Play dead

EIGHT

The Denison was a ten-story u-shaped apartment building on Locust Street in West Philadelphia, near Forty-third Street, not far from the main campus of the University of Pennsylvania. The building was an exhaust-ravaged bronze-colored brick, built in the 1930s, with a recently sandblasted white sandstone arched entrance and electric flambeaux flanking its glass front doors. The long flower beds leading up to the doorway were baked and cracked and arid, populated with wilting impatiens, dying salvia, dead begonias, spent lobelia.

Like the old joke went: In Philly, in August, you couldn't just fry an egg on the sidewalk, you could fry the chicken.

Jessica and Byrne entered the building, crossed the lobby. It was five degrees cooler in here, which meant the temperature was a frigid eighty-five degrees or so. They had called the address in, checked the results against the roster of tenants in the lobby. Laura A. Somerville lived in apartment 1015. She did not have a police record or DMV record. In fact, she did not have a record of any kind.

For some reason, Jessica expected Laura Somerville to be a middle- aged career woman, a real estate developer, perhaps a lawyer. When the woman opened the door, Jessica was surprised to find that Laura Somerville was a rather elegant older woman, probably in her late sixties: powdered and lightly perfumed, classically attired in pleated gray cotton slacks and white blouse. Silver-coiffed and graceful, she reminded Jessica of one of those women who had looked fifty at forty, but would look fifty the rest of her life. Lauren Bacall type.

Jessica produced her ID and badge, introduced herself and Kevin.

"Are you Laura A. Somerville?" Jessica asked.

"Yes."

"We'd like to ask you a few questions," Jessica said. "Would that be okay?"

The woman put a hand to her throat. She looked at a point in space somewhere between the two detectives. Her eyes were a clear sapphire. "Is something wrong?"

"No, ma'am," Jessica said, hedging the truth. "Just a few routine questions."

The woman hesitated, then seemed to relax, the tension leaving her shoulders. She nodded, and without another word opened the door fully. She gestured them inside, closed the door behind them.

The apartment was blessedly cool. Almost cold. Jessica wanted to spend the rest of the summer here. Maybe the rest of her life. It smelled of jasmine tea.

"Can I get you something cold to drink?" the woman asked. "Soda? Lemonade?"

"We're fine, thanks," Byrne said.

Jessica glanced around the small, tastefully decorated apartment. It was a room full of older furniture. In one corner was a hutch full of sparkling figurines; the opposite wall held a long bookcase, crowded with books and boxes that appeared to contain games and jigsaw puzzles.

In front of the burgundy leather nailhead couch was an oak coffee table covered with magazines. Not covered exactly, Jessica realized, but tiled with magazines. Geometrically precise. Ten magazines, all opened, perfectly arranged, parallel and squared to each other. Two rows: five up, five below. Jessica looked at them a little more closely and discovered they were all crossword puzzle magazines. A pen lay on top of each, crossing the rectangle of off-white paper and black ink at a precise forty-five-degree angle. Ten magazines, ten pens.

"Wow," Jessica began. "You must be a serious crossword puzzle fan."

The woman waved a delicate, long-fingered hand. "Way beyond fan, I'm afraid," she said. She crossed the space, eased herself onto the couch. Jessica noticed that the woman's nails were done in the French manicure style. "Beyond addiction, even."

"Beyond addiction?" Jessica asked. As a police officer she had encountered every kind of addict there was-drugs, booze, sex, gambling, porn, food. She didn't know what the next level could be.

The woman nodded. "You see, the word 'addiction' hints at a cure."

Jessica smiled. She stepped closer, and now saw that the magazines were published in what appeared to be ten different languages. All the puzzles were at some stage of completion.

Jessica was stunned. Who does this?

She glanced over at her partner, and noticed that Byrne seemed captivated by an elaborate display of brightly colored boxes on the bookshelves.

"I see you are intrigued with my collection," the woman said to Byrne. "It is not very extensive, but it is well-balanced."

"I feel like a kid in here."

