"Your daughter?"
"Yes."
"What about her?"
"I just kept wondering if she was ever going to look at me the same way again. I mean, all her life, I've been the guy who's looked out for her, right? This big, strong guy. Daddy. Daddy the cop. It scared me to death that she would see me so small. That she would see me diminished.
"After I came out of my coma, she came to the hospital alone. My wife wasn't with her. I'm lying in the bed, most of my hair is shaved off, I'm twenty pounds down, fading in and out on the painkillers. I glance up and she's standing at the foot of my bed. I look at her face and I see it."
"See what?"
Byrne shrugged, searching for the word. He soon found it. "Pity," he said. "For the first time in her life, I saw pity in my little girl's eyes. I mean, there was love and respect there, too. But there was a look of pity and it broke my heart. It occurred to me that, at that moment, if she was in trouble, if she needed me, I wouldn't have been able to do a damn thing." Byrne glanced over at his cane. "I'm not in much better shape today."
"You will come back. Better than ever."
"No," Byrne said. "I don't think so."
"Men like you always come back."
Now it was Byrne's turn to color. He fought it. "Men like me?"
"Yes, you are a big man, but that's not what makes you strong. What makes you strong is inside."
"Yeah, well…" Byrne let the sentiment settle. He finished his coffee, realizing it was time. There was no way to sugarcoat what he had to tell her. He opened his mouth and just said it: "He's out."
Victoria held his gaze for a few moments. There was no need for Byrne to qualify his statement, nor say any more. No need to identify the he.
"Out," she said.
"Yes."
Victoria nodded, taking it in. "How?"
"His conviction is being appealed. The DA's office believes it may have evidence that he was framed for the murder of Marygrace Devlin." Byrne continued, telling her what he knew, about the allegedly planted evidence. Victoria remembered Jimmy Purify well.
She ran a hand through her hair, her hands betraying a slight shake. Within a second or two, she regained her composure. "It's funny. I'm not really afraid of him anymore. I mean, when he attacked me, I thought I had a lot to lose. My looks, my… life, such as it was. I had nightmares about him for a long time. But now…"
Victoria shrugged and began to spin her coffee cup in her hands. She looked exposed, vulnerable. But she was, in reality, tougher than he was. Could he walk down the street with his face segmented like hers, head held high? No. Probably not.
"He's going to do it again," Byrne said.
"How do you know?"
"I just do."
Victoria nodded.
Byrne said: "I want to stop him."
Somehow, the world did not cease spinning when he said these words, the sky did not turn an ominous gray, the clouds did not split.
Victoria knew what he was talking about. She leaned in, lowered her voice. "How?"
"Well, I have to find him first. He'll probably make contact with his old low-life crowd, the porno freaks and S-and-M types." Byrne realized that this might have sounded harsh. Victoria had come from this milieu. Perhaps she felt he was judging her. Luckily, she did not.
"I'll help you."
"I can't ask you to do that, Tori. That's not why-"
Victoria held up a hand, stopping him. "Back in Meadville, my Swedish grandmother had a saying. 'Eggs cannot teach a hen.' Okay? This is my world. I will help you."
Byrne's Irish grandmothers had their wisdom, too. There was no arguing with it. Still seated, he reached out, took Victoria in his arms. They hugged.
"We begin tonight," Victoria said. "I'll call you in an hour."
She slipped on her oversize sunglasses. The lenses covered a third of her face. She got up from the table, touched his cheek, and left.
He watched her walk away-the fluid, sexy metronome of her stride. She turned and waved, blew a kiss, then disappeared down the escalator. She was still a knockout, Byrne thought. He wished for her a happiness he knew she would never find.
He got to his feet. The pain in his legs and back were shards of fire. He had parked more than a block away, and the distance now seemed enormous. He inched his way along the length of the food court, leaning on his cane, down the escalator and across the lobby.
Melanie Devlin. Victoria Lindstrom. Two women full of sadness and anger and fear, their once happy lives shipwrecked on the dark shoals of one monstrous man.
Julian Matisse.
Byrne now knew that what had begun as a mission to clear Jimmy Pu- rify's name had become something else.
As he stood on the corner of Seventeenth and Chestnut, the maelstrom of a hot Philadelphia summer evening flowing around him, Byrne knew in his heart that, if he did nothing else with what was left of his life, if he found no higher purpose, he would make certain of one thing: Julian Matisse would not live to cause a single human being any more pain.
16
The Italian market ran three blocks or so along Ninth Street in South Philly, roughly between Wharton and Fitzwater streets, and was home to some of the best Italian food in the city, probably the country. Cheese, produce, shellfish, meats, coffee, pastries, bread-for more than a hundred years, the market had been the beating heart of Philly's large Italian American population.
As Jessica and Sophie walked up Ninth Street, Jessica thought about the scene in Psycho. She thought of the killer entering the bathroom, throwing back the curtain, raising the knife. She thought of the young woman's screams. She thought of the huge splatter of blood in that bathroom.
She held Sophie's hand a little tighter.
They were on their way to Ralph's, the landmark Italian restaurant. They had dinner once a week with Jessica's father, Peter.
"So how was school?" Jessica asked.
They walked in that lazy, no-place-to-be, not-a-care-in-the-world way that Jessica remembered from her childhood. Oh, to be three again.
"Preschool," Sophie corrected.
"Preschool," Jessica said.
"I had an awfully good time," Sophie said.
When Jessica had joined the force, she'd spent her first year patrolling this beat. She knew every crack in the sidewalk, every chipped brick, every doorway, every sewer grate "Bella ragazza!"
— and every voice. This one could only belong to Rocco Lancione, owner of Lancione amp; Sons, purveyors of fine meats and poultry.
Jessica and Sophie turned around to see Rocco standing in the doorway of his shop. He had to be in his midseventies now. He was a short, plump man with jet-black dyed hair and a blindingly white, spotlessly clean apron, courtesy of the fact that his sons and grandsons did all the work at their meat store these days. Rocco had tips missing from two fingers on his left hand. A hazard of the butcher's trade. To this day he kept his left hand in his pocket when he was outside the store.
"Hi, Mr. Lancione," Jessica said. No matter how old she got, he would always be Mr. Lancione.
With his right hand, Rocco reached behind Sophie's ear and magically produced a piece of Ferrara torrone, the individually boxed nougat candy Jessica had grown up with. Jessica remembered many a Christmas Day when she had wrestled her cousin Angela for the last piece of Ferrara torrone. Rocco Lancione had been finding the sweet, chewy confection behind little girls' ears for almost fifty years. He held it out in front of Sophie's widening eyes. Sophie glanced at Jessica before taking it. That's my girl, Jessica thought.
"It's okay, honey," Jessica said.
The candy was snatched and stashed in a blur.
"Say thank you to Mr. Lancione."
"Thank you."
Rocco wagged a warning finger. "Wait until after your dinner to eat that, okay, sweetie?"