Chapter 9
October 18, 2014
Jocelyn took the bridge at the bottom of Wises Mill Road at a snail’s pace. It was the entry to the Wissahickon Creek trail closest to her home and had the nearest access to parking, but the bridge itself was only one lane. The bend ahead of it curved in a way that made it damn near impossible to see if there was any oncoming traffic.
“You can go a little faster,” Kevin Sullivan said.
She shot him a glare. “You want to drive?”
She and Kevin had been partners at the Philadelphia Police Department’s Northwest Detectives before she retired. He was still on the job, in spite of his residual health problems that were courtesy of a major head injury inflicted by none other than one of the Schoolteacher Attackers.
In the passenger seat, Kevin grinned, the corners of his hazel eyes crinkling. “I miss you, Rush. Irritability and all.” As she came to the bottom of the other side of the stone bridge and onto the Wissahickon trail, Kevin pointed to their right. “There’s a parking lot right there.”
She pulled onto the trail slowly, avoiding several joggers, two bicyclists and a mother pushing a double stroller. Motor vehicles were prohibited on the trail except for this tiny stretch between the Wises Mill entrance and the parking lots. The dirt trail was rutted and full of holes. They bounced mercilessly in her SUV.
She parked and they got out, Kevin walking with his cane. He said that he still had muscle weakness in his right side from the year before, but Jocelyn had seen him get around just fine without the cane when needed. She wondered if it had just become a crutch.
They walked south on the trail, passing Valley Green, the restaurant where she and Caleb had had their first date.
“You sure this guy is down here?” Kevin asked. As they moved away from the restaurant and main parking area, the fall foliage closed in on them. Although the trail was wide enough to accommodate two motor vehicles, the area on either side of it was heavily wooded, even on the creek side.
“He said he would be here, about a quarter mile from Valley Green.” Jocelyn pointed to the trail before them. “In this direction. He said it would be a lot easier for me to meet him here than to go all the way down to the Roundhouse.”
The Roundhouse was Philadelphia’s nickname for its police headquarters, a squat four-story building shaped like the double barrels of a shotgun. It sat at 8th and Arch Streets and housed, among other things, the Homicide Unit.
Jocelyn glanced down toward the creek. The bank rose steeply away from it the further they walked. She tried not to jump every time a jogger or a bicyclist flew past them. She and Kevin weren’t dressed for the trail, both of them in tailored suits—his brown and hers charcoal gray—looking every bit the detectives they were.
“You know you didn’t have to come with me, Kev,” she said. A jogger pounded past her, nearly touching her sleeve. In spite of herself, she startled, bumping shoulders with Kevin. She laughed, her nervousness receding as he steadied her with one hand on her elbow. “But I’m glad you did.”
“Happy to do it,” he said with a smile. “I don’t get to see enough of you anymore. Besides, I just arrested four teenage assholes for beating the piss out of a sixty-year-old man right back there.” He let go of her elbow and hooked a thumb over his shoulder.
Jocelyn sighed. “It never ends, does it?”
He shook his head. After a beat, he cleared his throat, and Jocelyn knew something difficult was coming. “Besides, Rush,” he said. “I feel guilty. I never got to tell you, I’m sorry about . . . about last year. I’m sorry that I didn’t get to you in time.”
Jocelyn stopped in her tracks, a thick knot forming in her throat. He took a few steps before realizing she had stopped, then turned back and met her eyes, a puzzled look on his face. “Rush?”
Tears stung the backs of her eyes, although she fought them. “Stop,” she said. “That wasn’t your fault. He was coming after me no matter what. You couldn’t have stopped him.”
Kevin brushed a hand through his thinning salt and pepper hair—more salt than pepper these days. He squinted at her, even though the trees overhead blocked the sunlight. “You came to me with your theory. I blew you off, and then he attacked you. I should have had your back, that’s all I’m saying.”
She had never even considered that Kevin might harbor guilt over what had happened the year before. She had never believed that anything that happened was his fault. They couldn’t have known what was going to happen that night, no matter what theories Jocelyn was tossing around—or how accurate she had been. Jocelyn smiled, swallowing hard and blinking back her tears. She closed the distance between them in two steps, reached out, and touched his hand. “Kev, I know you’ve got my back.”
He didn’t look satisfied. His gaze drifted to the ground. He drew tiny lines in the dirt with his cane. “I just want you to know—that won’t happen again.”
“Okay,” she said. Two bicyclists breezed past them, followed by a woman wearing yoga pants and an oversized sweatshirt, running beside her Siberian husky. “Can we just find Razmus now?”
“Sure.”
It wasn’t hard to find Trent Razmus. He had driven his unmarked, police-issued Chevrolet Cruze down the trail and parked it alongside a break in the fence that demarcated the creek bank from the trail. People walked, jogged, and biked around it, shooting the car dirty looks and mumbling words like “asshole” and “douchebag.” Jocelyn and Kevin squeezed between the black vehicle and the opening in the wooden fence. An overgrown set of stone steps led to the creek bank, but even from the top, they could see a black man in a light gray suit standing on the narrow concrete wall that spanned the width of the creek. He had taken his shoes off and left them on a rock near the shore. His slacks were rolled neatly above his knees. Water rushed over the wall and up over his ankles.
As they reached the bottom of the steps, Jocelyn spotted Trent’s suit jacket hanging from a tree limb.
“What the hell is he doing?” Kevin asked.
Jocelyn shrugged. “Beats me.”
Trent glanced over at them and waved.
“That’s not Trent Razmus,” Kevin said. “It’s Jimmy Rollins.”
Jocelyn laughed. Jimmy Rollins was the Philadelphia Phillies’ short stop—although there was talk he would be traded in the coming months. She moved closer to the water and took another look at Trent. He did bear a striking resemblance to the city’s beloved baseball player. A shaved head, round face, flat nose, thick brows over kind brown eyes, and a thin, neatly trimmed moustache and goatee.
“That has to be cold,” Kevin said.
Jocelyn reached down and dipped a finger into the water. It wasn’t freezing, but it wasn’t cozy warm either. She could do without the fishy, fetid smell though.
“Rush?” Trent called.
She nodded as she stood back up.
Trent beckoned her. She looked over at Kevin. He waved his cane. “No way am I going in that water, Rush.”
She exhaled noisily. Looking back at Trent, she pointed to her chest. “You want me out there?”
He smiled. “I need help.”
She didn’t smile back. Although the water wasn’t moving very quickly, wading barefoot into the Wissahickon Creek was not on her list of things to do that day—or any day. “You lose something?” she asked, stalling.
“Murder weapon.”
“Good fucking lord,” she muttered under her breath. She sat on a nearby rock and pulled off her shoes and socks. She was glad that she had been shaving her legs regularly these days. “I’m charging Knox double my hourly rate for this bullshit.”