Laura Somerville smiled. "As George Bernard Shaw once said, 'We don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.' "

Men and games, Jessica thought. Her husband Vincent-a fellow PPD detective working out of Narcotics Field Unit North-was exactly the same way.

"What is this?" Byrne held up a beautiful white box. About six inches square, it appeared to be carved ivory. Whatever it was, it was old and delicate, probably a collectible.

The woman crossed the room, gently took the box from Byrne's big hands-in a manner suggesting that it was both rare and expen- sive-and put it down on a sideboard.

"This is called a tangram puzzle," she said.

Byrne nodded. "Never heard of it."

"It is quite intriguing," the woman said. "One of my passions." She reached over, turned up a small latch on the box, and gently opened it to reveal seven small, intricately carved pieces of ivory, seven geometric shapes snugly tucked inside: five triangles of varying sizes, one square, one rhombus. Or maybe it was a parallelogram. Jessica hadn't done all that well in geometry.

"It's about three thousand years old," she said. "The puzzle," she added with a wink. "Not this edition."

"It's Chinese?" Byrne asked.

"The origin of the puzzle itself is in some doubt," she continued. "It is most likely Chinese, although many Oriental games were really invented in Europe, then credited to the Orient in an attempt to make them seem more exotic."

"It's a jigsaw?"

"No, it's what's known as a rearrangement puzzle," the woman said. "Rearrangement puzzles go back to Loculus Archimedes in the third century B.C. Or thereabouts." She took one of the pieces from the box, held it up to the light. The ivory triangle shimmered small rainbows across the room. "This particular set was purchased at the Portobello Road market in London," she added. "By an old suitor."

Jessica saw a pastel glow rise in the woman's cheeks. Old suitors sometimes did that to a woman's memory.

"What's the point of the exercise?" Byrne asked.

Jessica had to smile. Kevin Byrne was an endgame kind of guy. Jessica was all about the rules. It was one of the reasons they clicked as partners.

"The point of the puzzle is to solve it, young man," Laura Somerville said. "To rearrange the pieces to match a diagram."

Byrne grinned broadly. "Okay," he said. "I'm game."

The woman stared at Byrne for a moment, as if she had just been challenged. The word game seemed to bring her alive. "Are you?"

Byrne blushed a little. It was the Irish curse. Get cornered or challenged, you went red. Even the toughest of the tough.

Jessica wanted to get down to business, but Kevin Byrne was better at gauging when someone was ready to talk. This woman was not a threat. She was, instead, a cog in the wheel of an investigation. They had time. And it was about sixty-five degrees in here.

"I am," Byrne said.

Laura Somerville reached into a drawer, removed a black velvet mat, placed it on the dining room table. She then carefully arranged the ivory tangram pieces on it. She handled them as if they were the bones of saints.

One square, five triangles, one parallelogram. Laura then retrieved a tall book from a shelf. It was beautifully bound, thick. "This is a book of games," she said. "It includes a history and collection of tangram. The author lives in Chester County." She flipped through the three hundred or so pages. Page after page had a dozen silhouettes of geometrically shaped items on them-buildings, animals, people, flowers. She stopped at a page near the middle. "For instance, here is a page of problems created by Chien-Yun Chi in about 1855. It is a page of tools and household items."

"All of these shapes are made from just these seven pieces?" Byrne asked.

"Yes."

"Wow." Byrne glanced at the diagram, studied it for a few moments.

She tapped a diagram at the bottom of the page. "This problem is a wedding drinking cup."

Byrne glanced at Laura Somerville, then at the carved ivory pieces. "May I?"

"Oh, by all means," she said.

"I'll be careful," Byrne said. For a big man, he was cautious, precise. Meticulous in his actions. When called for.

Byrne picked up the square and one of the large triangles. He stared at them closely, perhaps gauging their size and shape, their relationship to each other, his eyes darting from the diagram to the remaining pieces on the velvet.

He placed the big square on the velvet, the triangle to the right of it. He stared at the arrangement for a few seconds, then turned the triangle. He grasped two of the smaller triangles, held them over the emerging shape. He placed them on the table, moved them. He repeated this three or four times, his eyes roaming the geography of the puzzle.

