Who had lived here? she wondered. Where is that person now? In a small town like this, if the person was still anywhere in the area, people would surely know. Jessica sifted through the boxes in the corner. There were more old newspapers, some in a language she couldn't identify, perhaps Dutch or Danish. There were moldy board games, rotting in their long-mildewed boxes. Nothing else mentioned the Annemarie DiCillo case.
She opened yet another box, this one not as timeworn as the others. Inside were newspapers and magazines of a more recent vintage. On top was a year's worth of Amusement Today, a newsletter-style magazine that appeared to be a trade publication devoted to the amusement-park industry. Jessica flipped over an issue. She found an address label. M Damgaard.
Is this Walt Brigham's killer? Jessica tore off the label, shoved it in her pocket.
She had been hauling boxes toward the door when a noise stopped her in her tracks. At first it sounded as if it might just be the settling of dry timbers, creaking in the wind. She heard it again, the sound of old, thirsty wood.
'Nicci?'
Nothing.
Jessica was just about to head up the stairs when she heard the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. Running footsteps, muffled by the snow. She then heard what might have been a struggle, or maybe it was Nicci struggling to carry something. Then another sound. Her name?
Did Nicci just call her?
'Nicci?' Jessica asked.
Silence.
'Did you make contact with-'
Jessica never finished her question. At that moment the heavy cellar doors slammed shut, the sound of the timbers resounding loudly in the cold stone confines of the cellar.
Then Jessica heard something far more ominous.
The huge doors were being secured with the crossbeam.
From the outside.
79
Byrne paced the parking lot at the Roundhouse. He didn't feel the cold. He thought about John Longo and his story.
He tried to make a case that Barber was killed by some sort of vigilante. Never got any traction.
Whoever had sent Byrne the photographs-and it was probably Walt Brigham-was trying to make that same argument. Why else would every item in the photographs be lavender? It must be some sort of calling card the vigilante left, a personal touch from someone who had taken it upon himself to eliminate men who had committed violence against girls and young women.
Someone had killed these suspects before the police could make a case against them.
Before leaving the Northeast, Byrne had put in a call to Records. He had requested that they pull every unsolved homicide for the past ten years. He had also asked for a cross reference with the search term 'lavender.'
Byrne thought about Longo, ensconced in his basement, making birdhouses, of all things. To the outside world, Longo looked content. But Byrne could see the ghost. If he looked closely at his own face in the mirror- something he did less and less these days-he would probably see it in himself.
The town of Meadville was starting to look good.
Byrne shifted gears, thought about the case. His case. The river killings. He knew he had to tear it all down and build it back up from the beginning. He had encountered psychos of this sort before, murderers who took their cue from something we all saw and took for granted every day.
Lisette Simon was first. Or at least they thought so. A forty-one- year-old woman who worked in a mental- health-care facility. Maybe the killer started there. Maybe he met Lisette, worked with her, made some discovery that triggered this rampage.
Compulsive killers start close to home.
The name of the killer is in that computer readout.
Before Byrne could head back into the Roundhouse, he sensed a presence nearby.
'Kevin.'
Byrne spun around. It was Vincent Balzano. He and Byrne had worked a detail a few years earlier. He had, of course, seen Vincent at any number of police functions with Jessica. Byrne liked him. What he knew about Vincent on the job was that he was a little unorthodox, had placed himself in jeopardy more than once to save a fellow officer, and was fairly hotheaded. Not all that different from Byrne himself.
'Hey, Vince,' Byrne said.
'You talk to Jess today?'
'No,' Byrne said. 'What's up?'
'She left a message for me this morning. I've been on the street all day. I just picked up the messages an hour ago.'
'You worried?'
Vincent looked at the Roundhouse, then back at Byrne. 'Yeah. I am.'
'What did her message say?'
'She said she and Nicci Malone were headed up to Berks County,' Vincent said. 'Jess was off duty. And now I can't get hold of her. Do you have any idea where in Berks?'
'No,' Byrne said. 'You try her cell?'
'Yeah,' he said. 'I get her voice mail.' Vincent turned away for a moment, then back. 'What's she doing up in Berks? Is she working your multiple?'
Byrne shook his head. 'She's working Walt Brigham's case.'
'Walt Brigham's case? What's up there?'
'I'm not sure.'
'What's the last thing she logged?'
'Let's go see.'
Back in the duty room of the homicide unit, Byrne pulled the binder of Walt Brigham's murder. He flipped to the most recent entry. 'This is from last night,' he said.
The file contained photocopies of two photographs, both sides- black-and-white pictures of an old stone farmhouse. They were duplicates. On the back of one was five numbers, two obscured by what looked like water damage. Beneath that, written in red pen, in a cursive style known well to both men as belonging to Jessica, was the following:
195- / Berks County / N of French Creek?
'You think this is where she went?' Vincent asked.
'I don't know,' Byrne said. 'But if her voice mail message said that she was heading to Berks with Nicci, there's a good chance.'
Vincent pulled out his cell, tried Jessica again. Nothing. For a moment, it appeared that Vincent was going to throw the phone through the window. The closed window. Byrne knew the feeling.
Vincent pocketed his cell phone, headed for the door.
'Where are you going?' Byrne asked.
'I'm going up there.'
Byrne took the pictures of the farmhouse, put the binder away. 'I'm going with you.'
'You don't have to.'
Byrne stared. 'How do you figure that?' Vincent hesitated for a moment, nodded. 'Let's go.' They reached Vincent's car-a fully restored 197 °Cutlass S-at nearly a run. Byrne was out of breath by the time he slipped into the passenger seat. Vincent Balzano was in far better shape.
Vincent decked a blue light on the dash. By the time they reached the Schuylkill Expressway they were
