She crossed the room, opened the drawers on the dresser. Inside she found a few old T-shirts, a pair of jeans. She checked the pockets. All empty. In the bottom drawer she found Danny Palumbo’s certificate from the police academy. It was unframed. Beyond this, there was no other clothing or accessories that indicated a police officer had ever occupied this room.
Jessica crossed the room to the sole closet, opened the door. The space was empty. There weren’t even hangers on the rod, or anything stacked on the pair of shelves. Mounted on the inside of the closet door was an inexpensive full-length mirror. Jessica looked at her own warped reflection for a moment, thinking back to the day she had graduated from the academy, how proud her father had been. She wondered if Loretta Palumbo had felt the same way. She was sure of it. She wanted to be sure of it.
Jessica closed the door and, just to be thorough, got down on her knees and looked under the bed and the dresser. The only thing she found was a pair of worn green corduroy slippers under the bed. She looked inside, found nothing. She arranged them precisely as she had found them, matching their position to the dust-formed silhouettes.
She got up, walked back to the door, stepped into the hall. She was just about to close the door when something on the ceiling caught her eye. She glanced up.
There, in front of the doors and the windows, burned into the plastered ceiling, were marks in the shape of a cross.
When Jessica returned to the front room she found Byrne and the woman standing near the door.
‘Do you know any of Danny’s acquaintances?’ Byrne asked. ‘Someone we might talk to regarding his whereabouts for the past few weeks?’
Loretta Palumbo thought about this. Whatever crossed her mind brought a look of distaste to her face. ‘He did bring a friend over a few times.’
‘Do you remember this friend’s name?’
‘He was dirty. I didn’t like him,’ she said. ‘I think Danny called him Boise, or something like that.’
‘Boise? Like the city in Idaho?’ Jessica asked.
‘I don’t know.’
Jessica made the note.
‘He had the HIV, you know,’ Loretta Palumbo added. ‘They said he had the full AIDS a year ago, that maybe he didn’t have too long to live, but then he got better.’
Jessica looked at Byrne. This meant two things, at least in the immediate sense. One, it opened up the possibility of this being some sort of hate crime, in addition to the motive having something to do with the time Danny Palumbo had been in uniform. Second, and more importantly, was that Jessica and Byrne had both been exposed to Danny Palumbo’s blood. They had been wearing gloves when they touched him, and they both disinfected at the scene, so they were 99 % safe. Still, you never knew.
‘Your son was HIV-positive?’ Byrne asked.
Loretta Palumbo nodded.
‘I know this next question is going to seem very personal, but it is something we have to ask,’ Byrne said. ‘Was Danny gay?’
‘No. He got it from the … you know …’
‘He got it from sharing a needle.’
She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.
‘Mrs Palumbo, do you have a cell phone?’ Byrne asked.
‘A cell phone?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘No. I just have the regular.’ She pointed to the cordless phone on the wall near the kitchen door.
‘I left my phone in the car,’ Byrne said. ‘Would you mind if I used your phone? It’s a local call, and I won’t be on long.’
‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘Please.’
Byrne crossed the room, picked up the phone, dialed. After a few seconds he hung up. ‘No answer.’
As Byrne buttoned his coat, preparing to leave, he gestured to the walls, to the framed renderings of Christ. ‘I see you’re a God-fearing woman.’
Loretta Palumbo stood a little straighter. ‘The Lord is my salvation.’
‘Was Danny a religious young man?’
‘He was. He was baptized, he was confirmed. He went to Catechism.’
‘Did he also make his first Holy Communion?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Loretta walked over to one of the end tables, populated with a dozen framed photographs. She lifted one from the back. In it an eight-year-old Daniel Palumbo sat posed for a professional photographer, wearing a long-sleeved shirt and thin white tie. ‘He was a very devout boy.’
‘Do you know if Danny owned a little white prayer book?’
‘A prayer book?’
‘Yes, ma’am. A book called My Missal?’
They had considered showing the woman the photograph they had of the book, the picture taken at the crime scene. Considering that it was covered in blood, they had decided it was not a good idea.
‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘He read the Bible all the time when he was small. I don’t know about now.’
Byrne took out his card case, thumbed a business card. ‘Ma’am, once again, on behalf of the city of Philadelphia, we’re very sorry for your loss. We may have some more questions for you.’ He handed the card to the woman. ‘And we’re going to need a member of the immediate family to make a positive identification.’
Loretta nodded. ‘There’s just me now. No one else.’
Byrne took her hand, held it for a moment. ‘I’ll let you know when we need you to be there. I’ll come and get you. You won’t be alone. And rest assured that the entire police department feels this loss. Danny was, and will always be, one of us.’
The woman stepped forward, put her arms around Byrne. From where Jessica stood, it didn’t look like something this woman did often. It appeared that now that her son and husband were dead, it might be the last time she would have someone to embrace.
Byrne seemed to sense this too, and gently put his big hands on the woman’s back. He let her break away first.
When she did, Byrne squared himself in front of her. ‘You call me if you need anything. Anything at all.’
‘God bless you,’ she said.
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ Byrne said. ‘Thank you.’
They walked back to the car in silence. It was still bitterly cold, but at least the wind had died down. As they reached the curb, waiting for traffic to pass, a cloud sifted by the sun, bathing the street in a watery winter light.
‘So, that was his baby cup that she took out of the cupboard, wasn’t it?’ Jessica asked.
‘Yeah. It probably was.’
‘He was twenty-three years old. She still has his little sippy cup. His Flintstones cup. It was the first thing she thought of.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Jesus, Kevin.’
There was no longer any traffic, but they didn’t cross. Neither of them wanted to get back into a police car at the moment.
‘You know, when I first came to the unit, I thought notifications were going to get easier over time,’ Jessica said. ‘They don’t, do they?’
‘No. Every one takes a little something from you.’
‘And you never get it back.’
‘No,’ Byrne said. ‘You don’t.’
Jessica recalled coming home from the hospital when her mother died. She was only five years old at the time, but she remembered it as if it were yesterday. She recalled sitting in the small living room of their Catharine Street rowhouse with her father and brother, no one speaking. The mail came, the neighbors stopped by with food, cars passed. Other than that the only noise was when the furnace kicked on, and Jessica recalled being grateful for the sound, any sound, that would replace that roaring silence of anguish.
Sometimes, when she visited her father — who still lived in that house in which Jessica had grown up, who still had the same couches and tables and chairs — the silence returned, as did the reminder that there was still a hole in her heart, a hole that nothing would fill, no matter how long she lived.
Loretta Palumbo was just beginning the process.
When they got into the car Jessica told Byrne what she had seen in Danny Palumbo’s bedroom.