John Longo lived in a well-tended town house in Torresdale. Byrne was greeted by Longo's wife Denise, a slender, attractive woman in her early forties. She brought Byrne down to the basement workshop, a look of skepticism and slight suspicion behind her warm smile.
The walls were covered with plaques and photos, half devoted to Longo in various locations, wearing various police gear. The other half were family pictures-weddings in a park, Atlantic City, somewhere tropical.
Longo looked a few years older than his official PPD photograph, his dark hair now confettied with gray, but he was still trim and athletic. A few inches shorter than Byrne, a few years younger, Longo looked like he could still run down a suspect if he had to.
After the standard who-do-you-know, who-have-you-worked-with dance, they finally got to the reason for Byrne's visit. Something about Longo's responses told Byrne that Longo had in some way expected this day to come.
The six photographs were laid out on the workbench, a surface otherwise devoted to making wooden birdhouses.
'Where did you get these?' Longo asked.
'Honest answer?' Byrne asked.
Longo nodded.
'I thought you sent them.'
'No.' Longo looked at the envelope, inside and out, flipped it over. 'It wasn't me. In fact, I was hoping to go the rest of my life without ever seeing anything like this again.'
Byrne understood. There was plenty he himself didn't want to ever see again. 'How long were you on the job?'
'Eighteen years,' Longo said. 'Half a career for some guys. Way too long for others.' He studied one of the photographs closely. 'I remember this. There have been many nights when I wished I didn't.'
The photograph was the one depicting the small plush bear.
'That was taken at a crime scene?' Byrne asked.
'Yes.' Longo crossed the room, opened a cabinet, pulled out a bottle of Glenfiddich. He held up the bottle, and raised an eyebrow ques- tioningly. Byrne nodded. Longo poured them both a drink, handed a glass to Byrne.
'It was the last case I worked,' Longo said.
'This was North Philly, right?' Byrne knew all this. He just needed it to sync.
'Badlands. We were on this prick. Hard. For months. Name was Joseph Barber. Had him in for questioning twice for a series of rapes of young girls, couldn't hold him. Then he did it again. Got a tip he was holed up in an old drug house near Fifth and Cambria.' Longo drained his drink. 'He was dead when we got there. Thirteen knives in his body.'
'Thirteen?'
'Yeah.' Longo cleared his throat. This was not easy for him. He poured himself another drink. 'Steak knives. Cheap. The kind you might get at a flea market. Untraceable.'
'Was the case ever closed?' Byrne knew the answer to this, too. He wanted to keep Longo talking.
'Not to my knowledge.'
'Did you follow it?'
'I didn't want to. Walt stuck with it for a while. He tried to make a case that Joseph Barber was killed by some sort of vigilante. Never got any traction.' Longo pointed to the photograph on the workbench. 'I looked at that lavender bear on the floor, and knew I was finished. I've never looked back.'
'Any idea who the bear belonged to?' Byrne asked.
Longo shook his head. 'When the evidence was cleared and the property released, I showed it to the little girl's parents.'
'These were the parents of Barber's last victim?'
'Yeah. They said they had never seen it before. Like I said, Barber was a serial child rapist. I didn't want to think how and where he might have gotten it.'
'What was Barber's last victim's name?'
'Julianne.' Longo's voice cracked. Byrne arranged a few tools on the bench, waited. 'Julianne Weber.'
'Did you ever follow up?'
He nodded. 'A few years ago I drove by their house, parked across the street. I saw Julianne as she left for school. She looked okay-at least, to the world she looked okay-but I could see that sadness in her every step.'
Byrne could see that this conversation was nearing a close. He gathered the photos, his coat and gloves. 'I'm sorry about Walt. He was a good man.'
'He was the job,' Longo said. 'I couldn't make it to the party. I didn't even-' The emotion took over for a few moments. 'I was in San Diego. My daughter had a little girl. My first grandchild.'
'Congratulations,' Byrne said. As soon as the word left his lips- although heartfelt-it sounded empty. Longo drained his glass. Byrne followed suit, stood, slipped on his coat.
'This is the part where people usually say 'If there's anything else I can do, please don't hesitate to call,' ' Longo said. 'Right?'
'I guess it is,' Byrne replied.
'Do me a favor.'
'Sure.'
'Hesitate.'
Byrne smiled. 'Okay.'
As Byrne turned to leave, Longo put a hand on his arm. 'There is something else.'
'Okay.'
'Walt said I was probably seeing things at the time, but I was convinced.'
Byrne folded his hands, waited.
'The pattern of the knives,' Longo said. 'The wounds on Joseph Barber's chest.'
'What about them?'
'I wasn't sure until I saw the postmortem photos. But I'm positive the wounds spelled out a C.'
'The letter C?'
Longo nodded, poured himself another drink. He sat down at his workbench. The conversation was now officially over.
Byrne thanked him again. On the way up, he saw that Denise Longo had been standing at the top of the stairs. She saw him to the door. She was much cooler to him than she had been when he'd arrived.
While his car was warming up, Byrne looked at the photograph. There was probably going to be a lavender- bear sort of case in his future, probably his near future. He wondered if he, like John Longo, would have the courage to walk away.
78
Jessica searched every inch of the trunk, flipped through every magazine. There was nothing else. She found a few yellowed recipes, a few McCall's patterns. She found a box of small paper-wrapped demitasse cups. The newspaper wrapping was dated March 22, 1950. She turned back to the portfolio.
Tucked into the back of the binder was a page bearing a number of horrific drawings-hangings, mutilations, disembowelings, dismemberments-childlike in their scrawl, extremely disturbing in their content.
Jessica turned back to the first page. The news article on the murder of Annemarie DiCillo and Charlotte Waite. Nicci read it too.
'Okay,' Nicci said. 'I'm calling this in. We need cops out here. Walt Brigham liked whoever lived here for the Annemarie DiCillo case, and it looks as though he was right. God knows what else we're going to find in this place.'
Jessica handed Nicci her phone. A few moments later, after trying and not getting a signal in the cellar, Nicci walked up the stairs and outside.
Jessica turned back to the boxes.
