Текст книги "The Echo Man"
Автор книги: Richard Montanari
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Chapter 60
The Audio-Visual Unit of the PPD was located in the Roundhouse basement. The purview of the unit was to provide A/V support to all of the city's agencies – cameras, TVs, recording devices, audio and video equipment. The unit was also responsible for recording every public event in which the mayor or police department was involved, providing an official record. The detective divisions relied upon the unit to analyze surveillance footage as it related to their cases.
In this regard there was no one better than Mateo Fuentes. In his mid-thirties, Fuentes was a denizen of the gloomy confines of the basement studios and editing bays, a fussy and geometrically precise investigator who seemed to take every foray by detectives into his world as an unwelcome invasion.
Recently promoted to sergeant, Mateo was now commander of the unit. What had passed for punctiliousness when he was Officer Fuentes now bordered on the obsessive.
When Jessica and Byrne arrived in the basement, Mateo Fuentes was holding court in one of the bays off the main studio, chatting with David Albrecht.
'So, you prefer the L-series lens, then?' Mateo asked.
'Oh yeah,' Albrecht said. 'No comparison.'
'No ghosting?'
'None.'
Mateo smirked. 'So, if I mortgage my house and sell all my possessions, I might be able to buy a rig like this?'
'You might be able to rent one.'
Both men looked over at Jessica and Byrne. Albrecht smiled. Mateo frowned. It appeared that the two detectives were harshing his vibe. A few minutes later the rest of the team arrived – six detectives in all, plus Sergeant Dana Westbrook.
Mateo was outnumbered.
'And so to business,' Fuentes said. 'Ready?'
The detectives gathered around David Albrecht's camera. The LCD screen was about four inches diagonally, but Mateo had hooked it up to one of the fifteen-inch monitors from the Comm Unit.
Mateo fast-forwarded through footage of the West Philly location until he came to the sequence showing the parking lot where Jessica had been assaulted.
The video showed Jessica walking out of the diner and into the parking lot. Ordinarily this would have been a moment for hoots and hollers, for a bout of good-natured ribbing. Everyone was silent. They knew what was coming.
On the screen Jessica made a call on her cellphone, then pocketed the phone. She leaned against the wall of the building, and opened the diary. She pulled something out of the back. This went on for a full minute. Cars passed in the foreground. A mother walking with her three small children stopped in front of the lot. The woman adjusted the jacket on a two-year-old girl, who wanted nothing to do with it. They soon moved on. Jessica continued to read.
A few moments later Thompson emerged from behind the building. It showed him sucker-punching Jessica, the diary flying from her hand. Two loose pieces of paper lofted on the wind. Everyone watching winced. The second blow took Jessica down. Thompson paced for a few moments, strutting. The audio was from across the street, just the sound of traffic. His words were unintelligible, but his gestures were not.
'There,' Albrecht said. He hit a button on the small remote in his hand. The video froze. Albrecht pointed to the right side of the screen. There, just beyond the corner of the building, was a shadow on the ground, the unmistakable shadow of a person. Albrecht restarted the video. Thompson stood over Jessica's body, but all eyes were on the shadow. The shadow didn't move.
He's watching, Jessica thought. He's just standing there watching what's happening. He's not helping me. He's part of this.
When Thompson got close to the corner of the building a pair of arms reached out, over his head. A second later the arms descended and Thompson all but disappeared, dragged off his feet with enormous force.
Albrecht rewound the video, played it again, this time frame by frame. The arms were dark-clad. The subject wore dark gloves. When the hands were over Thompson's head Albrecht froze the video. Silhouetted against the white of the garage behind the building, it was possible to see what the man in shadows had in his hands. It was a wire. A long loop of thin wire. He slipped the wire over Thompson's head and around his neck, yanking back and pulling Thompson from the frame.
The screen went black.
'I want a copy of this sent to Technical Services,' Dana Westbrook said. 'I want this broken down frame by frame.'
'Sure.'
'I want tire impressions from that lot and the area behind the building,' Westbrook said. 'See if we have any police cameras on that street.'
Before Westbrook could say anything else, Dennis Stansfield came down the stairs in a hurry. He bulled into the center of the room.
'Detective?' Westbrook asked. 'You're late.'
Stansfield looked at the floor, the ceiling, the walls. He opened his mouth, but nothing emerged. He seemed stuck.
