Rosary girls

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Byrne had been waiting for her with a large coffee and a sesame seed bagel. The coffee was strong and hot, the bagel fresh.

Bless him.

Jessica hurried through the rain and slipped into the car, nodded a token greeting. To put it mildly, she was not a morning person, especially a six-o'clock-in-the-morning person. Her fondest hope was that she was wearing matching shoes.

They rode into the city in silence, Kevin Byrne respecting her space and waking ritual, realizing he had forced the shock of the new day upon her unceremoniously. He, on the other hand, looked wide-awake. A little ragged, but wide-eyed and alert.

Men had it so easy, Jessica thought. Clean shirt, shave in the car, a spritz of Binaca, a drop of Visine, ready for the day.

They made the ride to North Philly in short order. They parked near the corner of Nineteenth and Poplar. Byrne put on the radio at the half hour. The Tessa Wells story was mentioned.

With half an hour to wait, they hunkered down. Occasionally, Byrne flipped the ignition to start the wipers, the defrosters.

They tried to talk about the news, the weather, the job. The subtext kept bulling forward. Daughters.

Tessa Wells was someone's daughter.

This realization hardwired them both into the brutal soul of this crime. It might have been their child. "SHE'LL BE THREE NEXT MONTH," Jessica said.

Jessica showed Byrne a picture of Sophie. He smiled. She knew he had a marshmallow center. "She looks like a handful."

"Two hands," Jessica said. "You know how it is when they're that age. They look to you for everything." "Yeah."

"You miss those days?"

"I missed those days," Byrne said. "I was working double tours in those days."

"How old is your daughter now?"

"She's thirteen," Byrne said.

"Uh-oh," Jessica said.

"Uh-oh is an understatement."

"So… she have a house full of Britney CDs?"

Byrne smiled again, thinly this time. "No."

"Oh boy. Don't tell me she's into rap."

Byrne spun his coffee a few times. "My daughter is deaf."

"Oh my," Jessica said, suddenly mortified. "I'm… I'm sorry."

"That's okay. Don't be."

"I mean… I just didn't-"

"It's okay. Really. She hates sympathy. And she's a lot tougher than you and me combined."

"What I meant was-"

"I know what you meant. My wife and I went through years of sorry. It's a natural reaction," Byrne said. "But to be quite honest, I've yet to meet a deaf person who thinks of herself as handicapped. Especially Colleen."

Seeing as she had opened this line of questioning, Jessica figured she might as well continue. She did, gently. "Was she born deaf?"

Byrne nodded. "Yeah. It was something called Mondini dysplasia. Genetic disorder."

Jessica's mind turned to Sophie, dancing around the living room to some song on Sesame Street. Or the way Sophie would sing at the top of her lungs amid the bubbles in the tub. Like her mother, Sophie couldn't tow a tune with a tractor, but she was earnest in the attempt. Jessica thought about her bright, healthy, beautiful little girl and considered how lucky she was.

They both fell silent. Byrne ran the wipers, the defroster. The windshield began to clear. The girls had yet not arrived at the corner. Traffic on Poplar was beginning to thicken.

"I watched her once," Byrne said, sounding a little melancholy, as if he had not spoken of his daughter to anyone in a while. The longing was obvious. "I was supposed to pick her up at her deaf school, and I was a little early. So I pulled over to the side of the street to grab a smoke, read the paper.

"Anyway, I see this group of kids on the corner, maybe seven or eight of them. They're twelve, thirteen years old. I'm not really paying them any mind. They're all dressed like homeless people, right? Baggy pants, big shirts hanging out, untied sneakers. Suddenly I see Colleen standing there, leaning against the building, and it's like I don't know her. Like she's some kid who kind of resembles Colleen.

"All of a sudden, I'm really interested in all the other kids. Who's doing what, who's holding what, who's wearing, what, what their hands are doing, what's in their pockets. It's like I'm patting them all down from across the street."

Byrne sipped his coffee, threw a glance at the corner. Still empty.

"So she's holding her own with these older boys, smiling, yakking away in sign language, flipping her hair," he continued. "And I'm thinking: Jesus Christ. She's flirting. My little girl is flirting with these boys. My little girl who, just a few weeks ago, climbed into her Big Wheel and went pedaling down the street wearing her little yellow I HAD A WILD TIME IN WILDWOOD T-shirt is flirting with boys. I wanted to cap the horny little pricks right there.

