Play dead

FORTY-TWO

Jessica got on the computer. for the past two days. She'd been trying to block out an hour or so to run some things. If their killer was playing a sick game with the department, the city, then there was a chance that there were things they were not seeing, pieces of the puzzle that did not quite fit. Yet.

She made a list of names, references, places, possibilities, and impossibilities.

She knew that sometimes a search engine could make a connection you might never think of. Sometimes the result of a search was so far off it got you thinking in a new direction.

Forty minutes later she had answers. She knew Byrne was down in the cafeteria. Unable to wait for the elevator, she ran down the stairs.

Byrne was nursing a cold coffee, a wooden Danish, skimming the Daily News.

"You're not going to believe this," Jessica said.

"Man, do I love it when conversations begin this way."

Jessica pulled out a chair, sat down. "I ran everything I could think of through a few search engines, along with a couple of things I never thought would click."

Byrne folded the paper. "Okay. What do we have?"

"Well, I think we know what game he was playing with the name Jeremiah Crosley. Nonetheless, I ran a search regarding the Book of Jeremiah. Interesting guy, but not one of the biggies. Josh was right. Jeremiah was no ray of sunshine. Nothing jumped.

"Next, our guy said he lived at 2917 Dodgson Street. As we know, there is no Dodgson Street in Philly, right?"

"Can't argue with the folks atMapQuest."

"I have issues with MapQuest. They always seem to lead me right into construction. But that's for later. Anyway, I found a Dodgson Street in Lancashire, England, but I figured that would be one hell of a commute, even for a psycho. There are, however, a number of other references. The one that stuck out was a person's name. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Ever heard of him?"

Byrne shook his head.

"That's because he was much better known by another name: Lewis Carroll, author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Turns out he was also a fanatical game and puzzle enthusiast. Plus, I discovered there's something called the Alice in Wonderland syndrome, also known as micropsia, which causes a person to perceive large objects as being much smaller."

"The big red, yellow, and blue boxes in that crawlspace, and the small colored squares in the Bible," Byrne said.

"It might be a stretch, but yeah, it crossed my mind." Jessica pulled up another chair, put her feet up on it. "Next I ran ludo. Guess what it means?"

"You're going to make me guess everything, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"I have no idea what it means."

Jessica held up a color printout. It was a graphic of a game board: a large square marked with a cross. Each arm of the cross was divided into three columns; each column was divided into six smaller squares. The large squares were brightly colored. "Ludo."

"It's colored squares," Byrne said. "Again."

"Yeah, but there are four of them, not three."

"Is it possible we missed something down there?"

"In that crawlspace? Not a thing," Jessica said. "I also looked up the origin of ludo, as in, the origin of the word. Guess where it comes from?"

"Greek."

"Latin," Jessica said. "It gets its name from the word ludus."

"Which means?"

Jessica put both hands out, palms up, in her best ta-da fashion. "It means game"

Byrne turned to the window. He tapped his coffee stirrer on the rim of his cup. Jessica let him absorb the details.

"I think we can safely assume that the old woman was completely certifiable, yes?" he finally said.

"Yes."

"And deeply involved in this somehow."

"Up to her broken neck."

Byrne turned back to the table. "Remember that puzzle I did? The one with the geometric shapes?"

"Tangram."

"Right. She had that book about tangram and other games. The one with all the diagrams in it."

"What about it?"

"I think we should find a copy of that book."

"She said the author lived in Chester County."

"Even better."

Byrne called Chester County Books amp; Music. He got the store manager on the line, identified himself.

"What can I do for you?" the man asked.

"We're trying to locate a local author."

"Sure. What's the name?"

"That I don't know, but I believe he lives in Chester County. He wrote a book about games and puzzles, and in it were a lot of-"

"David Sinclair," the man said, interrupting him. "He's written a few books on the subject. He's done some signings here."

"Do you know how to get hold of him?"

"I'm sure I have his number somewhere."

"Could you ask him to give us a call? As soon as possible if you can. It's very important."

"Sure. No problem."

