The Doll Maker

Book 9: Byrne and Balzano

by Richard Montanari

Genres: Police Procedurals

Synopsis

Detectives Byrne and Balzano return to the streets of Philadelphia to put an end to a macabre succession of murdered children.

A quiet Philadelphia suburb. A woman cycles past a train depot with her young daughter. There she finds a murdered girl posed on a newly painted bench. Beside her is a formal invitation to a tea dance in a week's time.

Seven days later, two more young victims are discovered in an abandoned house, posed on painted swings. At the scene is an identical invitation. This time, though, there is something extra waiting for Detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano: a delicate porcelain doll.

It's a message. And a threat. With the killers at large, Detectives Byrne and Balzano have just seven more days to find the link between the murders before another innocent child is snatched from the streets.

Release date: April 28, 2015

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 496

Sample

At just after six a.m., as every other day, Mr Marseille and I opened our eyes, dark lashes counterweighted to the light.

It was mid-November, and although the frost had not yet touched the windows—this usually comes to our eaves in late December—there was a mist on the glass that gave the early morning light a delicate quality, as if we were looking at the world through a Lalique figurine.

Before we dressed for the day we drew our names in the condensation on the windowpane, the double l in Mr Marseille’s name and the double l in mine slanting toward one another like tiny Doric columns, as has been our monogram for as long as we both could remember.

Mr Marseille looked at the paint swatches, a frown tilling his brow. In the overhead lights of the big store his eyes appeared an ocean blue, but I knew them to be green, the way the trees appear after the first draft of spring, the way the grass of a well-tended cemetery looks on the Fourth of July.

On this day, beneath our drab winter overcoats, we were dressed for tea. My dress was scarlet; his suit, a dove gray. These were the colors of our amusements, you see, the feathers by which we cleave our places at the table.

‘I don’t know,’ Mr Marseille said. ‘I just don’t know.’

I glanced at the selections, and saw his impasse. There had to be a half-dozen choices, all of which, from just a few feet away, could be described as yellow. Pale yellow, at that. Not the yellow of sunflowers or school buses or taxicabs, or even the yellow of summer corn. These were pastel shades, almost whitish, and they had the most scandalous of names:

Butter Frosting. Lemon Whip. Sweet Marzipan.

Mr Marseille hummed a song, our song, almost certainly turning over the words in his mind, perhaps hoping for a flicker of inspiration.

I soon became distracted by a woman with a small child, passing by at the end of our aisle. The woman wore a short puffy jacket and shockingly tight denim jeans. Her makeup seemed to have been applied in haste—perhaps reflected in a less than well-silvered mirror—and gave her an almost clownish look in the unforgiving light of the store. The child, a toddler at oldest, bounced along behind the woman, deliriously consumed by an oversized cookie with brightly colored candies baked in. A few moments after they passed from view I heard the woman exhort the child to hurry up. I don’t imagine the little boy did.

At the thought of the mother and child I felt a familiar yearning blossom within me. I scolded it away, and turned once more to Mr Marseille and his assessments. Before I could choke the words, I pointed at one of the paint swatches in his hands, and asked:

‘What’s wrong with this one? Candlelight is a delightful name. Quite apropos, n’est-ce pas?’

Mr Marseille looked up—first at the long, empty aisle, then at the myriad cans of paint, then at me. He replied softly, but forcefully:

‘It is my decision, and I will not be hurried.’

I simply hated it when Mr Marseille was cross with me. It did not happen often—we were kindred and compatible spirits in almost all ways, especially in the habits of color and texture and fabric and song—but when I saw the flare in his eyes I knew that this would be a day of numbering, our first since that terrible moment last week, a day during which a young girl’s blood would surely be the rouge that colored my cheeks.

