Byrne shook his head. ‘I doubt it.’
Jessica agreed. This wasn’t really a drug dealer’s style. They usually went for an efficient, cost-effective double tap to the back of the head. Although there were serious sadists in that business. Both Jessica and Byrne had investigated drug-related homicides that had been committed with hatchets, shovels, machetes, and sundry other weapons.
While the murder did not seem like a drug killing at the moment, if Jessica had learned anything in her time in the unit, it was that you couldn’t rule anything out in the first few hours of an investigation.
‘What about the cop angle?’ she asked. ‘I’m wondering if this could be a holdover from his days on the street.’
‘Could be that,’ Byrne said. ‘Could very well be that.’
The Palumbo address was a well-kept, white-washed two-story rowhouse on Latona Street, between Eighteenth and Nineteenth. Entrance was via a black-wrought iron security door, flanked by a mailbox to the right, address above. Under the front window was an empty flower box, painted brown, partially wrapped in blue plastic sheeting. Two basement windows were clad in vented glass block.
Byrne rang the doorbell. After a few moments the door opened.
The woman standing before them was in her late fifties or early sixties. She had moist blue eyes that drooped slightly at the corners, and wore a light green waitress uniform with the name LORRIE stitched on the left side. She had the weary countenance of someone who had worked on her feet her entire adult life. In her hands was a well-laundered pink dishtowel.
Jessica and Byrne produced their badges and ID.
‘Are you Loretta Palumbo?’ Jessica asked.
‘Yes,’ the woman said, a bit cautiously, as if she had done this many times before. She squinted against the sudden blast of cold air. ‘I am.’
‘Ma’am, my name is Detective Balzano, this is my partner, Detective Byrne. We’re with the Philadelphia Police Department.’
The look on the woman’s face said that she knew. Not that she was aware that her son was dead, or any of the circumstances surrounding his murder, but just that she knew. It was a look that all but proclaimed that she had been waiting for this visit every day for a very long time.
‘You’re not with the Drug Unit,’ she said.
‘No, ma’am,’ Byrne said. ‘May we come in?’
The woman hesitated, then stepped to the side. ‘I’m sorry. Please.’
The front room was very tidy and well-kept. The floral brocade sofa and chair against the sidewall were old, but covered in clear plastic. There were crystal ashtrays on every table, all brightly polished. On the walls were a half-dozen framed renderings of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. On the mantel over the bricked-in fireplace was a picture of Danny Palumbo in uniform, wearing his patrolman’s cap, dress blues. It was hard for Jessica to reconcile this handsome young man with the person she had seen bleed out in that frigid basement.
What had happened to him?
‘Is there anyone else here right now?’ Byrne asked.
‘No. I’m here all by myself.’
‘Ma’am, do you have a son named Daniel?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Danny is my son.’
‘When was the last — ’
‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’
The question floated in the dry, overheated air for a moment. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Byrne said. ‘I’m afraid so.’
The woman’s gaze slowly moved from Byrne to Jessica, as if Jessica might have a different opinion, as if Jessica might disagree with Byrne and tell her that there might have been some kind of a mistake. Jessica had seen the look before, many times. Unlike the incidence of disease, there were no second opinions in homicide.
‘We’re very sorry for your loss,’ Byrne said.
The woman crossed the kitchen, reached into a cupboard, pulled out a cup. It was not a coffee mug, but rather a child’s brightly colored plastic tumbler. Jessica noticed that it was decorated with characters from the Flintstones. The woman didn’t pour anything into it — no coffee, no soda, no juice. She just held it. Jessica wanted desperately to look at her partner, but stopped herself.
‘What … what happened?’ the woman asked. ‘Was it the drugs?’
Jessica knew the convenient answer would be to say yes. Yes, he died of an overdose. It would make the job so much easier if they could blame all of this on a weakness, not the cracked mind of a killer.
‘No,’ Byrne said. ‘We think he was murdered.’
The woman steadied herself with the arm of the sofa. ‘Why?’
‘We’re not sure yet, ma’am,’ Byrne said. ‘We’re just beginning our investigation. And we could use your help. I know this is a terrible shock. Do you feel up to answering a few of our questions?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think so.’
Byrne took out his notebook and pen. ‘When did you last see Danny?’
The woman thought for a few moments. ‘I saw him two weeks ago. Maybe longer than that.’
‘Do you remember the day of the week?’
The woman’s stare was blank. Jessica had seen this many times also, the way sudden grief could steal even the smallest details from your memory. It was a form of shock.
‘It’s okay if you can’t remember right now,’ Byrne said. ‘We can get to it later.’
Loretta Palumbo nodded.
‘Did Danny live here?’
‘No, not for years,’ she said. ‘It’s just that sometimes he would stay here when he …’
When he got sick, Jessica thought. When he needed money. She looked around the room. There was no television, no DVD player, no stereo. Jessica wondered if those things had gone up Danny Palumbo’s arm.
‘I wouldn’t let him do his drugs in this house,’ Loretta said. ‘I just couldn’t.’
The woman’s legs got a little shaky. Byrne crossed the room, eased her into a chair. He pointed to the plastic cup in her hands. ‘Can we get you some water, ma’am?’
Loretta Palumbo pulled a tissue from a square box on the coffee table, dabbed her eyes. ‘No, thank you.’
Byrne nodded to Jessica, who took out her notebook. Byrne put his away, sat on the couch. ‘When Danny was here, the last time you saw him, how did he seem? Did he seem particularly troubled?’
Loretta stared at the framed photographs on the end table. One of them showed a much younger Loretta Palumbo leaning against the trunk of a 1980s compact car, a baby in her arms. ‘He was always troubled,’ she said. ‘Even as a baby. Always restless, never could stay in one spot too long. One time he got out of his playpen and crawled almost to the corner.’
Byrne let the woman talk.
‘When his father died, Danny was only ten years old. He came to me after the funeral holding my husband’s toolbox. His father was quite handy around the house, you know.’
‘When Danny stayed here, did he have his own room?’ Byrne asked.
‘Of course,’ she said.
‘May we take a look at it? There may be something in there that might help us.’
‘It’s upstairs,’ Loretta said. ‘On the left.’
Byrne nodded to Jessica, telling her that he would sit with the woman while she searched the victim’s room.
Jessica took the stairs two treads at a time, suddenly feeling claustrophobic in this cramped rowhouse, suddenly wanting to move on. Notification was never an easy thing — indeed, it was the worst part of her job — but for some reason she was having a harder than usual time with this one. It was all such a waste.
She opened the door to the bedroom on the left. The first thing that struck her was how spartan the room was. Against the wall with the window that looked out the front of the rowhouse there was a single bed, tightly made up with a light blue blanket, hospital corners. Next to the bed was a worn night-stand and lamp. At the foot of the bed was a dresser; next to it a low bookcase with what looked like five years’ worth of crossword magazines, the kind that feature number-seek puzzles. That was it. No paintings or photographs on the walls, no throw rugs, no decorations of any kind. Jessica had enough experience with drug-related homicides to know that Danny Palumbo did not maintain a space this clean and spare.