Richard Montanari: The Killing Room

The young patrol officer paced nervously near her car. As they got closer Jessica could see the officer’s eyes. Something was very wrong. The officer looked like she had seen a monster. Her nametag identified her as P/O A. MARTINEZ.

‘Good morning,’ Byrne said.

‘Morning, sir.’

‘What can you tell me?’

Officer Martinez took a deep breath. When she exhaled the air came out in short, frosty blasts. She pointed at the building behind her, explained how she had taken the call, searched the alleyway, found nothing. She said she’d then remembered the ‘beneath the dove’ detail she’d gotten from dispatch. It was then she noticed the mural on the wall, and that the door to the building was ajar.

‘I entered the premises, found a white male, twenties, in the basement. Whole lotta blood, sir. Whole lotta blood.’

Jessica and Byrne looked at each other. It wasn’t a prank call after all.

‘DOA?’ Byrne asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Did you check vitals?’

The officer looked everywhere but Byrne’s eyes. In other words, no . Martinez knew she had to answer, and do so truthfully. She did. ‘No, sir. But he’s — ’

‘So you’re not sure he’s dead?’

Another pause. ‘No, sir. But there’s — ’

‘Did you call for backup, clear the building?’

Martinez cleared her throat. ‘I cleared the basement.’

‘By yourself?’

The look on Martinez’s face said that she was ready to turn in her badge, even if this wasn’t a firing offense. It appeared that whatever she had seen inside this old stone building was worth throwing away her time at the academy. Jessica had seen the look many times. She imagined she had looked this way to more than a few detectives during her rookie year. It was a look that said: I didn’t sign on for this.

Byrne put a comforting hand on the young woman’s shoulder. ‘Where exactly is the body?’

Martinez pulled it together. ‘Down the stairs, hard right, under the steps.’

Byrne pointed to the door. ‘Is this where you gained entry?’

Martinez nodded.

‘Did you announce yourself?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Byrne looked at the building, back. ‘Call for two more units,’ he said. He pointed at the sector car. ‘And kill the lights.’

If Martinez looked embarrassed before, she looked mortified now. ‘Yes, sir.’

P/O A. Martinez took a few steps away, keyed her shoulder microphone, officially a veteran first-responder to what was probably her first homicide. She opened the car door, reached in, turned off the flashing bar lights.

Jessica glanced at the building. She was not looking forward to entering, considering how this young patrol officer had reacted. But this was what she had signed on for, and she was going inside, whether she liked it or not.

The second sector car arrived a few minutes later. These officers were veteran patrolmen with whom Jessica and Byrne had worked before. Byrne instructed them to clear the first and second floors of the structure, along with the tower. It may have been a typically small, converted commercial space — probably no more than 2,000 square feet total — but there were lots of places to hide, and they had no idea what they were walking into.

After the two officers cleared the first floor, and moved on to the second floor and tower, Jessica and Byrne walked up the crumbling cement steps, entered the building. As they did Jessica ran her Maglite along the doorjamb. The wood around the deadbolt was freshly splintered. This had probably been the initial point of entry.

Inside was a large square room with a crudely constructed and braced partition in the center. What had once been large windows on either side had long ago been bricked in. What natural light there was came from a pair of small windows placed high on the back wall. On the face of the false wall in the center of the room was a faded painting of a crucifix, with clouds in an unnaturally blue sky above, along with a heavenly golden light radiating from the bottom.

A pair of old wooden chairs stood in the center of the space, facing each other. Next to them was an overturned milk crate, dotted with spent matches and balls of charred aluminum foil.

The rest of the room was empty of furniture and fixtures, but littered with damp magazines, newspapers, fast-food trash. In the corner was an old portable TV on its side, the glass screen shattered, knobs dangling.

‘Second floor and tower’s clear,’ one of the patrolmen said, descending the stairs. ‘You want us down there?’

‘No,’ Byrne said. ‘Take the front and the rear.’

‘You got it.’

The two officers would now take up position at the front and back doors. The responding officer — P/O A. Martinez — would be in charge of the crime-scene log, a duty that consisted of signing and time-coding the arrival and departure of all personnel, including detectives, crime-scene techs, and investigators from the medical examiner’s office, all of whom would be en route as soon as the primary detectives made the call.

The third sector car, which had just arrived, would work on keeping the gathering onlookers as far from the crime scene building as possible.

With the rest of the building clear, it was time to head downstairs. Jessica and Byrne met at the top of the stairs leading to the cellar, exchanged a glance they had come to know well — the one that said they were about to enter a room wherein anything could happen.

Was this going to be a job? Jessica wondered . Was this going to be one that stayed with her for years? The truth was, you never knew. In this profession a phone rang and you stepped into a maelstrom, an ancient storm that began the moment Cain raised his hand to Abel.

The two detectives clicked on their Maglites. Jessica opened the door. She would be the first to go down. It was something she and Byrne had wordlessly worked out long ago. Jessica had never wanted any special treatment because of her gender, had even rushed toward the door in admittedly foolhardy attempts to display her courage, at least back in the early days. Also, because she was the daughter of one of the most decorated officers in the history of the PPD, she felt the extra burden to not only prove herself on her own terms, but to never give the impression she was being favored.

It had been this way for years, and today was no different. This was her job, her door.

She ran her flashlight down the steps. The darkness below seemed to devour the light. She took a deep breath, put her hand on the rail.

And that’s when they heard the scream.

Jessica thought: The basement . You never get used to the basement.

She stopped, her hand on the grip of her weapon. Byrne took up position on the other side of the door.

If it was cold outside, it was numbingly frigid here. Their breath formed icy clouds in front of them. Despite the chill, Jessica could feel a latticework of warm sweat trickle down her back.

She eased onto the top tread. The steps below were dark and forbidding. The old wood groaned under her weight. Even from the top of the stairs Jessica could smell the unmistakable metallic tang of blood.

‘Philly PD!’ she yelled. ‘Who’s down there?’

Nothing.

Jessica drew her weapon, held it at her side, edged downward. She heard Byrne behind her, his weight now on the top step.

Jessica followed her flashlight’s beam down the stairs, looking for broken or missing boards. On one tread was a child’s plastic toy — a duck with one foot missing, a dirty string wrapped around its head. Two steps below was a ball of dry, shredded newspaper, probably once home to a family of mice.