Broken Angels jbakb-3

by Richard Montanari

  "Where did you get these?" Longo asked.

  "Honest answer?" Byrne asked.

  Longo nodded.

  "I thought you sent them."

  "No." Longo looked at the envelope, inside and out, flipped it over. "It wasn't me. In fact, I was hoping to go the rest of my life without ever seeing anything like this again."

  Byrne understood. There was plenty he himself didn't want to ever see again. "How long were you on the job?"

  "Eighteen years," Longo said. "Half a career for some guys. Way too long for others." He studied one of the photographs closely. "I remember this. There have been many nights when I wished I didn't."

  The photograph was the one depicting the small plush bear.

  "That was taken at a crime scene?" Byrne asked.

  "Yes." Longo crossed the room, opened a cabinet, pulled out a bottle of Glenfiddich. He held up the bottle, and raised an eyebrow ques- tioningly. Byrne nodded. Longo poured them both a drink, handed a glass to Byrne.

  "It was the last case I worked," Longo said.

  "This was North Philly, right?" Byrne knew all this. He just needed it to sync.

  "Badlands. We were on this prick. Hard. For months. Name was Joseph Barber. Had him in for questioning twice for a series of rapes of young girls, couldn't hold him. Then he did it again. Got a tip he was holed up in an old drug house near Fifth and Cambria." Longo drained his drink. "He was dead when we got there. Thirteen knives in his body."

  "Thirteen?"

  "Yeah." Longo cleared his throat. This was not easy for him. He poured himself another drink. "Steak knives. Cheap. The kind you might get at a flea market. Untraceable."

  "Was the case ever closed?" Byrne knew the answer to this, too. He wanted to keep Longo talking.

  "Not to my knowledge."

  "Did you follow it?"

  "I didn't want to. Walt stuck with it for a while. He tried to make a case that Joseph Barber was killed by some sort of vigilante. Never got any traction." Longo pointed to the photograph on the workbench. "I looked at that lavender bear on the floor, and knew I was finished. I've never looked back."

  "Any idea who the bear belonged to?" Byrne asked.

  Longo shook his head. "When the evidence was cleared and the property released, I showed it to the little girl's parents."

  "These were the parents of Barber's last victim?"

  "Yeah. They said they had never seen it before. Like I said, Barber was a serial child rapist. I didn't want to think how and where he might have gotten it."

  "What was Barber's last victim's name?"

  "Julianne." Longo's voice cracked. Byrne arranged a few tools on the bench, waited. "Julianne Weber."

  "Did you ever follow up?"

  He nodded. "A few years ago I drove by their house, parked across the street. I saw Julianne as she left for school. She looked okay-at least, to the world she looked okay-but I could see that sadness in her every step."

  Byrne could see that this conversation was nearing a close. He gathered the photos, his coat and gloves. "I'm sorry about Walt. He was a good man."

  "He was the job," Longo said. "I couldn't make it to the party. I didn't even-" The emotion took over for a few moments. "I was in San Diego. My daughter had a little girl. My first grandchild."

  "Congratulations," Byrne said. As soon as the word left his lips- although heartfelt-it sounded empty. Longo drained his glass. Byrne followed suit, stood, slipped on his coat.

  "This is the part where people usually say 'If there's anything else I can do, please don't hesitate to call,' " Longo said. "Right?"

  "I guess it is," Byrne replied.

  "Do me a favor."

  "Sure."

  "Hesitate."

  Byrne smiled. "Okay."

  As Byrne turned to leave, Longo put a hand on his arm. "There is something else."

  "Okay."

  "Walt said I was probably seeing things at the time, but I was convinced."

  Byrne folded his hands, waited.

  "The pattern of the knives," Longo said. "The wounds on Joseph Barber's chest."

  "What about them?"

  "I wasn't sure until I saw the postmortem photos. But I'm positive the wounds spelled out a C."

  "The letter C?"

  Longo nodded, poured himself another drink. He sat down at his workbench. The conversation was now officially over.

