Richard Montanari - The Killing Room

‘About Father Leone.’

‘What about him?’

The woman started to tear up. ‘He passed away. I thought you knew.’

Jessica felt the air leave the room. The sweet old man she had just met, the man who had occupied such an important part of Kevin Byrne’s past, was now gone. ‘May I ask what happened?’

The woman reached into her tote bag, brought out a lace handkerchief. She dabbed her eyes. ‘He passed away in the night. He wanted Detective Byrne to have whatever is in the envelope. I mean, I know he was old, and in poor health, but it’s still a shock to me. Especially after Detective Byrne’s visit. I’ve never seen Father Leone so happy, so energized. Whatever Detective Byrne said to him meant a lot.’

On the way upstairs Jessica tried calling Byrne again. She got his voicemail. Sometimes it was absolutely infuriating the way he would turn off his phone when he was on duty. She texted him a call me immediately message, then paged him for good measure.

Jessica sat at her desk, still reeling from the encounter in the lobby. Sometimes it seemed like she was constantly surrounded by death. She sifted through her message slips. Nothing pressing. Before she could return a call her cell phone rang in her hand. It was Maria Caruso.

‘Hi, Maria.’

‘Looks like we’ll be working together tonight.’

‘You talked to the boss?’

‘Yeah. Dana said Kevin called in sick. I’ll lay it out when I see you. We’re on surveillance duty.’

Sick? Jessica didn’t buy it. Something was up. She decided to try Byrne again as soon as she hung up with Maria. ‘Where are you?’

Maria told her.

‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’

Their first assignment was staking out St Barnabas’s, a closed church in North Philly. The building had a recessed central pavilion flanked by a pair of tall, arched windows. It was a smaller version of St Augustine’s, the historic church designed by Nicholas Fagan.

When Jessica and Maria arrived they parked on Fourth Street, did a quick visual inspection of the exterior and the grounds. The doors were locked and chained, the windows intact. By the time they returned to the car, and settled in, it was dark.

The temptation during a stakeout, especially at night, was to drink a gallon of coffee, but that always meant being near a bathroom. It was one thing for male detectives, quite another for females. For now Jessica and Maria set up with high-sugar treats, small binoculars, and plenty of time.

Josh Bontrager, Dre Curtis, and Bobby Tate were all within a seven block radius, along with another dozen detectives from both the Fugitive and Special Investigation Unit squads. All sector cars, city-wide, were on alert to double up their patrols in and around the closed churches.

‘You guys have been partners a long time,’ Maria said. ‘You and Kevin.’

Although homicides were assigned to a single detective, and there were no departmental rules that said you had to work with a specific partner — or any partner at all, Jessica could name a half-dozen detectives who were so ornery or sloppy in their work habits that they worked mostly alone — most detectives found another one in the unit and gravitated toward that person.

‘Yeah,’ Jessica said. ‘About seven years now.’

As soon as she said seven years it hit her that time was really passing. Her first case was the Rosary Killer, and now she was on another case to which the underpinnings and tenets of the Catholic Church were undeniably connected.

‘I never really thought I would get here,’ Maria said.

‘You mean the Homicide Unit?’

‘Yeah. The clock never stops, does it?’

Jessica thought back to her first harrowing days in the unit. If it hadn’t been for Byrne she probably wouldn’t have lasted six months. Who was she kidding? More like six weeks . ‘No,’ she said. ‘It really doesn’t.’

‘I worked a case, three months ago. The kid on that playground in Point Breeze.’

Jessica knew the case. A nine-year-old boy was the victim of a drive-by shooting. ‘I remember,’ she said. ‘That was a bad one.’

‘ Oh , yeah. I had to do the notification. It was my first. I was a total wreck.’

Jessica recalled her first notification as a homicide detective. The victim’s name was Tessa Ann Wells. ‘I’m sure you did just fine.’

‘I don’t know about that. The mother went absolutely crazy. I mean, it’s understandable and everything — she’d just lost her boy. But I kept thinking that if I had worded it a little differently, or taken another approach, maybe it would have gone a little better.’

‘There are only so many words,’ Jessica said. ‘All you can do is be there for them.’

Maria looked out the window for a few moments. ‘I wasn’t there when they arrested the kid who did the shooting. Fugitive squad took him down.’ Maria toyed with the string that hung from her hoodie. ‘I heard they had to draw their weapons. Not sure how I would have handled that.’

Jessica thought about the times she had pointed her weapon at another human being. Most people — with the aid of more than fifty years of television police shows — thought the process was easy, or at least not that difficult. Many believed a police officer could wound or kill a person, then go out to dinner, take a shower, watch a little TV, then hit the sack. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was life-changing. She’d known officers — stable, psychologically sound, family men — who never came back after firing their weapons.

‘You make the call, and remember your training,’ Jessica said. ‘It’s all you can do.’

As soon as the words left her mouth Jessica realized what she sounded like. She sounded like the grizzled old veteran giving words of advice to the fresh young rookie.

When the hell had that happened?

At ten o’clock they rotated to the third church on their list, St Simeon’s on Germantown Avenue. A large gothic brownstone with a soaring spire, St Simeon’s had been closed for five years. According to their information, the building had recently been sold to a developer from San Diego.

A number of streetlights were out on this stretch of Germantown, which provided the detectives with a small amount of cover. Jessica and Maria parked a half-block away from the church, cocooned in shadow. From their vantage point they could see the south side and rear of the building.

Since the widespread media coverage of the murders had begun, the AV Unit had installed, or was in the process of installing, new pole cameras near the closed churches. It was a slow and expensive undertaking.

Because of his prowess with all things AV, Sergeant Mateo Fuentes was heading up the task force within the task force. He and two other officers from AV were dedicated to monitoring these cameras. They had a dozen in place, with more than a dozen to go. Teams were going to work all night.

Ten minutes after the detectives set up position a car pulled to the curb a half-block behind them. Inside a figure settled in, and watched the watchers.

The Egg’s Nest was a cop bar in the northeast, located on Roosevelt Boulevard and Revere Street. The crowd was sparse, mostly married cops and state troopers with their girlfriends, eyes flicking to the front door every time it opened.

Byrne took a high-top at the back, ordered a double Bushmills straight. He thought about what brought him to this place, and what he was about to do.

At ten o’clock Vincent Balzano walked in wearing a leather jacket, black T-shirt, jeans, motorcycle boots. He shared a few pleasantries and laughs with the cops at the bar. Vincent then leaned in and gave his order to the barmaid, made his way back.