Текст книги "The Echo Man"

Автор книги: Richard Montanari

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Chapter 27

    Byrne parked across the street from the Mount Olive Cemetery. He had stopped by the main office, spoken to the night security officer. Considering what had happened there that day, he didn't need a trigger happy ex-PPD freaking out about the man standing in the middle of the graveyard.

    He thought about the vision he had gotten when he had been here before. What did it all mean?

    He tried to add up the hours of sleep he had missed in the past week, but couldn't. The weight of his exhaustion prevented him from making an accurate accounting.

    Byrne laid his head back on the seat. Just for a moment. Just a moment of peace.

    Sleep came quickly. In the dream he was in a vast concert hall, the only person sitting in the audience. Onstage was a full philharmonic orchestra. He looked around the elegant surroundings. The floor was slicked with blood. On each seat was a severed finger.

    He jumped to his feet as the music swelled, ran up the aisle to the lobby. On one wall of the lobby were two words written in bright red blood:

you know

    Byrne ran from the hall, down the sidewalks, where everyone had the face of a victim he knew, a case he had investigated. He found his van in an otherwise empty parking lot. He jumped in, his heart racing fit to burst. He noticed the smell immediately. He turned around to find a decomposing body posed in the back, shaved and hairless, its eyes open, familiar eyes—

    Byrne sat upright in the driver's seat, the perspiration slicking his body despite the chill in the air. Outside, the city of Philadelphia was pitch black and silent, the only sounds the occasional car trolling by. Around him the dead were still dead.

    He got out of the van, breathing in deeply the cold night air.

    You know.

    He looked at his watch.

    It was 2:52.

Chapter 28

    Wednesday, October 27

    Lucy spent the morning on autopilot, her emotions racing between approach and avoidance. Neither of these were terms that she had ever used in relationship to her state of mind until she had started seeing psychologists. They had a different way of speaking, those people, a wholly separate dictionary. For instance, you didn't just recall something, you had declarative memory. Or when you applied simple logic to problems, and solved them, it was called fluid intelligence. And then there was her favorite. If you were the kind of person who defined yourself by your own thoughts or actions, you weren't just confident, or happy in your own skin. No, no, no. You had independent construals of self.

    Lucy almost laughed. Her inside joke – on those rare occasions when she felt good enough to appreciate a joke, inside or out – was that she was just going through her construal cycle.

    Regardless, on this day, in this place, Lucy was all but overcome by her new feelings. The craziest thing had been running into Detective Byrne the day before. She had been so hyper when she saw him that, even though she knew that she knew him, she didn't realize who he was. Until he smiled.

    They had met at her regression-therapy sessions. He was the man in the group who had been dead for a whole minute. They'd gone for coffee once, shared their experiences. Well, Lucy had listened mostly, because she didn't really know what had happened to her. Yesterday he had given her his card and told her to call if she ever wanted to talk. She wondered if he could help her. She wondered if he would laugh at her suspicions of the man she thought she'd seen come out of Room 1208. No, he wouldn't laugh, but he would probably tell her she was imagining things.

    As she worked she looked at her watch every five minutes, for the first time in a long while not really gauging her day by how many rooms she had completed, mentally recording the time she entered and left.

    Each room attendant had their own section key, an electronic card similar to a guest key, that allowed them access to their rooms but not to other parts of the hotel. If an attendant said they entered a room at 9:08 and it was really 9:21, management could find it out in a second. A lot of dismissed attendants found out the hard way that computers never lie. The lock didn't say when you left, only when you entered.

    Today all the rooms blended together, and Lucy had no idea how long it was taking her to finish each one.

    He smelled like apples.

    That could have been anything, though. There were a million plausible explanations for this. Lots of people wear dark overcoats. For gosh sake, even Detective Byrne wore a dark overcoat.

    Lucy stood at the end of the hallway, near the elevators. She looked down the corridor, at the east wing. In this direction there were eight rooms. Rooms 1201 through 1208. Today she was able to swap this wing with a girl who worked on the seventh floor, promising to fix the girl's portable CD player in exchange for the favor. But it would only be for today. Lucy would have to enter Room 1208 tomorrow. She wasn't looking forward to it.

