wondered how many tears had rolled onto this chair, how many sorrowful rivers had flowed through its ticking. 'No,' she lied.
He put down his pen. 'Tell me about the dream.'
Eve plucked a few tissues from the box, dabbed her eyes. As she did this she covertly glanced at her watch. Wall clocks were scarce in a shrink's office. They were at minute forty-eight of a fifty-minute session. Her doctor wanted to continue. On his dime.
What was this about? Eve wondered. Shrinks never went over the time limit. There was always someone scheduled next, some teenager with an eating disorder, some frigid housewife, some jack-off artist who rode SEPTA looking for little girls in pleated plaid, some OCD who had to circle his house seven times every morning before work just to see if he had left the gas on or had remembered to comb his area-rug fringe a few hundred times.
'Eve?' he repeated. 'The dream?'
It wasn't a dream-she knew that, and he knew that. It was a nightmare, a lurid waking horror show that unspooled every night, every noon, every morning, dead center in her mind, her life.
'What do you want to know about it?' she asked, stalling. She felt sick to her stomach.
'I want to hear it all,' he said. 'Tell me about the dream. Tell me about Mr. Ludo.'
Eve Galvez looked at the outfit on her bed. Collectively, the jeans, cotton blazer, T-shirt, and Nikes represented one-fifth of her wardrobe. She traveled light these days, even though she was once addicted to clothes. And shoes. Back in the day her mailbox had been thick with fashion magazines, her closet impenetrable with suits, blazers, sweaters, blouses, skirts, coats, jeans, slacks, vests, jackets, dresses. Now there was room in her closet for all of her skeletons. And they needed plenty of room.
In addition to her handful of outfits, Eve had one piece of jewelry she cared about, a bracelet she wore only at night. It was one of the few material things she cherished.
This was her fifth apartment in two years, a spare, drafty, three- room affair in Northeast Philadelphia. She had one table, one chair, one bed, one dresser, no paintings or posters on the walls. Although she had a job, a duty, a litany of responsibilities to other people, she sometimes felt like a nomad, a woman unfettered by the shackles of urban life.
Exhibit Number One: in the kitchen, four boxes of Kraft Macaroni amp; Cheese that expired two years earlier. Every time she opened the cupboard she was reminded that she was relocating with food she would never eat.
In the shower she thought about her session with the shrink. She had told him about the dream-not all of it, she would never tell anybody all of it-but certainly more than she had intended. She wondered why. He was not any more insightful than the others, did not have a special sense that raised him above all of his colleagues in his field.
And yet she had gone further than she ever had.
Maybe she was making progress. She walks up a dark street. It is three o'clock in the morning. Eve knows precisely what time it is because she had glanced up the avenue-a dream-street that had no name or number-and saw the clock in the tower at City Hall.
After a few blocks, the street grows gloomier, even more featureless and long-shadowed, like a vast, silent de Chirico painting. There are abandoned stores on either side of the street, shuttered diners that somehow have customers still at the counters, ice-covered in time, coffee cups poised halfway to their lips.
She comes to an intersection. A streetlight blinks red on all four sides. She sees a doll sitting in a fiddleback chair. It wears a ragged pink dress, soiled at the hem. It has dirty knees and elbows.
Suddenly, Eve knows who she is, and what she has done. The doll is hers. It is a Crissy doll, her favorite when she was a child. She has run away from home. She has come to the city without any money or any plan.
A shadow dances across the wall to her left. She turns to look, and sees a man approaching, fast. He moves as a gust of blistering wind, carved of smoke and moonlight.
He is now behind her. She knows what he did to the others. She knows what he is going to do to her.
'Venga aqui!' comes the booming voice from behind, inches from her ear.
The fear, the sickness, blossoms inside her. She knows the familiar voice, and it forms a dark tornado in her heart. 'Venga, Eve! Ahora!'
She closes her eyes. The man spins her around, begins to violently shake her. He pushes her to the ground, but she does not hit the steaming asphalt. Instead she falls through it, tumbling through space, head over heels, freefall, the lights of the city a mad kaleidoscope in her mind.
She crashes through a ceiling onto a filthy mattress. For a few blessed moments the world is silent. Soon she catches her breath, hears the sound of a young girl singing a familiar song in the next room. It is a Spanish lullaby, 'A La Nanita Nana.'
Seconds later, the door slams open. A bright orange light washes the room. An earsplitting siren rages through her head.
And the real nightmare begins. Eve stepped out of the shower, toweled off, walked into her bedroom, opened the closet, took out the aluminum case. Inside, secured against the egg-crate foam lining, were four firearms. All the weapons were perfectly maintained, fully loaded. She selected a Glock 17, which she carried in a Chek-Mate security holster on her right hip, along with a Beretta 21, which she wore in an Apache ankle rig.
She slipped into her outfit, buttoned her blazer, checked herself in the full-length mirror. She proclaimed herself ready. Just after 1 AM, she stepped into the hall.
Eve Galvez turned to look at her nearly empty apartment, a rush of icy melancholy overtaking her heart. She had once had so much.
She closed the door, locked the deadbolt, walked down the hallway. A few moments later she crossed the lobby, pushed through the glass doors, and stepped into the warm Philadelphia night.
For the last time.
FIVE
The Forensic Science Center, commonly referred to as the crime lab, was located at Eighth and Poplar streets, just a few blocks from the Roundhouse. The 40,000-square-foot facility was responsible for analysis of all physical evidence collected by the PPD during the course of an investigation. In its various divisions, it performed analysis in three major categories: trace evidence, such as paint, fibers, or gunshot residue; biological evidence, including blood, semen, and hair; and miscellaneous evidence, such as fingerprints, documents, and footwear impressions.
The Philadelphia Police Department's Criminalistics Unit maintained itself as a full-service facility, able to perform a wide variety of testing procedures.
Sergeant Helmut Rohmer was the reigning king of the document section. In his early thirties, Rohmer was a giant, standing about six- four, weighing in at 250 pounds, most of it muscle. He had short- cropped hair, dyed so blond it was almost white. On both arms were an elaborate web of tattoos-many of them a variation on red roses, white roses, and the name Rose. Vegetation and petals snaked around his huge biceps. At PPD functions-especially the Police Athletic League gatherings. Helmut Rohmer was big on PAL-no one had ever seen him with a person named Rose or Rosie or Rosemary, so the subject was scrupulously avoided. His standard outfit was black jeans, Doc Martens, and sleeveless black sweatshirts. Unless he had to go to court. Then it was a shiny, narrow-lapelled, navy-blue suit from around the time when REO Speedwagon dotted the charts.
No pocket protectors or dingy lab coats here-Helmut Rohmer looked like a roadie for Metallica, or a Frank Miller rendering of a Hell's Angel. But when the sergeant spoke, he sounded like Johnny Mathis. He insisted you call him Hell, even going so far as signing his internal memos 'From Hell.' No one dared argue or object.
'This is a fairly common edition of the New Oxford,' Hell said. 'It's available everywhere. I have the same edition at home.' The book sat on the gleaming stainless table, opened to the copyright page. 'This particular publication was printed in the early seventies, but you can find it in just about any used-book store in the country, including college bookstores, Half Price Books, everywhere.'
'Is there any way to trace where it may have been purchased?' Jessica asked.
'I'm afraid not.'
