‘Listen,’ Jessica whispered. The two detectives stopped, held their breath.
It was the sound of water dripping.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, there was a large empty room in front of them. Jessica scanned the walls to the right. There was only one other doorway. If there was a body in this basement, it would be in that room.
‘Jess,’ Maria said. She pointed to the floor. There in the dust were smudged footprints, as well as two long lines which appeared to have been made by someone or something being dragged.
Sirens rose in the distance. Jessica and Maria could not wait. They walked quickly over to the far wall. There was no choice but to announce themselves.
‘Philadelphia Police!’ Jessica yelled. The sound of her voice echoed off the stone. No reply. They inched closer and closer to the opening, weapons and flashlights held high, leveled.
When they got to the opening Jessica paused. She took a deep breath, exhaled. Her breath was silvery and vaporous in front of her.
The basement, she thought.
She spun into the doorway. In the other room she saw a body hanging from an I-beam in the center of the ceiling. The victim was a light-skinned black male. He was nude, awash with blood. On the floor beneath him, as with the other victims, was a pile of clothes. But what made this sight horrifying beyond Jessica’s grasp was what else lay on the floor beneath the victim.
Hands. The killer had cut off the victim’s hands. It wasn’t dripping water they had heard. It was dripping blood.
The two detectives stepped fully into the room, turned 360?. The room was clear.
Outside, they heard the sector cars arrive.
‘Set up a perimeter,’ Jessica said. ‘And get me two patrol officers down here.’
Without a word, Maria Caruso holstered her weapon and ran out of the room. As Jessica heard her footsteps heading up the steps, she walked forward. She put on a latex glove, gently lifted the victim’s chin and shone her light in his face.
‘Oh my God.’
The hanging man was DeRon Wilson, the drug dealer with whom Byrne had his run-in. Jessica’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She answered. It was Mateo Fuentes.
‘What’s up Mateo?’
‘Talk to me, detective.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you have the suspect?’
‘No,’ Jessica said. ‘We’re just setting up a perimeter. We couldn’t have missed him by much.’
‘Did Detective Byrne get a good look at him?’
At first, Jessica thought she’d heard wrong. She had not. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Who are you partnered with?’
‘Detective Caruso,’ Jessica said. ‘Why?’
‘I thought you were out with Kevin.’
‘Why would you think that?’
Another long pause. Way too long.
‘Mateo.’
‘Because I’m looking at footage from a minute ago. Footage taken from the north side of St Simeon’s.’
‘What about it?’
‘It’s Detective Byrne,’ Mateo said. ‘And he’s running away from the church.’
FIFTY-THREE
Byrne stood in his apartment. He knew it might be the last time he saw any of these things. He knew it was possible that this would be the last night of his life.
He had walked into so many apartments and houses in his time in homicide, places to which the victims had every intention of returning — five minutes, five hours, five days later.
The way victims left things always got to him. The bathrobe on the back of the chair, the steak defrosting in the sink, the unfolded laundry in the basket, the bookmarked book.
How would they look at his place? he wondered. Would it be Jessica? In so many ways, he hoped it would. She would understand.
The seven churches of Asia, all in Turkey. It was no coincidence.
He remembered hearing the story as if it were yesterday.
*
We were stationed in Incirlik, part of the 628th Airlift Support. This was between the wars, so things weren’t too crazy, right?
Now, what you have to remember is that the antiquities black market is off the charts in Turkey, or at least it was back then. There’s Persian, Roman, Greek antiquities. Stuff from the Crusades. If you want it, and you have the green, someone will find it for you.
So we get a little R amp; R, and my best buddy in the unit wants to take a ride to this place called Pasli. Four of us head out, taking the Persian Road south, then off road for hours. Up and down these dirt roads. Nothing. It’s almost sundown now, and we’re not going to find it. We see this old guy walking up one of the back roads. Had to be ninety and change.
My buddy talks a little Turkish to him, and the guy points at his feet. My buddy says something about shoes, getting him new shoes, but the guy shakes his head. He points at his feet again. This goes on for awhile, back and forth. Dead end.
On the way back to the Jeep my buddy stops, jumps up and down a few times. He suddenly realizes what the old man was saying. The place we were looking for was right under us. The ground was hollow.
We make our way down this cliff, and come upon this old door. Thick old door bolted right into the rock. For the rest of the night my buddies try to shoulder the thing open. No luck. I didn’t want anything to do with it, but you know how it is. You get enough booze in you and you’ll do anything.
Just before dawn, with my buddies passed out, I thought I’d give it a shot. I go down there, and I just touch the door, and it opens. All I did was touch it.
Inside was this big room, carved right out of the mountain. I run my flashlight around, and I see what I figure is dust. Big balls of dust. Or maybe it was rocks. But it wasn’t. You know what it was? It was skeletons, man. Little skeletons. A whole room full of them. They were all placed neatly, side by side.
At that moment something happened inside me, Kevin. I think I actually heard my heart change. I fell to my knees, and I tried to cry, but nothing came out. Believe me, it came out later. Almost every day since. But then, in the middle of this night, I had to ask myself why. I don’t mean why they did it, whoever did it. I mean, why did the door open for me?
One hundred dead children. God doesn’t put that in front of you for no reason, does He? No way.
I came back stateside, bummed around for two years, drank too much. I knew I wasn’t smart enough to become a doctor or a lawyer or anything. So I decided to become a cop. How else could I do good, man?
How else could I do good?
Marcus Haines had looked at Byrne that night, asking the question.
How else could I do good?
A few days later Marcus Haines stepped in front of another door. Byrne remembered the burst of automatic-weapon fire, recalled the red mist that was the back of Marcus Haines’s head.
This time the door wasn’t in Turkey but rather a North Philly hellhole, a place where children were made slaves to a drug called crack cocaine. Marcus Haines had finally found the door where the souls of another hundred children lay, and had taken a bullet meant for Kevin Byrne.
How do you repay a debt like that?
Byrne picked up the picture of Marcus, then took Gabriel’s school photograph out of his pocket. He held them side by side. Marcus looked so much like Gabriel, the son he never lived to know. Byrne recalled that night with Tanya Wilkins, how he had hit her. She had been pregnant with Gabriel at that moment. He hadn’t known then.
Byrne took out his cell, made the call. The woman answered in two rings.
‘Do you know who this is?’ Byrne asked.