Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense by Richard Montanari Page B

Whenever a victim was not identified at the scene, it tacked hours, sometimes even days onto the investigation. Precious time that could never be recovered.
    Jessica stepped away from the body as the CSU officers began their ceremony. They would slip on their Tyvek suits and make a grid of the space, taking detailed photographs of the scene, as well as a video. This place was a petri dish of subhumanity. There were probably prints of every derelict in North Philly here. The CSU team would be here all day. Probably well into the night.
    Jessica headed up the steps, but Byrne stayed behind. She waited for him at the top of the stairs, partly because she wanted to see if there was anything else he wanted her to do, partly because she really didn’t want to have to direct the investigation out front.
    After a short while, she walked a few treads back down, peering into the basement. Kevin Byrne stood over the young girl’s body, head down, eyes closed. He fingered the scar over his right eye, then dropped his hands to his waist, knit his fingers.
    After a few moments, he opened his eyes, made the sign of the cross, and started toward the steps.
     
    O N THE STREET more people had gathered, rubbernecking, drawn to the strobing police lights like moths to flame. Crime came often to this part of North Philly, but it never ceased to beguile and fascinate its residents.
    Emerging from the crime scene house, Byrne and Jessica approached the witness who had found the body. Although the day was overcast, Jessica gulped the daylight like a starving woman, grateful to be out of that clammy tomb.
    DeJohn Withers might have been forty or sixty; it was impossible to tell. He had no lower teeth, and only a few up top. He wore five or six flannel shirts and a pair of filthy cargo pants, each pocket bulging with some mysterious urban swag.
    “How long I gotta stay here?” Withers asked.
    “Got some pressing engagements, do you?” Byrne replied.
    “I ain’t gotta talk to you. I did the right thing by doing my civic duty and now I get treated like some criminal.”
    “Is this your house, sir?” Byrne asked, pointing to the crime scene house.
    “No,” Withers said. “It is not .”
    “Then you are guilty of breaking and entering.”
    “I didn’t break nothin’.”
    “But you entered.”
    Withers tried to wrap his mind around the concept, as if breaking and entering, like country and western, were somehow inseparable. He remained silent.
    “Now, I’m willing to overlook this serious crime if you answer a few questions for me,” Byrne said.
    Withers looked at his shoes, defeated. Jessica noted that he had a ripped black high-top on his left foot and an Air Nike on his right.
    “When did you find her?” Byrne asked.
    Withers screwed up his face. He pushed up the sleeves of his multitude of shirts, revealing thin, scabby arms. “It look like I got a watch?”
    “Was it light out, or was it dark out?” Byrne asked.
    “Light.”
    “Did you touch her?”
    “What?” Withers barked with true outrage. “I ain’t no goddamn pervert.”
    “Just answer the question, Mr. Withers.”
    Withers crossed his arms, waited a moment. “No. I didn’t.”
    “Was anyone with you when you found her?”
    “No.”
    “Did you see anyone else around here?”
    Withers laughed, and Jessica caught a full blast of his breath. If you blended rotten mayonnaise and week-old egg salad, then tossed it with lighter fluid vinaigrette, it would have smelled a little bit better. “Who comes down here ?”
    It was a good question.
    “Where do you live?” Byrne asked.
    “I’m currently at The Four Seasons,” Withers replied.
    Byrne suppressed a smile. He kept his pen an inch over the pad.
    “I stay at My Brother’s House,” Withers added. “When they got room.”
    “We may need to talk to you again.”
    “I know, I know. Don’t leave town.”
    “We’d appreciate it.”
    “There a reward?”
    “Only in heaven,” Byrne said.
    “I ain’t