    All room attendants got a fifteen-minute break in the morning. Lucy usually spent her time reading in the cafeteria or, if it was a nice day, she would run over to Rittenhouse Square for a full five minutes in the sun. It was amazing what even five minutes in sunlight could do for her mood. Today, she stepped into the small courtyard behind the hotel. She almost got lost in the cloud of cigarette smoke. You weren't supposed to smoke within fifty yards of the building, but no one ever listened and the rule had never been enforced.

    When she rounded the corner at the back to the hotel she saw her friend Amanda sitting on a delivery pallet, eating a tangerine.

    'Hey, girl,' Amanda said.

    'Hi.' Lucy sat down next to Amanda. Amanda Cuaron was everything Lucy was not. Exotic, dark-eyed, a true Latin beauty, always flirting. Whenever Amanda was around Lucy felt like a rubber tulip.

    'Hey, I forgot to ask, did you see that guy yesterday?' Amanda asked.

    That guy was the Dreamweaver. Mr. Costa. Lucy wasn't sure how much she wanted to tell Amanda. Amanda was her friend and all, but Lucy had never shared secrets with her. She'd never shared her secrets with anyone. 'Yeah,' she said. 'I saw him.'

    'How did it go?'

    'It went okay.'

    Amanda just stared at her – she was not going to get off the hook with such a brief explanation. 'Well? Was he weird? Did he wear a pointy hat and carry a wand?'

    'Oh yeah,' Lucy said. 'And he had a long white beard. Didn't I mention the beard?'

    Amanda smiled. 'Is he cute?'

    Lucy snorted. 'Shut up. He's like a hundred years old.'

    'Is he cute?'

    Lucy just rolled her eyes. 'I'm going to see him again today.' Lucy hadn't realized that she'd made the decision to do this until this second.

    Amanda smiled her lascivious smile. 'Mala chica.'

    They both checked their watches at the same moment. They had another six minutes.

    Amanda pointed to the wall next to the delivery bay. There was something carved into the stone. RL loves TJ.

    'I wonder if they're still in love,' Amanda said.

    Lucy doubted it. She didn't believe in true love. 'Well, it is written in stone.'

    Amanda laughed. 'I think that was probably done back when this place was apartments.'

    'When was this an apartment building?'

    'I think up until maybe 1999. Something like that,' she said. 'I think it was kind of a famous place, too.'

    'How so?'

    .'Well, mostly because of that little girl. You know about that, don't you?'

    'What are you talking about?'

    'I'm not a hundred percent sure what happened – you could ask Sergio. He'd definitely know.'

    Sergio was an older guy who worked in maintenance. He had been with the building for a long time.

    'But, from what I understand, a little girl got killed here,' Amanda added.

    Lucy shuddered. 'What do you mean, killed? Like an accident or something?'

    'No. Like killed killed.'

    'What are you saying? She was murdered?'

    'Yeah.' Amanda wiggled her fingers at Lucy, made spooky Halloween noises. 'They say her ghost walks these very halls.'

    'Stop it.'

    Amanda giggled. 'You're so easy.'

    'How old was the girl?'

    Amanda shrugged, peeled off another section of tangerine, offered it to Lucy. Lucy declined. 'Not sure. But not too old, though. Ten or eleven, maybe.'

    'How did she ... you know.'

    'How did she die?' Amanda shrugged. 'No idea. But I don't think they ever caught the guy that did it.'

    As creepy as Lucy already felt today, the feeling had just doubled.

    'I think it's one of the cases this bunch of nut jobs who are staying here this week are investigating,' Amanda said. 'Or talking about investigating. God only knows what they do.'

    Lucy was speechless for the moment. Amanda stood up, threw her tangerine peels in the nearby Dumpster.

    'So, are we on?' Amanda asked.

    At first Lucy didn't know what Amanda was talking about. Then she remembered. She had told Amanda that she would go out with her for a drink at Fluid, a dance club on Fourth Street, on Halloween Eve Night – always a crazy time in Philly, to say the least – and, according to Amanda, a ton of cute college guys always showed up. This year they were probably all going to be dressed up like Robert Pattinson.

    'Yeah,' Lucy said. 'Why not?'

    'Awesome. And you are definitely going to let me do something with your hair. We've got to babe you up, chica. Maybe get you laid.'

    'Amanda.'

    Amanda giggled. 'I'll be by your mansion around eight.'

    'Cool beans.'