'Dennis?'
Stansfield snapped out of it. 'There's another one.'
The scene was a Chinese takeout on York Street, in a section of Philadelphia known as Fishtown. A longtime working-class neighborhood in the northeast section of Center City, running roughly from the Delaware River to Frankford Avenue to York Street, Fishtown now boasted a number of arts and entertainment venues, mixing arty types with the cops, firefighters, and blue-collar workers.
As Byrne and Jessica threaded through the cordon to the area behind the restaurant, Jessica dreaded what she was about to see.
A pair of uniformed officers stood at the mouth of the alley. Jessica and Byrne signed onto the crime scene, gloved up, and walked down the narrow passageway. No one was in a hurry.
The call had come in to 911 at just after nine p.m. The victim, it appeared, had been dead for days.
Garbage bags had been piling up behind the restaurant for weeks. Apparently the restaurant owner had an ongoing feud with the private hauling company, and it had become a matter of principle. Pushed against one wall were more than a hundred bulging plastic bags, ripped and torn by all manner of vermin, their rotting contents spilling out. The foul smell of the decomposing body was masked by a dozen other acrid odors of decaying meats and produce. A trio of brave rats milled at the far end of the alley, waiting their turn.
At first, Jessica didn't see the victim. CSU had not yet set up their field lighting, and in the dim light of the sodium street lamps, combined with the meager yellow light thrown by the security light over the back door to the restaurant, the flesh of the corpse blended in with the trash and pitted asphalt. It was as if he had become part of the city itself. Stepping closer, she saw the body.
Light brown skin. Nude and hairless. Head shaved bald. The body was bloated with gases.
The entire team was present, along with Russell Diaz, Mike Drummond, and now a representative of the mayor's office.
They all waited for the ME's investigator to clear the body for investigators. Tom Weyrich was taking a day off. The new investigator was a black woman in her forties whom Jessica had never met. She examined the body for wounds, made her notes. She opened the victim's hand, shone her Maglite, and everyone saw the small tattoo on the middle finger of the left hand. It appeared to be a kangaroo. Photos were taken from every angle.
The ME's investigator rose and stepped back. Stansfield walked forward and gently removed the white paper band that was wrapped around the victim's head.
The dead man was Latino, in his late thirties. Like the other victims he had a slash across his forehead, but this time the puncture wound was over his left eye. His right ear was shredded into a scabrous tangle of blood and ruined cartilage.
Byrne saw the victim's face, turned, and took a few steps away, his hands in his pockets.
What was this about? Jessica wondered. Why was he stepping away?
'I know him,' Drummond said. 'That's Eduardo Robles.'
All eyes turned to Kevin Byrne. Everyone knew that Byrne had been trying to get the grand jury to indict Robles in the death of Lina Laskaris. And now Robles was a victim of their serial murderer.
'This is where she died,' Byrne said. 'She was shot on the street and she crawled back here to die. This is the Lina Laskaris crime scene.'
On York Street, the media crews swarmed. In the mix Jessica noted CNN, Fox and other national news outlets. Among them David Albrecht jockeyed for position.
Five victims.
Chapter 61
Byrne got in the van and drove. At first he had no idea where he was going. But soon he found himself on the expressway, and not long after that back in Chestnut Hill, looking beyond the high iron fence at the huge house.
He saw a light in a window, a shadow cross the elegant silk drapery.
Christa-Marie.
Closing his eyes and leaning back in the driver's seat, he returned to that night in 1990. He and Jimmy Purify had been grabbing a bite to eat. They had just closed a double homicide, a drug murder in North Philadelphia.
Had he really been that young? He'd been one of the newer detectives in the unit then, a brash kid who carried over the nickname of his youth. Riff Raff. He wore it with the expected cocky Irish swagger. They called Jimmy 'Clutch.'
Riff Raff and Clutch.
But that was ancient history.
Byrne glanced up at the second floor, at the figure in the window. Was she looking out at him?
He picked up the file next to him on the seat, opened it, looked at the photos, at the body of Gabriel Thorne lying on the floor, the bloody white kitchen where all this had begun.
He had met earlier in the day with a man named Robert Cole, a man who ran an independent lab that sometimes took contracts from the department when rush forensic services were needed. He had seen Cole testify a number of times. He was good, he was thorough and, above all, he was discreet. Cole had promised Byrne a rush job on what he wanted.
