'Do you remember these interviews?'
'No.'
The answer came a little too quickly, Jessica thought. Butchie remembered.
'You continued to work the case for another month,' Byrne said.
Pistone coughed again. 'I clocked in, did my job. Just like you.'
'Not like me,' Byrne said. 'You mean to tell me that you opened this file another dozen times, and you didn't notice anything missing?'
Pistone stared out the window. He took a long drag on his cigarette, hotboxing it. 'I was a cop for thirty fuckin' years in this town. You have any idea the shit I've seen?'
'I've got a pretty good idea,' Byrne said.
'That kid was my last case. I was drinking at seven in the morning. I don't remember a thing.' He took a sip of his straight Bushmills. 'I did her family a favor by pulling the pin. I did the city a favor.'
'We may have a compulsive out there. We found a second body today. Young girl. It looks like the same guy.'
Butchie's face drained of all color. He hit the Bushmills again.
'Nothing to say?' Byrne asked.
Butchie just stared out the window.
'It's not like we can ask Freddy, can we?'
Butchie's face darkened. 'Don't go there, Detective,' he said. 'Don't even fuckin' go there.'
'This is going to go where it goes, Butchie. If you misplaced these notes, or even worse, you lost them, and you didn't make a note about it, it could get bad. Especially if another girl dies. Nothing I can do about it now.'
'Sure there is.' Pistone put down his cigarette and his drink. He struggled to his feet. Byrne stood up, too. He towered over the man. 'You can turn around and walk out that door.'
The two men stared at each other. The only sound was the click of the old wind-up alarm clock on Butchie's table, the cacophony of muffled shouts and laughter coming from the bar below. Jessica wanted to say something, but it occurred to her that both of these men may have forgotten that she was even in the room. This was real High Noon stuff.
Finally, Byrne reached out, shook the man's hand. Just like that. 'Thanks for seeing us, Butchie.'
'No problem,' Butchie replied, a little surprised.
Byrne was really good at these things, Jessica thought. His philosophy was, always shake a man's hand. That way, when the whip comes down, they never see it coming.
'Any time,' Butchie added.
Except this lifetime, Jessica thought.
'I'll pass along your regards to Sergeant Buchanan,' Byrne said as they headed to the door, twisting the blade.
'Yeah,' Butchie Pistone said. 'You do that.'
They rode in relative silence for a few blocks. When they made a right on Sixth Street, Byrne broke the quiet. It wasn't anything Jessica expected him to say.
'I'd see her sometimes.'
'What do you mean?' Jessica asked. 'See who?'
'Eve.'
Jessica waited for him to continue. A block later, he did.
'After we stopped seeing each other, I'd see her out on the town. Usually all by herself. Different bars, different restaurants. Mostly bars. You know how this job is. We all end up going to the same places. As soon as you find a place where cops don't go, somebody finds out about it and it becomes a cop bar.'
Jessica nodded. It was true.
'I always thought about approaching her, seeing if we could just be friends, just have a drink and walk away. I never did.'
'How come?'
Byrne shrugged. 'I don't know. On the other hand, I never just turned around and walked out, either. I just seemed to sit there and watch her. I loved to look at her. Every man who saw her did, but I had this notion that I had reached her somehow. Maybe I did for just a second.'
'Did she ever see you?'
Byrne shook his head. 'Not once. If she did, she never let on. Eve had this way of shutting out the world.'
They turned onto Callowhill, then onto Eighth Street.
'And here's the crazy part,' Byrne said. 'Do you know what she was doing most of the time?'
'What?'
'Reading.'
It was the last thing Jessica expected him to say. Calf-roping and macrame would have come first. 'Reading?'
'Yeah. I'd see her in some pretty rough places-Grays Ferry, Point Breeze, Kensington-and she would just be sitting there, sipping her drinks, and reading a paperback. Usually a novel.'
Jessica conjured the image of this beautiful, tough as nails woman, dressed up, sitting in a bar by herself, reading a book. This woman was something.
'What did she drink?' Jessica asked.
'What do you mean?'
'What was her cocktail of choice?'
'Wild Turkey, rocks,' Byrne said. 'Why?'
'Just curious.'
Byrne put the car in park, cut the engine. The car clicked and clacked and shuddered. It eventually fell silent.
'What's in those missing notes, partner?' Jessica asked.
'I wish I knew.'
'You think they were just misfiled?'
'It's possible,' Byrne said. 'I'll go rooting around a little tomorrow.'
While it was possible the notebook pages were placed into another binder by mistake, it was unlikely. They might never know what was in them.
The activity log did not give full names for these interviewees. Just street names. Byrne felt weary just thinking about the effort needed to try and track down three people without last names, pictures, or Social Security numbers.
The point was, something in those notes might lead to their doer, something that would take him off the streets before he killed again.
'All right,' Jessica said. 'I'm out. I feel like I've been up for three days straight. After that crawlspace, I want to take a five-hour bath.'
'Okay. See you in the morning. Bright and early.'
'I'll try to be early,' Jessica said. 'Don't expect bright.'
Jessica got out of the car, began to cross the lot. Byrne watched her go. He rolled down his window.
'Jess.'
She turned around. 'Yeah?'
'I like your nails.'
Jessica smiled, the first time in days.
TWENTY-NINE
As the sun softened into a dusty orange corona over West Philadelphia, Byrne drove to the location where Eve Galvez's body had been found. The crime scene was still taped off, secured by two officers in a sector car. It
