Play dead

ONE HUNDRED SEVEN

Labor day weekend was a festive holiday in Philadelphia, in cluding the annual parade along Columbus Boulevard and the Arden Fair just across the Delaware River.

For Detectives Balzano and Byrne there was little festive about it. They stood in the duty room, all but deluged by the paperwork related to the Collector case. They would piece together a preliminary report by the end of the long weekend.

When Eve Galvez learned of the Caitlin O'Riordan case, she became obsessed. She closely followed the investigation, and when she felt that detectives Pistone and Roarke were not doing their job, Eve decided to do it for them. She photocopied their files, going so far as to take the interview notes from the binder, the notes that mentioned Mr. Ludo.

Night after night, for two months, Eve went out on the street, talking to kids, looking for any trace of Mr. Ludo. She tracked Joseph Swann in city parks, bus stations, train stations, to runaway and homeless shelters. She finally caught up to him one night in June. As strong and resourceful as she was, he proved too much for her. He overpowered her and buried her in a shallow grave in Fairmount Park. Her exact cause of death was still undetermined.

On the night she was killed, Eve had called her daughter and told her everything. They had never spoken before. Every birthday and Christmas, Eve had sent her something.

That night Eve took a picture of herself in front of Faerwood with her camera phone, and sent it to her daughter. She had told Graciella of Mr. Ludo, and her quest for the truth about Caitlin O'Riordan, right before she disappeared.

Two months later, when Eve's body was discovered in a shallow grave in Fairmount Park, Graciella took what little money she had and came to Philadelphia.

Graciella had been adopted when she was eight weeks old, by a couple named Ellis and Catherine Monroe. Graciella had gone by the name Grace Monroe all her life, until the night she talked to her mother.

When Graciella was nine, her adoptive father had left, and her mother Catherine had sleepwalked through life after that. The woman had never been that close to her adopted daughter, leaving her to live in a world of her own. It wasn't until three days after Graciella had run away to Philadelphia that the woman reported her missing.

Joseph Swann could never have known that he had always been on a collision course with Graciella Galvez.

According to letters and journals found in Laura Somerville's strongbox, Laura had met Karl Swann, the Great Cygne, when she was only twenty-three. They had met in Baton Rouge and Laura agreed to become his assistant. They toured the southern United States in the sixties and seventies, and for years she had been Odette-playing nurse and mother to young Joseph, playing the occasional lover to Karl Swann, but more important, playing accomplice to young Joseph's murderous past. According to her diary, there were six young people found dead around the Great Cygne's traveling show over the years. Laura's journal detailed where they were buried. The District Attorney's office passed along this information to the state police departments in Texas, Louisiana, and New Mexico.

At least ten pages of Laura Somerville's diary were a confession. When Jessica and Byrne showed up at her apartment, she apparently believed her past had caught up to her. It was she who had made the calls about Shiloh Street after all, having shadowed Joseph Swann for months, hoping to anonymously tip the police.

When Karl Swann hanged himself in 1988, his son Joseph rescued him just in time, nursing him back to health, but locking the man in a dark, cold wing in Faerwood.

As far as the investigators could determine, Karl Swann never again left Faerwood. He had essentially lived in that room on the third floor for twenty years. It appeared his son had cooked for him and attended to his basic needs. In time, Karl Swann's mental illness brought him back to 1950 again. He lived through his son's re-creation of his world. He had watched, via television monitor, everything that happened downstairs on Joseph's secret stage.

If Eve Galvez had been obsessed with Caitlin O'Riordan, Joseph Swann was obsessed with the prism of his own madness-magic, puzzles, and the dark history of Faerwood.

In the days following the fire, investigators unearthed the remains of six other victims on the grounds of the mansion. All were as yet unidentified. All were buried in brightly colored boxes.

Fire investigators reported that the fire would have spread quickly enough through the old, mostly wood structure, but was accelerated by the explosion of the small oil furnace in the basement.

Joseph Swann's charred skeleton was found in the east wing of the attic. It appeared he tried to hang himself, but the ME's office believed the fire had gotten to him first.

His father, Karl Martin Swann, the Great Cygne, was found in his room on the third floor.

In his hand was a beautiful mahogany wand.