Richard Montanari: Broken Angels

The witness said the idling vehicle was an expensive looking green SUV with yellow fog lamps and extensive detailing.

The witness did not get a license plate.

Outside the movie Witness, Jessica had never seen so many Amish people in her life. It seemed that the entire Amish population of Berks County had come to Reading. They milled about the lobby of the hospital. The older folks brooded, prayed, observed, shooed the children away from the candy and soda vending machines.

When Jessica introduced herself, they all shook her hand. It seemed that Josh Bontrager had come by it honestly.

"You saved my life," Nicci said.

Jessica and Nicci Malone stood at the foot of Josh Bontrager's hospital bed. His room was filled with flowers.

The razor-sharp arrow had slashed Nicci's right shoulder. Her arm was in a sling. The doctors said she would be IOD-injured on duty- for about a month.

Bontrager smiled. "All in a day," he said.

His color had returned; his smile had never left. He sat up in bed, surrounded by about a hundred different cheeses, breads, jars of preserves, and sausages, all wrapped in wax paper. Homemade get-well cards abounded.

"When you get better, I'm buying you the best dinner in Philly," Nicci said.

Bontrager stroked his chin, apparently considering his options. "Le Bec Fin?"

"Yeah. Okay. Le Bec Fin. You're on," Nicci said.

Jessica knew that Le Bec would set Nicci back a few hundred. Small price to pay. "But you better be careful," Bontrager added. "What do you mean?" "Well, you know what they say." "No, I don't," Nicci said. "What do they say, Josh?" Bontrager winked at her and Jessica. "Once you go Amish, you never go back."

Byrne sat on a bench outside the courtroom. He had testified countless times in his career-grand juries, preliminary hearings, murder trials. Most of the time he had known exactly what he was going to say, but not this time.

He entered the courtroom, taking a seat in the first row.

Matthew Clarke looked about half the size he had been the last time Byrne had seen him. This was not uncommon. Clarke had been holding a gun and guns made people appear bigger. Now the man was craven and small.

Byrne took the stand. The ADA led him through the events of the week leading up to the incident where Clarke took him hostage.

"Is there anything you'd like to add?" the ADA finally asked.

Byrne looked into Matthew Clarke's eyes. He had seen so many criminals in his time, so many men who had no regard for anyone's property or human life.

Matthew Clarke did not belong in jail. He needed help.

"Yes," Byrne said, "there is."

The air outside the courthouse had warmed since morning. The weather in Philadelphia was incredibly fickle, but somehow it was near- ing forty-two degrees.

As Byrne exited the building he looked up and saw Jessica approaching.

"Sorry I couldn't make it," she said.

"No problem."

"How'd it go?"

"I don't know." Byrne shoved his hands into his coat pockets. "I really don't." They fell silent.

Jessica watched him for a while, wondering what was going through his mind. She knew him well, and knew that the matter of Matthew Clarke would weigh heavily on his heart.

"Well, I'm heading home." Jessica knew when the walls went up with her partner. She also knew there would eventually come a day when Byrne would talk about it. They had all the time in the world. "Need a ride?"

Byrne looked at the sky. "I think I'm going to walk for a while."

"Uh-oh."

"What?"

"You start walking, the next thing you know you'll be running."

Byrne smiled. "You never know."

Byrne turned up his collar, descended the steps.

"See you tomorrow," Jessica said.

Kevin Byrne didn't answer.

Padraig Byrne stood in the front room of his new home. The boxes were stacked everywhere. His favorite chair was positioned across from his new 42-inch plasma television, a housewarming gift from his son.

Byrne walked into the room, a pair of glasses in hand, glasses containing two inches of Jameson each. He handed one to his father.

They stood, strangers in a strange place. They had never been in a moment like this before. Padraig Byrne had just left the only house in which he had ever lived. The house into which he had carried his bride, raised his son.

They lifted their glasses.

"Dia duit," Byrne said.

"Dia is Muire duit."

They clinked glasses, downed the whiskey.

"You going to be okay?" Byrne asked.

"I'm fine," Padraig said. "Don't you worry about me."

"Right, Da."

Ten minutes later, as Byrne was pulling out of the driveway, he glanced up to see his father standing in the doorway. Padraig looked a little smaller in this place, a little further away.

Byrne wanted to freeze the moment in his mind. He didn't know what tomorrow would bring, how much time they would have together. But he knew that, for the moment, for the foreseeable future, everything was okay.

He hoped his father felt the same way.

Byrne returned the moving van, retrieved his car. He got off the expressway and headed down to the Schuylkill. He got out, stood at the riverbank.

He closed his eyes, reliving the moment when he pulled the trigger in that house of madness. Had he hesitated? He honestly couldn't remember. Regardless, he had taken the shot, and that was what mattered.

Byrne opened his eyes. He watched the river, contemplated the secrets of a thousand years as it flowed silently past him; the tears of desecrated saints, the blood of broken angels.

The river never tells.

He got back into his car, reached the entrance to the expressway. He looked at the green and white signs. One led back to the city. One led west, toward Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, and points northwest.

Including Meadville.

Detective Kevin Francis Byrne took a deep breath.

And made his choice.

There was purity in his darkness, a clarity underscored by the serene weight of permanence. There were moments of relief, as if it had all happened-all of it, from the moment he first stepped onto that damp field, to the day he first turned the key in the door of that ramshackle row house in Kensington, to the stinking breath of Joseph Barber as he bid good-bye to this mortal coil-to lead him to this black, seamless world.

But darkness was not darkness to the Lord.

Every morning they came to his cell and led Roland Hannah to the small chapel, where he would hold service. At first he did not want to leave his cell. But soon he realized that this was just a diversion, a stopover on his road to salvation and glory.

He would be in this place the rest of his life. There had been no trial. They had asked Roland what he had done, and he had told them. He would not lie.

But the Lord came here too. In fact, the Lord was here this very day. And in this place were many sinners, many men in need of correction.

Pastor Roland Hannah would deal with them all.

Jessica arrived at the Devonshire Acres facility at just after four o'clock on February 5. The imposing fieldstone complex was set atop a gently rolling hill. A few outbuildings dotted the landscape.

Jessica came to the facility to speak with Roland Hannah's mother, Artemisia Waite. Or to try to. Her boss had left it up to her whether or not to conduct the interview, to put a period at the end of the report, the story that began on a bright spring day in April 1995, a day when two little girls went to the park for a birthday picnic, the day when a long litany of horrors began.

Roland Hannah had pled out, and was serving eighteen life sentences, no parole. Kevin Byrne, along with a retired detective named John Longo, had helped compile the state's case against the man, much of it based on Walt Brigham's notes and files.