We rode in our car, a white sedan that, according to Mr Marseille, had once been advertised during a football game. I don’t know much about cars—or football, for that matter—and this was not our car, not by any watermark of legal ownership. Mr Marseille simply drove to the curb about an hour earlier, and I got in. In this manner it became our car, if only for the briefest of times. Mr Marseille, like all of our kind, was an expert borrower.

The first thing I noticed was that the front seat smelled of licorice. The sweet kind. I don’t care for the other kind. It is bitter to my tongue. There are some who crave it, but if I’ve learned anything in this life it is that one can never reason, or truly understand, the tastes of another.

We drove on Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the magnificent divided thoroughfare that I’ve heard is patterned, after a fashion, on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. I’ve never been to Paris but I’ve seen many photographs, and this seems to be true.

I speak a cluttered French, as does Mr Marseille—sometimes, for sport, we go for days speaking nothing else—and we often talk of one day travelling from the City of Brotherly Love to the City of Light.

The trees along the parkway were deep in their autumn slumber, but I’ve been on this street in summer, when the green seems to go on forever, bookended by the stately Museum of Art at one end, and the splendid Swann Fountain on the other. On this November morning the street was beautiful, but if you come here in July it will be breathtaking.

We followed the group of girls at a discreet distance. They had attended a showing of a film at the Franklin Institute, and were now boarding a bus to take them back to their school.

Mr Marseille had thought of making our invitation on Winter Street, but decided against it. Too many busybodies to ruin our surprise.

At just after noon the bus pulled over near the corner of Sixteenth and Locust. The teenage girls—about a dozen in number, all dressed alike in their school uniforms—disembarked. They lingered on the corner, chatting about everything and nothing, as girls of an age will do.

After a short time, a few cars showed up; a number of the girls drove off in backseats, carpooled by one mother or another.

The girl who would be our guest walked a few blocks south with another of her classmates, a tall, lanky girl wearing a magenta cardigan, in the style of a fisherman’s knit.

We drove a few blocks ahead of them, parked in an alley, then marched briskly around the block, coming up behind the girls. Girls at this age often dawdle, and this was good for us. We caught them in short order.

When the tall girl finally said goodbye, on the corner of Sixteenth and Spruce, Mr Marseille and I walked up behind our soon-to-be guest, waiting for the signal to cross the street.

Eventually the girl looked over.

‘Hello,’ Mr Marseille said.

The girl glanced at me, then at Mr Marseille. Sensing no threat, perhaps because she saw us as a couple—a couple of an age not significantly greater than her own—she returned the greeting.

‘Hi,’ she said.

While we waited for the light to change, Mr Marseille unbuttoned his coat, struck a pose, offering the well-turned peak lapel of his suit jacket. The hem was a pick stitch, and finely finished. I know this because I am the seamstress who fitted him.

‘Wow,’ the girl added. ‘I like your suit. A lot.’

Mr Marseille’s eyes lighted. In addition to being sartorially fastidious, he was terribly vain, and always available for a compliment.

‘What a lovely thing to say,’ he said. ‘How very kind of you.’

The girl, perhaps not knowing the correct response, said nothing. She stole a glance at the Walk signal. It still showed a hand.

‘My name is Marseille,’ he said. ‘This is my dearest heart, Anabelle.’

Mr Marseille extended his hand. The girl blushed, offered her own.

‘I’m Nicole.’

Mr Marseille leaned forward, as was his manner, and gently kissed the back of the girl’s fingers. Many think the custom is to kiss the back of a lady’s hand—on the side just opposite the palm—but this is not proper.

A gentleman knows.

Nicole reddened even more deeply.

When she glanced at me I made the slightest curtsy. Ladies do not shake hands with ladies.

At this moment the light changed. Mr Marseille let go of the girl’s hand and, in a courtly fashion, offered her safe passage across the lane.

I followed.

We continued down the street in silence until we came to the mouth of the alley; the alley in which we parked our car.

Mr Marseille held up a hand. He and I stopped walking.

‘I have a confession to make,’ he said.

