Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense (179 page)

I hide.

AUGUST 1, 1990

There is a place I go, a place that exists only behind my eyes. It all started when I was ten years old. A light in the heavens. More like a yellow moon, perhaps, a soft yellow moon in an aluminum sky. Heaven’s porch light.

Soon the moon becomes a face. A devil’s face.

JANUARY 22, 1992

I left yesterday. I hitchhiked along Frankford Avenue for awhile, caught a few good rides. One guy wanted to take me to Florida with him. If he hadn’t looked like Freddy Krueger I might have considered it. Even still I considered it. Anything to get away from Dad.

I am sitting on the steps at the art museum. It is hard to believe that I have lived in Philadelphia most of my life, and I have never been here. It is another world.

Enrique will be in this place one day. He will paint pictures that will make the world laugh and think and cry. He will be famous.

JULY 23, 1995

I still hide. I hide from my life, my obligations. I watch from afar.

    Those tiny fingers. Those dark eyes.

    These are my days of grace.

MAY 3, 2006

Nobody who is truly happy is an alcoholic or a drug addict. These things are mutually exclusive. Drugs are what you do instead of loving someone.

JUNE 2, 2008

I walk the Badlands. The nights here are made of broken glass, broken people. I carry two firearms now—one is my service weapon, a Glock 17. Full mag, plus a round in the chamber. There is no safety. I carry it in a holster on my hip.

The other weapon is a .25-caliber Beretta. I have an ankle rig for it, but it fits nicely into the palm of my hand. I do not enter a convenience store without it palmed. I do not walk the streets without my finger on the trigger. When I drive, even through Center City, its weight is familiar on my right thigh. It is always within reach. It is part of me now.

__________

I am drinking too much. I am not sleeping. The alarm sounds at six. A shot before I can face the shower, the coffee, the mirror. No breakfast. Remember breakfast? Bagels and juice with Jimmy Valentine? Remember laughter?

All I want is one good night’s sleep. I would trade everything I have for one night’s sleep. I would trade my life for the sanctity of slumber, the sanction of rest.

Graciella mi amor. I have nothing. Not anymore.

I walk the Badlands, searching, dying, asking.

I am asking to be found.

Find me.

| FIFTY |

T
HE RAIN CAME AT MIDNIGHT
. A
T FIRST IT WAS AN UNREPENTANT
downpour, thick bulbs of water smashing against the pavement, the buildings, the grateful city. In time, it relented. It was now a thin drizzle. The asphalt steamed. With the pitted road, the rusted and abandoned hulks of old vehicles, the flickering neon, it looked like an alien landscape. Traffic was light on Kensington, the few cars taking advantage of the free car wash, the removal of the dust of a hot, dry August. Five styles of rap pounded in the distance.

Jessica had read more than twenty of Eve Galvez’s diary entries. She discovered early on in her reading that the files were not in any order. Eve as a child, Eve as an adult, Eve as a teenager. Jessica read them in the order in which they were scanned. There were still at least a hundred more.

Jessica’s tears had come after reading just a few. She couldn’t seem to stop herself. Eve was abused. Her father was monstrous. Eve was a runaway.

It was all a continuum of death—Monica Renzi, Caitlin O’Riordan, Katja Dovic, Eve Galvez.

Jessica stood in a doorway, surveyed the area. It was one of the worst parts of the city. Eve Galvez had walked these streets at night. Had she paid the price for it?

Jessica put the earbuds in her ears. She looked at the backlighted LCD screen, scrolled down, selected a song. The beat began to build. She felt the comforting weight of the Tomcat 32 in her pancake holster. Eve Galvez had carried two weapons. It was probably not a bad idea.

Jessica pulled up the hood on her rain slicker. She looked left, right. She was alone. For the moment.

Sophie, my love.
Graciella, mi amor.

The music matched her heartbeat. She stepped out onto the sidewalk, and began to run.

Into the Badlands.

| FIFTY-ONE |

T
HE TENTH FLOOR OF THE
D
ENISON SMELLED LIKE WET SMOKE, WET
lumber, wet dog. Byrne was six bourbons into his plot, and should be home. He should be
sleeping.

