Jessica thought about Kristina, standing right where she was standing. Kristina, considering her new life in her new home, all the possibilities that are yours when you are twenty-four. Kristina, imagining a room full of Thomasville or Henredon furniture. New rugs, new lamps, new bedclothes. New life.
Jessica crossed the room, opened the closet door. There were just a few dresses and sweaters in garment bags, all fairly new, all good quality. There was certainly nothing like the dress Kristina wore when she was found on the riverbank. Nor were there any baskets or bags of just laundered clothes.
Jessica took a step back, trying to catch the vibe. As a detective, how many closets had she looked in? How many drawers? How many glove compartments and trunks and hope chests and purses? How many lives had Jessica run through like a trespasser?
On the floor of the closet was a cardboard box. She opened it. There were tissue-wrapped figurines of glass animals-turtles mostly, squirrels, a few birds. There were also Hummels: miniatures of rosy-cheeked children playing the violin, the flute, the piano. At the bottom was a beautiful wooden music box. It looked to be walnut, and had a pink and white ballerina inlaid on top. Jessica took it out, opened it. There was no jewelry in the box, but the song it played was 'The Sleeping Beauty Waltz.' The notes echoed in the nearly empty room, a sad melody charting the end of a young life. THE DETECTIVES MET back at the Roundhouse, compared notes.
'The van belonged to a man named Harold Sima,' Josh Bontrager said. He had spent the afternoon tracking down information on the vehicles at the Manayunk crime scene. 'Mr. Sima lived in Glenwood, but unfortunately met an untimely death by way of a fall down the stairs in September of this year. He was eighty-six. His son confessed to leaving the van in that lot a month ago. He said he couldn't afford to have it towed and junked. The Chevrolet was the property of a woman named Estelle Jesperson, late of Powelton.'
'Late as in deceased?' Jessica asked.
'Late as in deceased,' Bontrager said. 'She died of a massive coronary three weeks ago. Her son-in-law left the car in that lot. He works in East Falls.'
'Did you run checks on everyone?' Byrne asked.
'I did,' Bontrager said. 'Nothing.'
Byrne briefed Ike Buchanan on what they had so far, and the possible direction of further inquiries. As they prepared to leave for the day, Byrne asked Bontrager a question that had probably circled him all day.
'So where are you from, Josh?' Byrne asked. 'Originally.'
'I'm from a small town near Bechtelsville,' he said.
Byrne nodded. 'You grew up on a farm?'
'Oh, yeah. My family is Amish.'
The word slammed around the duty room like a ricocheting.22 bullet. At least ten detectives heard it, and got immediately interested in whatever piece of paper was in front of them. It took every ounce of her power for Jessica not to look at Byrne. An Amish homicide cop. She'd been down the shore and back, as they say, but this was a new one.
'Your family is Amish?' Byrne asked.
'They are,' Bontrager said. 'I decided a long time ago not to join the church, though.'
Byrne just nodded.
'You've never had Bontrager Special Preserves?' Bontrager asked.
'Never had the pleasure.'
'It's very good. Damson plum, strawberry rhubarb. We even make a great peanut butter schmier.'
More silence. The room became a morgue full of tight-lipped corpses in suits.
'Nothing like a good schmier,' Byrne said. 'My motto.'
Bontrager laughed. 'Yeah, yeah. Don't worry, I've heard all the jokes. I can take it.'
'There are Amish jokes?' Byrne asked.
'Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1699,' Bontrager said. 'You just might be Amish if you ask, 'Does this shade of black make me look fat?' '
Byrne smiled. 'Not bad.'
'And then there's the Amish pickup lines.' Bontrager said. 'Are thee at barn-raisings often? Can I buy thee a buttermilk colada? Are thee up for some plowing?'
Jessica laughed. Byrne laughed.
'Yeah, yuck it up,' Bontrager said, reddening at his own off-color humor. 'Like I said. I've heard them all.'
Jessica glanced around the room. She knew the people in the homicide unit. She had the feeling that, before too long, Detective Joshua Bontrager would hear a few new ones.
10
Midnight. The river was black and silent.
Byrne stood on the riverbank in Manayunk. He looked back, toward the road. No streetlights. The parking lot was dim, long-shadowed by moonlight. If someone pulled in at that moment, even to turn around, Byrne would not be seen. The only illumination came from the headlights of the cars on the expressway, glimmering on the other side of the river.
A madman could pose his victim on the riverbank, take his time, compelled by whatever madness ruled his world.
Philadelphia had two rivers. Where the Delaware was the working soul of the city, the Schuylkill, and its winding course, always held a dark fascination for Byrne.
Byrne's father Padraig had been a longshoreman his entire working life. Byrne owed his childhood, his education, his life to the water. He had learned in grade school that Schuylkill meant 'hidden river.' In all his years in Philadelphia-which, except for his time in the service, had been Kevin Byrne's whole life-he had looked at the river as an enigma. It was more than one hundred miles long, and he honestly had no idea where it led. From the oil refineries in southwest Philly to Shawmont and beyond, he had worked its banks as a police officer, but never really followed it out of his jurisdiction, an authority that ended where Philadelphia County became Montgomery County.
He stared down into the dark water. In it he saw the face of Anton Krotz. He saw Krotz's eyes.
Good to see you again, Detective.
For what was probably the thousandth time in the past few days, Byrne second-guessed himself. Had he hesitated out of fear? Was he responsible for Laura Clarke's death? He realized that, for the past year or so, he had begun to question himself more than he ever had, had seen the architecture of his indecision. When he was a young cocky street cop he had known-known-that every decision he made had been right.
He closed his eyes.
The good news was that the visions were gone. For the most part. For many years he had been plagued and blessed with a vague sort of second sight, the ability to sometimes see things at a crime scene that no one else could see, an ability that began years earlier when he had been pronounced dead after plunging into the icy Delaware River. The visions were tied to migraine headaches-or so he had convinced himself-and when he had taken a bullet to the brain from the gun of a psychopath, the headaches stopped. He'd thought the visions were gone, too. But now and then they came back with a vengeance, sometimes for only a vivid split second. He'd learned to accept it. Sometimes it was just a glimpse of a face, a sliver of sound, a rippled vision not unlike something seen in a fun-house mirror.
The premonitions came less often these days, and that was a good thing. But Byrne knew that at any moment he might put his hand on a victim's hand, or brush up against something at a crime scene, and he would feel that terrible surge, the fearsome knowledge that would take him to the dark recess of a killer's mind.
How had Natalya Jakos known this about him?
When Byrne opened his eyes, Anton Krotz's image was gone. Now there was another pair of eyes. Byrne thought about the man who had carried Kristina Jakos to this place, the raging storm of madness that compelled someone to do what he had done to her. Byrne stepped onto the edge of the dock, the very spot where they had discovered Kristina's body. He felt a dark exhilaration knowing he was in the same place where the killer had stood just a few days earlier. He felt the images seep into his consciousness, saw the man-
