Broken Angels jbakb-3

by Richard Montanari

  "Just because you don't care about your skin, doesn't mean that I have to look like a lizard in my autumn years," Padraig added.

  Autumn? Byrne thought. He checked his face in the rearview mirror. Maybe he could take better care of his skin at that. On the other hand, he had to admit that the real reason he offered to stop at the store was that he really didn't want his father driving across town in the snow. He was getting overprotective, but he couldn't seem to help it. His silence won the argument. This time.

  "Okay, you win," Padraig said. "Pick it up for me. But I want to stop by Killian's later, though. To say good-bye to the boys."

  "You're not moving to California," Byrne said. "You can go back anytime."

  In Padraig Byrne's eyes, moving to the Northeast was the equivalent of moving out of the country. It had taken the man five years to make the decision, and five more to make the first move.

  "So you say."

  "Okay. I'll pick you up in an hour," Byrne said.

  "Don't forget my scruffing lotion."

  Christ, Byrne thought as he clicked off his cell phone.

  Scruffing lotion.

  Killian's was A rough and tumble bar near Pier 84, in the shadow of the Walt Whitman Bridge, a ninety-year-old institution that had survived a thousand donnybrooks, two fires, and a wrecking ball. Not to mention four generations of dockworkers.

  A few hundred feet from the Delaware River, Killian's was a bastion of the ILA, the International Longshoreman's Association. These men lived, ate, and breathed the river.

  Kevin and Padraig Byrne entered, turning every head in the bar toward the door and the icy blast of wind it brought with it.

  "Paddy!" they seemed to yell in unison. Byrne took a seat at the bar while his father made the rounds. The bar was half full. Padraig was in his element.

  Byrne surveyed the gang. He knew most of them. The Murphy brothers-Ciaran and Luke-had worked side by side with Padraig Byrne for nearly forty years. Luke was tall and robust; Ciaran was short and thickset. Next to them were Teddy O'Hara, Dave Doyle, Danny Mc- Manus, Little Tim Reilly. If this hadn't been the unofficial home of ILA Local 1291, it could have been the meetinghouse of the Sons of Hibernia.

  Byrne grabbed his beer, made his way over to the long table.

  "So, what, you need a passport to go up there?" Luke asked Padraig.

  "Yeah," Padraig said. "I hear they have armed checkpoints on Roosevelt. How else we gonna keep out the South Philly riffraff from the Northeast?"

  "Funny, we look at it exactly the opposite. Seems to me you did too. Back in the day."

  Padraig nodded. They were right. He had no argument for it. The Northeast was a foreign country. Byrne saw that look cross his father's face, a look he had seen a number of times over the past few months, the look that all but screamed Am I doing the right thing?

  A few more of the boys showed up. Some brought houseplants with bright red bows on pots covered in bright green foil. This was the tough guy version of a housewarming gift, the greenery undoubtedly purchased by the distaff half of the ILA. It was turning into a Christmas party/going-away party for Padraig Byrne. The juke played "Silent Night: A Christmas in Rome" by the Chieftains. The lager flowed.

  An hour later Byrne glanced at his watch, slipped his coat on. As he was saying his good-byes, Danny McManus approached with a young man Byrne didn't know.

  "Kevin," Danny said. "Ever meet my youngest son, Paulie?"

  Paul McManus was slender, a little birdlike in his demeanor, wore rimless glasses. He was not at all like the mountain that was his father. Still, he looked strong enough.

  "Never had the pleasure," Byrne said, extending a hand. "Nice to meet you."

  "You too, sir," Paul said.

  "So, are you working the docks like your dad?" Byrne asked.

  "Yes, sir," Paul said.

  Everyone at the nearby table exchanged a glance, a quick inspection of the ceiling, their fingernails, anything but Danny McManus's face.

  "Paulie works at Boathouse Row," Danny finally said.

  "Ah, okay," Byrne said. "What do you do down there?"

  "Always something to do at Boathouse Row," Paulie said. "Scraping, painting, shoring up the docks."