  Byrne thanked him again. On the way up, he saw that Denise Longo had been standing at the top of the stairs. She saw him to the door. She was much cooler to him than she had been when he'd arrived.

  While his car was warming up, Byrne looked at the photograph. There was probably going to be a lavender-bear sort of case in his future, probably his near future. He wondered if he, like John Longo, would have the courage to walk away.

  78

  Jessica searched every inch of the trunk, flipped through every magazine. There was nothing else. She found a few yellowed recipes, a few McCall's patterns. She found a box of small paper-wrapped demitasse cups. The newspaper wrapping was dated March 22, 1950. She turned back to the portfolio.

  Tucked into the back of the binder was a page bearing a number of horrific drawings-hangings, mutilations, disembowelings, dismemberments-childlike in their scrawl, extremely disturbing in their content.

  Jessica turned back to the first page. The news article on the murder of Annemarie DiCillo and Charlotte Waite. Nicci read it too.

  "Okay," Nicci said. "I'm calling this in. We need cops out here. Walt Brigham liked whoever lived here for the Annemarie DiCillo case, and it looks as though he was right. God knows what else we're going to find in this place."

  Jessica handed Nicci her phone. A few moments later, after trying and not getting a signal in the cellar, Nicci walked up the stairs and outside.

  Jessica turned back to the boxes.

  Who had lived here? she wondered. Where is that person now? In a small town like this, if the person was still anywhere in the area, people would surely know. Jessica sifted through the boxes in the corner. There were more old newspapers, some in a language she couldn't identify, perhaps Dutch or Danish. There were moldy board games, rotting in their long-mildewed boxes. Nothing else mentioned the Annemarie DiCillo case.

  She opened yet another box, this one not as timeworn as the others. Inside were newspapers and magazines of a more recent vintage. On top was a year's worth of Amusement Today, a newsletter-style magazine that appeared to be a trade publication devoted to the amusement-park industry. Jessica flipped over an issue. She found an address label. M Damgaard.

  Is this Walt Brigham's killer? Jessica tore off the label, shoved it in her pocket.

  She had been hauling boxes toward the door when a noise stopped her in her tracks. At first it sounded as if it might just be the settling of dry timbers, creaking in the wind. She heard it again, the sound of old, thirsty wood.

  "Nicci?"

  Nothing.

  Jessica was just about to head up the stairs when she heard the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. Running footsteps, muffled by the snow. She then heard what might have been a struggle, or maybe it was Nicci struggling to carry something. Then another sound. Her name?

  Did Nicci just call her?

  "Nicci?" Jessica asked.

  Silence.

  "Did you make contact with-"

  Jessica never finished her question. At that moment the heavy cellar doors slammed shut, the sound of the timbers resounding loudly in the cold stone confines of the cellar.

  Then Jessica heard something far more ominous.

  The huge doors were being secured with the crossbeam.

  From the outside.

  79

  Byrne paced the parking lot at the Roundhouse. He didn't feel the cold. He thought about John Longo and his story.

  He tried to make a case that Barber was killed by some sort of vigilante. Never got any traction.

  Whoever had sent Byrne the photographs-and it was probably Walt Brigham-was trying to make t
hat same argument. Why else would every item in the photographs be lavender? It must be some sort of calling card the vigilante left, a personal touch from someone who had taken it upon himself to eliminate men who had committed violence against girls and young women.

  Someone had killed these suspects before the police could make a case against them.

  Before leaving the Northeast, Byrne had put in a call to Records. He had requested that they pull every unsolved homicide for the past ten years. He had also asked for a cross reference with the search term "lavender."

  Byrne thought about Longo, ensconced in his basement, making birdhouses, of all things. To the outside world, Longo looked content. But Byrne could see the ghost. If he looked closely at his own face in the mirror-something he did less and less these days-he would probably see it in himself.

  The town of Meadville was starting to look good.

  Byrne shifted gears, thought about the case. His case. The river killings. He knew he had to tear it all down and build it back up from the beginning. He had encountered psychos of this sort before, murderers who took their cue from something we all saw and took for granted every day.

