Rosary girls

48

Before she left her father's house, Jessica had slipped into his small office in the basement, sat down at his computer, accessed the Internet, and navigated to Google. She found what she was looking for in short order, then printed it out.

While her father and aunts watched Sophie at the small park next to the Fleisher Art Memorial, Jessica walked down the street to a cozy cafe on Sixth Street called Dessert. It was much quieter than a park full of sugar-amped toddlers and Chianti-primed adults. Besides, Vincent had shown up and she really didn't need the fresh hell.

Over a Sacher torte and coffee she perused her findings.

Her first Google search had been the lines from the poem she found in Tessa's diary.

Jessica had her answer instantly.

Sylvia Plath. The poem was called "Elm."

Of course, Jessica thought. Sylvia Plath was the patron saint of all melancholy teenaged girls, the poet who committed suicide in 1963 at the age of thirty.

I'm back.Just call me Sylvia.

What had Tessa meant by that?

The second search she performed was about the incident regarding the blood that had been thrown on the door of St. Katherine on that crazy Christmas Eve three years earlier. There wasn't much about it in the archives of either the Inquirer or The Daily News. Not surprisingly, The Report had done the longest piece on it. Written by none other than her favorite muckraker, Simon Close.

It turned out that the blood had not been thrown on the door at all, but rather painted on with a brush. And it had been done while the congregation had been inside celebrating midnight mass.

The picture that accompanied the article was of the double doors leading into the church, but it was not clear. It was impossible to tell if the blood on the doors represented anything or nothing. The article didn't say.

According to the item, police investigated the incident, but when Jessica searched further, she found no follow-up.

She made a call and found out that the detective who looked into the incident was a man named Eddie Kasalonis.