The girl, appearing to be fully at ease with these two polite and interesting characters, stopped as well. She looked intrigued by Mr Marseille’s statement.

‘A confession?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Our meeting was not by accident today. We’re here to invite you to tea.’

The girl looked at me for a moment, then back at Mr Marseille.

‘You want to invite me to tea?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said.

Mr Marseille smiled. He had a pretty smile, brilliantly white, almost feminine in its deceits. It was the kind of smile that turned strangers into cohorts in all manner of petty crime, the kind of smile that puts at ease both the very young and the very old. I’ve yet to meet a young woman who could resist its charm.

‘Every day, about four o’clock, we have tea,’ Mr Marseille said. ‘It is quite the haphazard affair on most days, but every so often we have a special tea—a thé dansant, if you’ll allow—one to which we invite all our friends, and always someone new. Someone we hope will become a new friend. Won’t you say you’ll join us?’

The young woman looked confused. But still she was gracious. This is the sign of a good upbringing. Both Mr Marseille and I believe courtesy and good manners are paramount to getting along in the world these days. It is what lingers with people after you take your leave, like the quality of your soap, or the polish of your shoes.

‘Look,’ the young lady began. ‘I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else. But thanks anyway.’ She glanced at her watch, then back at Mr Marseille. ‘I’m afraid I have a ton of homework.’

With a lightning fast move Mr Marseille took the girl by both wrists, and spun her into the alleyway. Mr Marseille is quite the athlete, you see. I once saw him catch a common housefly in midair, then throw it into a hot skillet, where we witnessed its life vanish into an ampersand of silver smoke.

As he seized the girl I watched her eyes. They flew open to their widest: counterweights on a precious Bru. I noticed then, for the first time, that her irises had scattered about them tiny flecks of gold.

This would be a challenge for me, for it was my duty—and my passion—to re-create such things.

We sat around the small table in our workshop. At the moment it was just Nicole, Mr Marseille, and me. Our friends had yet to arrive. There was much to do.

‘Would you like some more tea?’ I asked.

The girl opened her mouth to speak, but no words came forth. Our special tea often had this effect. Mr Marseille and I never drank it, of course, but we had seen its magical results on others many times. Nicole had already had two cups, and I could only imagine the colors she saw; Alice at the mouth of the rabbit hole.

I poured more tea into her cup.

‘There,’ I said. ‘I think you should let it cool for a time. It is very hot.’

While I made the final measurements, Mr Marseille excused himself to make ready what we needed for the gala. We were never happier than at this moment, a moment when, needle in hand, I made the closing stiches, and Mr Marseille prepared the final table.

We parked by the river, exited the car. Before showing our guest to her seat, Mr Marseille blindfolded me. I could barely conceal my anticipation and delight. I do so love a tea.

Mr Marseille does, as well.

With baby steps I breached the path. When Mr Marseille removed my scarf, I opened my eyes.

It was beautiful. Better than beautiful.

It was magic.

Mr Marseille had selected the right color. He often labored over the decision for days, but each time, after the disposing of the rollers and trays and brushes, after the peeling away of the masking tape, it was as if the object of his labors had always been so.

Moments later we helped the girl—Nicole Solomon was her full name—from the car. Her very presence at our table made her absent from another. Such is the way of all life.

As Mr Marseille removed the stockings from the bag, I made my goodbye, tears gathering at the corners of my eyes, thinking that Mr Shakespeare was surely wrong.

There is no sweetness in parting.

Only sorrow.

I returned to where Mr Marseille stood, and pressed something into his gloved hand.

‘I want her to have this,’ I said.

Mr Marseille looked at what I had given him. He seemed surprised. ‘Are you sure?’

I was not. But I’d had it so long, and loved it so deeply, I felt it was time for the bird to fly on its own.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m sure.’

Mr Marseille touched my cheek and said, ‘My dearest heart.’