"And then I watched one of them light a joint, and my fucking heart stops. I actually heard it wind down in my chest like a cheap watch. I'm ready to get out of the car with my cuffs in my hand when I realized what it would to do to Colleen, so I just watch.

"They pass it around, casual, right on the corner, like it's legal, right? I'm waiting, watching. Then one of the kids offers the joint to Colleen and I knew, I knew she was going to take it and smoke it. I knew she would grab it and take a long, slow hit off this blunt, and I suddenly saw the next five years of her life. Pot and booze and coke and rehab and Sylvan to get her grades back up and more drugs and the pill and then… then the most incredible thing happened."

Jessica realized she was staring at Byrne, rapt, waiting for him to finish. She snapped out of it, prodded. "Okay. What happened?"

"She just… shook her head," Byrne said. "Just like that. No thanks. I doubted her at that moment, I completely broke faith with my little girl, and I wanted to tear my eyes out of my head. I was given the opportunity to trust her, completely unobserved, and I failed. I failed. Not her."

Jessica nodded, trying not to think about the fact that she was going to have to deal with a moment like that with Sophie in about ten years, not looking forward to it at all.

"And it suddenly occurred to me," Byrne said, "after all these years of worry, all these years of treating her as if she were fragile, all these years of walking on the street side of the sidewalk, all these years of staring down the idiots watching her sign in public and thinking she was a freak, all of it was unnecessary. She's ten times tougher than I am. She could kick my ass."

"Kids will surprise you." Jessica realized how inadequate it sounded when she said it, how completely uninformed she was on this subject.

"I mean, of all the things you fear for your kid: diabetes, leukemia, rheumatoid arthritis, cancer-my little girl was deaf. That's it. Other than that, she's perfect in every way. Heart, lungs, eyes, limbs, mind. Perfect. She can run like the wind, jump high. And she has this smile… this smile that could melt the glaciers. All this time I thought she was handicapped because she couldn't hear. It was me. I'm the one who needs a freakin' telethon. I didn't realize how lucky we are."

Jessica didn't know what to say. She had mistakenly summed up Kevin Byrne as a streetwise guy who muscled his way through his life and his job, a guy who ran on instinct instead of intellect. There was quite a bit more at work here than she realized. She suddenly felt like she had won the lottery in being partnered with him.

Before Jessica could respond, two teenaged girls approached the corner, umbrellas up and open against the drizzle.

"There they are," Byrne said.

Jessica capped her coffee, buttoned her raincoat.

"This is more your turf." Byrne nodded toward the girls, lighting a cigarette, hunkering down in the comfortable-read: dry-seat. "You should handle the questions."

Right, Jessica thought. I suppose it has nothing to do with standing in the rain at seven o'clock in the morning. She waited for a break in the traffic, got out of the car, crossed the street.

On the corner were two girls in Nazarene school uniforms. One was a tall, dark-skinned black girl with the most elaborate network of corn- rowed hair Jessica had ever seen. She was at least six feet tall and stunningly beautiful. The other girl was white, petite, and small-boned. They both carried umbrellas in one hand, wadded-up tissues in the other. Both had red, puffy eyes. Obviously, they had already heard about Tessa.

Jessica approached, showed them her badge, told them she was investigating Tessa's death. They agreed to talk to her. Their names were Patrice Regan and Ashia Whitman. Ashia was Somali.

"Did you see Tessa at all on Friday?" Jessica asked.

They shook their heads in unison.

"She didn't come to the bus stop?"

"No," Patrice said.

"Did she miss a lot of days?"

"Not a lot,"Ashia said between sniffles. "Once in a while."

"Was she the type to bag school?" Jessica asked.

"Tessa?" Patrice asked, incredulous. "No way. Like, never Г

"What did you think when she didn't show?"

"We just figured she wasn't feeling good or something," Patrice said. "Or it had something to do with her dad. Her dad's pretty sick, you know. Sometimes she has to take him to the hospital."

"Did you call her or talk to her during the day?" Jessica asked.

"No."

