Richard Montanari: Play dead

And yet she had gone further than she ever had.

Maybe she was making progress. She walks up a dark street. It is three o'clock in the morning. Eve knows precisely what time it is because she had glanced up the avenue-a dream-street that had no name or number-and saw the clock in the tower at City Hall.

After a few blocks, the street grows gloomier, even more featureless and long-shadowed, like a vast, silent de Chirico painting. There are abandoned stores on either side of the street, shuttered diners that somehow have customers still at the counters, ice-covered in time, coffee cups poised halfway to their lips.

She comes to an intersection. A streetlight blinks red on all four sides. She sees a doll sitting in a fiddleback chair. It wears a ragged pink dress, soiled at the hem. It has dirty knees and elbows.

Suddenly, Eve knows who she is, and what she has done. The doll is hers. It is a Crissy doll, her favorite when she was a child. She has run away from home. She has come to the city without any money or any plan.

A shadow dances across the wall to her left. She turns to look, and sees a man approaching, fast. He moves as a gust of blistering wind, carved of smoke and moonlight.

He is now behind her. She knows what he did to the others. She knows what he is going to do to her.

"Venga aqui!" comes the booming voice from behind, inches from her ear.

The fear, the sickness, blossoms inside her. She knows the familiar voice, and it forms a dark tornado in her heart. "Venga, Eve! Ahora!"

She closes her eyes. The man spins her around, begins to violently shake her. He pushes her to the ground, but she does not hit the steaming asphalt. Instead she falls through it, tumbling through space, head over heels, freefall, the lights of the city a mad kaleidoscope in her mind.

She crashes through a ceiling onto a filthy mattress. For a few blessed moments the world is silent. Soon she catches her breath, hears the sound of a young girl singing a familiar song in the next room. It is a Spanish lullaby, "A La Nanita Nana."

Seconds later, the door slams open. A bright orange light washes the room. An earsplitting siren rages through her head.

And the real nightmare begins. Eve stepped out of the shower, toweled off, walked into her bedroom, opened the closet, took out the aluminum case. Inside, secured against the egg-crate foam lining, were four firearms. All the weapons were perfectly maintained, fully loaded. She selected a Glock 17, which she carried in a Chek-Mate security holster on her right hip, along with a Beretta 21, which she wore in an Apache ankle rig.

She slipped into her outfit, buttoned her blazer, checked herself in the full-length mirror. She proclaimed herself ready. Just after 1 AM, she stepped into the hall.

Eve Galvez turned to look at her nearly empty apartment, a rush of icy melancholy overtaking her heart. She had once had so much.

She closed the door, locked the deadbolt, walked down the hallway. A few moments later she crossed the lobby, pushed through the glass doors, and stepped into the warm Philadelphia night.

For the last time.

The Forensic Science Center, commonly referred to as the crime lab, was located at Eighth and Poplar streets, just a few blocks from the Roundhouse. The 40,000-square-foot facility was responsible for analysis of all physical evidence collected by the PPD during the course of an investigation. In its various divisions, it performed analysis in three major categories: trace evidence, such as paint, fibers, or gunshot residue; biological evidence, including blood, semen, and hair; and miscellaneous evidence, such as fingerprints, documents, and footwear impressions.

The Philadelphia Police Department's Criminalistics Unit maintained itself as a full-service facility, able to perform a wide variety of testing procedures.

Sergeant Helmut Rohmer was the reigning king of the document section. In his early thirties, Rohmer was a giant, standing about six- four, weighing in at 250 pounds, most of it muscle. He had short- cropped hair, dyed so blond it was almost white. On both arms were an elaborate web of tattoos-many of them a variation on red roses, white roses, and the name Rose. Vegetation and petals snaked around his huge biceps. At PPD functions-especially the Police Athletic League gatherings. Helmut Rohmer was big on PAL-no one had ever seen him with a person named Rose or Rosie or Rosemary, so the subject was scrupulously avoided. His standard outfit was black jeans, Doc Martens, and sleeveless black sweatshirts. Unless he had to go to court. Then it was a shiny, narrow-lapelled, navy-blue suit from around the time when REO Speedwagon dotted the charts.

No pocket protectors or dingy lab coats here-Helmut Rohmer looked like a roadie for Metallica, or a Frank Miller rendering of a Hell's Angel. But when the sergeant spoke, he sounded like Johnny Mathis. He insisted you call him Hell, even going so far as signing his internal memos "From Hell." No one dared argue or object.

"This is a fairly common edition of the New Oxford," Hell said. "It's available everywhere. I have the same edition at home." The book sat on the gleaming stainless table, opened to the copyright page. "This particular publication was printed in the early seventies, but you can find it in just about any used-book store in the country, including college bookstores, Half Price Books, everywhere."

"Is there any way to trace where it may have been purchased?" Jessica asked.

"I'm afraid not."

The book's cover had been dusted for prints. None were found. It would take a lot longer, and prove far more difficult, to check the pages themselves, seeing as there were more than fifteen hundred of them.

"What do you make of the Shiloh message?" Jessica asked.

Hell placed an index finger to his lips. Jessica noticed for the first time that his fingernails were well-manicured, their clear polish reflecting the overhead fluorescents in straight silvery lines. "Well, I ran Shiloh through the databases and the search engines. Nothing significant in the databases, but I did get hits on Google and Yahoo, of course. Lots of them. As in tons and tons."

"Such as?" Jessica asked.

"Well, a lot of them had to do with that 1996 kid's movie. It had Rod Steiger in it, and the guy who was in In Cold Blood. What was his name?"

"Robert Blake?" Jessica asked.

"No. The other guy in the movie. The light-haired guy. The con man who bounces the check for the suit." "Scott Wilson," Byrne said. "Right."

Jessica glanced at Byrne, but he refused to look at her. It was a matter of pop-culture principle, she figured. Sometimes Kevin Byrne's knowledge astounded her. On a bar bet, he once rattled off the entire discography of The Eagles, and Kevin Byrne didn't even care too much for The Eagles. He was a Thin Lizzy, Corrs, Van Morrison man-not to mention his near-slavish devotion to old blues. On the other hand, she'd once caught him singing the first verse of "La Vie en Rose" at a crime scene. In French. Kevin Byrne did not speak French.

"Anyway," Hell said. "This Shiloh movie was a little schmaltzy, but it was still kind of cute. Beagle-in-jeopardy type thing. We just rented it a few months ago. Scratchy DVD, froze up a few times. Drives me frickin' nuts when that happens. Gotta go Blu-ray and soon. But my daughter loved it."

Jessica thought, Daughter? Could this be the legendary Rose? "I didn't know you had a daughter, Hell," she said, probing.

Hell beamed. In a flash, he had out his wallet, flipped open to a photograph of an adorable little blond girl sitting on a park bench, hugging the hell out of a black Labrador puppy. Crushing the puppy was more like it. Maybe the kid worked out with her dad.

"This is Donatella," Hell said. "She is my heart."