Under the bright moon, as Philadelphia slept, we watched the shadow of the girl’s legs cast parallel lines on the station house wall, just like the double l in Anabelle and Mr Marseille.

They always come back.

If there was one truth known to Detective Kevin Francis Byrne—as well as any veteran law enforcement officer, anywhere in the world—it was that criminals always come back for their weapons.

Especially the expensive ones.

There were, of course, mitigating circumstances that might prevent this. The criminal being dead, to mention one happy outcome. Or being incarcerated. Not as joyous, but serviceable.

Even though there was always the distinct possibility that the police knew where you had stashed the weapon, and might be watching that spot in case you came back, in Kevin Byrne’s experience, that had never stopped them.

Not once.

There were some who believed that the police, as a rule, were stumbling oafs who only managed to catch the dumb criminals. While the argument for this was persuasive, to some, it was not true. For Kevin Byrne, as well as most of the lifers he knew, the saying was a little different.

You catch the dumb ones first.

It was the second full day of surveillance and Byrne, who had enough years under his badge to have passed it off to a younger detective, volunteered to take last out, the shift that went from midnight to eight a.m. There were two reasons for this. One, he had long ago given in to his insomnia, working on the theory that he was one of those people who only needed four or five hours of sleep per night to function. Two, there was a much better chance that the man for whom they were looking—one Allan David Trumbo—would come for the weapon in the middle of the night.

If there was a third reason, it was that Byrne had a dog in this fight.

Six days earlier, Allan Wayne Trumbo—a two-time loser with two armed robbery convictions and a manslaughter conviction under his belt—walked into a convenience store near the corner of Frankford and Girard, put a gun to the head of the night clerk, and demanded all the money in the register. The man behind the counter complied. Then, as surveillance footage showed, Trumbo took a step back, leveled the weapon and fired.

The man behind the counter, Ahmed Al Rashid, the owner of Ahmed’s Grocery, died on his feet. Trumbo, being the criminal mastermind that he is, then took off his ski mask in full view of the surveillance camera, reached into a rack, and took a package of TastyKake mini donuts. Coconut Crunch, to be exact.

By the time Trumbo stepped out onto the street, sector cars from the 26th District were already en route, just a few blocks away. The police pole camera on the corner of Marlborough and Girard showed the man dumping his weapon into a city trashcan just inside an alley, half a block east of Marlborough Street.

Although it was not Byrne’s case, he knew Ahmed, having visited the bodega many times when he was a young patrol officer. Byrne didn’t know a single cop who had ever had to pay for a cup of coffee at Ahmed’s. His brimming tip jar was testament to his generosity.

Trumbo took that money, too.

Rule number one for any homicide detective was to never take any case personally. In the case of the cold-blooded murder of Ahmed Al Rashid, Byrne decided to disregard this rule, as he had many times before.

Byrne knew that Trumbo would come back for the weapon. He just didn’t think it would take this long.

At the request of the PPD, the Sanitation Division of the Philadelphia Streets Department had not touched that particular trashcan since the incident. It had been under surveillance, in one manner or another, from the moment Trumbo walked away.

Investigators also had the AV Unit make a big show of taking down the two cameras that covered this end of the block—three police vans at noon, taking three times as long taking down the cameras than it took to put them up. If you were watching, and if you paid attention to such things, you would think that, for the time being, Big Brother was not watching this small corner of Philadelphia.

If you were stupid, that is.

Detectives from the Firearms Unit had taken the .38 Colt from the trashcan within an hour or so of Trumbo having dumped it and, with their mobile unit parked a block away, removed the firing pin, rendering the gun inoperable. They did this on the outside chance that, if this operation went south, they would not be putting a functioning handgun back on the street, in the hands of someone who had already committed murder with it.

While they’d had the weapon, the ID Unit took the chance to dust the gun for latents, and were happy to report that Allan Wayne Trumbo’s prints were all over it.