  Lisette Simon was first. Or at least they thought so. A forty-one- year-old woman who worked in a mental-health-care facility. Maybe the killer started there. Maybe he met Lisette, worked with her, made some discovery that triggered this rampage.

  Compulsive killers start close to home.

  The name of the killer is in that computer readout.

  Before Byrne could head back into the Roundhouse, he sensed a presence nearby.

  "Kevin."

  Byrne spun around. It was Vincent Balzano. He and Byrne had worked a detail a few years earlier. He had, of course, seen Vincent at any number of police functions with Jessica. Byrne liked him. What he knew about Vincent on the job was that he was a little unorthodox, had placed himself in jeopardy more than once to save a fellow officer, and was fairly hotheaded. Not all that different from Byrne himself.

  "Hey, Vince," Byrne said.

  "You talk to Jess today?"

  "No," Byrne said. "What's up?"

  "She left a message for me this morning. I've been on the street all day. I just picked up the messages an hour ago."

  "You worried?"

  Vincent looked at the Roundhouse, then back at Byrne. "Yeah. I am."

  "What did her message say?"

  "She said she and Nicci Malone were headed up to Berks County," Vincent said. "Jess was off duty. And now I can't get hold of her. Do you have any idea where in Berks?"

  "No," Byrne said. "You try her cell?"

  "Yeah," he said. "I get her voice mail." Vincent turned away for a moment, then back. "What's she doing up in Berks? Is she working your multiple?"

  Byrne shook his head. "She's working Walt Brigham's case."

  "Walt Brigham's case? What's up there?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "What's the last thing she logged?"

  "Let's go see."

  Back in the duty room of the homicide unit, Byrne pulled the binder of Walt Brigham's murder. He flipped to the most recent entry. "This is from last night," he said.

  The file contained photocopies of two photographs, both sides- black-and-white pictures of an old stone farmhouse. They were duplicates. On the back of one was five numbers, two obscured by what looked like water damage. Beneath that, written in red pen, in a cursive style known well to both men as belonging to Jessica, was the following:

  195- / Berks County / N of French Creek?

  "You think this is where she went?" Vincent asked.

  "I don't know," Byrne said. "But if her voice mail message said that she was heading to Berks with Nicci, there's a good chance."

  Vincent pulled out his cell, tried Jessica again. Nothing. For a moment, it appeared that Vincent was going to throw the phone through the window. The closed window. Byrne knew the feeling.

  Vincent pocketed his cell phone, headed for the door.

  "Where are you going?" Byrne asked.

  "I'm going up there."

  Byrne took the pictures of the farmhouse, put the binder away. "I'm going with you."

  "You don't have to."

  Byrne stared. "How do you figure that?" Vincent hesitated for a moment, nodded. "Let's go." They reached Vincent's car-a fully restored 197 °Cutlass S-at nearly a run. Byrne was out of breath by the time he slipped into the passenger seat. Vincent Balzano was in far better shape.

  Vincent decked a blue light on the dash. By the time they reached the Schuylkill Expressway they were traveling at eighty miles per hour.

  80

  The darkness was nearly complete. Just a thin sliver of cold daylight came between the crack in the storm-cellar doors.

  Jessica called out a few times, listened. Silence. Empty, country silence.

  She put her shoulder to the nearly horizontal doors and pushed.

  Nothing.

  She angled her body for maximum leverage and tried again. Again the doors did not move. Jessica looked between the two doors. She saw a dark strip across the center, which meant that the four-by-four crossbeam was in place. Obviously, the door had not closed on its own.

  Someone was out there. Someone had slid the crossbeam across the doors.

  Where was Nicci?

  Jessica looked around the cellar. Against one wall were an old rake and a short-handled shovel. She grabbed the rake, tried to slip the handle between the doors. It did not fit.

  She stepped into the other room, was hit by the thick smell of mold and mice. She found nothing. No tools, no levers, no hammers or saws. And the Maglite was starting to fade. Against the far wall, an inside wall, was a pair of ruby curtains. She wondered if they led to another room.