Byrne flipped through the case file. He looked at his signature at the bottom of the form. A much younger man had wielded the pen that day. A man who had his whole career, his whole life, ahead of him.
Byrne didn't have to look at the time of arrest, the moment he had placed Christa-Marie Schönburg in custody. He knew.
It was 2:52.
Chapter 62
In the night, when hotel guests are asleep in their beds, the dead roam the halls. They ride the elevators, take the back stairs, slip into rooms and stand at the foot of your bed. They sit on the edge of the sink when you take your shower. They watch as you make love, as you stuff the free toiletries and soaps into your luggage, thinking yourself so clever. They watch as you view late-night porn.
Stacy Pennell walks these hallways, her small feet barely making an impression on the soft carpeting. Guests come and go, but Stacy stays on, her final words circling in Room 1208 like sorrowful little birds.
Soon she will be set free.
Chapter 63
Saturday, October 30
Jessica jogged down third street. at this early hour the running was not as bad as she'd thought it was going to be. Traffic was sparse, and the only people on the streets were those opening their bakeries and coffee shops, city crews, other joggers and cyclists. The hard part of running through a city was the uneven sidewalks, the curbs, the occasional stray dog.
There was a light drizzle, a condition that the weather report said would end by mid-morning. Jessica wore her rain gear and an Eagles ball cap. She was wet, but not soaked. The temperature was in the high forties. Perfect jogging weather.
As she turned the corner onto Wharton she thought about her and Byrne's meeting with Frederic Duchesne. She thought about the photograph on the wall of the Prentiss Institute, the picture of Christa-Marie Schönburg wearing the bracelet they had seen in Joseph Novak's apartment.
This morning they would get the background information on Carnival of the Animals, and they could begin to work on what might be the killer's twisted method.
She turned the corner and saw someone standing in front of her house. Again. She slowed up.
This time it was not Dennis Stansfield. It was Kevin Byrne. As Jessica approached she got a better look at him. She had never seen him look worse. His face was drawn and pale. He hadn't shaved. He was wearing the same clothes he'd had on yesterday. And he was just standing in the rain. He didn't seem to be looking for her, didn't seem to be doing anything. He was just standing in the cold rain, holding a large envelope in his hands. Just a few feet from where he stood was an awning that would have provided him shelter.
Jessica came to a stop, then walked the last few yards.
'Hey,' she said, catching her breath.
Byrne turned to look at her. 'Hey.'
'Want to come in? You're getting soaked.'
Byrne just looked up at the sky, letting the rain fall on his face.
'Come on inside,' Jessica said. 'I'll make some coffee, get you a towel.'
'I'm okay.'
Jessica took him by the arm, led him under her neighbor's awning. She shook the rain off her ball cap, brushed some of the water from Byrne's shoulders. 'What's up?'
Byrne was silent for a few moments. He pointed across the street, at a novelty sign in the window of a row house. It read PARKING FOR ITALIANS ONLY.
Jessica offered a smile. 'South Philly. What are you going to do?'
Byrne turned the envelope over and over in his hands. The moment drew out. 'I don't think I know how to do this anymore, Jess.'
He looked down the street, remained silent. Lights flickered on in some of the windows. Another morning in Philadelphia.
Jessica turned him to face her fully. 'There are two dozen people working these cases. Every resource available is on this. We're going to shut him down. Take the day. I'll call you every hour on the hour. If something breaks I'll—'
'We heard from the lab,' Byrne said, interrupting her. 'From Irina. We have a fix on the murder weapon.'
'Well, that's good, right? That's a good thing.'
'The killer is using strings from an instrument.'
'An instrument?'
Byrne looked down the street, back. 'The wire is a string from a cello, Jess. He's strangling them with a string from a cello. That explains the animal hair on the wire. It's horsehair from the bow.'
The implications of this were deep, and Jessica knew now why her partner had been up all night. There could no longer be any excuse for not bringing Christa-Marie Schönburg in for questioning. There were too many connections.
Jessica knew she had to tread lightly. 'How do you want to handle this?'
Byrne said nothing. A city street-sweeper trolled slowly by. They took a step back, closer to the building. When it had passed Byrne turned to her.
