Jessica stepped into the building. It was almost medieval in scale. Since the facility's closing, it had fallen into decay. A number of ideas had been floated regarding its future, not the least of which had been the possibility of turning it into a training facility for the Philadelphia Eagles. The cost of renovation would be enormous, though, and so far nothing had been done.
Jessica approached the victim, careful not to disturb any possible footprints, although there was no snow inside the building and collecting any thing usable was unlikely. She shone her light on the victim. This woman was in her late twenties or early thirties. She wore a long dress. It, too, seemed to be from another time, with its elasticized velvet bodice and fully shirred skirt. There was a nylon belt around her neck, knotted at the back. It appeared to be an exact duplicate of the one found around the neck of Kristina Jakos.
Jessica hugged the wall as she scanned the interior. The CSU techs would soon be setting up a grid. Before leaving, she took her Maglite, made a slow careful sweep of the walls. And saw it. About twenty feet to the right of the window, buried in a jumble of gang tags, was the graffiti of the white moon.
'Kevin.'
Byrne stepped inside, followed the beam of light. He turned, found Jessica's eyes in the gloom. They had stood there before, as partners, at the threshold of a burgeoning evil, at a moment when something they thought they'd understood had become something bigger, something far more sinister, something that had redefined everything they'd believed about a case.
Standing outside, their breath formed vapor clouds in the night air. 'ME's office won't be here for an hour or so,' Byrne said.
'An hour?'
'Christmas in Philly,' Byrne said. 'Two other homicides already. They're stretched.'
Byrne pointed to the victim's hands. 'She's holding something.'
Jessica looked closely. Something was in the woman's grasp. Jessica took a number of close-up pictures.
If they were to follow procedure to the letter, they would have to wait for the ME's office to pronounce the woman dead, and for a full set of photographs and perhaps video to be taken of the victim and the scene. But Philadelphia was not exactly following procedure this night-that bit about love thy neighbor came to mind, followed closely by that peace-on- earth business-and the detectives knew that the longer they waited, the more likely it was that precious information would be lost to the elements.
Byrne stepped closer, tried to gently pry apart the woman's fingers. Her fingertips responded to his touch. Full rigor had not set in.
At first glance it appeared that the victim had a ball of leaves or twigs in her cupped hands. In the harsh light it looked to be a dark brown material, definitely organic. Byrne stepped closer, set himself. He spread a large evidence bag on the woman's lap. Jessica tried to hold her Maglite steady. Byrne continued to pry apart the victim's grasp, slowly, one finger at a time. If the woman had scooped a ball of earth or compost from the ground during a struggle, it was possible that she had gotten important evidence from her killer lodged beneath her nails. There could even have been a piece of direct evidence in her hands-a button, a clasp, a piece of fabric. If something could immediately point to an individual of interest, such as hair or fiber or DNA evidence, the sooner they could begin looking for him the better.
Little by little, Byrne pulled back the woman's dead fingers. When he finally had four fingers back on her right hand, they saw something they did not expect to see. In death this woman was not holding a fistful of earth or leaves or twigs. In death she held a small brown bird. In the light thrown by the emergency lamps it appeared to be a sparrow, or perhaps a wren.
Byrne gently closed the victim's fingers. They would place a clear plastic evidence bag around them to preserve every trace of evidence. This was far beyond their ability to assess or analyze in situ.
Then something totally unexpected happened. The bird wiggled out of the dead woman's grip and flew away. It darted around inside the huge, shadowed space of the waterworks, the beat of its flitting wings resonating off the icy stone walls, chirping either in protest or relief. Then it was gone.
'Son of a bitch,' Byrne yelled. 'Fuck.'
This was not good news for the team. They should have immediately bagged the corpse's hands and waited. The bird might have provided a host of forensic details, but even in its departure it yielded some information. It meant that the body could not have been there that long. The fact that the bird was still alive-perhaps preserved by the warmth of the cadaver-meant that the killer had posed this victim within the last few hours.
Jessica aimed her Maglite at the ground beneath the window. A few of the bird's feathers remained. Byrne pointed them out to a CSU officer, who picked them up with a pair of forceps and placed them in an evidence bag.
They would now wait for the ME's office.
Jessica walked to the bank of the river, looked out, then back at the body. The figure was perched in the window, high above the gentle slope that ran to the road, then more steeply to the soft bank of the river.
Another doll on a shelf, Jessica thought.
Like Kristina Jakos, this victim faced the river. Like Kristina Jakos, she had a painting of the moon nearby. There was little doubt that there would be another painting on her body, an image of the moon rendered in semen and blood.
The media showed up just before midnight. They clustered at the top of the cutoff, near the train station, behind the crime-scene tape. It always amazed Jessica how fast they could get to a crime scene. The story would make the morning editions of the paper.
43
The crime scene was locked down, sealed off from the city. The media had gone off to file their stories. CSU would process the evidence through the night, and far into the next day.
Jessica and Byrne stood near the river's edge. Neither could bring themselves to leave.
'You gonna be okay?' Jessica asked.
'Yeah.' Byrne took a pint of bourbon out of his coat pocket. He toyed with the cap. Jessica saw it, said nothing. They were off duty.
After a full minute of silence, Byrne glanced over. 'What?'
'You,' she said. 'You've got that look in your eye.'
'What look?'
'The Andy Griffith look. The look that says you're thinking about turning in your papers and getting a sheriff 's job in Mayberry.'
'Meadville.'
'See?'
'You cold?'
Freezing my ass off, Jessica thought. 'Nah.'
Byrne hit the bourbon, held it out. Jessica shook her head. He capped the bottle, held it.
'Years ago we used to drive out to my uncle's place in Jersey,' he said. 'I always knew when we were getting close because we would come upon this old cemetery. And by old I mean Civil War old. Maybe older. There was this small stone house by the gate, probably the caretaker's house, and in the front window was this sign that read:
'FREE FILL DIRT.'
Ever see signs like that?'
Jessica had. She told him so. Byrne continued.
'When you're a kid, you never give stuff like that a second thought, you know? Year after year I saw that sign. It never moved, just faded in the sunlight. Every year, those blocky red letters got lighter and lighter. Then my uncle passed, my aunt moved back to the city, we stopped going out there.
'Years later, after my mother died, I went to her grave one day. Perfect summer afternoon. Blue sky, cloudless. I'm sitting there, telling her how things are going. A few plots down there was a fresh gravesite, right?