  She tore down the curtains. In the corner was a ladder, secured to the stone wall by bolts and a pair of brackets. She banged her flashlight against her palm, got a few more lumens of yellow light from it. She ran the beam up to the cobwebbed ceiling. There, cut into the ceiling, was an access door. It looked as if it had not been used in many years. Jessica gauged that she was now near the center of the house. She wiped some of the soot from the ladder, then tested the first rung. It creaked beneath her weight, but held. She put the Maglite between her teeth, and started up the ladder. She pushed against the wood access door, and was rewarded with a faceful of black dust.

  "Fuck!"

  Jessica stepped back onto the floor, wiped the soot from her eyes, spit a few times. She took off her coat, draped it over her head and shoulders. She started back up the ladder again. For a second it felt as if one of the rungs was going to give. It cracked slightly. She shifted her feet and her weight to the sides of the rungs, braced herself. This time when she pushed on the ceiling door, she turned her head. The wood budged. It wasn't nailed shut, and there was nothing heavy on top of it.

  She tried one more time, this time using all her strength. The access door gave way. As Jessica slowly pushed it up, she was greeted by thin afternoon light. She pushed the door fully and it toppled over onto the floor of the room above. Although the air in the house was thick and stale, she welcomed it. She took a few deep breaths.

  She took the coat from her head, slipped it back on. She looked up to the beamed ceiling of the old farmhouse. She calculated that she would emerge into a small pantry off the kitchen. She stopped, listened. Just the sound of the wind. She pocketed the Maglite, drew her weapon, and continued up the ladder.

  Seconds later Jessica stepped through the opening and into the house, glad to be out of the oppressive confines of the damp cellar. She slowly turned 360 degrees. What she saw nearly took her breath away. She had not just entered an old farmhouse.

  She had entered another century.

  81

  Byrne and Vincent made Berks County in record time, courtesy of Vincent's muscle car and his ability to maneuver through expressway traffic in what was becoming a full-blown snowstorm. After getting their bearings concerning the general boundaries of the 195 z
ip code area, they found themselves in Robeson Township.

  They took a two-lane road south. Houses were spread out here, none of them resembling the isolated-looking old farmhouse they sought. After a few minutes of trolling the road, they came upon a man shoveling snow near the street.

  The man, perhaps in his late sixties, was shoveling out the apron of his driveway, a driveway that looked more than fifty feet long.

  Vincent pulled over on the other side of the street, rolled his window down. Within seconds there was snow in the car.

  "Hi," Vincent said.

  The man looked up from his chore. It looked like he was wearing every item of clothing he'd ever owned-three coats, two hats, three pairs of gloves. His scarves were knitted, homemade, rainbow colored. He was bearded; his gray hair was in a braid. Former flower child. "Afternoon, young man."

  "You didn't shovel that whole thing did you?"

  The man laughed. "No, my two grandsons did. They never finish anything though."

  Vincent showed him the picture of the farmhouse. "Are you familiar with this place?"

  The man moved slowly across the road. He stared at the picture, giving the task its full due. "No. Sorry."

  "Did you happen to see two other police detectives come by today? Two women in a Ford Taurus?"

  "No, sir," the man said. "Can't say that I did. I'd remember that."

  Vincent thought for a moment. He pointed to the crossroad ahead. "Anything up this way?"

  "Only thing up there is Double K Auto," he said. "If someone was lost or looking for directions, I imagine they might have pulled in there."

  "Thank you sir," Vincent said.

  "You are welcome young man. Peace."

  "Don't work too hard on this," Vincent called to him, putting the car in gear. "It's only snow. It will be gone by spring."

  The man laughed again. "It's a thankless job," he said, walking back across the road. "But I've got karma to spare." DOUBLE K AUTO was a ramshackle, corrugated steel building set back from the road. Derelict cars and auto parts dotted the landscape for a quarter mile in all directions. It looked like a snow-covered topiary of alien beings.