"Do you know anybody who might have talked to her?"

"No," Patrice said. "Not that I know of."

"What about drugs? Was she into the drug scene?"

"God, no," Patrice said. "She was like Sister Mary Narc."

"Last year, when she took off three weeks, did you talk to her much?"

Patrice glanced at Ashia. There were secrets entombed in that look. "Not really."

Jessica decided not to push. She consulted her notes. "Do you guys know a boy named Sean Brennan?"

"Yeah," Patrice said. "I do. I don't think Ashia ever met him."

Jessica looked at Ashia. She shrugged.

"How long were they seeing each other?" Jessica asked.

"Not sure," Patrice said. "Maybe a couple of months or so."

"Was Tessa still seeing him?"

"No," Patrice said. "His family moved away."

"Where to?"

"Denver, I think."

"When?"

"I'm not sure. About a month ago, I think."

"Do you know where Sean went to school?"

"Neumann," Patrice said.

Jessica made notes. Her pad was getting wet. She put it in her pocket. "Did they break up?"

"Yeah," Patrice said. "Tessa was pretty upset."

"What about Sean? Did he have a temper?"

Patrice just shrugged. In other words, yes, but she didn't want to get anybody in trouble.

"Did you ever see him hurt Tessa?"

"No," Patrice said. "Nothing like that. He was just… just a guy.You know."

Jessica waited for more. More was not forthcoming. She moved on. "Can you think of anyone Tessa didn't get along with? Anyone who might have wanted to do her harm?"

This question started the waterworks again. Both girls began to cry, wiping at their eyes. They shook their heads.

"Was she seeing anyone else after Sean? Anyone who might have been bothering her?"

The girls thought for a few seconds, and again shook their heads in unison.

"Did Tessa ever see Dr. Parkhurst at school?"

"Sure," Patrice said.

"Did she like him?"

I guess.

"Did Dr. Parkhurst ever see her outside of school?" Jessica asked.

"Outside?"

"As in socially."

"What, like a date or something?" Patrice asked. She screwed up her face at the idea of Tessa dating a man as ancient as thirty or so. As if. "Uh, no."

"Do you guys ever go to him for guidance counseling?" Jessica asked.

"Sure," Patrice said. "Everybody does."

"What sorts of things do you talk about?"

Patrice thought about it for a few seconds. Jessica could see that the girl was concealing something. "School, mostly. College apps, SATs, stuff like that."

"Ever talk about anything personal?"

Eyes earthward. Again.

Bingo, Jessica thought.

"Sometimes," Patrice said.

"What sort of personal things?" Jessica asked, recalling Sister Mercedes, the guidance counselor at Nazarene when she attended. Sister Mercedes was built like John Goodman and had a perpetual scowl. The only personal thing you talked about with Sister Mercedes was your promise not to have sex until you were forty.

"I don't know," Patrice said, getting interested in her shoes again. "Stuff."

"Did you talk about the boys you were seeing? Things like that?"

"Sometimes,"Ashia answered.

"Did he ever ask you to talk about things that you found embarrassing? Or maybe a little bit too personal?"

"I don't think so," Patrice said. "Not that I can, you know, remember."

Jessica could see that she was losing her. She pulled out a pair of business cards and handed one each to the two girls. "Look," she began. "I know this is tough. If you think of anything that can help us find the guy who did this, give us a call. Or if you just want to talk. Whatever. Okay? Day or night."

Ashia took the card, remained silent, the tears building again. Patrice took the card, nodded. In unison, like synchronized mourners, the two girls lifted the balled tissues in their hands and dabbed at their eyes.

"I went to Nazarene," Jessica added.

The two girls looked at each other, as if she had just told them she had once attended the Hogwart School.

"Seriously?"Ashia asked.

"Sure," Jessica said. "Do you guys still carve stuff under the stage in the old auditorium?"

"Oh yeah," Patrice said.

"Well, if you look right under the newel post on the stairs leading under the stage, on the right-hand side, there is a carving that reads JG AND BB 4EVER."

"That was you?" Patrice looked quizzically at the business card.

"I was Jessica Giovanni then. I carved that in tenth grade."

"Who was BB?" Patrice asked.

"Bobby Bonfante. He went to Father Judge."