  Boathouse Row was a cluster of privately owned boathouses on the eastern bank of the Schuylkill River, in Fairmount Park, right near the art museum. They were home to the sculling clubs, and managed by the Schuylkill Navy, one of the oldest amateur athletic organizations in the country. They were also about the furthest thing imaginable from the Packer Avenue Terminal.

  Was it river work? Technically. Was it working the river? Not in this pub.

  "Well, you know what da Vinci said," Paulie offered, standing his ground.

  More sideways glances. More cleared throats, shuffled feet. He was actually going to quote Leonardo da Vinci. In Killian's. Byrne had to give the kid credit.

  "What did he say?" Byrne asked.

  "In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed, and the first of that which comes," Paulie said. "Or something like that."

  Everybody took a long, slow gulp from their bottles, no one wanting to be the first to say anything. Finally, Danny put an arm around his son. "He's a poet. What can you say?"

  Three of the men at the table pushed their shot glasses, brimming with Jameson, over toward Paulie McManus. "Drink up, da Vinci," they said in unison.

  They all laughed. Paulie drank.

  A few moments later Byrne stood at the door, watching his father throw darts. Padraig Byrne was two games up on Luke Murphy. He was also up three lagers. Byrne wondered if his father should even be drinking at all these days. On the other hand, Byrne had never seen his father tipsy, let alone drunk.

  The men formed a line on either side of the dartboard. Byrne imagined them all as young men in their twenties, just starting out with families, the notions of hard work and union loyalty and city pride a bright red pulse in their veins. They'd been coming to this place for more than forty years. Some even longer. Through every Phillies and Eagles and Flyers and Sixers season, through every mayor, through every municipal and private scandal, through all of their marriages and births and divorces and deaths. Killian's was a constant, and the lives and dreams and hopes of its denizens were, too.

  His father threw a bull's-eye. Cheers and disbelief erupted around the bar. Another round. And so it went for Paddy Byrne.

  Byrne thought about his father's upcoming move. They had the truck scheduled for February 4. This move was the best thing for his father. It was quieter in the Northeast, slower. He knew that this was the beginning of a new life, but he could not shake that other feeling, the distinct and unsettling feeling that it was also the end of something.

  39

  The Devonshire Acres mental-health facility sat on a gentle slope in a small town in southeastern Pennsylvania. In its glory years, the huge fieldstone and mortar complex had been a spa and convalescent home for wealthy Main Line families. Now it was a state-subsidized long-term warehouse for lower income patients who required constant supervision.

  Roland Hannah signed in, declining the escort. He knew his way around. He took the stairs to the second floor one at a time. He was in no hurry. The institutional-green hallways were ornamented with cheerless, time-faded Christmas decorations. Some looked as if they were from the 1940s or 1950s: jolly water-stained Santas, reindeer with their antlers bent and taped and repaired with long-yellowed Scotch tape. One wall held a message misspelled in individual letters made of cotton, construction paper, and silver glitter:

  HAPPY HODLIAYS!

  Charles no longer came inside the facility.

  Roland found her in the common room, near a window overlooking the rear grounds and the forest beyond. It had snowed for two days straight and a layer of white caressed the hills. Roland wondered what it looked like to her, through her young old eyes. He wondered what memories, if any, were triggered by the soft planes of virgin snow. Did she remember her first winter in
the north? Did she remember snowflakes on her tongue? Snowmen?

  Her skin was papery, fragrant, translucent. Her hair had long ago spent its gold.

  There were four others in the room. Roland knew them all. They did not acknowledge him in any way. He crossed the room, removed his coat and gloves, put the present on the table. It was a robe and slippers, both lavender. Charles had meticulously wrapped and rewrapped the gift in festive foil paper featuring elves and workbenches and brightly colored tools.

  Roland kissed her on the top of her head. She did not respond.

  Outside the snow continued to fall-huge velvety flakes that lilted silently down. She watched, seeming to select an individual flake from the flurry, following it to the ledge, to the earth below, beyond.

  They sat, not speaking. She had said only a few words in many years. The music in the background was Perry Como's "I'll Be Home for Christmas."

