Play dead

SEVENTEEN

Jessica looked at the file. It was thin, but that was to be expected. The Eve Galvez case had just a day earlier gone from missing person to homicide. It would be a while until they even had a cause of death, if ever.

It wasn't their case, but right now Jessica's curiosity was outrunning her priorities. Especially now that she knew Kevin Byrne had a past with the woman.

Jessica got onto the PPD website and checked the Missing Persons pages. The section was divided into four parts: Missing Children, Other Jurisdiction Missing Persons, Unidentified Persons, and Long- Term Missing Adults. On the Missing Adults page Jessica found a dozen entries, almost half being elderly residents suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's. A few people on the page were missing since 1999. Nearly a decade. Jessica considered the strength needed for family members and loved ones to hold out hope for that long. Maybe strength wasn't the word. Maybe it was something more akin to faith.

Eve Galvez's entry was halfway down the web page. The picture was of a striking, exotic woman with dark eyes and hair. Jessica knew the entry would soon be removed, only to be replaced with another mystery, another case number.

She wondered if Eve Galvez's killer had ever visited this web page. She wondered if he came here to see if his handiwork was still a puzzle to the police. She wondered if he scanned the daily newspapers looking for a headline that told him his secret had been uncovered, that a new game was afoot, that a body had been discovered buried in Fairmount Park, and that authorities "had not yet identified the remains," that a new set of adversaries had been conscripted.

Jessica wondered if he wondered whether or not he had left a clue behind, a hair or fiber or fingerprint, trace evidence that would bring a knock on his door in the middle of the night, or a phalanx of 9 mm pistols to his car windows as he sat at a red light in Center City, daydreaming of his wretched life.

At 8:00 AM Kevin Byrne entered the duty room. Jessica walked right by him, through the maze of corridors, into the hallway, not even sparing him a glance or a "good morning." Byrne knew what it meant. He followed. When they were out of earshot of everyone in the room, alone in the hall, Jessica pointed an accusatory finger, said, "We have to talk about this." They had left Fairmount Park around three o'clock that morning, neither having said a word.

Byrne looked at the floor for a moment, then back into her eyes.

Jessica waited. Byrne said nothing. Jessica tossed both hands skyward. Still nothing. She pressed. "So, you were seeing her?" she asked, somehow keeping her voice low.

"Yes," Byrne said. "On and off."

"Okay. Was it on or off when she went missing?"

"It was over for a long time by then." Byrne leaned against the wall, hands in pockets. To Jessica, it looked like he hadn't slept a wink. His suit coat was wrinkled, his tie creased. Kevin Byrne was no fashion plate, but Jessica had long ago learned that he felt a sense of responsibility to the image of the job-the history of the people who called themselves Philadelphia police officers-and that sense of responsibility included clean shirts, pressed suits, and shined shoes. Today he was 0 for 3.

"You want the backstory?" he asked.

She didn't and she did. "I do."

Byrne took a moment, fingering the V-shaped scar over his right eye, a scar he had gotten many years earlier, a result of a vicious attack by a homicide suspect. "Well, we both kind of knew early on it wasn't going anywhere," he said. "We probably knew that on the first date. We were polar opposites. We were never exclusive to each other, we always saw other people. By last fall we were pretty much at the 'let's grab some lunch' stage. After that is was Rite Aid greeting cards and drunken voicemails in the middle of the night."

Jessica absorbed the details. The "backstory" Byrne was describing didn't go back far enough. Or deep enough. Not for her. She believed she knew a great deal about her partner-his unyielding love for his daughter Colleen, his commitment to his job, the way he took the grief of a victim's family and made it his own-but she had long ago conceded that there were many parts of his personal life from which she was, and would always be, excluded. For instance, she had never actually been inside his apartment. On the sidewalk directly below his living room window, yes. Parked around the corner, discussing a case, many times. Actually inside Kevin Byrne's current living quarters, no.

"Did the FBI contact you when she disappeared?"

"Yeah," Byrne said. "Terry Cahill. Remember him?"

Jessica did. Cahill had consulted with the PPD on a particularly gruesome case a few years earlier. He had nearly gotten killed for his efforts. "Yeah."

"I told him what I knew."

Silence. Jessica wanted to punch him for this. He was making her dig. Maybe it was her penance for asking. "Which was what?"

"The who, the what, the where. I told him the truth, Jess. I hadn't seen or talked to Eve Galvez for months."

"When you spoke to Cahill, did he ask your opinion?"

"Yeah," Byrne said. "I told him I thought Eve might have been caught up in the life. I knew she was drinking too much. I didn't think it was serious. Besides, I've had my jags. I'm in no position to judge."

"So, how come I didn't know anything about this?" she asked. "I mean, I knew an investigator from the DA's office had gone missing, but I didn't know you knew her. I didn't know you were interviewed. Why didn't you tell me?" She hoped she didn't sound matronly. On the other hand, she didn't really care. She had an obligation.

Byrne took what seemed like a full minute. "I don't know. I'm sorry, Jess."

"Yeah, well," Jessica said, in lieu of something pithy or clever. She tried to think of something else to ask. She couldn't. Or maybe she realized she had pushed this line of inquiry far enough. She didn't like the position she found herself in. Hell, she had learned 90 percent of what she knew on the job from Kevin Byrne, and here she was putting him on the spot.

At that moment a pair of uniformed officers walked out of the unit, toward the elevators. They made brief eye contact with Jessica and Byrne, nodded a good morning, moved on. They knew what the hallway was for.

"We'll continue this later, right?" Jessica asked.

"I've got a half-day off, remember?"

She had forgotten. Byrne had put in for it a while back. He had also been a little mysterious about it, so she hadn't pressed. "Tomorrow then."

"By the way, have we gotten the lab results on the remains?"

"Just the preliminaries. The heart in the old fridge was human. It belonged to a female, twelve to twenty-five years old."

"How long has it been in that specimen jar?"

"There's no way to tell with any accuracy, not without a hell of a lot more tests," Jessica said. "Preserved is preserved, I guess. ME's office thinks it's less than a year. They also say it was rather inexpertly removed, so this is probably not something that was stolen from a med school laboratory. So, until we find a body to match this organ, the case is going on a shelf."