He decided on a black dress shirt and black jeans. He was surprised to find that his black peg-legged Levi's fit him again. Perhaps there was an upside to being shot in the head. You lose weight. Maybe he'd write a book: The Attempted Murder Diet.
He had made it through most of the day without his cane-having steeled himself with pride and Vicodin-and he considered not bringing it with him now, but soon banished the thought. How was he supposed to get around without it? Face it, Kevin. You need a cane to walk. Besides, maybe he would appear weak, and that was probably a good thing.
On the other hand, a cane might make him more memorable, and that was something he didn't want. He had no idea what they might find this night.
Oh, yeah. I remember him. Big guy. Walked with a limp. That's the guy, Your Honor.
He took the cane.
He also took his weapon.
19
With Sophie bathed and dried-and powdered, another one of her new things-Jessica began to relax. And with the calm came the doubts. She considered her life as it was. She had just turned thirty. Her father was getting older, still vibrant and active, but aimless and alone in his retirement. She worried about him. Her little girl was growing up by the moment, and somehow the possibility loomed that she might grow up in a house in which her father did not live.
Hadn't Jessica just been a little girl herself, running up and down Catharine Street, a water ice in hand, not a care in the world?
When did all this happen?
While Sophie colored a coloring book at the dining room table, and all was right with the world for the moment, Jessica put a videotape in the VCR.
She had taken a copy of Psycho out of the Free Library. It had been quite awhile since she had seen the movie start-to-finish. She doubted if she could ever watch it again without thinking about this case.
When she was in her teens she had been a fan of horror movies, the sort of fare that took her and her friends to the cineplex on Friday nights. She remembered renting movies while she babysat for Dr. Iacone and his two little boys-she and her cousin Angela watching Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, the Halloween series.
Her interest faded the minute she became a cop, of course. She saw enough of the reality every day. She didn't need to call it entertainment at night.
Still, a movie like Psycho certainly transcended the slasher fare.
What was it about this film that made the killer want to reenact the scene? Beyond that, what made him want to share with an unsuspecting public in such a twisted way?
What was the mind-set?
She watched the scenes leading up to the shower sequence with a dark anticipation, although she really didn't know why. Did she really think that every copy of Psycho in the city had been altered? The shower scene passed without incident, but it was the scenes directly afterward that got her added attention.
She watched Norman clean up after the murder-spreading the shower curtain on the floor, dragging his victim's body onto it, mopping the tile and tub, backing Janet Leigh's car up to the motel room door.
Norman then carries the body to the open car trunk and places it inside. Afterward, he returns to the motel room and methodically collects all of Marion's belongings, including the newspaper containing the money she had stolen from her boss. He stuffs all of it into the trunk of the car and drives it to the edge of the lake nearby. Once there, he pushes it into the water.
The car begins to sink, slowly being consumed by the black water. Then it stops. Hitchcock cuts to a reaction shot of Norman, who glances around, nervously. After an excruciating few seconds, the car continues to descend, eventually disappearing from view.
Cut to the next day.
Jessica hit PAUSE, her mind racing.
The Rivercrest Motel was just a few blocks from the Schuylkill River. If their doer was as obsessed with re- creating the murder from Psycho as he appeared to be, maybe he took it all the way. Maybe he stuffed the body into the trunk of a car and submerged it in water, the way Anthony Perkins had done with Janet Leigh.
Jessica picked up the phone and called the Marine Unit.
20
Thirteenth Street was the last remaining seedy stretch of downtown, at least as far as adult entertainment was concerned. From Arch Street, where it was bounded by two adult bookstores and one strip joint, to about Locust Street, where there was another short belt of adult clubs and a larger, more upscale 'gentleman's club,' it was the one street the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau told visitors to avoid despite the fact it ran smack into the Convention Center.
By ten o'clock, the bars were starting to fill up with their strange smorgasbord of rough trade and out-of-town business types. What Philly lacked in quantity, it certainly made up for in breadth of depravity and innovation: from underwear lap dances to maraschino cherry dances. In the BYOB places, the law permitted customers to bring their own liquor, which allowed full nudity on the premises. In some of the places where alcohol was served, the girls wore a thin latex covering that made it look like they were nude. If necessity was the mother of invention in most areas of commerce, it was the lifeblood of the adult entertainment industry. One BYOB club, the Show and Tell, had lines around the block on weekends.
By midnight, Byrne and Victoria had visited half a dozen clubs. No one had seen Julian Matisse or, if they had, they were too afraid to acknowledge it. The possibility that Matisse had left town was becoming more and more likely.
At around one o'clock, they arrived at a club called Tick Tock. It was another licensed club that catered to that second-tier businessman, the guy from Dubuque who had concluded his business in Center City and found himself drunk and horny and diverted on his way back to the Hyatt Penn's Landing or the Sheraton Society Hill.
As they approached the front door of the freestanding building, they heard a loud discussion between a big man and a young woman. They were in the shadows at the far end of the parking lot. At one time, Byrne might have intervened, even off duty. Those days were behind him.
The Tick Tock was a typical urban strip club-a short runway bar with a pole, a handful of sad and sagging dancers, a two-watered-down- drink minimum. The air was dense with smoke, cheap cologne, and the primal smell of sexual desperation.
A tall, skinny black girl with a platinum wig was on the pole when they walked in, dancing to an old Prince song. Every so often she'd get down on her knees and crawl the area in front of the men at the bar. Some of the men waved money; most didn't. Every so often she'd pick up the bills and hook them on her G-string. If she stayed in the red and yellow lights she looked passable, at least for a downtown club. If she stepped into the white light, you could see the mileage. She avoided the white spotlights.
Byrne and Victoria stayed at the back bar. Victoria sat a few stools away from Byrne, giving him his play. The men were all very interested in her until they got a good look. They did their double takes, not entirely ruling her out. It was still early. It was clear they all felt they could do better. For the money. Occasionally a business type would stop, lean in, whisper something to her. Byrne wasn't worried. Victoria could handle herself.
Byrne was on his second Coke when a young woman approached, sidled up next to him. She wasn't a dancer; she was a pro, working the back of the room. She was on the tall side, brunette, wore a charcoal pinstriped business suit and black stiletto heels. The skirt was very short, and she wore nothing under the blazer. Byrne figured her routine was to fulfill the secretary fantasy a lot of these visiting businessmen had for their office mates back home. Byrne recognized her as the girl being pushed around in the parking lot earlier. She had the flushed,