Byrne glanced at his watch. Three-ten a.m. Even this part of the city was asleep. He was parked in a nondescript black Toyota, borrowed from the Narcotics Unit. Nobody had uglier, more invisible cars than the narcos.

Ahmed’s Grocery had reopened, still braving the twenty-four-hour schedule. Even in light of the terrible tragedy, bills had to be paid. The rear door was now locked, but Byrne had a key, just in case he needed to use the restroom, which was just inside the back door.

At three-fifteen he needed to use the restroom.

Byrne got out of the car, locked it, walked to the rear entrance to the bodega.

A few minutes later he walked out the back door of the sandwich shop. Before stepping into the light he glanced at his car. His iPhone was still propped on the dash where he’d left it. If Trumbo had come to rescue his now-disabled weapon from the trashcan, Byrne would at least know about it.

Seeing the alley just as he’d left it, Byrne headed to his car. He didn’t take three steps before he heard the unmistakable sound of the hammer being drawn back on a revolver.

Byrne turned slowly, hands out to his sides, and came face to face with Allan Wayne Trumbo. In Trumbo’s hand was a Smith and Wesson .22.

‘You 5-0?’ Trumbo asked.

Byrne just nodded.

‘Homicide?’

Byrne said nothing.

Trumbo stepped behind Byrne, reached around, removed Byrne’s sidearm from his holster. He placed it on the ground, kicked it toward the wall. He stepped back around to face Byrne, standing more than a few feet away. Trumbo had, of course, done this a few times. You don’t stand within arm’s length. That only happened in the movies, and only when the hero slapped the gun from the bad guy’s hand.

Byrne was no hero.

‘I didn’t shoot that old man,’ Trumbo said.

‘What old man?’

‘Don’t fuck with me, motherfucker. I know why you’re here.’

Byrne squared off, never taking his eyes from Trumbo’s eyes. ‘You need to think about this.’

Trumbo looked down the alley, at no one at all, then back at Byrne. It was street theater, starring, as always, the man with the gun. ‘Excuse me?’

Byrne watched the barrel of the weapon, looking for the slightest shake that would signal trouble. For the moment the man’s hands were steady.

‘What I mean to say is, you need to reconsider the next few minutes of your life.’

‘Is that right?’

‘It is,’ Byrne said. ‘We have you in that store, Trumbo. Two cameras. Front and side. Not sure why you took off the mask, but that’s your business.’ Byrne lowered his hands slightly. ‘It was bad enough you killed Ahmed, and you will go down for that. But if you kill a police officer, I guarantee you that you don’t sleep fifteen minutes straight for the rest of your life. You need to think about this. Your life starts now.’

Trumbo looked at the weapon in his hand, back at Byrne. ‘You’re telling me what I need to do? Maybe you catch a hot one tonight.’

‘Maybe.’

Trumbo smiled. Byrne felt an icy drop of sweat trickle down his spine. He’d pushed this too far.

‘Let’s just call it friendly advice,’ Byrne said with a lot more confidence than he felt.

‘Oh, you my friend now?’

Byrne said nothing.

Trumbo nodded at the Chevy parked at the turnoff in the alley. ‘That yours?’

Byrne nodded.

‘Nice car,’ he said with a smirk. ‘Keys in it?’

Byrne looked down and to his left. ‘In my left front pocket.’

‘Okay, then. Slow—and I mean slow like I fuck your wife—and with two fingers, I want you to get me them keys.’

Before Byrne could move, the night air was sliced by the sound of a young woman’s laugh. The sound was so odd, in this scenario, at this late hour, that both men froze.

An instant later they turned to see two rather inebriated people—a young man and a young woman—walking toward them up the alley, arm in arm.

Byrne closed his eyes, waited for the three gunshots, one of which would certainly end his life. When he didn’t hear them, he opened his eyes.

