'Okay,' Jessica said. 'What does this have to do with the building on Flat Rock?'
'Well, you know how you see something every day? I mean, you see it, but you don't really look at it closely?'
'Sure.'
'I was wondering,' Pedersen said. 'Did you take pictures of the south side of the building by any chance?'
Jessica sorted through the photographs on her desk. She found a picture of the south side of the warehouse. 'What about it?'
Pedersen pointed to an area on the right side of the wall, next to a large red and blue gang tag. With the naked eye it looked like a small white smudge.
'See this here? That was not there two days before I met you guys.'
'So you're saying it might have been painted the morning the body was put on the riverbank?' Byrne asked.
'Maybe. The only reason I noticed it was because it was white. It kind of stands out.'
Jessica glanced at the photo. The picture had been taken with a digital camera, at a fairly high resolution. The print, however, was small. She would send her camera down to the AV unit and have them make an enlargement from the original file.
'Do you think it might be important?' Pedersen asked.
'It might,' Jessica said. 'Thanks for bringing this to our attention.'
'Sure.'
'We'll give you a call if we need to speak to you again.'
When Pedersen left, Jessica got on the phone to CSU. They would dispatch a tech to collect a paint sample from the building.
Twenty minutes later, an enlarged version of the JPEG file was printed and sitting on Jessica's desk. She and Byrne looked at it. The painted image on the wall was a larger, cruder version of the one found on Kristina Jakos's abdomen.
The killer had not only posed his victim on the bank of the river, but he had taken the time to tag the wall behind him with a symbol, a symbol meant to be seen.
Jessica had wondered if the telltale gotcha was in one of the crime- scene pictures.
Maybe it was.
While waiting for the lab report on the paint, Jessica's phone rang again. So much for the Christmas break. She wasn't even supposed to be there. Death goes on.
She punched the button, answered. 'Homicide, Detective Balzano.'
'Detective, this is PO Valentine, I work out of the Ninety-second.'
Part of the Ninety-second District bordered the Schuylkill River. 'What's up, Officer Valentine?'
'We're on the Strawberry Mansion Bridge right now. We found something you should see.'
'Found something?'
'Yes, ma'am.'
When you're in homicide, the call is usually about a somebody, not a something. 'What is it, Officer Valentine?'
Valentine hesitated a moment. It was telling. 'Well, Sergeant Majette asked me to give you a call. He says you should get down here right away.'
36
The Strawberry Mansion Bridge was built in 1897. It was one of the first steel bridges in the country, spanning the Schuylkill River between Strawberry Mansion and Fairmount Park.
This day, traffic was stopped at both ends. Jessica, Byrne, and Bon- trager had to walk to the center of the bridge, where a pair of patrol officers met them.
Two boys, perhaps eleven or twelve years old, stood near the officers. The boys seemed a vibrating combination of fear and excitement.
On the north side of the bridge was something covered in a white plastic evidence sheet. Officer Lindsey Valentine approached Jessica. She was about twenty-four, bright-eyed, fit.
'What do we have?' Jessica asked.
Officer Valentine hesitated a moment. She may have worked out of the Ninety-second, but whatever was under the plastic had unnerved her a little. 'Citizen called this in about a half hour ago. These two young men came across it while crossing the bridge.'
Officer Valentine lifted the plastic. On the sidewalk was a pair of shoes. They were women's shoes, deep crimson in color, approximately size seven. Ordinary in all ways, except these red shoes had a pair of severed feet in them.
Jessica looked up, met Byrne's gaze.
'The boys found this?' Jessica asked.
'Yes, ma'am.' Officer Valentine waved the boys over. The boys were white kids, just on the tip of hip-hop style. Mall rats with attitudes, but not right at this moment. Now they looked a little traumatized.
'We were just looking at them,' the taller one said.
'Did you see who put them here?' Byrne asked.
'No.'
'Did you touch them?'
'Uh-uh.'
'Did you see anyone around them when you were walking up?' Byrne asked.
'No, sir,' they said together, shaking their heads for emphasis. 'We were here for like a minute or something and then a car stopped and told us to get away. They called the police after that.'
Byrne glanced at Officer Valentine. 'Who placed the call?'
Officer Valentine pointed to a new Chevrolet parked about twenty feet from the circle of crime-scene tape. A fortyish man in a business suit and topcoat stood next to it. Byrne held up a finger to him. The man nodded.
'Why did you stay here after the police were called?' Byrne asked the boys.
The two boys shrugged in unison.
Byrne turned to Officer Valentine. 'Do we have their information?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Okay,' Byrne said. 'You guys can go. We may want to talk to you again, though.'
'What's going to happen to them?' the smaller boy asked, pointing to the body parts.
'What's going to happen to them?' Byrne asked.
'Yeah,' the bigger one said. 'Are you going to take them with you?'
'Yes,' Byrne said. 'We're going to take them with us.'
'How come?'
'How come? Because this is evidence of a serious crime.'
Both boys looked crestfallen. 'Okay,' said the smaller boy.
'Why?' Byrne asked. 'Did you want to put them on eBay?'
He looked up. 'Can you do that?'
Byrne pointed to the far side of the bridge. 'Go home,' he said. 'Right now. Go home, or I swear to God I'll arrest your whole family.'
The boys ran.
'Jesus,' Byrne said. 'Fucking eBay.'
Jessica knew what he meant. She could not imagine herself at eleven years old, coming across a pair of severed feet on a bridge, and not freaking out. For these kids it was like an episode of CSI. Or some video game.
Byrne talked to the 911-caller while the frigid waters of the Schuylkill River flowed beneath. Jessica glanced