The girls nodded. Father Judge boys were, for the most part, pretty irresistible.

Jessica added: "He looked like Al Pacino."

The two girls glanced at each other, as if to say: Al Pacino? Isn't he, like, grandpa old? "Is that the old guy who was in The Recruit with Colin Farrell?" Patrice asked.

"A young Al Pacino," Jessica added.

The girls smiled. Sadly, but they smiled.

"So did it last forever with Bobby?"Ashia asked.

Jessica wanted to tell these young girls that it never does. "No," she said. "Bobby lives in Newark now. Five kids."

The girls nodded again in deep understanding of love and loss. Jessica had them back. Time to cut it off. She'd take another run at them later.

"By the way, when do you guys get off for Easter break?" Jessica asked.

"Tomorrow,"Ashia said, her sobs all but dried.

Jessica flipped up her hood. The rain had already ruined whatever style her hair had held, but now it was starting to come down hard.

"Can I ask you something?" Patrice asked.

"Sure."

"Why… why did you become a cop?"

Even before Patrice's question, Jessica had a feeling that the girl was going to ask her that. It still didn't make the answer any easier. She wasn't entirely sure herself. There was legacy; there was Michael's death. There were reasons even she didn't know yet. In the end she said, modestly: "I like to help people."

Patrice dabbed her eyes again. "Does it ever, you know, creep you out?" she asked. "You know, to be around…"

Dead people, Jessica finished, in her mind. "Yeah," she said. "Sometimes."

Patrice nodded, finding common ground with Jessica. She pointed at Kevin Byrne, sitting in the Taurus across the street. "Is he your boss?"

Jessica looked over, looked back, smiled. "No," she said. "He's my partner."

Patrice absorbed this. She smiled through her tears, perhaps in the understanding that Jessica was her own woman, and said, simply: "Cool."

Jessica shook off as much rain as she could, then slipped into the car.

"Anything?" Byrne asked.

"Not really," Jessica said, consulting her notepad. It was soaked. She tossed it into the backseat. "Sean Brennan's family moved to Denver about a month ago. They said Tessa wasn't seeing anyone else. Patrice said he was kind of a hothead."

"Worth looking at?"

"I don't think so. I'll put in a call to the Denver Board of Ed. See if young Mr. Brennan has missed any days recently."

"What about Dr. Parkhurst?"

"There's something there. I can feel it."

"What's your gut?"

"I think they talk about personal things with him. I think they think he's a little too personal."

"Do you think Tessa was seeing him?"

"If she was, she didn't confide in her friends," Jessica said. "I asked them about Tessa's three-week sabbatical from school last year. They got hinky. Something happened to Tessa around Thanksgiving last year."

For a few moments, the investigation halted, their separate thoughts met only by the staccato rhythms of the rain on the roof of the car.

Byrne's phone chirped as he started the Taurus. He flipped the cell open.

"Byrne… yeah… yeah… outstanding," he said. "Thanks." He flipped the phone closed.

Jessica looked at Byrne, waiting. When it became clear that he was not about to share, she asked. If reticence was his nature, nosiness was hers. If this relationship was going to work, they would have to find a way to jigsaw the two.

"Good news?"

Byrne glanced over at her, as if he had forgotten she was in the car. "Yeah. The lab just made a case for me. They matched a hair with evidence found on a vic,"he said. "This fucker is mine."

Byrne gave her a recap of the Gideon Pratt case. Jessica heard the passion in his voice, the deep sense of subdued rage as he talked about the brutal, senseless death of Deirdre Pettigrew.

"Gotta make a quick stop," he said.

A few minutes later they came to a rolling rest in front of a proud but struggling row house on Ingersoll Street. The rain was coming down in broad, cold sheets.As they exited the car and drew near the house, Jessica saw a frail, light-skinned black woman in her forties standing in the doorway. She wore a quilted magenta housecoat and tinted, oversized glasses. Her hair was in a multicolored African wrap; her feet were clad in white plastic sandals at least two sizes too large.

The woman put her hand to her breastbone when she saw Byrne, as if the sight of him stole her ability to breathe. A lifetime of bad news had walked up these steps, it seemed, and it probably all came from the lips of people who looked like Kevin Byrne. Big white men who were cops, tax assessors, welfare agents, landlords.