The man entering the alley was in his thirties, fair haired, with a droopy Fu Manchu mustache. He wore faded Levi’s and a short denim jacket. He had his arm around a dark-eyed beauty—tight black jeans, hoop earrings. She was a few years younger. When the young woman saw the man with the gun she stopped, her eyes wide with fear.

She stepped behind Fu Manchu, doing her best not to look at the man with the .22.

‘Whoa,’ Fu Manchu said, slowly putting his hands up and out front.

‘D’fuck you doing?’ Trumbo asked. ‘Get the fuck out of here.’

Byrne saw that the woman had already managed to slip out of her heels.

Nobody did anything.

‘Wait,’ the woman began. ‘You’re saying I can go?’

‘You deaf? I said get the fuck out of here.’

The young woman backed up a few paces, now keeping her eyes on the man with the gun, then turned and ran down the alley, to the corner, and disappeared.

While Trumbo was momentarily distracted, Byrne inched toward his weapon on the ground.

‘You too,’ Trumbo said to Fu Manchu. ‘This ain’t your business.’

The young man kept his hands out to his sides. ‘I hear you, boss,’ he said. ‘No problem.’

‘Just back up and follow your bitch.’

A look came over Fu Manchu’s face, one Byrne recognized as acknowledgment. ‘I know you,’ the young man said.

‘You know me?’ Trumbo asked.

The young man smiled. ‘Yeah. We met in ’09. Summer.’

‘I don’t know you, man,’ Trumbo said. The gun hand began to tremble. Never a good sign, in Byrne’s experience, and he had enough experience in situations like this for three lifetimes.

‘Yeah. You’re Mickey’s cousin. Mickey Costello.’

‘I know who my fucking cousin is,’ Trumbo said. ‘How you know Mickey?’

‘Same way I know you, bro. We did that body shop up on Cambria. Me and Mickey took the door; you and Bobby Sanzo drove the van.’

Trumbo wiped the sweat from his forehead, began to nod. ‘Yeah. Yeah. All right. You’re…’

‘Spider.’ He pulled up a sleeve to reveal a highly detailed tat of a spider and a web. At his wrist was a fly, trapped in the web.

‘Spider. I remember.’ Trumbo was sweating profusely now. ‘Bobby’s dead, you know.’

‘Heard.’

‘Got cut pulling that dime in Graterford.’

Fu Manchu shook his head. ‘He was in Dannemora. In New York.’

‘Right,’ Trumbo said. ‘Dannemora.’

It was clearly a test, and Fu Manchu apparently passed. He nodded at Byrne.

‘What you got going on here, my brother?’

Trumbo gave the man a brief rundown on the situation.

Fu Manchu pointed at the trashcan. ‘That’s the can?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why don’t you just go get it? I got this.’

‘You got this?’

The man lifted up the front of his shirt. There, in his waistband, was the grip of a 9mm semi auto.

‘Nice,’ Trumbo said.

‘It stops the rain.’

As is the way of the street, Fu Manchu got bumped up a notch.

Trumbo nodded at Byrne. ‘He doesn’t fucking move.’

‘Not one inch, my brother.’

Trumbo stuck his .22 into the back of his jeans, walked over to the trashcan. He tipped it onto its side, began to fumble around. After a few seconds he reached in, pulled out the greasy brown bag. He lofted it, feeling the heft. He looked inside.

‘Oh yeah.’

Before Trumbo could stand up, Fu Manchu took a step forward. He put the barrel of his Glock to the back of Trumbo’s head.

Trumbo: ‘You gotta be fuckin’ kidding me.’

‘No joke,’ Fu Manchu said. He pulled the .22 from Trumbo’s waistband, then took out a pair of stainless steel handcuffs. ‘Put your hands behind your back.’

Byrne watched Trumbo’s eyes shift back and forth, looking for a play. There was none. He was on his knees, unarmed, with a gun to his head. Byrne soon saw resignation. Trumbo complied.

