probably meant that the killer had parked there, returned after dumping the body, and then left. If that was so, the trail was cold.
While CSU processed the crime scene, Jessica and Byrne stood at the top of the hill, watching the choreography unfold below.
Detectives would soon canvass the immediate area. There was a condo development at Mechanicsville and Eddington Roads, a pair of apartments next to it. Maybe someone had seen something. But Jessica doubted it. Their killer was a ghost.
Kenneth Beckman, Sharon Beckman, Preston Braswell, Tyvander Alice.
Four bodies, eight tattoos.
Four to go.
And they didn't have a single solid lead.
The team spent the entire afternoon canvassing. The residences in this part of the city were not as tightly packed as they were in the inner city, so the act of interviewing and asking the same questions over and over was a much slower, even more enervating process.
They returned to the Roundhouse, followed up on a few weak leads. Nothing. By the end of the tour, the entire unit was exhausted and frustrated. Someone was solving the unsolved crimes in Philadelphia, but they were killing the killers and their accomplices. Someone was shaving these bodies clean, mutilating their faces, and wrapping them in paper. Someone who floated through the city like a phantom.
Jessica sat on the edge of a desk, a cup of cold coffee in her hand. She glanced over at the walk-in closet. Inside were the books of homicide cases dating back more than a hundred years. Inside the books were summaries of hundreds of unsolved cases, cases wherein there were suspects who were never charged with the crime, suspects who never became defendants, defendants who were acquitted for any number of reasons. The books were essentially a list of potential victims for their ghoul.
The duty room was mostly empty. The second tour had already begun, and those detectives were on the street, pursuing leads, tracking down witnesses. Jessica was envious.
'Don't you have a family to go home to?' Byrne asked.
'Nah,' Jessica said. 'Although, funny you should mention it, I have seen a man and a little girl hanging around my house. I should call the police.'
Byrne laughed. 'Speaking of which, how are you adjusting to the new house?'
'Well, besides tripping over the furniture and spinning in place for five minutes because there's nowhere to put a cup of coffee down, it's great.'
'Is it that much smaller?'
Jessica nodded. 'It's a lot like the house I grew up in. Same layout. The only problem is, I was a lot smaller then.'
'What, like a size four?'
'Smartass.'
Byrne's phone beeped in his hand. He looked at the screen, read for a moment, smiled.
'It's a text from Colleen,' he said. 'She wanted me to know she got back from D.C. okay.'
Jessica nodded. 'Wow,' she said. 'Colleen in college.'
'Don't remind me.'
Byrne picked up a tall stack of mail that was rubber-banded together on the desk. It looked like two weeks' worth of correspondence, mostly junk. Jessica wanted to mention to her partner that it was probably a good idea to check the inbox once in a while, but she figured he knew this.
As Byrne went through the pile, throwing most of the mail in the trash can, Jessica smelled the perfumed letter before she saw it. The scent was jasmine. Byrne held up the envelope, eyed it, sniffed it. It was the size of a personal note card, maybe four by six inches. Expensive-looking paper.
'A note from an admirer?' Jessica asked. 'As if,' Byrne replied.
'It's the charcoal gray suit, Kevin. I'm telling you.' Byrne pulled a letter opener off the desk, slit the envelope, extracted the card.
As much as Jessica wanted to pry, she stepped a few feet away, giving her partner a little privacy, shoving everything she needed to take with her into her tote bag. When she looked again at Byrne, he was bone pale. Something was wrong.
'What is it?' Jessica asked.
Byrne remained silent.
'Kevin.'
Byrne waited a few moments, then took Jessica by the arm, led her to the small coffee room, closed the door. He handed her the card. It was printed on a luxurious paper, ivory in color. The scent of jasmine was now much stronger. Jessica put on her glasses, read the note, a brief message written in an elegant hand. The ink was lavender.
My dearest Detective Byrne,
It has been a long time, n'est-ce pas? I wonder how you have fared. Do you think of me? I think of you often. In fact I dreamed of you the other night. It was the first time in years. You looked quite dashing in your dark overcoat and black fedora. You carried an umbrella with a carved ivory handle. Do you carry an umbrella as a rule? No, I would think not.
So tell me. Have you found them yet? The lion and the rooster and the swan? Are there others? You might think they do not play together, but they do. I hope you are well, and that the future brings you every happiness. I am no longer scared.
— C
Jessica was stunned. She read the note a second time, the rich scent filling her head.
'Are you fucking kidding me?' she finally said in a loud whisper. 'The lion and the rooster and the swan?'
Byrne remained silent.
'Who the hell sent this, Kevin? Who is C?'
Byrne turned the envelope over and over in his hands, searching for words. Words were usually his strong suit. He always chose them carefully. He was good at it.
He told her the story.
Chapter 39
Jessica looked at her partner. She wasn't sure how long she had been staring at him without saying anything, her mouth open, eyebrows raised. Then all she could muster was one word. 'Wow.'
Byrne said nothing.
'I remember her,' Jessica said. 'I mean, I remember the story. I think my father talked about it. Plus, it was all over the news for a while.' Although she'd been in high school at the time she and her friends had discussed the case, mainly because it involved sex, violence and celebrity.
In November 1990 a woman named Christa-Marie Schцnburg, a cellist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, was arrested and charged in the murder of a man named Gabriel Thorne. According to the news reports, Thorne was Christa-Marie's psychiatrist, but there was a great deal of speculation at the time as to whether or not they were romantically involved, even though Thorne had been Christa-Marie's caregiver since she was a child and was three decades her senior. If Jessica remembered correctly, Christa-Marie confessed to second-degree murder, diminished capacity, and was sentenced to twenty-to-life in the women's facility at the State Correctional Institution at Muncy.
'That was your first case?' Jessica asked.
Byrne nodded. 'My first as a lead detective, yeah. I was partnered with Jimmy.'
Jimmy Purify, his rabbi in the homicide unit, had been Byrne's partner before Jessica.
'I don't understand,' Jessica said. 'Is Christa-Marie still in Muncy?'
'No,' Byrne said. 'She was released a few years ago. The last I heard she's still living in the Chestnut Hill house.'
