‘Always around ten?’ Jessica asked.
‘Always around ten.’
Jessica shuddered at the idea of being strapped to a chair for ten days, gagged and bound by barbed wire, in virtual darkness.
Bontrager fast-forwarded through the recording for the next ten days. Every night, around 10 p.m., a figure would go up that alley, then emerge a few minutes later. It was impossible to see anything other than the shape of the pointed hood.
‘And this brings us to last night,’ Bontrager said.
He hit the key. A few seconds later the figure entered the frame, stood for a moment, raising both hands, as if in benediction, then reached out and touched the lamp post, marking it in a slashing motion. This was the ‘X’ they had found.
A moment later the figure walked off, frame right. Jessica looked at the time code. It was 10:10:54.
‘Is there any way to see this more clearly?’ she asked.
‘Well, not more clearly, but bigger,’ Bontrager said.
He backed up the recording to the point when the hooded figure finished marking the pole. He hit a few more keys, and threw the image onto the huge monitor at the front of the room. He hit a button, and the recording began to progress one frame at a time. Bontrager got up, walked down the tiers, positioned himself next to the huge monitor.
Onscreen, the hooded figure stood, hands raised. They could now see that the figure’s hands were white, but that may have been gloves.
‘I don’t suppose we could get this in any more detail,’ Byrne said.
‘No,’ Bontrager said. ‘I asked the techs. This was recorded at night, with low-level light. What we’re seeing here is about it.’
‘Can they get us a printout of this frame?’ Byrne asked.
‘That they can do,’ Bontrager replied. He looked at his watch. ‘Maria and I are going to recanvass. It’s possible that someone might have had an angle from the other side of Amber Street.’
While Byrne studied the image on the huge monitor, Bontrager walked back to the table, gathered his belongings. He lingered for a moment.
‘What is it, Josh?’ Jessica asked.
‘She’s really pretty.’ He turned, looked at Jessica, reddening by the second. ‘I said that out loud, didn’t I?’
Jessica smiled. ‘I’m afraid so. You’re talking about Maria?’
Bontrager nodded, swallowed hard.
‘Yes, she is,’ Jessica said.
Bontrager lowered his voice. ‘Do you know if she’s, you know, seeing anyone?’
Jessica knew that Maria Caruso had an on-again, off-again relationship with a lieutenant in the 23rd District. It was mostly off-again these days, if Jessica wasn’t mistaken. ‘I don’t think she is, Josh.’
‘I wonder what would happen if I asked her out.’
‘Worlds would definitely collide,’ Jessica said. ‘The heavens would fall, the seas would dry up. I don’t think we’d even get cable anymore.’
‘Okay, okay,’ Bontrager said. ‘Seriously. Do you think she would go out with me?’
‘Why wouldn’t she?’
‘Do you want the long list or the short list?’
Jessica had to smile. Josh Bontrager was terminally shy.
‘I think it’s time to bust a move, detective. No time like the present, right?’
Bontrager thought for a moment. ‘You’re right. Maybe I will.’ He slipped on his coat. ‘Thanks, Jess.’
He put his shoulders back and left the room, a spring in his step. A few minutes later a uniformed officer stepped in. ‘Detective Byrne?’
Byrne turned from the monitor. ‘Yes?’
The officer held up a pair of documents. ‘You just got this from latents.’
Byrne crossed the room, thanked the officer, read the sheets. He came back to where Jessica was standing.
‘Looks like we have an ID,’ Byrne said. ‘Our victim’s name is Daniel E. Palumbo.’
‘He was in the system,’ Jessica said.
‘He was.’
Jessica, recalling the needle marks on the victim’s arms, figured he had been processed at some point in his life. She looked back at the monitor, at the facade of the abandoned church. She now had a name to go with the horror that took place in that basement.
‘You ready for this?’ Byrne asked.
‘Now, see, that’s just payback for before.’
‘He was a cop.’
Jessica was stunned. More than stunned. ‘What?’
Byrne tapped the paper in his hands. ‘He was a patrol officer for eighteen months.’
‘Here in Philly?’
‘Here in Philly.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Jessica said. ‘He was only on the job for eighteen months? He was just a kid.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why’d he retire?’
‘No idea,’ Byrne said. ‘But I’m really interested in finding that out. Aren’t you?’
‘Oh yeah.’
Jessica and Byrne returned to the homicide duty room. Once there, Jessica sat down, rolled her chair over to a computer terminal, and entered the name in the database. In seconds she got a hit. She compared the photo on the computer monitor to the one she had taken of the victim at the scene. In her photograph the victim’s face was so covered in blood and cuts, it hardly looked human. Still, prints never lie, and according to Judy’s expert work, the prints were an eight-point match.
Daniel Palumbo had been twenty-three years old. He grew up in South Philadelphia, and became a police officer three years ago.
Jessica looked again at the two photographs. The man they found bleeding out in a church basement now had a name: Daniel Elias Palumbo. Patrol Officer Daniel Elias Palumbo. They had a minimum amount of information about him.
He had been arrested and convicted of possession of a controlled substance a few months after quitting the force, but had gotten off with time served and community service.
They had a date of birth. They had a brief life story. Now they had a date of death.
‘We have a last known?’ Byrne asked.
‘Yeah, we do.’ Jessica grabbed her coat and keys. ‘His mother’s house. She still lives on Latona Street.’
NINE
As they rode to South Philly Jessica scrolled through the pictures on her iPhone. She looked at the photos taken at the St Adelaide’s crime scene.
The first three were of the basement room in which the victim was found. The condition of the room was horrific, but nothing compared to the condition of the body. She knew that there were all manner of religious sects that practiced self-flagellation and self-mutilation as part of their ceremony, but she had a hard time believing their victim had wrapped himself in barb wire. Even if he had, he definitely had help tying his hands behind his back.
My Missal. Had the book belonged to the victim? It looked like a child’s edition. If it was, why was this grown man carrying it? Did it belong to him? Did it belong to the killer?
Jessica also considered the X on the lamppost. If it was rendered in the blood of the victim they might be able to pull prints off the post, although the rusted surface of the metal might make that difficult.
They stopped for a light. ‘What do you think?’ Jessica asked.
‘I think I need another day off already.’
‘Do you think this was a ritual killing?’
‘Well, the ritual killings we’ve investigated in the past have been just that, right? Killings. This guy was alive when we got there. I think he was left that way on purpose. For ten days.’
‘But why that place?’
Byrne turned onto Latona Street. ‘Good question. Maybe he used the place to shoot up. There was plenty of paraphernalia on the first floor.’
‘You’re not thinking this was a drug hit, are you?’