"You say that like it's a bad thing."
She giggles. She really is adorable.
"Stand over here," I say, pointing to an area at the foot of the tub.
She obeys. She vamps for me. "What do you think?"
I look her up and down. "You look perfect. You look just like a movie star."
"Sweet talker."
I step forward, camera raised, and push her gently backward. She falls into the tub with a great splash. I need her dripping wet for the shot. She flails her arms and legs wildly, trying to get out of the tub.
She manages to rise to her feet, soaking wet, appropriately outraged. I cannot blame her. In my defense, I made sure the water in the tub was not too hot. She turns to face me, rage in her eyes.
I shoot her in the chest.
One quick shot, bringing the pistol up from my hip. The wound blossoms on the white dress, spreading outward like small red hands offering benediction.
She stands quite still for a moment, the reality of it all slowly dawning on her pretty face. There is that initial look of violation, followed quickly by the horror of what has just happened to her, this abrupt and violent punctuation of her young life. I look behind her to see the thick im- pasto of tissue and blood on the venetian blind.
She slides down the tile wall, slicking it crimson. She sinks into the tub.
With the camera in one hand and the gun in the other, I walk forward, as smoothly as I can. It is certainly not as smooth as it would be on a track, but I think it will lend a certain immediacy to the moment, a certain verite.
Through the lens, the water runs red-scarlet fish struggling to the surface. The camera loves blood. The light is ideal.
I zoom in on her eyes-dead white orbs in the bathwater. I hold the shot for a moment, thenCUT TO:
A few minutes later. I am ready to strike the set, as it were. I have everything packed and ready. I start Madame Butterfly at the beginning of atto secondo. It really is moving.
I wipe down the few things I have touched. I pause at the door, surveying the set. Perfect.
That's a wrap.
18
Byrne considered wearing a shirt and tie, but decided against it. The less attention he called to himself in the places he had to go, the better. On the other hand, he wasn't quite the imposing figure he once was. And maybe that was a good thing. Tonight he needed to be small. Tonight he needed to be one of them.
When you're a cop, there are only two types of people in the world. Knuckleheads and cops. Them and us.
The thought made him consider the question. Again.
Could he really retire? Could he really become one of them? In a few years, when the older cops he knew had retired, and he got pulled over, they really wouldn't know him. He'd be a just another knucklehead. He'd tell the scrub who he was, and where he'd worked, and some stupid story about the job; he'd flash his retirement ID and the kid would let him go.
But he wouldn't be inside. Being inside meant everything. Not just the respect, or the authority, but the juice. He thought he had made the decision. Obviously he wasn't ready.
He decided on a black dress shirt and black jeans. He was surprised to find that his black peg-legged Levi's fit him again. Perhaps there was an upside to being shot in the head. You lose weight. Maybe he'd write a book: The Attempted Murder Diet.
He had made it through most of the day without his cane-having steeled himself with pride and Vicodin-and he considered not bringing it with him now, but soon banished the thought. How was he supposed to get around without it? Face it, Kevin. You need a cane to walk. Besides, maybe he would appear weak, and that was probably a good thing.
On the other hand, a cane might make him more memorable, and that was something he didn't want. He had no idea what they might find this night.
Oh, yeah. I remember him. Big guy. Walked with a limp. That's the guy, Your Honor.
He took the cane.
He also took his weapon.
19
With Sophie bathed and dried-and powdered, another one of her new things-Jessica began to relax. And with the calm came the doubts. She considered her life as it was. She had just turned thirty. Her father was getting older, still vibrant and active, but aimless and alone in his retirement. She worried about him. Her little girl was growing up by the moment, and somehow the possibility loomed that she might grow up in a house in which her father did not live.
Hadn't Jessica just been a little girl herself, running up and down Catharine Street, a water ice in hand, not a care in the world?
When did all this happen?
While Sophie colored a coloring book at the dining room table, and all was right with the world for the moment, Jessica put a videotape in the VCR.
She had taken a copy of Psycho out of the Free Library. It had been quite awhile since she had seen the movie start-to-finish. She doubted if she could ever watch it again without thinking about this case.
When she was in her teens she had been a fan of horror movies, the sort of fare that took her and her friends to the cineplex on Friday nights. She remembered renting movies while she babysat for Dr. Iacone and his two little boys-she and her cousin Angela watching Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, the Halloween series.
Her interest faded the minute she became a cop, of course. She saw enough of the reality every day. She didn't need to call it entertainment at night.
Still, a movie like Psycho certainly transcended the slasher fare.
What was it about this film that made the killer want to reenact the scene? Beyond that, what made him want to share with an unsuspecting public in such a twisted way?
What was the mind-set?
She watched the scenes leading up to the shower sequence with a dark anticipation, although she really didn't know why. Did she really think that every copy of Psycho in the city had been altered? The shower scene passed without incident, but it was the scenes directly afterward that got her added attention.
She watched Norman clean up after the murder-spreading the shower curtain on the floor, dragging his victim's body onto it, mopping the tile and tub, backing Janet Leigh's car up to the motel room door.
Norman then carries the body to the open car trunk and places it inside. Afterward, he returns to the motel room and methodically collects all of Marion's belongings, including the newspaper containing the money she had stolen from her boss. He stuffs all of it into the trunk of the car and drives it to the edge of the lake nearby. Once there, he pushes it into the water.
The car begins to sink, slowly being consumed by the black water. Then it stops. Hitchcock cuts to a reaction shot of Norman, who glances around, nervously. After an excruciating few seconds, the car continues to descend, eventually disappearing from view.
Cut to the next day.
Jessica hit PAUSE, her mind racing.
The Rivercrest Motel was just a few blocks from the Schuylkill River. If their doer was as obsessed with re-creating the murder from Psycho as he appeared to be, maybe he took it all the way. Maybe he stuffed the body into the trunk of a car and submerged it in water, the way Anthony Perkins had done with Janet Leigh.
Jessica picked up the phone and called the Marine Unit.
20
Thirteenth Street was the last remaining seedy stretch of downtown, at least as far as adult entertainment was concerned. From Arch Street, where it was bounded by two adult bookstores and one strip joint, to about Locust Street, where there was another short belt of adult clubs and a larger, more upscale "gentleman's club," it was the one street the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau told visitors to avoid despite the fact it ran smack into the Convention Center.