    Amanda walked back into the hotel but Lucy stayed put. She couldn't stop thinking about the little girl Amanda had mentioned. Murdered. At the place Lucy worked. She had to find out more about it, although she wasn't sure why. Maybe because there was a dead zone in her own life. Maybe it was because for the past nine years she had felt a dark kinship with all young girls who had been touched by evil. They were her sisters.

    They say her ghost walks these very halls.

    Thanks, Amanda, Lucy thought. Thanks a lot.

Chapter 29

    Doylestown was a quaint township of about eight thousand in Bucks County. The Ulrich Art Supply store was a standalone building, a converted ivy-veined coach house on North Main Street, across the road from the Mercer Square Shopping Center. The front windows held a display of paints, canvases, brushes, easels. Halloween decorations ringed the window and door.

    On the way to Doylestown Jessica and Byrne decided not to approach the store in any official capacity. Because this was the only store within reach of the city that carried the paper used in these homicides, there was a chance that they might tip their hand by approaching the store as law-enforcement officers looking for information. If someone in the store was acquainted with the killer they might get on the phone the minute they left. If Plan A failed, they could always come in with guns and badges blazing.

    They watched the store for a few minutes. There was a woman behind the counter, working on a small display rack. No one entered the store and they did not see anyone else working.

    'Looks like you're up,' Jessica said.

    'I thought you were the undercover queen.'

    'I am,' Jessica said. 'But I think metrosexual is out of my range.'

    'What did we say about that word?'

    'Sorry.'

    Byrne took a moment, scoping the terrain. 'Who am I again?'

    Jessica gave it some thought. 'I'm thinking Bennett Strong.'

    Byrne nodded. It was a good choice. Tough but suitably fey, given the venue. 'Where was the show?'

    Jessica turned her iPhone so that Byrne could see it. She had searched the web on the way into Doylestown and found a recent print show in Philadelphia. She had also looked up the art supply store's website. There she found the owner's name. Alicia Webster.

    Byrne pulled his badge from his belt, along with his weapon and his holster, put it all in the back seat. He took off his jacket.

    'Want some hair gel?' Jessica asked.

    Byrne just gave her a look.

    Alicia Webster was in her mid to late thirties. She wore a beige knit cardigan and black corduroy slacks. Her eyeglasses hung around her neck on a rawhide lace.

    She glanced up as Byrne entered the store accompanied by a ring of a bell. 'May I help you?' she asked. Pleasant smile, bright eyes.

    Byrne proffered a business card. On it was simply a name – no phone number, no address, no email, no website. He had a stack of them in his briefcase. Ten different names. You never knew.

    'My name is Bennett Strong,' he said. 'I am the owner of Strong Galleries, New York City.'

    The woman's face lit up.

    'You are Miss Webster?'

    The woman looked surprised that he knew her name.

    'I am.' She held up her left hand, wiggled her ring finger. 'But it's Mrs.'

    Byrne put a hand to his heart. 'Mea culpa.' He smiled at her. 'Mrs. Of course.'

    A blush. 'How can I help you, Mr. Strong?'

    'I love your store, by the way. Did I see Kolinsky sables on the way in?' It was something Byrne had seen on the store's website. He knew that the woman carried the brushes.

    'Yes,' she said. 'You know your brushes.'

    'And now to the point. I recently attended the PortPhilio show in Philadelphia. Did you manage to make it to the affair?'

    Say no, Byrne thought. Please say no.

    'No. I wanted to, but I'm all alone here since my son went back to school. I couldn't get away.'

    'It was fabulous.'

    The door opened behind them, ringing the bell again. A woman entered the store. Alicia's eyes flicked over to the new customer, then back.

    'Anyway, I met a man there, a printmaker, who recommended your shop. He showed me some of his work and it was fantastic.'

    'How nice.'

    'I would really like to contact him, but I'm afraid I lost his card and I don't remember his name.'

    'And he said he purchased supplies here?'

    'Yes.'

    'He was from Doylestown?'

    'I don't know.'

    'What did the man look like?'

    Shit, Byrne thought. He had no idea what to say. He didn't even know if it was a man. He aimed for the middle, culling from a standard profile. 'I'm terrible at these things. But I'd say he was thirty to forty. Medium height and weight. I'm not sure of his hair because he was wearing a ball cap.' This was as vague as Byrne could get. He smiled at Alicia. 'I'm a lot better with remembering women.'

    Another blush. 'Well, that's not too much for me to go on.'

