nuts, sundry bar supplies. Jessica noticed that the man’s coffee table was actually two cases of Johnny Walker Black spanned with a piece of varnished plywood. The place smelled of cigarettes, citrus Glade, frozen dinners. The sounds of the bar drifted up from the floorboards—jukebox, inebriated laughter, ringtones, pool balls clacking.
Byrne introduced Jessica, and the three of them kicked the small talk around for a few minutes.
“Sorry about my nephew,” Butchie said. “Got his mother’s temper. Rest in peace.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Byrne said.
“She was Irish. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“And his two cousins down there, eh? Talk about the shallow end of the gene pool.”
“They seem like nice young men,” Byrne deadpanned.
Butchie laughed, coughed. The sound was a raspy backfire. “They been called a lot of things. Never that.” He crossed his legs, wincing with the effort. He was clearly in some discomfort, but the half empty bottle of Bushmills and small forest of amber pill vials on the table next to his chair spoke to the fact that he was working on it. Jessica noticed a cell phone, a cordless phone, a half dozen remotes and a SIG P220 in a leather holster on the table, as well. From his leather La-Z-Boy throne it appeared that Butchie Pistone was ready for just about anything.
“Ike still your boss over there?” Butchie asked.
Byrne nodded.
“Ike Buchanan’s a good man. We worked the Fifth when he was on the way up. Give him my regards.”
“I sure will,” Byrne said. “I appreciate you seeing us.”
“No problem at all.”
Butchie looked at Jessica, then back, his small talk exhausted. “So, what can I do for you, Detective?”
“I just have a few questions,” Byrne said.
“Whatever you need.”
Byrne put the picture of Caitlin O’Riordan on the coffee table. It was her missing-person photo, the one in which she was wearing her backpack. “Remember her?” Byrne asked.
Butchie shook a Kool out of a near-empty pack. He lit it. Jessica could see a slight shake in the flame. A tell.
“I remember.”
“Back in May Freddy did some interviews.” Byrne put the activity log on the table. Pistone barely glanced at it. “He talked to some street kids.”
Butchie shrugged. “What about it?”
“The interviews are noted, but nothing was typed up, and the notes are gone.”
Another shrug. Another cloud of Kool smoke.
“Any thoughts?” Byrne asked.
“You check the binder? Maybe they got moved around.”
“We checked,” Byrne said. “We didn’t find them.”
Butchie waved a hand at his surroundings. “You may have noticed, I’m not on the job anymore.”
“Do you remember these interviews?”
“No.”
The answer came a little too quickly, Jessica thought. Butchie remembered.
“You continued to work the case for another month,” Byrne said.
Pistone coughed again. “I clocked in, did my job. Just like you.”
“Not like me,” Byrne said. “You mean to tell me that you opened this file another dozen times, and you didn’t notice anything missing?”
Pistone stared out the window. He took a long drag on his cigarette, hotboxing it. “I was a cop for thirty fuckin’ years in this town. You have any idea the shit I’ve seen?”
“I’ve got a pretty good idea,” Byrne said.
“That kid was my last case. I was drinking at seven in the morning. I don’t remember a thing.” He took a sip of his straight Bushmills. “I did her family a favor by pulling the pin. I did the city a favor.”
“We may have a compulsive out there. We found a second body today. Young girl. It looks like the same guy.”
Butchie’s face drained of all color. He hit the Bushmills again.
“Nothing to say?” Byrne asked.
Butchie just stared out the window.
“It’s not like we can ask Freddy, can we?”
Butchie’s face darkened. “Don’t go there, Detective,” he said. “Don’t even fuckin’ go there.”
“This is going to go where it goes, Butchie. If you misplaced these notes, or even worse, you lost them, and you didn’t make a note about it, it could get bad. Especially if another girl dies. Nothing I can do about it now.”
“Sure there is.” Pistone put down his cigarette and his drink. He struggled to his feet. Byrne stood up, too. He towered over the man. “You can
turn around and walk out that door.”
The two men stared at each other. The only sound was the click of the old wind-up alarm clock on Butchie’s table, the cacophony of muffled shouts and laughter coming from the bar below. Jessica wanted to say something, but it occurred to her that both of these men may have forgotten that she was even in the room. This was real High Noon stuff.
Finally, Byrne reached out, shook the man’s hand. Just like that. “Thanks for seeing us, Butchie.”
“No problem,” Butchie replied, a little surprised.
Byrne was really good at these things, Jessica thought. His philosophy was, always shake a man’s hand. That way, when the whip comes down, they never see it coming.
“Any time,” Butchie added.
Except this lifetime, Jessica thought.
“I’ll pass along your regards to Sergeant Buchanan,” Byrne said as they headed to the door, twisting the blade.
“Yeah,” Butchie Pistone said. “You do that.”
THEY RODE IN RELATIVE SILENCE for a few blocks. When they made a right on Sixth Street, Byrne broke the quiet. It wasn’t anything Jessica expected him to say.
“I’d see her sometimes.”
“What do you mean?” Jessica asked. “See who?”
“Eve.”
Jessica waited for him to continue. A block later, he did.
“After we stopped seeing each other, I’d see her out on the town. Usually all by herself. Different bars, different restaurants. Mostly bars. You know how this job is. We all end up going to the same places. As soon as you find a place where cops don’t go, somebody finds out about it and it becomes a cop bar.”
Jessica nodded. It was true.
“I always thought about approaching her, seeing if we could just be friends, just have a drink and walk away. I never did.”
“How come?”
Byrne shrugged. “I don’t know. On the other hand, I never just turned around and walked out, either. I just seemed to sit there and watch her. I loved to look at her. Every man who saw her did, but I had this notion that I had reached her somehow. Maybe I did for just a second.”
Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense: The Rosary Girls, the Skin Gods, Merciless, Badlands Page 120