But here he was. At Laura Somerville’s apartment. The walls in the hallway were still warm. The wallpaper was peeled and cracked, some of it charred.

He pulled out his knife, slit the seal on the door, picked the lock, and entered the apartment.

The odor of burned upholstery and paper was overwhelming. Byrne put his tie over his mouth and nose. He had an old friend, Bobby Dotrice, who had retired from the PFD fifteen years earlier, and Byrne would swear under oath that man still smelled like smoke. Bobby had all new clothes, a new car, a new wife, even a new house. It never left you.

Byrne wondered if he smelled like the dead.

Even though the tenants of the building had been reassured there was no structural damage, Byrne stepped lightly through the space, his Maglite bouncing on overturned tables, chairs, bookcases. He wondered what had done more damage, the fire or the fire brigade.

He stood before the partially opened bedroom door. It seemed a lifetime ago he had been there. He pushed into the bedroom.

The window had been boarded up. The mattress and box spring were gone, as was the dresser. He saw blackened Scrabble tiles all over the room.

He opened the closet. It was mostly untouched, except for the water damage. On one side was a canvas garment bag. Byrne unzipped it, peered inside. Old dresses.
Very
old, very
theatrical.
She—

—sees the countryside from a cracked and taped truck window … she knows …

Byrne shut his eyes to the pain in his head.

She knows …

H
E LOOKED
at the top shelf. The strongbox was still there. He put his flashlight under his arm, took down the box. It was warm. There was no latch. The box was perfectly smooth. He shook it. Something shifted inside. It sounded like paper.

When Byrne left the apartment, just a few minutes later, he took the box with him. Out in the hallway he closed the door, reached into his pocket, took out a fresh police seal. He peeled off the back, smoothed it over the doorjamb, and pocketed the backing.

He drove back to South Philly.

A
S HE STEPPED
onto the sidewalk in front of his apartment building his phone beeped. It was a text message. Before reading the message, Byrne looked at his watch. It was 2:45
AM
. Just about the only person who sent him text messages was Colleen. But not in the middle of the night.

He retrieved the message, looked at the LCD screen.

It read: 910
JHOME
.

Byrne knew what it meant. It was a little-used code he had established a long time ago with Jessica. jhome meant she was at her house; 910 meant that she needed him, but it was not an emergency.

That would be 911.

Byrne got back into his car and headed to the Northeast.

| FIFTY-TWO |

S
WANN AWOKE AT 3 AM
. H
E COULD NOT SLEEP
. I
T HAD BEEN THE SAME
since he was a child. On the night before he and his father were to go on a tour, or even move between venues on a sunrise train, he found the anticipation to be overwhelming. Sleep would not find him.

This would be such a day.

He showered and shaved, dressed casually—perhaps an engineer preparing a survey in some wooded expanse, perhaps a junior high school principal about to give a holiday speech.

He parked near Tacony Creek Park, in a small lot off Wyoming Avenue. They would be arriving at first light. Some may have even spent the night in the park.

He looked at the screen of his cell phone. It was dark. Lilly would call. He was sure of it. But still, he had to be prepared if she did not.

| FIFTY-THREE |

J
ESSICA SAT ON HER PORCH
. B
EHIND HER, EVERY LIGHT IN THE HOUSE
was blazing. The stereo inside blasted the Go-Gos.

“Hey, partner!” she yelled.

Oh, boy,
Byrne thought.
She’s hammered.
The Go-Gos proved it. “Hey.”

“You got my text message? That is
so
cool. God, I love technology.”

“You okay?”

Jessica butterflied a hand. “Pain-free.”

“I can see that. Family okay?”

“Vincent and Sophie are up at Vincent’s father’s house. I talked to them earlier. They went swimming. Sophie went off the low diving board. Her first time.” Jessica’s eyes misted. “I missed it.”

There was a pint bottle of bourbon between her feet. It was two-thirds full. Byrne knew she hadn’t gotten this plastered on two drinks.

“There’s got to be another casualty around here somewhere,” he said.

Jessica hesitated for a moment, then pointed at the hedges to the left of the porch. A glint of moonlight shimmered off an empty bottle of Wild Turkey. Byrne plucked it from the shadows, stood it on the porch.