Byrne gave the man his cell phone number, thanked him, hung up.

Since the story broke on the murder and mutilation of Monica Renzi, the PPD's press office had held a news conference. The official word was that it was still not known if the murder of Monica Renzi was connected to the murder of Caitlin O'Riordan, but that did not stop the mainstream press from speculation, or the alternative press from simply saying so.

In typical journalistic fashion, they had to pin a name on this case. A "unnamed source" within the police department told a reporter that there was a man who was taking girls off the street, keeping them in custody for a while before killing them. The newspaper referred to the killer as "The Collector."

Byrne figured no one at the paper, a birdcage liner called The Report, had ever read The Collector by John Fowles-a novel about a young man, a butterfly collector, who kidnaps a woman and keeps her in his basement-but that didn't matter. It would only be a matter of time before the mainstream press picked up on it, then the public, and eventually it would find its way into police department memos.

The four detectives met in the lobby of the Roundhouse. They were all dressed in casual clothes. The strategy being, if they were going to talk to runaways and homeless kids, they wanted to look like anything but authority figures. Byrne and Andre Curtis were pretty much hopeless in this area. They both looked like cops. Jessica and Josh Bontrager were a little more likely to gain their confidence.

Jessica wore jeans and a white T-shirt and running shoes. She could almost pass for a college student, Byrne thought. Byrne wore a black polo shirt and chinos. He looked like an off duty cop trying to blend in. But he was surprised to see that this shirt fit. It had been getting a little tight. Maybe he was getting in shape after all.

Jessica briefed Josh Bontrager and Dre Curtis on what she had found online. They made their notes and headed out.

A few minutes later Jessica and Byrne walked out of the Roundhouse. The air was a blast furnace. Still no rain.

"Ready to revisit your misspent youth?" Byrne asked as they slipped into the Taurus.

"What are you talking about?" Jessica said. "I'm still misspending it."

While Josh Bontrager and Dre Curtis went to Penn Treaty Park, Jessica and Byrne started on South Street. They parked on Columbus Boulevard and took the South Street pedestrian bridge over I-95.

South Street was part of the Queen Village neighborhood, one of the oldest sections of Philadelphia. Its business district ran from Front Street to around Ninth Street.

On the way to South Philly they had decided that it would be best for Jessica to ask the questions. Byrne would shadow her from the other side of the street.

They began at Front Street, in front of Downey's, and slowly worked their way west. This section of South was crammed with pubs, restaurants, clubs, bookstores, record stores, piercing and tattoo parlors, pizza shops, and even one large condom specialty store. It was a magnet for young people of all styles-Goth, punk, hip-hop, skateboarders, collegiates, Jersey Boys-as well as a thriving tourist trade. There wasn't too much you couldn't find on this street; legal, otherwise, and every stop in between. To a lot of people, South was the beating heart of Philly.

Between Second and Third, Jessica talked to a group of teenagers; three boys and two girls. Byrne always marveled at how good she was at things like this. They had to identify themselves as police officers of course, and the few kids Byrne tried to approach on his own just took off once Byrne produced his ID. Not so for Jessica. People opened up to her.

All of the kids said they were either from Philly, or in town visiting relatives. Nobody was ever a runaway.

At the corner of Fourth and South, Jessica talked to a young girl. The girl, about fifteen, had her blond hair in pigtails, and wore a tie- dyed tank top and denim skirt. She had a half dozen piercings in her nose, lips, and ears. Byrne was out of earshot, but he saw that when Jessica showed the girl a photograph, the girl studied it, then nodded. A minute later Jessica handed the girl a card, moved on.

It turned out to be a dead end. The girl said she had heard of a girl named Starlight, but had never met her, and had no idea where she might be.

By the time they got to Tenth Street, where the shopping and hangout spots dropped off, they had talked to fifty or sixty teenagers, about two dozen shop owners. No one remembered seeing either Caitlin O'Riordan or Monica Renzi. No one knew anything about anything.

Jessica and Byrne grabbed lunch at Jim's Steaks, and headed to the train station.