'When I walked into that house, twenty years ago, I felt something, you know? It was my first case as a lead investigator, and I had it all in my hand. I saw the body, the weapon, the blood. I saw the suspect, I knew the motive. I saw it all in one second. One big picture, no parts.' He looked at Jessica. He was on the edge. 'I said to myself this is what you were meant to do.'
Jessica wanted to jump in. It wasn't the right moment.
'I don't see it like that anymore,' Byrne said. 'Now it's all in pieces, and I'm scared that I made a mistake. I'm scared I can't do it anymore.'
'You're wrong, Kevin. I have no doubt that you can do this. I don't know anybody who does this better. But you know what scares me?'
'What?'
'What scares me is that this killer might go underground. That he might finish this up and disappear forever.'
'He's not done.'
Byrne said this with such finality that it stopped Jessica cold. 'What do you mean? How do you know?'
Byrne held up the large envelope. It was soaked. He didn't seem to care. 'This came in at four o'clock this morning.'
'What is it?'
Byrne pulled the document out of the envelope. But he didn't look at it, didn't hand it to Jessica. He just let it get wet. 'A body was found yesterday in a town called Garrett Corners.' 'How does this concern us?'
'It looks like it's connected,' Byrne said. 'We have to go there. We're expected.'
Chapter 64
The Dreamweaver was waiting for Lucy with his door open.
He gave her a start. Again, he looked different. Even younger than the day before. He stood a little straighter, and his clothes looked new.
'Lucy,' he said, gesturing for her to step inside.
She almost gasped. The place was all but empty. The only thing left inside was the stand. The Dreamweaver booth.
'Are you moving somewhere?' Lucy asked.
'Yes. Quite soon.'
She wanted to ask what this was all about. She had a million questions, but she decided to wait. What was most important was to go back under, to slip back to that horrible day in 2001 and see the man's face, the man who took her somewhere and at the same time took her memory, her life. The man who was staying in Room 1208. The man who knew her mother.
'Today we are going to sit inside,' he said. 'Is that all right?'
Lucy pointed to the booth. 'Inside there?'
'Yes. Today we go all the way back.'
Lucy took a deep breath. 'Okay.'
Mr. Costa opened the door. Lucy took off her coat and stepped inside. It was like a confessional. Inside was a small bench. She sat down. When Mr. Costa closed the door, it was pitch black. She heard him sit down on the other side.
He began to speak, and—
—suddenly she was back there. The darkness around her did not change. But she sensed that she was under. It was different from the first two times because this time she knew. It was like when you were dreaming and you knew you were dreaming, and therefore you could not be hurt. For the first time in nine years, she felt strong.
Are You Alone?
No.
Who is there with you?
Another girl. A girl my age. Her name is Peggy.
Tell me about her.
She has on a spangly dress. And make-up. She's too little for make-up.
Are you wearing make-up?
I don't know. I can't see myself. But I am wearing high heels. They are big for my feet.
What is the other girl doing?
She's crying.
Are you crying?
No. I don't cry.
What else do you see?
I see candles. Candles and moonlight.
Why do you see moonlight?
Because I am running now. I'm running through the trees. The smell of apples is everywhere.
Is it an orchard?
Yes. It's an orchard.
Is the other girl with you?
No, but I see her. I see her up by the lake.
What is she doing?
She's not moving.
Why is she not moving?
I don't know.
Can you see the man's face?
I can't. But I know who he is. Is he the man in Room 1208? Yes. It's him.
You are certain?
Yes.
Did you place the note in his room? The note you wrote here last time?
Yes.
Good. Now I'm going to ring a bell for you. Is that okay?
Yes.
Can you hear the bell?
I can hear it.
It's a special bell, Lucy.
A special bell.
There is no other sound like it.
No other.
When you hear this bell at the hotel, there is something you have to do. Something you have to do for me.
Okay.
You will tell no one about this.
No one.
Remember the bell, Lucy.
Chapter 65
The drive across southeastern Pennsylvania was energizing. The rain had stopped and it was a bright and sunny day. A lot of people think that the best place to view fall colors in the United States is New England, and they have a point. But the rolling hills of Pennsylvania, painted in scarlet and gold and lemon yellow, might well give New Hampshire a run for its money.
