‘Oh, hello.’
Jessica glanced at Byrne. He was transfixed. Bontrager came back on the line.
‘Guys? There is a loose stone.’
‘Did you pull it out?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was there something behind it?’ Byrne asked.
‘Yes,’ Bontrager said, his voice now alive with the excitement of discovery. ‘You guys better get down here. I think this means something.’
‘We’re on the way,’ Byrne said.
Jessica, wondering what she had just witnessed, picked up the knapsack, walked to the back of the Taurus, put it in the trunk. It hardly took up any room. Everything that Daniel Palumbo had accrued in his life fit in one tiny corner of the trunk of a midsize car.
As Jessica got behind the wheel, and they headed toward the church, she was suddenly overcome by a debilitating sadness. All she could think about was Loretta Palumbo holding that plastic cup, the cup her son used when his life was new and full of promise.
The scene outside St Adelaide’s looked nothing like it had four days earlier. If you didn’t recognize the departmental sedans parked out front, and didn’t notice the new doorjamb and padlock installed on the door, you would have no way of knowing anything had recently happened there. Certainly not coldblooded murder.
When they stepped inside, Josh Bontrager was leaning against the far wall. The room was powdered with the black dust used by CSU for latent prints.
‘What do we have, Josh?’ Byrne asked.
‘Take a look at this.’ Bontrager proffered a small clear evidence bag. Inside the bag was a portion of an old prayer card.
These were small rectangular cards handed out by Catholics during funeral wakes, visitations, memorial services. Sometimes they were given out as ‘thank you’ cards after the funeral or memorial service, or sent to those unable to attend. The card Bontrager had found was old from the look of it, perhaps a 1950s or 1960s vintage. Jessica had a small boxful in her house from the various family members and friends who had passed. There was very little chance that she would look at her collection of prayer cards again, but there was no chance she could ever throw them out. It just wasn’t done.
Jessica flipped the bag over. The torn card was from a funeral held on 20 January 1966 at St Damian’s Church.
Jessica handed the card to Byrne. He examined it closely.
‘This was behind the stone?’ Byrne asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘How was it positioned?’
‘It was leaning against the back. Up against the stone facade on the outer wall of the tower.’
Byrne didn’t have to ask if Bontrager had handled it carefully by the edges. Josh was a pro.
‘St Damian’s,’ Byrne said. ‘Do you know it?’
‘No,’ both Jessica and Bontrager replied.
‘I took some pictures of the area around the stone,’ Bontrager added. ‘It looks to have been recently pried loose. CSU is up there now.’
Byrne thought for a few more moments. ‘What exactly did the caller say again?’ he asked Jessica.
‘One God, seven churches.’
‘Churches.’
‘Yeah.’
Byrne held up the prayer card. ‘I think we should take a ride over to St Damian’s,’ he said. ‘Just to say we did.’
As Byrne got on his cell phone to get the location of the church, Jessica put the evidence bag containing the card on the floor, knelt down, took out the camera, took a close-up photograph of the new find. She handed the evidence bag to Bontrager. ‘Let’s see if we can get the lab to hump this.’
‘You got it,’ Bontrager said.
As Jessica and Byrne returned to the car, Jessica had to wonder what, if anything, they were going to find at the second church.
THIRTEEN
St Damian’s was a small church on Eighteenth Street near Diamond. The church proper was constructed of soot-blackened sandstone, with a tall Palladian entrance arch. Above the door was a carved pediment. A small stone cross jutted from the peaked gable.
On either side of the church were narrow, three-story, redbrick structures, most likely containing the rectory, as well as administrative offices.
A low wrought-iron fence guarded the entrance, but it appeared the gate had long ago been stolen. Jessica could only imagine that it now graced the entrance to someone’s home in North Philly. She had always imagined that the surest route to hell was to steal something from a church. Once, when she was about seven or eight, she had taken an umbrella from the vestibule at St Paul’s. She brought it back the next day, and after somewhere around 400 Hail Marys was certain she would dwell in fire for all eternity.
In all, St Damian’s looked to be a typical, struggling Philly neighborhood parish. Except for one glaring fact.
‘It’s closed,’ Jessica said.
A small sign next to the door confirmed what seemed apparent. The parish had merged with another, larger parish, located three blocks away.
Jessica and Byrne walked around to the back of the rectory, peered into the windows. The glass was grimy and nearly opaque with soot and exhaust.
At the rear entrance was a gate that led to a square courtyard. Jessica pushed open the gate. In the small area were a few trash bags, a pair of bald tires.
‘Kevin.’
Jessica pointed to the broken window in one panel of the door. She looked more closely. There was no glass on the outside, so it had the signs of a break in. She shone her Maglite in the window. The glazing had been puttied and reputtied many times, so this did not appear to be the first time someone had broken into the property.
Jessica looked inside. The shattered glass on the floor did not have dust on it. The break-in was recent.
The narrow passageway led to the rear of the nave, the main part of the church. On the right was the sacristy, long ago defiled by trespassers. As they stepped into the church, Jessica instinctively reached to the side, expecting to dip her fingers into the holy water font. There was none there.
Ahead, the nave was virtually empty. There was black plastic taped over the windows. The stained-glass panes had either been transferred elsewhere, stolen, or broken. Some daylight leaked in, but the interior was dark. Jessica and Byrne both used their Maglites.
As she moved toward the front of the church Jessica saw that most of the pews had been removed, as had most of the statuary. One small statue of the Virgin Mary lay on its side to the right of the altar.
A few pigeons, frightened by their presence, took wing into the eaves.
There was dust and grime and bird droppings on every surface. The air was suffused with dry rot and the sickly sweet smell of long dead flowers.
‘I’m going to check downstairs,’ Byrne said.
‘Okay.’
When Jessica reached the vestibule, which let in a little bit of light from the street, she saw that the ambry — the niche used to house the three oils — was intact.
Jessica turned, looked down the aisle that had once led to the altar. She thought for a moment what it must have been like when this church was new, about families in the neighborhood coming here on Saturday afternoon for confession, on Sunday mornings for mass. She thought about the baptisms, marriages, and funerals. She thought about how small churches were truly the pillars of a neighborhood, and how sad that this once proud place of worship now stood abandoned.
Mostly she thought about her own childhood, how St Paul’s was the center of her life. She had attended kindergarten through eighth grade there, had made her first Holy Communion and confirmation there. She had gotten married by the same priest who had baptized her, Father Rocco Basconi.
‘Jess.’
Jessica looked toward the stairs leading to the basement. She saw the beam of Byrne’s flashlight playing against the door-jamb. She crossed the church, stood at the top of the stairs, looked toward the cellar.