lullabying you into thinking sound makes sense, huh? And I'd hardly call it pathological or the words of a lunatic.”
“Maybe it all makes sense to the killer, Kim. How many times have we seen a killer create rationalizations for actions that led to murder? Whether it looks like the ravings of a madman or not, he may well be channeling voices in his head that ultimately tell him to kill.”
Jessica next studied the blown-up shot of the second deadly poem. Again, the torn flesh looked like blood- orange script on a clay tablet, but this was poisoned ink written into human flesh.
She read the second poem:
Chance… whose desire is to have a meeting with stunned innocence… is drawn up and perched to fall into the mirror pool, through meshes of metaphor to disentangle and leave behind unbound fingers of touch.
Sensing sounds in choruses of falling water crashing on nearby rock,
I hear harmony touching my hand where gazes fall into place.
The breath that exhales across the candle fails, and so it remains, flickering.
“And so, and further thoughts?” Kim asked. Jessica breathed in as much air as she could and slowly exhaled. “It's definitely the work of the same person. Along with the one I read before, and the one you read me, it feels almost as if…”
“Yes?”
“As if these weren't three separate poems at all, but-”
“Go on, but what?”
“But one long ongoing…”
“Dirge, yes. I agree.”
“Like a lament.”
“A death march,” agreed Kim.
Nodding, Jessica added, “Over in London they'd refer to it as a threnody.”
“Yes, a hymn, a requiem, all one piece. I just wanted someone else to tell me I wasn't crazy.”
“You think they follow in a sequence?”
“I'm not sure. I mean I've transcribed them and put them in the order of the killings, but there seems to be something… I don't know… missing, as if the killer doesn't know all the pieces yet himself. Or perhaps it wasn't meant to be written in order, because-”
“Because the missing parts haven't as yet been completed.”
“Which likely means more bodies.”
“Exactly.”
The chopper began its descent. Jessica strapped in once again. Kim had never loosened her belt.
Jessica stared out the window. She knew Philadelphia well, having lived there for a time with her military family. She now pointed out the banks of the Delaware and, in the distance, Burlington, New Jersey. Then she pointed to another river. “That's the Schuylkill River.”
“School-kill? Is that anything like road kill? What a strange name for a river, but it seems to fit with the chaos of the modem age,” replied Kim.
“It's pronounced 'school-kill,' but it's an Indian word. Oh, look.” Jessica pointed again. “Scullers on the river.”
Both women watched the machinelike rhythm of flashing oars in the hands of competing crews. The oars looked like blades, and their smooth, deft movement through the water was perfectly synchronized, giving boat and crew an appearance not unlike that of a gliding animal in its natural haunt.
Jessica and Kim made out the roofline of Colonial country houses and villas, and next the looming dome of Memorial Hall, a remnant of the Centennial Exposition. Soon they were over Boathouse Row, the Fairmount Waterworks, and the best view of the skyline of modern Philadelphia and the promenade leading up to the Museum of Art, the stairway made famous by the movie Rocky. The streets here, lined with parkways and universities and museums, reminded Jessica of Washington, D.C.'s Pennsylvania Avenue.
The city was famous for both its Quaker roots-hospitality and brotherly love-and for the ease with which people could get around, thanks to William Penn's surveyor general, Thomas Holme. Holme had laid out the city streets in 1682 on a grid quite visible from the air. The resulting rectangle, two miles long and one mile wide, enclosed approximately 1,280 acres between the Delaware and the picturesque Schuylkill River.
“East-to-west streets are named for trees,” Jessica told Kim. “North-to-south are numbered.”
“How… efficient.”
“Quaint, too, but there's a catch.”
“Naturally.”
“Early settlers counted back from both rivers, requiring each street to be additionally identified as Schuylkill Second or Delaware Third, and so on.”
“You're putting me on.”
“Actually, city fathers put things right around the turn of the century. The numbering now begins on the Delaware River side and moves westward to the city limits. Makes cab hopping a lot easier.”
“I should think.”
“If you'd like, Dr. Coran,” came the helicopter pilot's voice over the PA system, “I'll take you over the city first. We can pass the air station field for a helipad at Police Precinct One downtown. This'll cut out the need for a cab, and you'll have a nice view of the downtown area.”
Jessica put on a headset resting on her chair and spoke. “Thanks, Pete! That would save us a lot of hassle.”
Center Square with its massive Colonial-style city hall then came into view. When it had been erected in 1901, Philadelphia's city hall stood as the tallest and largest public building in the United States. “This area is the true heart of the city,” commented Jessica. “Philly is a walker's city.”
“A walker's city?”
“Down here it's impossible to get lost, given the layout, and in any direction you're going to run into an oasis with a park bench.”
Kim and Jessica saw the greenery of George Washington Park, David Rittenhouse Park, Benjamin Franklin Park, and James Logan Park, each flanked on all sides by traffic.
“Rush hour looks like hell,” commented Kim, pointing out a long snake of snarled metal on the street below.
“It is. Streets look quaint and narrow from up here, don't they?”
“Yes.”
“Fact is, the streets are quaint and narrow.”
“A quaint pain in the ass for those poor devils stuck in gridlock,” muttered Kim, breaking into a laugh. “While we blithely fly above it all.”
“Yeah, like winged goddesses.”
“Goddesses; really, Jessica,” Kim replied in mock amazement. A moment of static gave way to the pilot's voice over the PA again. “Doctors, welcome to Philly. Home of the Flyers, the 76ers, the Eagles, cheese steak sandwiches, Mummers, funky South Street, gateway to the Jersey Shore, the Liberty Bell, and don't forget soft pretzels.”
The chopper pilot worked his magic, aligning the machine with what looked to Kim Desinor like a postage stamp-the helipad atop the building. Jessica smiled at how calmly Pete brought the huge Soviet-made monster into the center of the X on the helipad marker. But her smile waned on seeing the people awaiting them at Philadelphia's police headquarters. Pete had called ahead, alerting officials of their arrival.
An uncharacteristic quiver could be seen in Jessica's jaw as she made out Area Special Agent in Charge James Parry, his broad-shouldered form standing beside what appeared to be the chief of police and most likely the detective in charge of the Philly task force, a towering dark-haired Sigourney Weaver look-alike.
Jessica saw that behind his resolute stance, Parry's nerves must be somewhat frazzled, the quiver in her jaw being matched by the clenched fists. He appeared as anxious about the prospect of working with her as she was with him.
“He knows you're coming, Jess,” said Kim, as if reading her mind. “He likely wants closure on this relationship as much as you, so just go easy.”