A few minutes later, he was done. Jessica looked at both the diagram in the book and the arranged ivory pieces on the table. They were identical.

"Very impressive," Laura said.

"Was this a tough one?" Byrne asked.

"Tough enough."

Byrne beamed. He looked like a kid who had just hit a stand-up triple.

Jessica cleared her throat. "Right, well," she said. "Way to go, partner." It was time to get down to business. If they didn't, Kevin Byrne would probably play with the puzzle all day.

Laura Somerville hesitated a moment, then gestured to the chairs in the living room. "Please. Sit down," she said.

"This won't take too long," Jessica said. She took out her notebook, clicked a pen. "How long have you lived at this address?"

"Six years come October."

"Do you live alone?"

"Yes," she said.

"Do you know a young woman named Caitlin O'Riordan?"

The woman asked Jessica to repeat the name. She did. Laura Somerville seemed to think about it for a moment. "I'm sorry, the name doesn't ring a bell."

Jessica took out the photograph, handed it to the woman. "This is Caitlin," she said. "Do you recognize her?"

The woman took the photograph from Jessica, slipped on a pair of rose-tinted bifocals, examined the picture in the bright sunlight streaming through the window overlooking Locust Street. "I'm sorry," she said. "I do not."

Jessica put the photograph away. "Are you familiar with a building at 4514 Shiloh Street?"

"Shiloh Street?"

"Yes ma'am."

"I've never heard of it. Where is it?"

"North Philly."

"No," the woman said. "Sorry."

Jessica and Byrne exchanged a glance. "You're saying you're notfa- miliar with the building?"

The woman looked from Jessica, to Byrne, back to Jessica. "Can you please tell me what this is all about?"

Jessica gave the woman a brief account.

For more than a few seconds, the woman stared at Jessica in what seemed like shocked disbelief. "You're saying the young woman was murdered? The young woman in the photograph?"

"Yes," Jessica said. "And I'm afraid there is a connection to this building." Jessica held up the faxed document. "According to the Department of Licenses and Inspections, a series of calls have been placed from your telephone number regarding the building at 4514 Shiloh Street."

The woman stared at the paper, but did not put her glasses back on. She wasn't reading it. "I… I don't know anything about this. Anything at all."

"Could someone else have called from this number?"

The woman thought for a moment. "I have a woman come to clean once a month. But she is from Honduras. She doesn't speak much English."

Jessica didn't bother writing this down. She was just about to ask one final question when Laura Somerville said, "Can you excuse me for just one moment?"

"Of course."

The woman rose slowly, crossed the room, entered what Jessica figured to be the apartment's solitary bedroom. She closed the door behind her.

Jessica turned, looked at Byrne, shrugged, palms up and out. Byrne knew what she meant. What she meant was, you cross the city-the concrete canyons of Broad and Market streets, the alleys of North and South Philly-and you really had no idea what was going on behind those walls. Sometimes, you ran across someone who smoked crack and kept their children in a closet. Other times you discovered an elegant woman who lived alone in West Philly, a woman who could do crosswords in ten languages, a woman who had beautifully carved ivory puzzles on her bookshelves, puzzles purchased by a mysterious former suitor on London's Portobello Road.

Jessica stared out the window for a moment, at the heat-shimmered expanse of West Philadelphia. In the distance was a hazy iridescent image of the city.

"What do you think?" Byrne asked, sotto voce.

Jessica considered the question. "I think I don't know what to think," she said, matching his low volume. "You?"

"I think this woman doesn't have anything to do with the investigation."

"Then how does that explain the phone calls?"

"I don't know," Byrne said. "Let's leave it open with her."

"Okay. I'll just tell her that-"

Jessica was interrupted by the sound of shattering glass coming from the bedroom. It did not sound like someone dropping a tumbler or plate on the floor. It sounded as if a brick had been thrown through a window. Seeing as they were on the tenth floor, this was unlikely.