    'Maybe this will help. During the course of our conversation he mentioned his printmaking technique, and said he was enamored of a certain brand of paper. An Italian paper. Quite expensive.'

    'Do you remember the line?'

    'I do not. But he showed me a sample and the watermark was Venus de Milo.'

    'Atriana.'

    Byrne snapped his fingers. 'That's it.'

    The woman frowned. 'That's not an item we generally keep in stock. I've only sold a few dozen sheets in the past year or so.'

    Alicia turned to her computer, tapped a few keys. In a moment a screen came up. Byrne could see the reflection in her glasses. It was a database program and she had found an entry. She nodded, perhaps remembering the man.

    'I'm afraid I can't give you anyone's name. Our mailing list is confidential, of course.'

    'Of course.'

    'If you'd like, I could take your information and have them get in touch with you.'

    'That would be great.'

    Just then there was a loud crash at the back of the store. Alicia spun around to see a woman at the rear, next to a toppled display rack of oil paints.

    'Shoot!' the woman at the back exclaimed.

    'Oh my,' Byrne said. 'Look, why don't you tend to this terribly clumsy woman and I'll stop back in a few minutes. I have to hit the ATM, anyway.'

    'That would be fine.'

    As Alicia walked to the rear of the store to help Jessica pick up the spilled merchandise, Byrne spun the LCD monitor to face him. His eyes scanned the screen. The problem was that he was not wearing his glasses. The customer's name was a little larger than the rest of the entry. He got that with no problem. It was a company called Marcato LLC.

    Beneath that: Attention JP Novak. Byrne looked at the bottom. Philadelphia. In between, it was mostly a blur.

    He spun the monitor back, turned on his heels, and left the store.

    They pulled out of the parking lot and headed back to route 611.

    'Did we get it?'

    'I got the name,' Byrne said. 'And a partial address.'

    'A partial address?'

    Byrne fell silent.

    'You weren't wearing your glasses.'

    Byrne plowed forward. He checked the notes that he'd scribbled after leaving the store. 'The paper was purchased by a company called Marcato LLC. Contact name is JP Novak. The address is in Philly. Something something something something Ashingdale Road. Or Arlington. I think the number was 8180 or 5150. Maybe 6160.'

    Jessica shook her head. 'You know, those glasses do serve a purpose.'

    'I don't see you wearing yours all the time.'

    'Mind your own business, Mr. Strong. Now, drive the car and let me start sleuthing.'

    On the way back to Philadelphia Jessica called in the name. There was no phone listing for a JP Novak, nor anyone with that name in PCIC with a criminal record. They found more than three dozen listings for Novaks with J as an initial: John, Joseph, Jerry, Jerszy, Jacob, Joshua.

    She also looked up Marcato and did not find any company with that name, LLC or otherwise. She did find a definition of the word and found that it was Italian for marked, and when it was applied to music it meant performing the note with an 'attack' and a sustain of two-thirds of the original written length, followed by an audible counted rest.

    According to one source the marcato sound was 'a rhythmic thrust followed by a decay of the sound.'

    Who would name their company this? Jessica wondered.

    When they returned to the Roundhouse they searched every database for a JP Novak, as well as for Philadelphia streets named Ashingdon or dozens of possible permutations. They asked everyone on the floor if they knew of any Philly streets or courts or lanes by that name or similar names. There were a few close matches but nothing exact.

    After twenty minutes of strikeouts Jessica stood, began to peruse the large paper map on the wall. You could only look at a computer screen for so long before going six-eyed with fatigue. Somehow she put her finger on two possibilities.

    'Look at this,' she said. 'There's a street in West Philly called Abingdon.'

    Byrne shot to his feet. 'That's it.' 'There's also one called Ashingdale.' 'Shit.'

    Josh Bontrager grabbed his coat. 'I'll take Ashingdale.' Jessica and Byrne headed to the door. 'Kevin?'

    'What?'

    'Bring your glasses.'

Chapter 30

    The addresses on Abingdon Road stopped at 7000, so this eliminated the chance of the address being 8180. Jessica and Byrne drove to the far end of the street, worked back from 5150. This was a body shop called D & K Motor Cars. No one inside knew anyone named Novak, nor a company called Marcato LLC.

    The address at 6160 was a gentrified apartment building called the Beau Rive, perhaps at one time a warehouse. The front had recently been stuccoed, and all four apartments in the front had leaded-glass bay windows.

