The Killing Room

REVELATION

In the two weeks following the bloodbath at St Gedeon’s there were eleven homicides in the city of Philadelphia, more than sixty aggravated assaults, a score of burglaries.

Philadelphia moved on.

Both the Inquirer and Daily News ran stories for six straight days, with the first Sunday edition of the Inquirer devoting a full page to Mary Elizabeth Longstreet’s life and murderous rampage. The story chronicled what investigators found in the woman’s small South Philly apartment, specifically the dozens of bound volumes of medical histories and transcripts, including the highlighted records of six patients who had been targeted.

One of Dr Sarah Goodwin’s patients, a thief who had been to prison twice for armed robbery, was replaced in Mary Longstreet’s mad scheme by DeRon Wilson, a crime of both necessity and opportunity, police believed.

In the woman’s closets investigators also found a long black coat with a pointed hood — a coat they surmised Mary Longstreet herself wore in the surveillance video taken at St Adelaide’s — along with a number of full sets of clothing, outfits for a boy of ten, twelve, and fifteen. There was also one for a full grown adult. Each was a black suit, white shirt, and black tie.

None had ever been worn.

On the morning after being rushed to the hospital, Jessica underwent surgery to repair her shoulder. She was discharged five days later, despite her protestations that she was very comfortable in her room, especially with the part about having people wait on her hand and foot. Not to mention that fabulous invention called Percocet. She was released nonetheless.

The surgery, and recovery time, for Kevin Byrne was more serious. Having lost a lot of blood, Byrne was in ICU for five days, in recovery for a week. Jessica visited him every day, but on the morning of Byrne’s release she ran late and missed him, a trio of shiny Mylar balloons in hand.

Jessica later learned that Byrne went immediately from the hospital to the PPD evidence room, where he stayed until well past midnight, obsessed with the material collected from St Ignatios, the chapel in which Michelle Calvin had been found brutally murdered, her body posed on a bloodied mattress.

They say Byrne pored over the evidence for a long time, searching for a clue he was certain would be there, a pointer designed to lead investigators to the final church. He eventually found it. It was on the mattress tag:

UNDER PENALTY OF LAW THIS TAG

NOT TO BE REMOVED

EXCEPT BY CONSUMER

All but six of the letters had been carefully painted out with Michelle Calvin’s blood, leaving a single word.

GEDEON

A week later, when the crime scene was finally cleared by investigators, the demolition of St Gedeon’s began.

She found him at Holy Cross Cemetery in Lansdowne. Standing in a shaded area near Baily Road, he wore a dark suit and white shirt. As Jessica got closer she could see the bulk of the bandages that wrapped his stomach. He’d lost more than ten pounds, and his skin was pallid.

The services and funeral for the old priest, held a few days after the man’s death, had been well attended, with clergy and lay personnel coming from all over the tri-state area. The eulogy was given by the Archbishop of Philadelphia.

‘Hey, handsome.’

Byrne turned to see her. ‘Hey,’ he said softly. ‘What are you doing here?’

Jessica held up the bouquet of lilies, and offered a look that all but shouted: Where else would I be on such a day as this?

Byrne nodded.

For the next twenty minutes or so they watched the cemetery workers set the headstone. Byrne had paid a monument company to craft the old priest’s marker out of one of the keystones of St. Gedeon’s. The inscription read:

THOMAS ANGELO LEONE

DEO, OPTIMO, MAXIMO

When the workers left, Jessica and Byrne stood in silence for a few moments. The sun peeked out from behind the clouds and warmed their faces.

While Jessica had returned to duty, Byrne was still on medical leave. As much as he was missed, there was no pressure for him to return one minute before he was ready.

‘Don’t you have a shift?’ Byrne finally asked.

Jessica did, but she’d hoped Byrne wouldn’t notice. She was wrong, of course. She put a hand on his shoulder. ‘You gonna be okay?’

Byrne hesitated, then said: ‘I’m good, Jess.’

