Little Jake stroked his beard. Jessica noticed there were crumbs in it, remnants of this morning's breakfast. At least, she assumed it was this morning's. "Now that you mention it, a guy did come by and ask for it a few weeks ago. I was out of the paper at the time, but I'm pretty sure I told him when they were coming in. If he came back and bought one, I wasn't here. My brother runs the shop two days a week now."
"Do you remember what he looked like?" Byrne asked.
Little Jake shrugged. "Hard to remember. I see a lot of people here. And it's usually just this much." Little Jake squared his hands into a rectangular shape, like a movie director, framing the opening in his kiosk.
"Anything you can remember would be very helpful."
"Well, as I recall he was about as ordinary as you can get. Ball cap, sunglasses, maybe a dark blue jacket."
"What kind of cap?"
"Flyers, I think."
"Any markings on the jacket? Logos?"
"Not that I can remember."
"Do you remember his voice? Any accent?"
Little Jake shook his head. "Sorry."
Jessica made her notes. "Do you remember enough about him to talk to a sketch artist?"
"Sure!" Little Jake said, clearly animated over the prospect of being part of a real-life investigation.
"We'll arrange it." She handed Little Jake a card. "In the meantime, if you think of anything, or if you see this guy again, give us a call."
Little Jake handled the card with reverence, as if she had handed him a Larry Bowa rookie card. "Wow. Just like on Law and Order."
Exactly, Jessica thought. Except on Law amp; Order they usually solved everything in about an hour. Less, when you cut out the commercials.
Jessica, Byrne, and Terry Cahill sat in Interview A. The photocopied money and issue of the Los Angeles Times were at the lab. A sketch of the man Little Jake described was in the works. The car was on its way to the lab garage. It was that downtime between the discovery of the first concrete lead and the first forensic report.
Jessica looked at the floor, found the piece of cardboard Adam Kaslov had been nervously toying with. She picked it up, started twisting it and untwisting it, finding that it was indeed therapeutic.
Byrne took out a matchbook, turned it over and over in his hands. This was his therapy. You couldn't smoke anywhere in the Roundhouse. The three investigators considered the day's events in silence.
"Okay, who the hell are we looking for here?" Jessica finally asked, more as a rhetorical question, due to the anger that had begun to roil inside her, fueled by the image of the woman in the trunk of the car.
"You mean, why did he do it, right?" Byrne asked.
Jessica considered this. In their line of work, the who and the why were so closely linked. "Okay. I'll settle for why," she said. "I mean, is this just a case of someone trying to be famous? Is this an instance of a guy just trying to get on the news?"
Cahill shrugged. "Hard to say. But if you spend any time at all with the folks from Behavioral Science, you know that ninety-nine percent of cases like this go way deeper than that."
"What do you mean?" Jessica asked.
"I mean it takes a hell of a profound psychosis to do something like this. So deep that you could find yourself sitting next to the killer and never know it. This kind of stuff can be buried big time."
"When we ID the vic, we'll know a lot more," Byrne said. "Let's just hope it's personal."
"What do you mean?" Jessica asked again.
"If it's personal, it's going to end here."
Jessica knew that Kevin Byrne was of the shoe-leather school of investigation. You hit the street, you question, you intimidate the lowlifes, you get answers. He did not discount the academics. It just wasn't his style.
"You mentioned Behavioral Science," Jessica said to Cahill. "Don't tell my boss, but I'm not sure exactly what they do." She had gotten her degree in criminal justice, but it didn't encompass much from the field of criminal psychology.
"Well, primarily they study behavior and motivation, mostly in the area of training and research," Cahill said. "It's a far cry from the excitement of The Silence of the Lambs, though. Most of the time it's pretty dry, clinical stuff. They study gang violence, stress management, community policing, crime analysis."
"They must see the worst of the worst," Jessica said.
Cahill nodded. "When the headlines die down about a grisly case, these guys go to work. It may not look all that exciting to the average law enforcement professional, but a lot of cases get made down there. VICAP wouldn't be what it is without them."
Cahill's cell phone rang. He excused himself, stepped out of the room.
Jessica thought about what he had said. She replayed the Psycho shower scene in her mind. She tried to imagine the horror of that moment from the victim's point of view-the shadow on the shower curtain, the sound of the water, the rustle of the plastic as it was being whisked back, the gleam of the knife. She shivered. She twisted her piece of cardboard tighter.
"What's your gut on this?" Jessica asked. As sophisticated and hightech as Behavioral Science and all the federally funded task forces might be, she would trade them all for the instincts of a detective like Kevin Byrne.
"My gut says that this is no thrill killing," Byrne said. "This is about something. And whoever he is, he wants our undivided attention."
"Well, he's got it." Jessica unrolled the piece of twisted cardboard in her hands, fully intending to twist it back up. She never got that far. "Kevin."
"What?"
"Look." Jessica carefully flattened the bright red rectangle on the battered table, avoiding putting her fingerprints on it. The look on Byrne's face said it all. He put his matchbook down next to the piece of cardboard. They were identical.
The Rivercrest Motel.
Adam Kaslov had been to the Rivercrest Motel.
22
He came back to the Roundhouse voluntarily, and that was a good thing. They certainly did not have enough to pick him up or hold him. They had told him that they simply needed to clear up a few loose ends. A classic ruse. If he caved during the interview, they had him.
Terry Cahill and ADA Paul DiCarlo observed the interview through the two-way mirror. Nick Palladino stuck with the car. The VIN was obscured, so identifying the owner was going to take a little while.
"So how long have you lived in North Philadelphia, Adam?" Byrne asked. He sat across from Kaslov. Jessica stood with her back to the closed door.
"About three years. Ever since I moved out of my folks' house."
"Where do they live?"
"Bala Cynwyd."
"Is that where you grew up?"
"Yes."
"What does your dad do, if I may ask?"
"He's in real estate." "And your mom?" "She's, you know, a housewife. Can I ask-" "Do you like living in North Philly?" Adam shrugged. "It's okay." "Spend a lot of time in West Philly?" "Some." "How much would that be exactly?" "Well, I work there." "At the theater, right?" "Yes." "Cool job?" Byrne asked. "I guess," Adam said. "Doesn't pay much." "But at least the movies are free, right?"
"Well, the fifteenth time you have to sit through a Rob Schneider movie it doesn't seem like a bargain."
Byrne laughed, but it was clear to Jessica that he didn't know Rob Schneider from Rob Petrie. "That theater is on Walnut, isn't it?" "Yes."
Byrne made a note, even though they knew all this. It made it look official. "Anything else?" "What do you mean?" "Is there any other reason you go to West Philly?" "Not really."
"What about school, Adam? Last time I checked, Drexel was in that part of town." "Well, yeah. I go there for school." "Are you a full-time student?" "Just part-time in summer." "What are you studying?" "English," Adam said. "I'm an English major." "Any film classes?" Adam shrugged. "A couple." "What sort of things do you study in those classes?" "Theory and criticism mostly. I just don't see what-" "Are you a sports fan?" "Sports? Like what?" "Oh, I don't know. Hockey maybe. You like the Flyers?" "They're okay." "You have a Flyers cap by any chance?" Byrne asked.