  At six o'clock they brought her a tray. Creamed corn, breaded fish sticks, Tater Tots, along with a butter cookie with green and red sprinkles on a Christmas tree made of white icing. Roland watched as she arranged and rearranged her red plastic silverware from the outside in- fork, spoon, knife, then the reverse order. Three times. Always three times, until she had it right. Never two, never four, never more. Roland always wondered by what internal abacus this number had been determined.

  "Merry Christmas," Roland said.

  She looked up at him, eyes the palest blue. Behind them lived a universe of mystery.

  Roland glanced at his watch. It was time to go.

  Before he could stand up she took his hand in hers. Her fingers were carved ivory. Roland saw her lips tremble, and knew what was coming.

  "Here are maidens, young and fair," she said. "Dancing in the summer air."

  Roland felt the glaciers of his heart dislodge. He knew it was all Artemisia Hannah Waite remembered of her daughter Charlotte, and those terrible days in 1995.

  "Like two spinning wheels at play," Roland answered.

  His mother smiled, and finished the verse: "Pretty maidens dance away."

  Roland found Charles standing next to the van. A dusting of snow sat on his shoulders. In years past, Charles would look into Roland's eyes at this moment, searching for some sign that things had improved. Even to Charles, with his innate optimism, this was a practice long since dropped. Without a word, they slipped into the van.

  After a brief prayer, they drove back to the city.

  They ate in silence. When they were finished, Charles cleared the dishes. Roland could hear the television news in the office. A few moments later Charles poked his head around the corner.

  "Come here and look at this," Charles said.

  Roland walked into the small office. On the television screen was a shot of the parking lot at the Roundhouse, the police administration building on Race Street. Channel Six was doing a remote stand up. A reporter was following a woman across the parking lot.

  The woman was young, dark-eyed, attractive. She carried herself with a great deal of poise and confidence. She wore a black leather coat and gloves. The name under her face on the screen said she was a detective. The reporter asked her questions. Charles turned up the volume on the television.

  "— the work of one person?" the reporter asked.

  "We can't rule that in or out," the detective said.

  "Is it true that the woman was mutilated?"

  "I can't comment on specifics related to the investigation."

  "Is there anything you'd like to say to our viewers?"

  "What we're asking for is help in finding the killer of Kristina Jakos. If you know something, even something that seems insignificant, please call the Homicide Unit of the PPD."

  With this the woman turned and headed into the building.

  Kristina Jakos, Roland thought. She was the woman they found murdered on the bank of the Schuylkill River in Manayunk. Roland had the news clipping on the corkboard next to his desk. He would read more about the case now. He grabbed a pen and wrote down the detective's name.

  Jessica Balzano.

  40

  Sophie Balzano was clearly psychic when it came to Christmas presents. She didn't even need to shake the package. Like a miniature Carnac the Magnificent, she could place the gift against her forehead, and within seconds, by some little-girl magic, she seemed to be able to divine its contents. She clearly had a future in law enforcement. Or maybe Customs.

  "This is shoes," she said.

  She sat on the living-room floor, at the foot of the huge Christmas tree. Next to her sat her grandfather.

  "I'm not telling," Peter Giovanni said.

  Sophie then picked up one of the fairy-tale books Jessica had gotten from the library. She began to flip through it.

  Jessica watched her daughter, thinking: Find me a clue in there, sweetie.

  Peter Giovanni had spent nearly thirty years on the Philadelphia police force. He had been awarded many commendations, retiring with the rank of lieutenant.

  Peter had lost his wife to breast cancer more than two decades earlier, and he had buried his only son Michael, killed in Kuwait in 1991. Through it all he had identified himself as one thing, had one face that he presented to the world, one banner held high-that of policeman. And although he feared for his daughter every day, as any father would, his deepest sense of pride in life was the fact that his daughter was a homicide detective.

