doing this, it seemed inconsistent with his personality — someone had done it for him. Quite possibly the person who'd strangled and mutilated him.
Byrne already had three calls in to Sharon Beckman to ask if her husband had a tattoo on his finger.
Jessica got on the phone to World Ink, and after a few minutes of press one, press five, press two, she pressed 0 until a human being picked up the phone. She identified herself and in short order was passed over to the website-catalog sales manager.
Jessica explained the bare minimum. After a little hemming and hawing, the man told her that they would be happy to help, but he was going to have to get clearance and they would need some kind of request on paper. Jessica asked the man if a fax on a PPD letterhead would suffice, and he said it would. Jessica scratched a few more notes, hung up the phone. She caught Byrne's attention, gave him the highlights. She held up the photo of the lion tattoo.
'This design is exclusive to this company,' she said. 'It's an original design. That's not to say that our guy bought it from them, or didn't duplicate it himself — the guy at World Ink said it was fairly easy to do with a scanner, PhotoShop, and the right supplies — but considering the way these tattoos are applied, I think it's a safe bet that Kenneth Beckman did not apply the tattoo himself. Even if it has nothing to do with the case, we can be pretty sure someone did it for him.'
'Like, for instance, our bad boy.'
'Could be. Now, if it was him, he might have placed an order online with this company. I'm going to fax them a request for a customer list, people who purchased this tattoo.'
'Do you think we'll need the DAs office on this?' Byrne asked.
'Maybe.'
'Let me call Mike Drummond and give him a heads-up.'
While Byrne made the call, Jessica printed off the tattoo of the lion. She heard laughter coming down the hall. She looked up to see Nicci Malone — a love-struck, schoolgirl-in-distress Nicci Malone — enter the duty room with Detective Russell Diaz.
Russell Diaz was the head of a newly formed tactical squad, part of the PPD's Special Investigations Unit, a job originally offered to Kevin Byrne, who had turned it down. The tactical unit was a sort of rapid-response team for high-profile cases involving special circumstances. Diaz had spent ten years with the FBI's Philadelphia field office, but had been traveling too much, he said, and joined the PPD to stay closer to his family. While in the FBI he had worked with Behavioral Science and had consulted with the homicide unit a number of times in the past few years.
Beyond that, Russell Diaz was a specimen. About six feet tall, cut from stone, close-cropped brunette hair, dreamy eyes. He was given to wearing those tight navy blue PPD T-shirts that showed off his biceps. Oddly enough, he seemed not to notice his impact on members of both the same and opposite sexes, along with everything in between. This made him even more appealing.
Tomorrow was his first tour in the new unit.
Diaz noticed Jessica, crossed the room, smiled. 'Hello, detective. Been a while.'
'Too long,' Jessica said. They shook hands. Jessica had worked with Diaz on a joint task force when she'd been in the auto-theft unit.
They had taken down an international ring, a gang shipping high-end cars to South America. 'Glad to have you on the team. How is Marta?'
Marta was Diaz's daughter. To Jessica's understanding she was some sort of musical prodigy. The fact that Diaz, long divorced, was raising her alone vaulted him from appealing to unbelievably adorable.
'She's great, thanks. Fourteen going on thirty.'
Jessica glanced down at the stack of papers and books in Diaz's grasp.
'What is this?' Jessica pointed at the book. Diaz handed it to her. It was a copy of Dante's Inferno.
'Just a little light reading,' Diaz said, with a smile.
Jessica thumbed through the book. It was anything but light reading. 'You read Italian?'
'Working on it. Marta is going to do her sophomore year in Italy, and I want to be able to sound hip to her friends.'
'Impressive.'
'Che c'и di nuovo?' Diaz asked.
Jessica smiled. 'Non molto.'
As far as she could tell, Diaz had asked her what was new and she'd told him 'not much.' Outside of swear words, that was about the extent of Jessica's Italian.
Byrne walked into the duty room. Jessica gestured him over. She introduced the two men.
'Kevin Byrne, Russell Diaz,' she said.
'Good to meet you,' Diaz said. 'I've heard a lot about you.'
'Likewise.'
They batted shoptalk around for a while until Diaz glanced at his watch. 'I'm due back at Arch Street to wrap a few things.' The Philadelphia FBI field office was at 6000 Arch. Diaz gathered his things, including the copy of Dante's Inferno. He put it all in his duffel, slung it over his broad shoulder. 'Drinks later?'
Standing behind Diaz, Nicci Malone nodded like a bobble-head doll.
Jessica and Byrne spent the next hour typing up the witness statements collected from the Federal Street scene, which amounted to little more than I don't know anything, I didn't hear anything, I didn't see anything.
'I think you should stay on that tattoo company,' Byrne said. 'I'll see if I can red-light the lab on the brand of paper used to gift-wrap Beckman's head.'
'Sounds like a plan,' Jessica said.
In the background the duty-room phone rang. Out of habit, Jessica and Byrne both looked at the assignment desk, which was positioned more or less in the middle of the cluttered room. Nick Palladino was up on the wheel. They saw him reach into the desk for a notification form, which could only mean one thing.
The homicide unit was contacted every time there was a suspicious death. Some turned out to be accidents, some turned out to be suicides. But every time a non-hospital, non-hospice death occurred, anywhere in the county of Philadelphia, only one phone rang.
Jessica and Byrne turned their attention back to the case, to each other. Or tried to.
A few minutes later, out of the corner of her eye, Jessica noticed someone crossing the duty room. It was Nick Palladino. He was heading straight for Jessica and Byrne, a dour look on his face. For the most part, Dino was a pretty affable guy, even-tempered, at least for a South Philly Italian. Except when he was on a job. Then he was all business.
This was one of those times.
'Please don't tell me we have another body on this case,' Jessica said. 'We don't have another body on this case, do we, Dino?'
'No,' Nick Palladino said, slipping on his coat. 'We don't.' He grabbed a set of keys off the rack, along with a two-way handset. 'We have two.'
Chapter 17
Lucy Doucette made the six blocks in just under four minutes. It might have been a record. On the way she outpaced two SEPTA buses and just barely dodged an SUV that ran the light on Eighteenth Street. She'd been dodging traffic since she was three. It didn't slow her down a bit.
The address was a three-story brick building off Cherry Street. A small plaque next to the door identified it as Tillman Towers. It was hardly a tower. A rusted air conditioner hung precariously overhead; the steps leading up to the door looked to be leaning at a ten-degree angle to the right. She looked at the bottom of the plaque. It said entrance to 106 around back. She walked down an alley, turned the corner and saw a small door, painted red. On it was a symbol that matched the symbol on the card, a highly stylized golden key.
She looked for a buzzer or doorbell and, seeing none, pushed on the door. It opened. Ahead was a long dimly lit hallway.
