Jessica walked out of the room, her exhaustion a palpable thing inside her, her revulsion a bright red ember in her chest, her rage a gathering gale.
67
He had missed her. You don't always get to choose your partners on this job, but from the moment he met her, he knew she was the real thing. The sky was the limit for a woman like Jessica Balzano, and although he was only ten or twelve years older than she, he felt ancient in her company. She was the future of the unit, he was the past.
Byrne sat at one of the plastic booths in the Roundhouse lunchroom, sipped his cold coffee, thought about being back. How it felt. What it meant. He watched the younger detectives breeze through the room, their eyes so bright and clear, their loafers polished, their suits pressed. He envied them their energy. Had he looked like that at one point? Had he walked through this room twenty years earlier, a chest full of confidence, observed by some damaged cop?
He had just called the hospital for the tenth time that day. Victoria was listed in serious but stable condition. No change. He'd call again in an hour.
He had seen the crime scene photos of Julian Matisse. Although there was nothing human left, Byrne gazed upon the raw tissue as if he were looking at a shattered talisman of evil. The world was cleaner without him. He felt nothing.
It still did not answer the question of whether or not Jimmy Purify had planted the evidence in the Gracie Devlin case.
Nick Palladino entered the room, looking as tired as Byrne felt. "Did Jess go home?"
"Yeah," Byrne said. "She's been burning both ends."
Palladino nodded. "You hear about Phil Kessler?" he asked.
"What about him?"
"He died."
Byrne was neither shocked nor surprised. Kessler had looked bad the last time he had seen him, a man resolved to his fate, a man seemingly without the will or doggedness to fight.
We didn't do right by that girl.
If Kessler had not meant Gracie Devlin, it could only be one other person. Byrne struggled to his feet, downed his coffee, and headed off to Records. The answer, if there was an answer, would be there. TRY AS HE might, he could not remember the girl's name. Obviously, he couldn't ask Kessler. Or Jimmy. He tried to zero in on the exact date. Nothing came back. There had been so many cases, so many names. Every time he seemed to get close, within a few months, something occurred to him to change his mind. He put together a brief list of notes about the case as he remembered them, then handed it off to an officer in Records. Sergeant Bobby Powell, a lifer like himself, and far better with computers, told Byrne he would get to the bottom of it, and get the file to him as soon as possible.
Byrne piled the photocopies of the Actor's case files in the middle of his living room floor. Next to it he placed a six-pack of Yuengling. He took off his tie, his shoes. He found some cold Chinese food in the fridge. The old air conditioner barely cooled the room, even though it was rattling on high. He flipped on the TV.
He cracked a beer, picked up the remote. It was nearly midnight. He had not yet heard from Records.
As he cruised the cable channels, the images melted into each other. Jay Leno, Edward G. Robinson, Don Knotts, Bart Simpson, each face a6 8 — blur, linking to the next. Drama, comedy, musical, farce. I settle on an old noir, maybe from the 1940s. It isn't one of the major noir films, but it looks as if it was shot fairly well. In this scene, the femme fatale is trying to get something out of the heavy's raincoat while he talks on a pay phone.
Eyes, hands, lips, fingers.
Why do people watch movies? What do they see? Do they see who they want to be? Or do they see who they fear becoming? They sit in the darkness, next to total strangers, and for two hours they are the villains, the victims, the heroes, the forsaken. Then they get up, walk into the light and live their lives of despair.
I should rest, but I cannot sleep. Tomorrow is a very big day. I look back at the screen, turn the channel. A love story, now. Black-and-white emotions storm my heart as6 9 — Jessica flipped through the channels. She was having a hard time staying awake. She had wanted to sift through the time line of the case one more time before going to bed, but everything was fog.
She glanced at the clock. Midnight.
She turned off the TV, sat at her dining room table. She spread the evidence out in front of her. To the right was the pile of three books on crime cinema she had gotten from Nigel Butler. She picked up one of them. In it, Ian Whitestone was briefly mentioned. She learned that his idol was a Spanish director named Luis Bunuel.
As with every homicide, there was a wire. A wire that plugged into every aspect of the crime, ran through every person. Like the old-style Christmas lights, the string did not light up until all the bulbs were snapped into place.
She wrote the names down on a legal pad.
Faith Chandler. Stephanie Chandler. Erin Halliwell. Julian Matisse. Ian Whitestone. Seth Goldman. Darryl Porter.
What was the wire that ran through all these people?
She looked at the notes on Julian Matisse. How did his print get on that gun? There had been a break-in at the home of Edwina Matisse a year earlier. Maybe that was it. Maybe that was when their doer had obtained Matisse's gun and the blue jacket. Matisse had been in prison, and he might very likely have stored these items at his mother's house. Jessica got on the phone and had the police report faxed over to her. When she read it, nothing out of the ordinary popped out at her. She knew the uniformed officers who took the initial call. She knew the detectives who caught the case. Edwina Matisse reported that the only thing that was stolen was a pair of candlesticks.
Jessica looked at the clock. It was still a reasonable hour. She called one of the detectives on that case, a longtime veteran named Dennis Las- sar. They got their pleasantries out of the way quickly, in deference to the hour. Jessica got to the point.
"Do you remember a break-in at a row house on Nineteenth? A woman named Edwina Matisse?"
"When was it?"
Jessica gave him the date.
"Yeah, yeah. Older woman. Kinda nuts. Had a grown son doing time."
"That's her."
Lassar detailed the case as he remembered it.
"So the woman reported that the only thing stolen was a pair of candlesticks? That sound right?" Jessica asked.
"If you say so. Lotta assholes under the bridge since then."
"I hear you," Jessica said. "Do you remember if the place was really ransacked? I mean, a lot more roughed up than a pair of candlesticks would have warranted?"
"Now that you mention it, it was. The son's room was torn apart," Lassar said. "But hey, if the vic says nothing's missing, then nothing's missing. I remember being in a hurry to get the hell out of there. Smelled like chicken broth and cat piss."
"Okay," Jessica said. "Do you remember anything else about the case?"
"I seem to recall there was something else about the son."
"What about him?"
"I think the FBI had been watching him before he went up."
The FBI had been watching a lowlife like Matisse? "Do you remember what that was about?"
"I think it was some Mann Act violation. Interstate transport of underaged girls. Don't quote me on it, though."
"Did an agent show up at the crime scene?"
"Yeah," Lassar said. "Funny how this shit comes back to you. Young guy."
"Do you remember the agent's name?"
"Now, that part's lost to the Wild Turkey forever. Sorry."
"No problem. Thanks."
She hung up, thought about calling Terry Cahill. He had been released from the hospital and was back working a desk. Still, it was probably a little late for a choirboy like Terry to be up. She'd talk to him tomorrow.