For a long time neither Jessica nor Byrne said much. Both were lost in the events of the past four days and the possibility of a break in the case, a break located far out of their jurisdiction.
Before leaving Philadelphia, Jessica had gotten Byrne to stop at his apartment, shower and shave, change clothes. He looked like two-thirds of his old self again.
They stopped for coffee on the way. When Jessica got back in the car she remembered something she had been meaning to ask her partner. It was about as far removed from the case as she could imagine.
'You didn't happen to find a piece of green yarn in your van, did you?'
'No,' Byrne said. 'Are you talking about the yarn that was around the box with your mom's things in it?'
Jessica nodded. The thought of having lost the yarn made her sick. 'I looked everywhere, asked everyone. It's gone.'
'Maybe it'll turn up.'
Jessica didn't hold out much hope for this. It was only ten cents' worth of yarn, but it had belonged to her mother. And that made it priceless.
The town of Garrett Corners was a notch on the map off 1-80, set among rolling farmland. If you lived here, and you wanted something that could not be obtained at the local general store, hardware store, or pair of diners, there were a few larger towns within thirty or so miles where you could find a Wal-Mart, a Lowe's, or a Bed, Bath & Beyond. Dinner on Saturday night or special occasions was at Max and Erma's or Outback.
The police department of Garrett Corners was three officers strong. In addition to the standard duties involving processing civil matters such as court orders, writs and orders of possession, there were mortgage foreclosures and township auctions. Rarely did they deal with homicide.
The town itself was an intersection, twenty buildings deep in four directions. The municipal building was a featureless block of limestone, housing the police department, courthouse and public agencies. It was every small-town city hall east of the Rockies. Jessica and Byrne were instructed to meet the chief of police, a man named Rogers Logan.
The woman at the desk was in her fifties and had a lacquered, highly complex hairdo, cantilevered to one side. She also had about her an air of small-town bureaucratic efficiency that told Jessica there was no doubt who ran the office, if not the lives, of the three police officers stationed there. Her name was Helen Mott. There was a plate of Halloween-themed cookies on her desk.
Jessica and Byrne announced themselves, showed ID, and took a seat on the worn oak bench across the room. Jessica scanned the walls.
Affixed to them with yellowed tape were mostly outdated posters for D.A.R.E and other community drug and outreach programs. After a few minutes the door to the back opened, and a man walked out.
Rogers Logan was a fit sixty: military flat-top, big hands and farmer's shoulders. He walked with a purposeful gait. Behind him was a young woman in full uniform and Sam Browne.
'I'm Chief Logan,' he said. 'This is Officer Sherri Grace.'
Handshakes all around.
Officer Grace was in her late twenties, stout and surly. She was maybe fifteen pounds over her prom weight, and Jessica knew why. Cop hours and cop food would do it to you if you didn't fight it hard. Jessica waged the battle every day. Still, Officer Grace wore it well.
'Can I get everyone some coffee?' Grace asked.
'Sure,' Byrne said.
'How do you take it?'
'Like it comes.'
Grace winked and left the office.
'Coffee maker's fritzed,' Logan said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder, a sheepish look on his face. He probably figured that in Philadelphia the police department issued espresso machines and milk frothers to every squad. Little did he know. The first thing Jessica noticed when she walked into the office was that they had the same make and model of fax machines.
They retired to the squad room, which amounted to two desks pushed up against each other, a pair of large corkboards on the wall, a conference table pushed into the corner, along with five or six dented file cabinets.
A minute later Officer Grace returned with three cups of coffee in chipped ceramic mugs. The outside temperature had dropped a few degrees, and the mugs billowed with steam. She put the cups down on the desk, then put a cardboard box filled with packets of non-dairy creamer, sugar, Equal, Sweet'N Low and plastic stirrers on the table.
'I'm off to patrol,' she said. 'Nice meeting you all.'
Giving Byrne a little extra wattage in her smile, she left the office.
The coffee rituals came to a close. It was time to get down to business. Logan, the country gentleman, gestured to Jessica to take his chair. Jessica smiled, declined. All three of them stood as Logan described the victim.
'His name was Thomas Archer. Twenty-six years old. Lived over in Kelton, right near the county line. He worked in the beauty salon over there.'
'Where was he found?' Byrne asked.
