Richard Montanari (48 page)

    Logan
shrugged. 'I suppose anything's possible. But as I understand it her family
were travelers. I think they moved on a long time ago.' Logan sat on the edge
of the table. 'A few years later the FBI came around again, questioned George
in another case, up round your way. It was a cold case.'

    'The
case was out of Philadelphia?' Byrne asked.

    Logan
nodded. 'I believe it was.'

    'Do you
remember any details about the case?'

    'No.
It wasn't ours. But I do remember that they also talked to Tommy, who swore
that George was with him all during the weekend in question, right up at the
house on the farm. I'm not sure that George was there, but that was Tommy's
story and he stuck to it.'

    'I'd
like to take a look at the report on that original homicide,' Byrne said. 'The
van Tassel girl. Can you reach out to the state police and have them fax that
to us?'

    'Consider
it done.' Logan glanced at his watch. 'I've got a few things on today. If
there's anything else we can do for you, let Helen know and we'll take care of
it.'

    'We'd
like to speak to George Archer,' Byrne said.

    'I'll
give you directions.' Logan scribbled a few things on a legal pad, tore off the
sheet, handed it to Jessica.

    'You
can't miss the sign,' he added. 'Archer Farms.'

    Jessica
and Byrne thanked Logan for his time and consideration. On the way to the parking
lot Jessica turned, asked the chief one last question.

    'What
do they grow up there at Archer Farms?'

    'Apples,
mostly,' Logan said. 'They have about fifty acres of orchards.'

    The
house was a large, aging Dutch Colonial on a hillside, not so much the
archetypal farmhouse but rather a house built on a farm, remodeled many times
over the years. It was surrounded on three sides by apple trees as far as the
eye could see. In addition to a triple garage there were two outbuildings; one
small, perhaps for lawn and maintenance equipment; one large, perhaps for
mechanical harvesters, straddle trailers, and the storage of harvest totes.

    The
air was heavy with the sugary-tart smell of the fruit.

    Jessica
pulled over on the drive, stopping about fifty yards from the house. Nothing
moved. There were no vehicles in sight.

    'Does
it get quieter than this?' Jessica asked.

    Byrne
just looked at the house, at the acres of trees. There was a porch light on,
but no lights were visible through the windows.

    Jessica
had a hard time reconciling the bucolic vision in front of her with what she
had seen in the past four days, or with the story she had heard from Rogers
Logan. Still, there could be no denying that the murder of Thomas Archer, who
at one time had lived right here, was connected to the brutal homicides in
Philadelphia.

    She
looked at Byrne. 'Ready?'

    Byrne
hesitated for a few moments, then nodded.

    Jessica
crossed the gravel drive, looked in the grimy garage-door window. Inside she
saw a pickup truck on the right-hand side. It looked to be a five-year-old
F-150. The other two bays were empty. There was a thin layer of dust on the
truck. There had been rain in this part of Pennsylvania in the past three days.
Chances were good that the truck had not been out.

    She
and Byrne then walked over to the porch. The place was eerily quiet. They were
about three hundred yards from Route 68, and it seemed that even the sound of
the occasional car passing by did not reach them.

    The
right-hand side of the porch had a rick of well-seasoned firewood, stacked in a
rusted wrought-iron rack. The door was ringed with a grapevine wreath, strung
with autumn mums and small gourds.

    Jessica
looked through the window in the door. She saw no activity. She knocked,
listened. Byrne moved across the porch, next to the window that looked into the
living room. There were sheer curtains over the opening.

    Jessica
knocked again, put her ear near the door. Only silence.

    Walking
around to the back of the house, they found a tilled vegetable garden, turned
for the season. A small green-water pond sat at the bottom of a gentle hill.
The back porch was smaller than the front, but boasted a pair of new Adirondack
chairs. They climbed the steps, looked inside. Inside was a mud room of sorts,
one that led to a large kitchen. There were no cups or plates on the table,
none in the sink.

    Jessica
knocked again, waited. The house appeared to be unoccupied.

    'Let's
check the garage,' Byrne said.

    They
walked over to the triple garage, around the side where there was a smaller
door. It was unlocked.

    Byrne
stayed outside while Jessica pushed open the door, stepped in. The garage was
dark and dusty, smelling of axle grease and the ever-pervasive sweetness of
apples. The cloying smell was even stronger in here. One wall was lined with
garden and farm tools - rakes, half- round shovels, hoes, mattocks, pickaxes.
The other wall boasted a collage of license plates and street signs.

    Jessica
walked over to the truck. She placed her hand on the hood. The engine was cold.
She then took a Kleenex out of her pocket, opened the driver's-side door. The
rusty hinge moaned, and she stopped. It had been so quiet that the sound went
through the garage like a scream. She eased the door all the way open. There
were no keys in the ignition, and the cab was relatively clean. A pine-tree-
shaped deodorizer dangled from the rearview mirror.

    On
the seat was a small pile of papers. Jessica held the Kleenex tightly, sorted
through them. There were a pair of flyers for a recent Oktoberfest in Kelton, a
coupon for a free car wash. There was a brochure for tours of Philadelphia. At
the bottom was a postcard depicting a beach in South Carolina.
Greetings
from Edisto Island.
Jessica flipped the card over, angled her Maglite.