Byrne fired a glance at Jessica. The glance. They'd been partners for years, had been to hell and back, and there was no mistaking the look.

"Mrs. Somerville?" Byrne called out.

Silence.

Byrne waited a few more moments. "Ma'am?" he asked, a little louder this time. His voice seemed to reverberate between the walls, underscored by the low hum of the air conditioning. "Is everything all right?"

No response.

Byrne walked across the living room, put his ear to the bedroom door. He waited a few moments, listening, then looked back at Jessica, shook his head. He called out once more, even louder.

"Ma'am?"

Nothing.

Byrne took a deep breath, counted off a cop's second, then eased the doorknob to the right. He shouldered open the door, hand touching the grip of his weapon, flanked left, stepped into the room. Jessica followed.

As expected, it was a bedroom. Inside was a four-poster bed, 1950s vintage, as well as a dresser and writing desk, both from the same era. In the far corner was a brocade settee. In addition, there were two nightstands, a cheval mirror, one closet.

But no Laura Somerville.

The room was empty.

The window overlooking Locust Street had been shattered. A handful of glass shards sparkled on the worn carpeting. Broiling air roared inside, a hot and feral breath from hell. The smell of carbon and oil and exhaust filled the small space, along with a dozen different city sounds-traffic, shouts, hip-hop music among them. Beneath those sounds, closer, the CD player on the nightstand softly offered "Witchcraft." It was Sinatra's duet version with Anita Baker.

Jessica turned the CD player off, crossed the bedroom, slowly eased open the bedroom's one closet door. A puff of moth cakes and worn leather and sweet perfume leaked out. Inside was clothing on hangers, boxes, luggage, shoes, folded sweaters. On the bottom shelf were a pair of dusty, teal Samsonite suitcases. Above that, neatly stacked woolen blankets and sheets. To the right, on the top shelf, was what looked like a strong box of some sort.

But no people. The closet was empty.

Jessica closed the door, put her back to it. The two detectives then crossed the room, looked out the window. Below them, more than ten stories to the pavement, Laura Somerville lay on the baking sidewalk of Locust Street. Her head was demolished pulp, her body a jigsaw of ragged ends. From this height her form appeared to be a dark crimson Rorschach. A crowd was already collecting around the gruesome display.

Byrne got on his handset, called for an ambulance.

Jessica glanced at the writing desk in the corner. It was old, not quite an antique, worn, but well maintained. It held a Tiffany-style lamp, a pair of small black-and-white photos in a tarnished silver double-frame. It also bore a vintage Scrabble board. When Jessica looked more closely, she saw that the words on the board had been disturbed. They were off-center, not quite in their squares. A few of the tiles were scattered on the chair and the floor beneath the desk, as if someone had taken letters off the board in a hurry.

"Jess."

Byrne pointed at the windowsill. On the sill were four Scrabble tiles. It appeared to be a hastily spelled word, the wooden letters positioned at oblique angles to one another.

In her mind's eye, Jessica saw Laura Somerville enter this room just a few short moments ago, grab four tiles from her Scrabble board, arrange them on the windowsill, then leap to her death. Suddenly, despite the stifling air rushing in, Jessica was cold.

"Do you have any idea what this means?" she asked.

Byrne stared at the strange configuration a few more seconds. "No."

At that moment a siren erupted, just a few blocks away. Jessica glanced again at the Scrabble tiles on the windowsill.

One word glared back.

Ludo.

Byrne retrieved his phone from his pocket and flipped it open, preparing to call their boss. But before he could complete the call Jessica put her hand on his forearm, stopping him. She sniffed the air.

In addition to the fact that a woman had just leapt one hundred feet to her death-a woman who, until the Philadelphia Police Department had knocked on her door was only marginally connected to a four- month-old homicide investigation, if at all, a case that was growing more cryptic by the second-something else was wrong.

In a moment, Jessica knew. The smell of burning cotton and smoldering hardwood suddenly made her gag.

She looked at Byrne. No words were needed.

The two detectives bolted from the bedroom as the flames began to tear up the drapes, and across the living room.

The apartment was on fire.