    Byrne pulled over, cut the engine.

    'Hang on,' Jessica said.

    She got out of the car, walked up the steps to the apartment building. She walked into the small lobby and looked at the mailboxes. There were six suites. She scanned the names. The second to last name, in apartment 204, was Joseph Paul Novak.

    Bingo.

    She tried the buzzer twice. No response.

    Jessica walked out of the building, across the street. She got back in the car. 'There's a Joseph Novak in apartment 204. I buzzed. Nothing.'

    Byrne checked his side mirror, then did a U-turn, pulling up on the opposite side of the street in front of a Thai takeout. They had not stopped for lunch and the aromas were enticing. He put the Taurus in park, cut the engine. 'Want to stake it out for a little while?'

    'Sure,' Jessica said.

    They watched the pedestrian traffic up and down Abingdon Road. After ten minutes or so Jessica got restless. She got out of the car, crossed the street, leaned against a light pole, took out her cell. She pretended to have a conversation. Cellphones were, hands down, the best surveillance prop ever invented.

    Finally the door to the Beau Rive opened. The first person to walk out the building was a woman in her sixties, well-dressed and accessorized. When she reached the sidewalk she stopped, rummaged through her purse, then turned around in disgust, stormed back inside. She'd obviously forgotten something.

    The second person to emerge was a man. He was black, in his late twenties, in a real hurry. He came out of the door buttoning a white chef's jacket. Jessica leaned back against the lamppost, called out:

    'Joseph?'

    No reaction. He didn't even acknowledge her. A few minutes later the woman reemerged and walked the other way down the street, a little more urgency to her stride. As a woman who forgot something at home every day, Jessica sympathized.

    Jessica then crossed the street, leaned against the car next to Byrne's open window, went back to pretending to be on the phone. Ten long minutes later another man came out of the building.

    'This is him,' Jessica said.

    'How do you know?'

    'I know.'

    Jessica walked across the sidewalk, gave her hair a quick fluff. 'Is that Joseph? The man turned around. He was tall, broad-shouldered, in his mid-thirties. He had brown hair nearly to his shoulders, a fashionable one-day growth of beard. He wore a dark overcoat. His skin was alabaster pale.

    'Do I know you?' he asked. His posture betrayed neither aggression nor retreat. Instead, he looked pleasantly curious.

    Jessica continued toward him. 'We met last year. You're Joseph Novak, right?'

    The man offered a half-smile but not one that fully committed himself to this conversation. 'I am. But I must confess I don't remember your name.'

    'My name is Jessica Balzano.' She produced her ID, held it up. 'I just need to talk to you for a few moments.'

    Joseph Novak looked at her badge, then back into her eyes. In this light his eyes were a pale blue, almost colorless. 'We've never met, have we?'

    'No,' Jessica said. 'That was just a bold subterfuge on my part.'

    The man smiled. 'Well played. But I can't imagine what it is I could tell you.' He looked over her shoulder. 'Or your partner.'

    It was Jessica's turn to smile. She always had to remind herself that she and Byrne were not that hard to make as cops. 'It won't take a minute.'

    Novak held up a #10 envelope. 'I just need to post this.' He pointed a half-block away, at a mailbox on the corner. He turned back to Jessica. 'I promise not to run.'

    Jessica glanced at the envelope. It did not look like the paper found at the crime scenes. 'In that case, I promise not to chase you.'

    Another smile. 'If you'll excuse me.'

    'Of course.'

    Novak threw one more glance at Byrne, then turned on his heels and walked toward the mailbox. Byrne got out of the car, crossed the street.

    'That was good,' he said.

    'I know.'

    Novak mailed the letter and, as promised, began to walk back up the block. His size and bearing made for a striking silhouette in the afternoon light.

    'Why don't you call Josh, tell him where we are?' Byrne said.

    Jessica got on her cell, filled Bontrager in. She closed her phone just as Novak returned to the steps in front of his apartment building. Novak turned his attention to Byrne.

    'I am Joseph Novak.'

    'Kevin Byrne,' Byrne said.

    'How can I help?' Novak asked.

    Jessica pointed at the door to Beau Rive. 'Do you think we could chat inside? As I said, we won't take up too much of your time.'

    Novak did not answer right away. When he saw that these two police officers were not about to leave, he relented. He gestured to the door. 'Please.'