“You know … you know how people say ‘life sucks,’ and how someone always says, right after that, ‘No one ever said life is supposed to be fair’?”

“Yeah,” Byrne said. “I think I’ve heard that one.”

“Well it’s fucking bullshit.”

Byrne agreed, but he had to ask. “What do you mean?”

“What I mean is, people say life is fair all the
time.
Right? When you’re a kid they tell you that you can be anything you want to be. They tell you that if you work hard, the world is your oyster. You can overcome anything. Buckle down! Hang in there! Stay with it!”

Byrne didn’t have much of an argument for this. “Well, yeah. They do say that.”

Jessica went south, her mind veering into some new area. She took another slow sip. “What did these girls do to deserve this, Kevin?”

“I don’t know.” Byrne wasn’t used to this dynamic.
He
was the melancholy drunk. She was the sane one. More than once—actually, more times than he could count—Jessica had listened to his inebriated ramblings, standing on some freezing street corner, standing on the banks of the river, standing in some steaming parking lot in Northern Liberties. He owed her. In many more ways than this. He listened.

“I mean, they ran away from home? Is that what this is all about?
That
was their crime? Shit, I ran away once.”

Byrne was shocked. Little Jessica Giovanni had run away from home? Strict Catholic, straight-A student, daughter of one of the most decorated cops in PPD history Jessica? “You did?”

“Oh you bet I did, buddy. You fucking
bet
I did.” She took another dramatic,
Days of Wine and Roses
swig from the bottle, wiped off her mouth with her wrist. “I only got as far as Tenth and Washington,” she added. “But I
did
it.”

She offered the pint to Byrne. He took it. For two reasons. One was that he didn’t mind having a drink. Two, it was probably a good idea to get the bottle away from Jessica. They fell silent for a while.

“Why the hell do we do this?” Jessica finally asked, loud and clear.

And there it was, Byrne thought.
The
question. Every homicide cop on the face of the earth asked it at one time or another. Some asked every day.

“I don’t know,” Byrne said. “I guess it’s because we’re no good for anything else.”

“Okay. Okay. Okay. I’ll buy that. But how do you know when it’s time to quit? That’s what I want to know. Huh? Is that in the handbook?”

Byrne looked off into the night. He took a healthy quaff. He needed it for what he was about to say. “Last story of the night. Okay?”

Jessica sat up straight, mimicking a five-year-old. A
story.

“Do you know a cop named Tommy Delgado?” Byrne asked.

Jessica shook her head. “Never met him. I’ve heard the name, though. Vincent has brought him up a few times. Homicide?”

Byrne nodded. “In the blood. One of the best ever. Remember the Manny Utrillo case?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Tommy cracked it. Walked into the unit one day with the piece of shit killer in irons. Walked him in like a prom date. Eight detectives were working the phones, tracking down leads on the case, Tommy Delgado walks the fucker in. Brought Danish for everyone in the other hand.”

Byrne hit the Wild Turkey again, capped it.

“So, anyway, we get called to a scene in Frankford. We weren’t the primaries, we were there to back up Tommy and his partner Mitch Driscoll. I was working with Jimmy then. I was in the unit for maybe three years. Still wet. I was still calling the scumbags ‘sir.’ ”

Jessica laughed. She had only given up that practice recently.

“Okay.”

“This place was ugly. Job was even worse. The victim was an eighteen-month-old baby. Her so-called father had strangled her with a lamp cord.”

“Jesus.”

“Jesus wasn’t there that day, partner.” Byrne sat down next to Jessica. “Two hours in we’re wrapping it up. I mean, the guy copped to it on the scene. Not too much intrigue. Now, Jimmy and I are keeping a close eye on Tommy, because he’s looking a little shaky, right? Like he’s going to burn down the whole block, like he’s going to cap the first addict he sees on the street, just for drawing air. We’re standing on the porch, and I see Tommy staring at something on the ground. Mesmerized. I look down and I see what he’s looking at. Know what it was?”

Jessica tried to imagine. Based on what Byrne had told her about the job, it couldn’t be a crucial piece of evidence—a shell casing, a bloody footprint. “What?”