Jessica said a brief, silent prayer, placed the flowers on the grave, then walked slowly down the path to her parking spot on Baily Road.

When she reached her car she called the office, and told her boss she would be a little late. She put her phone away, leaned against the car, studied the tall man silhouetted against the green expanse of the cemetery.

Although he couldn’t see her, Jessica was certain Byrne knew she was there, just as she knew he would always be there for her.

They were partners.

This was the life they chose.

The kid looked happy.

Considering the hell that had been his life before his path intersected with Detective Kevin Francis Byrne, and the insanity that followed, it was quite remarkable.

Since that terrible night at St. Gedeon’s, Gabriel had attended six counseling sessions with a child psychologist. When Byrne pressed for information he was told that, all things considered, the boy was doing well.

They walked through the parking lot at the Wells Fargo Center, neither of them anxious for the evening to end. Byrne had called in a few markers, and finally got them courtside seats for the Sixers, as promised. On a historic night — the 50th anniversary of Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game — the Sixers won, beating the Golden State Warriors 105-83.

Still sore from his injury, Byrne had to exert a little extra effort to keep up with the boy. He would be damned if he would show it, though.

‘Think you might play ball one day?’ Byrne asked.

‘Nah,’ Gabriel said. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever be tall enough. My brother Terrell? He had a bomb diggity hook pass, man. You should have seen him.’

‘I would have liked that,’ Byrne said. ‘But keep in mind that being tall isn’t the whole game.’

‘It isn’t?’

‘Far from it. Look at A.I.,’ Byrne said, referencing Allen Iverson, the former Sixers point guard. ‘He’s only six feet or so.’

‘Even shorter than you,’ Gabriel said.

Byrne laughed. ‘Even shorter than me.’

They drove to North Philly in near silence, still feeling each other out in many ways. They never spoke of St. Gedeon’s. The cut on Gabriel’s forehead was treated at the scene that night, but did not require stitches. He would, however, have a small, crescent-shaped scar for the rest of his life.

Byrne pulled over in front of the foster home, put the car in park. Out of habit, he scanned the two side mirrors and rearview. No gangbangers on the corner. Maybe the word had gotten out.

‘I know it’s not your birthday for a few weeks, but in case I don’t see you, I wanted you to have this.’ Byrne reached into the back seat, brought forward the wrapped package. He handed it to Gabriel.

The boy beamed. ‘What is this?’

‘See, that’s kinda the point of the wrapping paper. You’re not supposed to know until you open it.’

Gabriel smiled, tore into the paper. Byrne watched the boy’s face as he turned the book over and saw the title:

FORGOTTEN PHILADELPHIA:

LOST ARCHITECTURE OF THE QUAKER CITY

Gabriel started thumbing through it. ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘This is really cool.’

Byrne was a bit worried about giving an eleven year old boy a book on architecture. He seemed to genuinely like it.

Gabriel stopped on a page with a photograph of the original Chestnut Street Theater. He turned the book so Byrne could see the picture.

‘Maybe I’ll do something like this some day,’ Gabriel said.

‘Maybe.’

‘I mean, you never know, right?’

‘No,’ Byrne said. ‘You never know.’

With Gabriel safely inside, Byrne thought about their time together, and what the future might hold. He wondered when Gabriel would learn of the scholarship fund that had been started for him, a trust that, coincidentally, was opened for the exact same amount recently taken from a North Philly drug dealer named Carter Wilson.

Allegedly taken, Byrne amended.

After sustaining his near fatal wounds, Byrne had been unconscious for eighteen hours, his mind misted with dark dreams, dreams that told him the visions — the premonitions and intuitions that had haunted him for more than two decades — were not quite done with him. Beneath it all he heard the echo of those five words, spoken by a madwoman.

You are the last saint.

Byrne eased into traffic, then turned onto Sixth Street, the glow of Center City before him like an armor of light, thinking:

No, Ruby Longstreet, I am not a saint, not by a long shot. Saints are blameless and pure. Saints are people like Father Thomas Leone.

I am just a man.

I am a guardian.