As they climbed the crumbling steps, Jessica noticed a sun-faded eight-by-ten photo in the living room window, a leached print made on a color copier. The photo was an enlargement of a school snapshot of a smiling black girl of about fifteen. There was a loop of fat pink yarn in her hair, beads in her braids. She wore a retainer and seemed to be smiling despite the serious hardware in her mouth.

The woman did not invite them in, but mercifully there was a small awning over her front stoop, shielding them from the downpour.

"Mrs. Pettigrew, this is my partner, Detective Balzano."

The woman nodded at Jessica, but continued to bunch her housecoat to her throat.

"Have you…," she began, trailing off.

"Yes," Byrne said. "We caught him, ma'am. He's in custody."

Althea Pettigrew's hand covered her mouth. Tears welled in her eyes. Jessica could see that the woman wore a wedding ring, but the stone was gone.

"What… what happens now?" she asked, her body vibrating with anticipation. It was clear that she had prayed for and dreaded this day for a long time.

"That's up to the DA's office and the man's attorney," Byrne replied. "He'll be arraigned, and then there will be a preliminary hearing."

"Do you think he might…?"

Byrne took her hand in his, shaking his head. "He's not getting out. I'm going to do everything I can to make sure he never walks free again."

Jessica knew how many things could go wrong, especially in a capital murder case. She appreciated Byrne's optimism and at this moment it was the right sentiment to convey. When she was in Auto, she'd had a hard time telling people she was sure they were going to get their cars back.

"Bless you, sir," the woman said, then all but threw herself into Byrne's arms, her whimpers morphing into full-grown sobs. Byrne held her gingerly, as if she were made of porcelain. His eyes met Jessica's, saying: This is why. Jessica glanced over at the picture of Deirdre Pettigrew in the window. She wondered if the photo would come down today.

Althea composed herself somewhat, then said: "Wait right here, would you?"

"Sure," Byrne said.

Althea Pettigrew disappeared inside for a few moments, reappeared, then placed something into Kevin Byrne's hand. She wrapped her hand around his, closing it. When Byrne opened his hand, Jessica could see what the woman had handed him.

It was a well-worn twenty-dollar bill.

Byrne stared at it for a few moments, a bit bewildered, as if he had never seen American currency before. "Mrs. Pettigrew, I… I can't take this."

"I know it isn't much," she said, "but it would mean so much to me."

Byrne straightened out the bill as he appeared to organize his thoughts. He waited a few moments, then handed the twenty back. "I can't," he said. "Knowing that the man who did that terrible thing to Deirdre is in custody is enough payment for me, believe me."

Althea Pettigrew scrutinized the big police officer in front of her with a look of disappointment and respect on her face. Slowly, reluctantly, she took the money back. She put it into the pocket of her housecoat.

"Then you will have this," she said. She reached behind her neck and took off the delicate silver chain. The chain held a small silver crucifix.

When Byrne tried to decline this, the look in Althea Pettigrew's eyes told him she would not be refused. Not this time. She held it out until Byrne took it.

"I, uh… thank you, ma'am," was all that Byrne could manage.

Jessica thought: Frank Wells yesterday, Althea Pettigrew today. Two parents separated by worlds and just a few blocks, joined in unimaginable grief and sorrow. She hoped they would have the same results for Frank Wells.

Although he was probably doing his best to mask it, as they walked back to the car Jessica noticed a slight spring in Byrne's step, despite the downpour, despite the grimness of their current case. She understood it. All cops did. Kevin Byrne was riding a wave, a small ripple of satisfaction known to law enforcement professionals when, after a lot of hard work, the dominoes fall and they spell out a beautiful pattern, a clean, borderless image called justice.

Then there was the other side of the business.

Before they could get in the Taurus, Byrne's phone rang again. He answered, listened for a few seconds, his face void of expression. "Give us fifteen minutes," he said.

He snapped the phone shut.

"What is it?" Jessica asked.

Byrne made a fist, poised to smash it into the windshield, stopped himself. Barely. Everything he had just felt was gone in an instant.

"What?" Jessica repeated.

Byrne took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, said: "They found another girl"