'Did you get any closer?' Jessica asked.
'No.'
Jessica glanced toward the river. You could not see the victim from that vantage point. 'How long were you here?' she asked.
Pedersen shrugged. 'I don't know. A minute or two. Had my Danish and coffee, walked back to the site to set up.'
'What was this person doing?' Byrne asked.
'Nothing, really.'
'He didn't move from where you saw him? He didn't walk down toward the river?'
'No,' Pedersen said. 'But now that I think about it, it was a little weird.'
'Weird?' Jessica asked. 'Weird how?'
'He was just standing there,' Pedersen said. 'I think he was staring up at the moon.'
7
As they headed back to Center City, Jessica scrolled through the photographs on her digital camera, looking at each one on the small LCD screen. At that size, the young woman on the bank of the river looked like a doll posed in a miniature setting.
A doll, Jessica thought. It was the first image she'd had when she saw the victim. The young woman looked like a porcelain doll on a shelf.
Jessica had given Will Pedersen a business card. The young man promised to call if he remembered anything else.
'What did you get from the driver?' Jessica asked.
Byrne glanced at his notebook. 'The driver is one Reese Harris. Mr. Harris is thirty-three, lives in Queen Village. He said he hits Flat Rock Road three or four mornings a week, now that those condos are going up. He said he always parks with the open side of the truck facing away from the river. Keeps the wind off the merchandise. He said he didn't see anything.'
Detective Joshua Bontrager, late of the Traffic Unit, armed with Vehicle Identification Numbers, was off to check on the two abandoned vehicles parked in the lot.
Jessica scrolled through a few more pictures, looked up at Byrne. 'What do you think?'
Byrne ran a hand over his beard. 'I think we have a sick son of a bitch running around Philly. I think we have to shut this fucker down fast.'
Leave it to Kevin Byrne to break the case down to the essentials, Jessica thought. 'Full-blown nut job?' she asked.
'Oh, yeah. With icing.'
'Why do you think she was posed on the bank? Why not just dump her in the river?'
'Good question. Maybe she's supposed to be looking at something. Maybe it's a 'special place.' '
Jessica could hear the acid in Byrne's voice. She understood. There were times, in their job, when you wanted to take the unique cases-the sociopaths some people in the medical community wanted to preserve and study and quantify-and throw them off the nearest bridge. Fuck your psychosis. Fuck your rotten childhood and your chemical imbalance. Fuck your whack-job mother who put dead spiders and rancid mayonnaise in your underwear. If you're a PPD homicide cop and somebody kills a citizen on your beat, you're going down-horizontal or vertical, it didn't much matter.
'Have you run across this amputation MO before?' Jessica asked.
'I've seen it,' Byrne said, 'but not as an MO. We'll run it, see if anything flags.'
She looked back at her camera's screen, at the victim's outfit. 'What do you make of the dress? I suppose the doer dressed her like that.'
'I don't want to think about that yet,' Byrne said. 'I really don't. Not before lunch.'
Jessica knew what he meant. She didn't want to think about it either, but of course they both knew they would have to.
Delaware Investment Properties, Inc. was in a freestanding building on Arch Street, a three-story steel and glass box with mirrored windows, and something resembling modern sculpture out front. The company employed about thirty-five people. Their main focus was buying and selling real estate, but in the past few years had branched out into riverfront development. At the moment, the prize in Philadelphia was the carrot of casino development, and it seemed that anyone with a Realtor's license was rolling the dice.
The man in charge of the Manayunk property was David Horn- strom. They met in his second-floor office. The walls were covered with pictures of Hornstrom on various mountaintops around the world, sunglasses in place, climbing gear in hand. One picture frame bore an MBA from Penn State.
Hornstrom was in his late twenties, dark hair and eyes, well dressed and a little too confident, the poster boy for energetic junior executive types. He wore a two-button charcoal suit, expertly tailored, white shirt, blue silk tie. His office was small, but well appointed with contemporary furniture and furnishings. In one corner was a rather expensive-looking telescope. Hornstrom sat on the edge of his sleek metal desk.
'Thanks for taking the time to see us,' Byrne said.
'Always happy to help Philly's finest.'
Philly's finest? Jessica thought. She didn't know anyone under fifty who used that phrase.
'When was the last time you were at the Manayunk property?' Byrne asked.
Hornstrom reached over to a desk calendar. Considering the wide- screen monitor and desktop computer, you'd think he wouldn't be using a paper calendar, Jessica mused. He looked the BlackBerry type.
'About a week ago,' he said.
'And you haven't been back?'
'No.'
'Not even just to drive by and check on things?'
'No.'
Hornstrom's answers were coming a little too fast and a little too pat, not to mention curt. Most people were at least somewhat rattled by a visit from the homicide police. Jessica wondered why this man was not.
'The last time you were there, was there anything out of the ordinary?' Byrne asked.
'Not that I noticed.'
'Were those three abandoned vehicles on the lot?'
'Three?' Hornstrom asked. 'I remember two. Is there another one?'
Byrne flipped back his notes, for effect. Old trick. This time it didn't work. 'You're right. My mistake. Were the two vehicles there last week?'
'Yes,' he said. 'I've been meaning to make the call to get them towed. Is that something you guys can take care of for me? That would be super.'
Super.
Byrne glanced at Jessica, back. 'We're with the police department,' Byrne said. 'I may have mentioned that earlier.'
'Ah, okay.' Hornstrom leaned over, made a note on his calendar. 'No problem at all.'
Cocky little bastard, Jessica thought.
'How long have the cars been there?' Byrne asked.
'I really don't know,' Hornstrom said. 'The man who was handling that property recently left the company. I've only had the listing for a month or so.'
'Is he still in the city?'
'No,' Hornstrom said. 'He's in Boston.'
'We'll need his name and contact information.'
Hornstrom hesitated a second. Jessica knew that if someone was going to start to resist this early in an interview, and over something seemingly minor, they might be in for a battle. On the other hand, Hornstrom did not look stupid. The MBA on his wall confirmed his education. Common sense? Another story.
