'How bad is it?' Jessica asked.
'Put on your Nikes. The initial list has seventy-one names.'
'Seventy-one?'
'Yeah. The homeless are a social group,' Nicci said. 'But it looks like there were four men besides Preston Braswell who we liked more than the others. They were all questioned and released. I think we should try to track them down first.'
Before our killer does, Jessica thought.
A few minutes later they received the fax with the four names. Jessica found them all in the system and printed off what information they had on the men, including the most recent photographs.
Because there was no information on where Marcellus Palmer was buried they would have to start on the street.
For years, and with no small sense of irony, many homeless had huddled in the park directly across from the police administration building, in what is known as Franklin Square. In general, the homeless congregate where they are fed. Not much had changed in the past twenty-five years.
The detectives divvied up the names and photographs of the four men, as well as the locations of the shelters. They would work these interviews solo, as there were too many places to visit in teams, and time was short.
Jessica would take Old City.
Chapter 36
The area beneath the Ben Franklin Bridge, at the interchange with 1-95, had long been a refuge for Philadelphia's homeless. For years the police referred to it as The Condos. Jessica parked, found a break in the chain-link fence, made her way beneath the overpass. There were a few dozen people congregated there. Stacked against the fence were stuffed cardboard boxes, bursting plastic bags. Nearby was a stroller with only three wheels. Cups, bottles, milk cartons, fast-food trash. No aluminum cans, of course. Cans were currency.
There were ten or twelve people on the north side of the encampment, mostly men. They glanced up at Jessica, not reacting in any way. Two reasons. One, she was a woman. Two, even though she was clearly a police officer, or at least a representative of the system, she was not coming in all guns blazing, with the obvious intention of uprooting them.
There were three distinct camps, with a few men off on their own. Jessica approached the first group, showed them the photographs. No one admitted recognizing anyone. The same with the second and third groups of men.
As Jessica walked away from the third group, one of the men called out to her. Jessica turned around. It was one of the older guys. He was lying on a thick bed of cardboard.
'Say, darling, you ever been with a homeless man?' He smiled his keyboard grin, broke into a phlegmy cough. The other two men in his posse chuckled. 'Guaranteed to change your life. You interested?'
'Sure,' Jessica said. 'All you have to do is take a shower and get a job.'
The man looked shocked. He got back under his blanket, turned on his side. 'You ain't all that.''
Jessica smiled, made her way back around the camp, asking the same questions, receiving nothing. The last man pointed to a man on the other side of the embankment, someone Jessica hadn't noticed before. As she approached she saw that the man — who was surrounded by carefully placed trash bags — had his legs covered with what appeared to be a new blanket. As Jessica got closer she saw that it still had its price tag.
The man was propped against the fence, reading a paperback. Its cover was missing but Jessica could read the spine. Great Expectations.
'Excuse me. Sir?'
He looked up. He was black, somewhere between fifty and seventy. He wore a tattered brown corduroy blazer and a yellowed shirt. His tie, like the blanket, looked new. Jessica wondered if there was a price tag on that, too. His eyes were bright and intelligent.
'Madam.'
'May I ask your name?'
'Abraham Coltrane.'
Jessica believed the Abraham part. 'Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?' Jessica held up her badge. The man scanned it.
'Not at all.'
Jessica held up three of the photographs. 'Do you know any of these men?'
Coltrane scanned the pictures. 'I do not. Are they men of leisure, such as myself?'
'They are.'
Abraham Coltrane nodded. Jessica held up the final picture, a photograph of the fourth man believed to have been involved with the
2004 murder of Marcellus Palmer. The man's name was Tyvander Alice. 'What about this man?'
Coltrane looked again. This time Jessica saw the slightest flicker of recognition. 'Again,' he said. 'My regrets.'
'This picture was taken a few years ago.'
'I remember everyone I have ever met, madam.'
She believed he did, which was why she didn't believe the part about him not knowing Tyvander Alice. She took out a five-dollar bill, making sure that the man saw it.
'Nice blanket,' she said.
'It provides.'
Jessica lifted the price tag. 'You have a receipt for this, Mr. Coltrane?'
'It was a gift from one of my many admirers.'
'They gave you a gift with the price tag still on it?'
Coltrane shrugged. 'The young have but a nodding acquaintance with custom, I fear.'
'Thank God the court system still does,' Jessica said. 'They're really big on it. Indictment, prosecution, conviction, incarceration. You might say they are sticklers for tradition.'
Coltrane stared at her for a moment. Jessica saw the man's will begin to fade. 'May I see that photograph again?'
'Of course.' Jessica showed him. He studied it for a moment, rubbing his stubbled chin.
'Now that I've had a moment to reflect, I believe I have made the acquaintance of this gentleman.'
'Is this Tyvander Alice?'
'Tyvander?' he asked. 'No. I knew him by another name. I know him as Hoochie.'
'Hoochie?'
'Yes. An unfortunate and undignified sobriquet based on his love of the lesser vintages, I believe.'
Jessica handed Coltrane the five. The man touched it to his forehead, sniffed it, then spirited it away under his blanket.
Before Jessica could ask another question she saw the blanket move. A few seconds later a Jack Russell terrier poked his snout out.
His gray snout. The dog blinked a few times, adjusting its eyes to the light.
'And who is this?' Jessica asked.
'This is the irascible Biscuit. He is my oldest friend.' Coltrane patted the dog's head. Jessica saw the blanket bounce up and down with the movement of the pooch's tail. 'Is there anything in the world better than a warm biscuit?'
Jessica tried to think of something. She could not. There was as good, but not better. She returned to the business at hand. 'Do you know where I might find Hoochie?'
Coltrane shrugged. ''I wander'd lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er vales and hills.''
Jessica raised an eyebrow, expecting more. There was no more. 'Bon Jovi?'
Coltrane smiled. 'Wordsworth.'
