Byrne stared into the shot glass on the table. Jessica could tell that this was not easy for him. She had all the time in the world. 'A picture of my mother and father. An old black-and-white snapshot. The kind with that rough edge. Remember those?'
'Sure,' Jessica said. 'Got a shoe box full at home.'
'The picture is of them on their honeymoon in Miami Beach, standing in front of the Eden Roc, caught in what might have been the happiest moment of their lives. Now, everyone knew that they couldn't afford the Eden Roc, right? But that's what you did in those days. You stayed at some place called the Aqua Breeze or the Sea Dunes and you took a picture in front of the Eden Roc or the Fontainebleau, and pretended you were rich. My old man in this ugly purple-and-green Hawaiian shirt, big tanned forearms, bony white knees, grinning like the Cheshire cat. It was like he was saying to the world: Can you believe my dumb mick luck here? What the hell did I do right to deserve this woman?'
Jessica listened. Byrne had never before revealed much about his family.
'And my mother. Ah, what a beauty. A real Irish rose. She just stood there in this white sundress with little yellow flowers on it, this half smile on her face, like she had you all figured out, like she was saying, Watch your step, Padraig Francis Byrne, because you're gonna be on thin ice the rest of your life.'
Jessica nodded, sipped her drink. She had the same snapshot somewhere. Her parents had honeymooned on Cape Cod.
'They hadn't even thought of me when that picture was taken,' Byrne said. 'But I was in their plans, right? And as I fell to the floor on Easter Sunday, my blood all over the place, all I could think about was someone saying to them, on that bright sunny day in Miami Beach: You know that kid? That chubby little bundle you're going to have? Someone's gonna put a bullet in his head one day and he's going to die the most undignified death imaginable. Then, in the picture, I saw their expressions change. I saw my mother start to cry. I saw my old man clench and unclench his fists, which is the way he handles all emotion, even to this day. I saw my old man standing in the ME's office, standing at my grave. I knew I couldn't let go. I knew there was something left for me to do. I knew that I had to survive to do it.'
Jessica tried to absorb this, to ferret out the subtext of what he was telling her. 'Do you still feel that way?' she asked.
Byrne's eyes cut more deeply into her than anyone ever had. For a second, it felt like he turned her arms and legs into cement. It appeared he might not answer. Then he said, simply: 'Yes.'
An hour later they stopped by St. Joseph's Hospital. Victoria Lind- strom was out of surgery and in ICU. Her condition was critical but stable.
A few minutes later they stood in the parking lot, in the hush of the predawn city. The sun was coming up soon, but Philly still slept. Somewhere out there, beneath the watchful eye of William Penn, between the peaceful flow of the rivers, amid the drifting souls of the night, the Actor was planning his next horror.
Jessica drove home to catch a few hours' sleep, thinking about what Byrne had been through in the past forty-eight hours. She tried not to judge him. As far as she was concerned, up until the time Kevin Byrne left that cellar in North Philly for Fairmount Park, what had happened down there was between him and Julian Matisse. There had been no witnesses, and there would be no investigation into Byrne's conduct. Jessica was relatively certain that Byrne had not told her every detail, but that was all right. The Actor was still loose in their city.
They had work to do.
59
The Scarface tape was rented at an independent video outlet in University City. For once, Eugene Kilbane did not own the store. The man who rented the tape was Elian Quintana, who worked as a night security guard at the Wachovia Center. He had watched the doctored video with his daughter, a sophomore at Villanova, who had fainted at the sight of the real murder. She was currently sedated under doctor's orders.
In the edited version of the film, a bruised and battered and screaming Julian Matisse is seen handcuffed over a metal rod in the makeshift shower stall in the corner of the basement. A figure in a yellow rain slicker steps into the frame, takes a chain saw, and cuts the man virtually in half. It is spliced into the film at the moment when Al Pacino visits the Colombian drug dealer at the second-floor motel room in Miami. The young man who brought in the tape, an employee of the video store, had been questioned and released, as had Elian Quintana.
There were no other fingerprints on the tape. There were no fingerprints on the chain saw. There was no surveillance video of the tape being placed on the rack at the video store. There were no suspects. WITHIN A FEW hours of the discovery of Julian Matisse's body in the row house in North Philly, a total of ten detectives were assigned to the case.
Sales of camcorders had skyrocketed in the city, and the possibility of copycat crimes was very real. The task force had dispatched an undercover plainclothes detective to every independently owned video store in the city, the theory being that the Actor was choosing them because of the ease with which he could bypass the older security systems.
For the PPD, and the Philadelphia field office of the FBI, the Actor was now Priority One. The story had received international attention, and crime nuts, film nuts, and nuts of all trees were coming into the city.
From the moment the story broke, a near hysteria had taken place at video stores, both independent and chain, overrun with people renting graphically violent films. Channel 6 Action News set up crews to interview people coming out with armloads of VHS tapes.
'Of all the Nightmare on Elm Street tapes, I hope the Actor kills someone like Freddy does in Part Three-'
'I rented Se7en, but when I got to the part where the lawyer gets the pound of flesh removed, it was the same scene as in the original… bummer-'
'I've got The Untouchables… Maybe the Actor goes Louisville Slugger on some guy's head in it like De Niro does.'
'I hope I see some of the murders like they have in-'
'Carlito's Way-'
'Taxi Driver-'
'The Public Enemy-' 'The Getaway-' 'M-'
'Reservoir Dogs-'
To the department, the possibility of someone not coming forward with a tape-opting to keep it or sell it on eBay-was as disturbing as it was possible.
Jessica had three hours until the task force meeting. Word was she might be heading the task force, and the notion was more than a little daunting. There was an average of ten years' experience in the unit for every detective assigned to the task force, and she would be directing them.
She began to gather her files and notes when she saw the pink WHILE YOU WERE OUT slip. Faith Chandler. She had not yet returned the woman's phone call. She had forgotten all about her. The woman's life was tattered by grief and pain and loss and Jessica had neglected to follow up. She picked up the phone, dialed. After a few rings, a woman answered.
'Hello?'
'Mrs. Chandler, this is Detective Balzano. I'm sorry I haven't been able to get back to you.'
Silence. Then: 'This is… I'm Faith's sister.'
'Oh, I'm sorry,' Jessica said. 'Is Faith in?'
More silence. Something was wrong. 'Faith isn't… Faith is in the hospital.'
Jessica felt the floor drop away. 'What happened?'
She heard the woman sniffle. After a moment, 'They don't know. They say it might be acute alcohol poisoning. There were a lot of… well, that's what they said. She's in a coma. They say she probably won't make it.'
Jessica recalled the bottle on the TV table when they had visited Faith Chandler. 'When did this happen?'
'After Stephanie… well, Faith has a bit of a problem with alcohol. I guess she just couldn't stop. I found her