  In his early sixties, Peter Giovanni was still active in the community, as well as in a number of police department charities. He was not a big man, but he carried a power that came from within. He still worked out a few times a week. He was still a clotheshorse, too. Today he wore an expensive black cashmere turtleneck and dove gray wool slacks. His shoes were Santoni loafers. With his ice gray hair, he looked like he had stepped off the pages of GQ.

  He smoothed his granddaughter's hair, stood up, sat down next to Jessica on the sofa. Jessica was threading popcorn for a garland.

  "What do you think of the tree?" he asked.

  Every year, Peter and Vincent took Sophie on a drive to a Christmas- tree farm in the appropriately named Tabernacle, New Jersey, where they would cut down their own tree. Usually one of Sophie's choosing. Every year the tree seemed taller.

  "Any bigger and we're going to have to move," Jessica said.

  Peter smiled. "Hey. Sophie's getting bigger. The tree has to keep pace."

  Don't remind me, Jessica thought.

  Peter picked up a needle and thread, began to make his own popcorn garland. "Any leads on the case?" he asked.

  Although Jessica was not investigating the Walt Brigham murder, and had three open files on her desk, she knew exactly what her father meant by "the case." Whenever a cop was killed, all police officers, active and retired, all across the country, took it personally.

  "Nothing yet," Jessica said.

  Peter shook his head. "Damn shame. There's a special place in hell for cop killers."

  Cop killer. Jessica's gaze immediately went to Sophie, who was still camped by the tree, pondering a small box wrapped in red foil. Every time Jessica thought about the words "cop killer" she realized that both of this little girl's parents were targets every day of the week. Was it fair to Sophie? At times like these, in the warmth and safety of their home, she wasn't sure.

  Jessica got up, stepped into the kitchen. Everything was under control. The gravy was simmering; the lasagna noodles were al dente, salad was made, wine was decanted. She took the ricotta out of the refrigerator.

  The phone rang. She froze, hoping that it would only ring once, that the person on the other end would realize they had dialed the wrong number and hang up. A second passed. Then another.

  Yes.

  Then it rang again.

  Jessica looked at her father. He looked back. They were both cops. It was Christmas Eve. They knew.

  41

  Byrne adjusted his tie for what might have been the twentieth time. He sipped his water, looked at his watch, smoothed
the tablecloth. He wore a new suit, and he hadn't gotten comfortable in it yet. He fidgeted, buttoned, unbuttoned, rebuttoned, flattened the lapels.

  He was sitting at a table at Striped Bass on Walnut Street, one of the tonier restaurants in Philadelphia, waiting for his date. But it wasn't just another date. For Kevin Byrne, it was the date. He was having Christmas Eve dinner with his daughter, Colleen. He had called in no fewer than four chits to wrangle the last-minute reservation.

  He and Colleen had mutually agreed on this arrangement-dinner out-instead of trying to find a window of a few hours at his ex-wife's house to celebrate the holiday, a window that did not include Donna Sullivan Byrne's new boyfriend, or the awkwardness of Kevin Byrne trying to be a grown-up about the whole thing.

  They agreed that they didn't need the tension. This was better.

  Except for the fact that his daughter was late.

  Byrne glanced around the restaurant, coming to the conclusion that he was the only civil servant in the room. Doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, a sprinkling of successful artist-types. He knew that taking Colleen here was overkill-she knew it too-but he wanted to make the evening special.

  He took out his cell phone, checked it. Nothing. He was just about to send Colleen a text message when someone approached his table. Byrne looked up. It wasn't Colleen.

  "Would you like to see the wine list?" the attentive waiter asked again.

  "Sure," Byrne said. As if he would know what he was looking at. He had twice resisted ordering bourbon on the rocks. He didn't want to be sloppy this night. A minute later the waiter returned with the list. Byrne dutifully read it, the only thing registering-amid a sea of words like Pinot, Cabernet, Vouvray, and Fume-were the prices, all of them beyond his means.

  He held the wine list up, figuring that if he put it down he would be pounced upon and forced to order a bottle. Then he saw her. She wore a royal blue dress that brought infinity to her aquamarine eyes. Her hair was down around her shoulders, longer than he had seen it in a while, darker than it was in summer.