eyes, a small cleft in her chin. The photo appeared to be a printout of a digital picture. She wore a red sweater with sequins along the neckline, large hoop earrings, and a striking onyx teardrop pendant necklace.
Hell spun in place, twice, both fists raised in anger, his huge rubber-soled boots squeaking on the tile. 'I didn't think to look. I hate that, man,' he said, calmly, even as a fiery crimson rose from his neck onto his face like the column in a cheap thermometer.
'No harm no foul,' Byrne said. 'We have it now.'
'Yeah, well, I am still upset. I am really, really upset.'
Jessica and Byrne had dealt with Hell Rohmer on a number of cases. It was best to wait out moments like this. Eventually, he calmed down, his face cooling to a hot pink.
'Can we get a copy of this?' Byrne finally asked. It was rhetorical, but it was the best way to go.
Hell stared at the Bible, as if the suspect might jump out of the binding, like a figure in a child's pop-up book, and he could choke him to death. It was well-known in the department that you didn't fuck with Helmut Rohmer's psyche. A few seconds later he snapped out of it. 'A copy? Oh yeah. Absolutely.'
Hell put the photograph in a clear evidence bag, walked it over to the color copying machine. He punched a few buttons-hard-then waited, hands on hips, for the photocopy to emerge, adrift in that place where frustrated criminalists go. A few seconds later, the page presented itself. Hell handed it to Jessica.
Jessica looked closely at the image. The girl in the photograph was not Caitlin O'Riordan. She was someone new. A person who stared out at the world with an innocence that begged for experience. Jessica was overcome by the feeling that this girl never got the chance.
Jessica put the photocopy of the photograph in her portfolio. 'Thanks,' she said. 'Keep us in the loop, okay?'
Hell didn't respond. He was gone, adrift on the tangents of hard evidence, juddering with anger. Criminalists didn't like to be played any more than detectives did. Hell Rohmer even less than most.
Ten minutes later Detectives Jessica Balzano and Kevin Byrne headed to 4514 Shiloh Street, the photograph of the auburn-haired girl on the car seat between them, like a silent passenger.
SIX
Another North Philly Hellhole; a grim and decaying three- story building, the corner structure in a block of five. At the entrance to the left of the Shiloh Street address was a memorial. There were memorials all over North Philly, commemorations of the departed. Some were a simple spray painted 'RIP' above the victim's name or nickname. Others were elaborate, highly detailed portraits of the victim, many times in a benevolent pose, sometimes flashing a gang signal, sometimes two or three times actual scale. Almost all honored victims of street violence.
This memorial was to a young child. In the recess of the doorway was a small, delaminating nightstand stuffed with plush teddy bears, rabbits, ducks, birds. It always struck Jessica as odd how, at North Philly memorials, items could be left on the street, items that everyday were shoplifted from Wal-Mart and Rite Aid. They were never stolen from a memorial. Memorials were sacred.
A piece of plywood was nailed over the door of this commemorative display, painted with the words Descanse en Paz. Rest in peace. On the wall to the left of the door was a beautiful airbrushed portrait of a smiling Hispanic girl. A silver Christmas garland ringed the painting. Beneath it sat a red plastic juice pitcher full of dusty satin tulips. Above the girl's head was scrawled Florita Delia Ramos, 2004–2008.
Four years old, Jessica thought. Unless the city moved in and painted the wall over-an unlikely scenario, seeing as how the memorial was the only vestige of beauty left on this blighted block-the portrait would live longer than its subject did.
Jessica glanced at Byrne. He had his hands in his pockets. He was looking the other way. Jessica understood. Sometimes you had to look away.
RIP Florita.
Twenty minutes later, Byrne and a quartet of uniformed officers entered the building and began to clear the structure. While they were inside, Jessica crossed the street to a bodega. She bought a half dozen strong coffees.
When Byrne emerged from the row house, Jessica handed him a cup. The rest of the team found their coffees, and Tastykakes, on the hood of the car.
'Anything?' Jessica asked.
Byrne nodded. 'A whole houseful of trash.'
'Anything we want to look at?'
Byrne thought for a moment, sipped his coffee. 'Probably.'
Jessica considered the chain of events, the geography. Here was the dilemma: Do you pull a few officers off other investigations to start searching a building for a needle in a haystack? Were they chasing ghosts, or did this address actually have something to do with the murder of Caitlin O'Riordan?
My name is Jeremiah Crosley.
'What do you think, detective?' Byrne asked.
Jessica looked up at the third floor. She thought of Caitlin dead inside a building not all that different from this one. She thought of the human heart in that specimen jar. She thought of all the evil she had seen, and how it always led to a place of unremitting darkness. A place like this.
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.
She called for a CSU team.
An hour later, while Byrne returned to the Roundhouse to check the photograph of the dark-haired girl against recent missing-persons files, Jessica stood in the stifling hallway just outside the kitchen at the Shiloh Street address.
Byrne had been right. There was a houseful of junk. Hefty bags and loose garbage were crammed into the corners of the kitchen, bathroom, and dining area, as well as almost filling the three small rooms upstairs.
Strangely, the basement was almost empty. Just a few boxes and a moldy eight-by-ten faux-Persian area rug on the floor, perhaps a 1980s attempt at haute decor. Jessica took pictures of every room.
There had to be ten thousand flies in the house. Maybe more. The buzz was a maddening background hum. Between swatting the flies away and the incessant teeming, it was nearly impossible to think. Jessica began to believe this search was a pointless exercise.
'Detective Balzano?'
Jessica turned. The officer asking the question was a fit and tanned young woman, early twenties, about an inch shorter than Jessica's five- eight. She had clear brown eyes, almost amber. A lock of lustrous brunette hair escaped her cap. In the heat, it was all but plastered to her smooth forehead.
Jessica knew the look, the plight. She'd been there herself, many times, back in the day. It was August-add a Kevlar vest, the dark blue of the uniform, along with what, at times, seemed like a fifty-pound belt-and it was like working in a sauna, clad in medieval armor.
Jessica glanced at the officer's nametag. M. CARUSO.
'What's your first name, Officer Caruso?'
'Maria,' the young woman said.
Jessica smiled. She had almost guessed. Maria was Jessica's late mother's name. Jessica had always had a soft spot for anyone named Maria. 'What's up?'
'Well, there's a lot of stuff upstairs,' she said. 'Boxes, trash bags, old suitcases, sacks of dirty clothes, a couple of mattresses, tons of drug paraphernalia.'
'No bodies, I hope,' Jessica said with what she hoped was a little dark humor. This place was incredibly bleak.
'No bodies yet,' Officer Caruso replied, matching the tone. She was sharp. 'But there is a lot of stuff.
'I understand,' Jessica said. 'We have time.'
In situations like this, Jessica was always careful to use the word we. She recalled her days in uniform, and how that word-uttered by some ancient detective of thirty or so, usually over some incredibly brutal scene of urban carnage-meant catching the bad guys was a joint effort. It mattered.
