Play dead

TWENTY-NINE

As the sun softened into a dusty orange corona over West Philadelphia, Byrne drove to the location where Eve Galvez's body had been found. The crime scene was still taped off, secured by two officers in a sector car. It appeared that the CSU team had not completed its investigation.

Byrne identified himself to the young officers, passed the time of day with them, commiserating over the sheer numbing boredom of such a detail. He had been exactly where they were many times in his early days on the force. He wondered how badly these two guys had fucked up to draw this one. As a patrol officer, Byrne once had to stake out a trash can in a South Philly alley for a full shift, a trash can in which a homicide suspect had dropped a handgun used in a crime. Ostensibly, Byrne was staking out the Rubbermaid on the outside chance the perp might come back for the weapon. Nothing came of it, except for a sore ass, a stiff back, and a career-long empathy for twenty- something uniforms stuck in a beater, drawing a crap tour on a hot summer evening.

A few minutes later Byrne stood at the edge of the now-empty grave, a pall of sadness and anger washing over him. Nobody deserved a fate such as this, especially not a woman like Eve Galvez. He thought of the last time he had seen her. Then immediately flashed on the first time he had seen her.

That's all there is, Byrne thought. There are always memories in between, but the landmarks are the first time and the last time. You never get the chance to do those two over.

And you never see either of them coming.

They met at a wedding. The bridegroom was a detective from Central named Reggie Babineaux, an affable, slope-shouldered Cajun in his late thirties who had cut his teeth in the hard Fifth District in New Orleans, pre-Katrina. The ceremony and reception were held at the Mansion on Main Street, a sprawling ornate facility in Voorhees, New Jersey. In addition to a grand spiral staircase, vaulted mural ceilings, and cascading waterfalls, there was also a swan-filled pond and an all-glass ceremony site. To Byrne, it looked like it might have been decorated by Carmela Soprano, but he knew it was all pretty cher, as Reggie Babineaux would put it. Reggie had married into new money. His bride was far from a Vogue cover girl, but Reggie was still the envy of every mortgage- laden, shrew-burdened male civil servant in the room.

He spotted her as she stood at the bar with a fellow detective from the Philadelphia DA's office. Eve Galvez wore a tight red dress and black heels, a thin strand of pearls. Her silken brunette hair was down around her shoulders, her cafe au lait skin and dark eyes were incandescent in the soft light of the crystal chandeliers. Byrne couldn't take his eyes off her. He was hardly alone. Every man in the room was sneaking covert glances at the slender, Latina beauty at the bar.

Byrne asked his old friend, Assistant District Attorney Paul DiCarlo, for the details-the 229 as they said in the trade. A 229 report was a basic background form. DiCarlo told Byrne what little he said he knew. Eve Galvez had come to the DA's office three years earlier, had quickly made a reputation for herself as a smart, no-nonsense investigator.

DiCarlo added that just about every man at 1421 Arch Street- where the DA's office was located at the time; it had since moved to 3 Penn Square-unmarried and otherwise, had taken the obligatory run at Eve Galvez. As far as DiCarlo knew, she had rebuffed them all. Rumors abounded, but according to Paul DiCarlo, that's all they were: rumors. A beautiful woman in law enforcement, anywhere in the country, probably anywhere in the world, was subject to the worst nature of men. If they couldn't have her, some felt the need to demean her, to minimize her accomplishments, sometimes to thwart her advancement.

ADA Paul DiCarlo said Eve Galvez had taken it all, and had given most of it back. Despite behaviors that bordered on harassment- incidents that might have called for reprimands, even firings-she had never taken it to the bosses.

That night, at Reggie Babineaux's reception, three bourbons offshore, as the band swung into Robert Palmer's "Simply Irresistible"- a song Byrne would forever associate with that moment-he mustered the courage to approach Eve Galvez.

The attraction was instant, almost visceral. They verbally sparred for a while, until both realized that neither was going to back down, neither was going to have a glove raised in victory. Byrne was older than Eve Galvez by at least ten years, had three times as many years in on the job, but they quickly fell into a rhythm, a comfort zone that surprised them both.

Byrne recalled the way she leaned against the bar, the way she focused on him to the exclusion of everyone else in the room.

Those eyes.

They did not make love on their first date. They had dinner at Saloon in South Philly, a nightcap at Overtures. Somehow it became 4 AM. Byrne drove her home, walked her to her door. She did not invite him in. Instead, on the sidewalk in front of the entrance, she leaned into him, and gave him one of the softest, most seductive kisses on the cheek he'd ever received. The kiss promised redemption, if not life eternal.

Byrne stood there for ten minutes after she'd gone inside, staring at the gated door, willing it to open. No such luck.

Their second date was pretty much over before coffee was served. It was almost over before the appetizers. They made it back to Byrne's place-barely. But instead of the animal rutting they both expected, things slowed down rather quickly, and it became the sort of sweet, knowing intimacy you hope for deep into a relationship, the kind of love you make, say, on your fifth anniversary. It was that secret.

On their third date, five days later, Kevin Byrne gave Eve a charm bracelet-a bracelet bearing five small golden angels. He'd had her name engraved behind the clasp. He knew it was far too early in the relationship for jewelry, but when he saw the bracelet in the window of a jewelry store at Eighteenth and Walnut, he couldn't stop himself.

That year, as spring gave way to summer, the crime rate soared. For just about everyone involved in Philadelphia law enforcement, there were three parts to the day: your shift, your overtime, and four hours' sleep. Family obligations and lawns went untended. Relationships waned.

Byrne and Eve Galvez saw each other infrequently over the next few months. Neither could, or was willing to, explain why. The job and its stresses were the prevailing theory, one they both offered and accepted. They ran into each other at the Criminal Justice Center a few times. Once at a Phillies game. Byrne was with his daughter that day. Eve was with a man she introduced as her brother, Enrique. Weekly phone calls became biweekly, then monthly.

They had never promised each other a thing. That's who he was. That's who she was. There was so much he wanted to tell her, so much he should have told her.

Byrne turned his face to the sun for a moment, then knelt down. A bright blue tarpaulin was still stretched over this makeshift grave.

A few moments later Byrne touched the grass just inside the crime- scene tape. The vision came back in a brutal rush. For the first time in his life he wanted it to.

In his mind, behind a bloodred curtain of violence, he saw -Eve talking to a man in shadows… her hand in his… an enormous house surrounded by rusting iron spires… the sound of the shovel piercing the soil… the jangle of the charms on Eve's bracelet as her body was rolled into the earth… a man standing over the grave, a man with silver eyes…

Byrne eased himself to the ground. The grass was warm and dry. The pain in his temples pounded.

He closed his eyes, saw Eve's face. This time it was from the heart of a beautiful memory, not a dark and violent vision. She tossed her head back when she laughed. She would cross her legs, letting one high heel dangle from her toes as she read a newspaper.

Kevin Byrne stood, put his hands in his pockets, looked at the shimmering city.

A man with silver eyes.

He made Eve Galvez his very first promise.