    
Looking
forward to seeing you and everyone at Société Poursuite!

    
I'll
be staying at the Hyatt Penn's Landing. Look me up and we'll have a drink
.

    It
was signed, simply, R.

    Jessica
glanced at the date on the postmark. It was from the previous Friday.

    She
slipped the postcard back where it had been, closed the truck door, and walked
out of the garage. She told Byrne about the postcard.

    'It
looks like he might be at the annual meeting of the
Société Poursuite.'

    'That's
the group that handles the cold cases, right?'

    'And
these are all—'

    'Cold
cases,' Byrne said. 'Melina Laskaris, Marcellus Palmer, Antoinette Chan, and
Peggy van Tassel are all open investigations, just the kind of thing a group
like
Société Poursuite
would look into.'

    Jessica
nodded, thought for a moment. 'Logan said this guy used to be a state trooper.
Maybe he's a member.'

    'That
convention is this week.'

    It
occurred to both of them at the same time.

    'He's
in Philly,' Jessica said.

    'He's
in Philly.'

    In
July 1998, at a small Italian restaurant in Queens, New York - an old-school
trattoria on Astoria Boulevard called Theresa's - a man named Paul Ferrone, a
retired NYPD detective, met with two of his oldest friends.

    The
three men had been meeting at Theresa's every month for the past four years,
mostly for two reasons. One, Theresa Colopinti's chicken with peppers was the
best in the city of New York. More importantly, the second reason was that
these three men genuinely enjoyed each other's company.

    After
their entree plates were cleared, they began to talk about murder, as was their
custom. Cold-case murder. Paul Ferrone's two friends - Matt Grayson, a retired
forensic dentist from Newark, New Jersey, and Eli O'Steen, a retired judge from
Brooklyn - had been thinking about forming a group that did this sort of thing
with regularity, a group that would expand beyond the three of them.

    On
that night they created an association called
Societe Poursuite,
an
homage to the Vidocq Society, a similarly themed group named after a
nineteenth-century French detective named Eugene Francois Vidocq.

    Similar
in some ways to the Vidocq Society,
Societe Poursuite -
which translated
as Pursuit Society - now boasted more than three hundred and seventy members
worldwide. And since its inception on that summer night in 1998, it had
contributed to the solving of more than sixty homicides around the world.

    The
group met every month in New York City, with their annual conclave held in a
different major city on the east coast each October, rotating between New York,
Philadelphia, and Washington D.C.

    This
year their eleventh annual conclave would meet in Philadelphia, at the Le
Jardin hotel. On the final night, an evening which would include a five-course
meal prepared by the hotel's Michelin-starred chef Alain Cochel, there would be
a speech by the Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

    Shepherd
had been a homicide detective in Philadelphia for more than twenty years. When
Jessica had come into the unit, it had been Kevin Byrne and John Shepherd who
had showed her the ropes. While Byrne taught her - indeed, in many ways was
still teaching her - how to work a crime scene, it was John Shepherd who taught
her how to walk into an interrogation room, how to position her body at first
so as not to intimidate, how to walk that gossamer-thin line between treating
someone like a suspect and like a witness, how to coax that first lie out of
their mouths, and then, an hour or two later, how to slam it back in their
faces.

    The
PPD had lost a great one when he retired.

    John
Shepherd, turned out in a smart navy blue suit, opened his arms. 'Jess,' he
said. 'Beautiful as ever.'

    They
embraced. Even though they were still on the same side, they were no longer on
the same team, and shows of affection were now allowed. 'We miss you, John.'

    Shepherd
looked at Byrne. 'And if I wasn't head of security here, I'd have to
call
security on this shady-looking character.'

    The
two men did the handshake, shoulder-bump, back-slap, I-
swear-to-God-I'm-not-gay thing.
Men,
Jessica thought. God forbid they
should show emotion in public. Cops were the worst.

    'You
look good, Johnny,' Byrne said.

    'Underworked
and overpaid.'

    Shepherd
did look healthier than he ever had. Anytime you could get away from cop food
and cop hours, you looked better. Tall and Denzel-handsome, now in his
salt-and-pepper fifties, Shepherd looked relaxed, and in charge.

    He
led them to the other side of the lobby, to the other side of a tall
frosted-glass panel that somehow managed to keep the noise of arriving guests
out of the tastefully appointed lounge.

    They
stood at the far end of the bar, away from everyone. Without asking, three cups
of coffee, with creamers on ice, were put in front of them.

    'So
what are you up to?' Shepherd asked. 'Keeping the peace?'

    'Disturbing
it whenever possible,' Byrne said. 'How are things here?'

    'Had
a door pusher last month.'

    A
door pusher was one of the more unsophisticated breeds of hotel criminal. He
was a guy who got into the hotel, went to upper floors, and simply pushed on
doors to find one that was unlocked, or improperly closed or, God help the room
attendant, left open by housekeeping. These were guys who always had a record
for B & E, generally nonviolent types but a real nuisance in hotel security
work.