Tom Weyrich approached them. He pulled off his latex gloves, slipped on his leather ones.
"That's not a child?" Jessica asked. She was stunned. The victim could not have been much taller than four feet.
"No," Weyrich said. "She's small, but mature. She was probably about forty."
"So, how long do you think she's been out here?" Byrne asked.
"I'm guessing a week or so. No way to tell here."
"This happened before the Shawmont killing?"
"Oh, yeah," Weyrich said.
Two officers from the crime-scene unit emerged from the van and began to make their way to the riverbank. Josh Bontrager followed.
Jessica and Byrne watched the team set up a crime scene and perimeter. Until further notice this was not their case, nor was it even officially related to the two murders they were investigating.
"Detectives," Josh Bontrager called out to them.
Campos, Lauria, Jessica, and Byrne all made their way down to the riverbank. Bontrager was standing in an area about fifteen feet from the body, just slightly upriver.
"Look." Bontrager pointed to an area behind the scrub of low bushes. In the ground was an item so incongruous in this setting that Jessica had to get right up to it to make sure that what she thought she was looking at was indeed what she was looking at. It was a lily. A red plastic lily stuck into the snow. On the tree next to it, about three feet from the ground, was a painted white moon.
Jessica took a pair of photographs. She then stood back and let the CSU photographer document the whole scene. Sometimes the context of an item at a crime scene was as important as the item itself. The where of something sometimes superseded the what.
Л lily.
Jessica glanced at Byrne. He seemed to be riveted by the red flower. She then looked at the body. The woman was so petite that it was easy to see how she could have been mistaken for a child. Jessica could see that the victim's dress was too large, and had been unevenly hemmed. The woman's arms and legs were intact. No amputations visible. Her hands were open. She held no bird.
"Does this sync with your boy?" Campos asked.
"Yeah," Byrne said.
"Same MO with the belt?"
Byrne nodded.
"Want the case?" Campos half smiled, but was also half serious.
Byrne didn't answer. It wasn't up to him. There was a good chance that these cases were going to be grouped into a much larger task force soon, one that involved the FBI and other federal agencies. There was a compulsive killer on a rampage, and this woman may have been his first victim. For some reason this freak was obsessed with vintage costumes and the Schuylkill, and they hadn't the slightest clue who he was, or where he was going to strike next. Or if he already had. There could be ten bodies between where they were standing and the Manayunk crime scene.
"This guy is not going to stop until he makes his point, is he?" Byrne asked.
"Doesn't look like it," Campos said.
"The river is a hundred fucking miles long."
"One hundred twenty-eight fucking miles long," Campos replied. "Give or take."
One hundred twenty-eight miles, Jessica thought. Much of it shielded from roads and expressways, bounded by trees and shrubs, a river that snaked through maybe a half dozen counties into the heart of southeast Pennsylvania.
One hundred twenty-eight miles of killing ground.
56
It was her third cigarette of the day. Her third. Three wasn't bad. Three was like not smoking at all, right? Back when she was using she'd been up to two packs. Three was like she had already quit. Or whatever.
Who was she kidding? She knew she wasn't going to quit for real until her life was in order. Sometime around her seventieth birthday.
Sa'mantha Fanning opened the back door, peeked into the store. Empty. She listened. Baby Jamie was quiet. She closed the door, pulled her coat tightly around her. Man, it was cold. She hated having to come outside to smoke, but at least she wasn't one of those gargoyles you saw on Broad Street, standing in front of their buildings, hunched against the wall, sucking away on a butt. That was the reason she never smoked in front of the store, even though it was a lot easier to keep an eye on things from there. She refused to look like some criminal. Still, it was colder than a pocketful of penguin shit out here.
She thought about her plans for New Year's Eve, or rather her non- plans. It would just be her and Jamie, maybe a bottle of wine. Such was the life of a single mother. A single broke mother. A single barely employed broke mother whose ex-boyfriend and father of her child was a lazy-ass pipehead who had yet to give her one friggin' dime in child support. She was nineteen and her life story was already written.
She opened the door again, just to give a listen, and almost jumped out of her skin. A man stood right in the doorway. He had been alone in the store, all by himself. He could have stolen anything. She was definitely going to get fired, family or no.
"Man," she said. "You scared the crap outta me."
"I'm sorry," he said.
He was well dressed, had a nice face. He was not her typical customer.
"My name is Detective Byrne," he said. "I'm with the Philadelphia Police Department. The homicide division."
"Oh, okay," she said.
"I was wondering if you might have a few minutes to talk."
"Sure. No problem," she said. "But I did already speak with a…"
"Detective Balzano?"
"Right. Detective Balzano. She had on this great leather coat."
"That's her." He gestured to the inside of the store. "Would you like to go inside where it's a little warmer?"
She held up her cigarette. "I can't smoke in there. Ironic, huh?"
"I'm not sure what you mean."
"I mean half the stuff in there already smells pretty funky," she said. "Is it okay if we talk out here?"
"Sure," the man replied. He stepped through the doorway, closed the door. "I just have a few more questions. I promise not to keep you too long."
She almost laughed. Keep me from what? "I've got nowhere to be," she said. "Fire away."
"Actually, I have only one question."
"Okay."
"I was wondering about your son."
The word caught her off guard. What did Jamie have to do with anything? "My son?"
"Yes. I was wondering why you are going to put him out. Is it because he isn't pretty?"
At first she thought the man was making a joke-albeit a joke she didn't get. But he wasn't smiling. "I'm not sure what you're talking about," she said.
"The count's son is not nearly as fair as you think."
She looked into his eyes. He seemed to look right through her. Something was wrong here. Something was way wrong. And she was all by herself. "Do you think I might, like, see some identification or something?" she asked.
"No." The man stepped toward her. He unbuttoned his coat. "That won't be possible."
Sa'mantha Fanning took a few steps backward. A few steps were all she had. Her back was already against the bricks. "Have… have we met before?" she asked.
"Yes, we have, Anne Lisbeth," the man said. "Once upon a time."
57
Jessica sat at her desk, worn out, the events of the day-the discovery of the third victim, coupled with the near miss with Kevin-having all but drained her.
Plus, the only thing worse than fighting Philly traffic was fighting Philly traffic on ice. It was physically exhausting. Her arms felt like she had gone ten rounds; her neck was stiff. On the way back to the Roundhouse she had narrowly avoided three accidents.
Roland Hannah had spent almost two hours with a book of mug shots. Jessica had also given him a sheet with five more recent photos, one of which was the visitor ID photograph of David Hornstrom. He had not recognized anyone.