Logan moved over to a map on the wall, a map of Garrett Corners and surrounding townships. He pointed to a small green area just a short distance from the county line. 'He was found here, in the Shadyside Cemetery. As you can see, the cemetery is on both sides of the creek. Tommy was found on the southern end, near the mausoleum.'
At the word cemetery Jessica and Byrne exchanged a look. All they had really known on the way up to Garrett Corners was what the telex had told them, namely that there was a homicide victim with a possible connection to the Philadelphia murders.
'Who found the body?' Jessica asked.
'Body was found by the mail carrier. He was doing his afternoon route and he noticed a pack of dogs circling something in the cemetery. We've had a few problems with meth labs out here in the past couple of years, and where there's meth labs there're mean dogs. Mail carrier figured they'd gotten loose, called it in, and we went out to check it out. County game warden scooped up two of the dogs, others got away. The dogs had been at Tommy, but not too bad.'
'Where is Mr. Archer now?'
'The body was taken to the coroner's office in the county seat. They do all our autopsies, what few we need done.'
'Do they know how long the body had been there?' Byrne asked.
'Hard to say until they give it a good going-over. Not that long, though.'
'Do you have photographs of the crime scene?'
'Yeah,' Logan said. 'Unfortunately, I do.'
Logan led them to a small area off the squad room, which served as storage space for fax paper, toner, and other supplies. A folded crib leaned in one corner. Logan flipped on the overhead fluorescents.
One wall was dedicated to racks of official forms. The town might have been small, but it rivaled the PPD for forms needed. In the center was a folding conference table. Most of the table's contents were bunched to one side, and a pair of large manila envelopes sat in the middle.
Logan opened the envelopes, slid out the photographs. He arrayed them side by side on the table. The longer shots showed a rural cemetery. The close-ups were of the body. It was a sight with which Jessica and Byrne were all too familiar.
Jessica looked closely at the victim. The signature was identical to the bodies found in Philadelphia. The body was nude, and shaved clean of all hair. The band of paper was wrapped around the head, just barely covering the victim's eyes. There were three bloodstains on the paper, one lateral, one circular, along with the mutilated ear. The body was sprawled on a hillside, surrounded by low headstones. The left leg was clearly broken.
'Does this dovetail with the case you're working?' Logan asked.
'It does,' Byrne said.
'We'll need copies of these photographs, if that's all right,' Jessica said.
Logan retrieved a stack of envelopes from the top of a nearby file cabinet. He picked up two of them. 'I anticipated that. There's duplicates of everything in here.'
He handed the envelopes to Jessica. 'Thanks.'
The three of them went still for a few moments, each of them taking in the horror displayed before them in full color.
'When was your last homicide?' Jessica asked.
Logan ran a hand over his chin. 'Well, even though it's been a few years I find it a little hard to talk about. And mind you, I was in Vietnam. Two tours. Saw quite a bit. This one shook me good.'
Jessica and Byrne remained silent.
'We haven't had but two murders here in all the time I've been on the job. One was a domestic that went tragically wrong. Everyone saw that one coming, I suppose. Those two were at it for years. The other was little Peggy van Tassel.'
'Would you mind telling us the details?' Byrne asked.
Logan sipped his coffee. Jessica noticed a slight shake in his hand. He put the cup down, rattling it slightly on the worn Masonite surface. 'Little girl, eleven years old. Father worked for the county in the water department, mother was a teacher at Jefferson Middle School. Only child. Peggy went to school one day, never came home. We put the word out and by that evening we must have had two hundred volunteers for the search. We found her by Iron Lake ten days later. She'd been molested, stabbed to death. Whoever did it cut her pretty bad.' Logan cleared his throat, reached for his coffee, thought better of it. 'She had on make-up, and a woman's fancy dress. Not a dress that was for a grown woman, mind you, but a small one. One that was her size. The folks at the state crime lab said it looked like it was made for her. State police took the case.'
The idea of the killer making a dress for the little girl gave Jessica a chill. 'Was the case ever closed?' she asked.
Logan shook his head. 'There was a man who was questioned in that case. That man's name was George Archer.'
'Archer?' Byrne asked.
'Yes, sir. Tommy Archer's father. George was a state trooper for a few years, but as I understand it he was shown the door,' Logan added. 'Insubordination was the official line, but there were rumors.'
'Rumors of what?' Jessica asked.