With Trumbo now handcuffed, Fu Manchu reached into his back pocket, produced a leather wallet, flicked it open. He held it in front of Trumbo’s eyes. Trumbo focused, read the name aloud:

‘Joshua Bontrager?’

‘That’s Detective Joshua Bontrager to you, sir.’

‘Jesus Christ, a cop?’

‘Well, I am,’ Bontrager said. ‘Our Lord and Savior, however, was not.’

Trumbo said nothing. Bontrager reached up, gently peeled away the false mustache.

If Trumbo had seen the pole cameras come down out on the block, he had not seen the two go up on the rooftops of the two buildings that formed the alley, cameras pointing directly down at them. The whole time Byrne had been in Ahmed’s Grocery—less than a minute—the alley had been under video surveillance from a nearby van, where Josh Bontrager and fellow officers were waiting to step in if needed.

And man were they ever needed, Byrne thought.

The young woman who had been with Bontrager—Detective Maria Caruso—came around the corner with a pair of uniformed officers from the 26th District.

She looked at Bontrager standing over the handcuffed suspect. ‘Look at you, making friends in the big city already,’ she said.

Bontrager smiled. ‘We’re not in Berks County any more, Auntie Em.’

Maria laughed, high-fived Bontrager.

There was a pretty good chance that Allan Wayne Trumbo did not see the humor in any of this.

Byrne thought: What did they have? They had the suspect’s fingerprints on the weapon, the weapon was in the system, and they had the suspect in custody, down on his knees in a dirty alleyway in Fishtown—where he belonged, at least for the moment—and all was right in William Penn’s ‘greene country towne.’

Police were currently holding James ‘Spider’ Dimmock in the cells beneath the Roundhouse on an outstanding warrant. Although the resemblance would not hold up if the men were standing side by side, Josh Bontrager and Spider Dimmock looked enough alike for the purposes of this night detail, right down to the temporary tattoo and the stick-on mustache.

Ten minutes later Byrne walked out of the alley. He had possibly once been this tired, but not for a long time. He approached the sector car in which Allan Wayne Trumbo was safely secured.

Byrne opened the back door of the car, looked Trumbo in the eyes. There was a lot he wanted to say. In the end he said:

‘He had five children.’

Trumbo glanced up, a confused look on his face.

‘Who did?’ he asked.

Byrne looked heavenward, back at Trumbo. He wanted to draw down, cap the little asshole for target practice, or at the very least send him off with a broken jaw for pointing a gun at him, but that would have ruined everything. Instead, he reached into his pocket, retrieved something he’d purchased inside Ahmed’s Grocery, tossed it onto Trumbo’s lap.

It was a package of TastyKake donuts.

Coconut Crunch, to be exact.

As hectic as the duty room of the Homicide Unit often was—at any given time there could be upwards of fifty people here, sometimes more—Byrne never ceased to marvel at how quiet it could be in the middle of the night. The PPD Homicide Unit ran 24/7, with three shifts of detectives.

At this hour it was a handful of detectives working leads on computers, filling out the endless paperwork, making notes about the next day’s interviews.

Byrne put in a call to the primary detective on the Ahmed’s Grocery case, alerting him to the arrest. The man had been sound asleep, but nothing woke you up faster or more refreshed than hearing that one of your cases—especially a brutal homicide—was on the way to closure. The detective, a lifer named Logan Evans, promised to pay for Byrne’s daughter’s wedding.

It was a figure of speech. A few rounds of drinks at Finnigan’s Wake would probably do.

Byrne needed to decelerate. Nothing was more life affirming, or exhilarating, than having a gun stuck in your face, and living to tell the tale.

He grabbed a stack of newspapers, rifled through, looking for the front section. He found it, glanced at the date.

It was from six days earlier.

Doesn’t anybody in this place throw anything away?

He went through the pile again, found nothing more recent. He poured some coffee, put his feet up.

Before long a short item caught his eye. It was no more than a few column inches, written by a crime beat reporter for the Inquirer. Police everywher