Jessica put the photograph away. “Are you familiar with a building at 4514 Shiloh Street?”

“Shiloh Street?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“I’ve never heard of it. Where is it?”

“North Philly.”

“No,” the woman said. “Sorry.”

Jessica and Byrne exchanged a glance. “You’re saying you’re not familiar with the building?”

The woman looked from Jessica, to Byrne, back to Jessica. “Can you please tell me what this is all about?”

Jessica gave the woman a brief account.

For more than a few seconds, the woman stared at Jessica in what seemed like shocked disbelief. “You’re saying the young woman was murdered? The young woman in the photograph?”

“Yes,” Jessica said. “And I’m afraid there is a connection to this building.” Jessica held up the faxed document. “According to the Department of Licenses and Inspections, a series of calls have been placed from your telephone number regarding the building at 4514 Shiloh Street.”

The woman stared at the paper, but did not put her glasses back on. She wasn’t reading it. “I… I don’t know anything about this. Anything at all.”

“Could someone else have called from this number?”

The woman thought for a moment. “I have a woman come to clean once a month. But she is from Honduras. She doesn’t speak much English.”

Jessica didn’t bother writing this down. She was just about to ask one final question when Laura Somerville said, “Can you excuse me for just one moment?”

“Of course.”

The woman rose slowly, crossed the room, entered what Jessica figured to be the apartment’s solitary bedroom. She closed the door behind her.

Jessica turned, looked at Byrne, shrugged, palms up and out. Byrne knew what she meant. What she meant was, you cross the city—the concrete canyons of Broad and Market streets, the alleys of North and South Philly—and you really had no idea what was going on behind those walls. Sometimes, you ran across someone who smoked crack and kept their children in a closet. Other times you discovered an elegant woman who lived alone in West Philly, a woman who could do crosswords in ten languages, a woman who had beautifully carved ivory puzzles on her bookshelves, puzzles purchased by a mysterious former suitor on London’s Portobello Road.

Jessica stared out the window for a moment, at the heat-shimmered expanse of West Philadelphia. In the distance was a hazy iridescent image of the city.

“What do you think?” Byrne asked, sotto voce.

Jessica considered the question. “I think I don’t know what to think,” she said, matching his low volume. “You?”

“I think this woman doesn’t have anything to do with the investigation.”

“Then how does that explain the phone calls?”

“I don’t know,” Byrne said. “Let’s leave it open with her.”

“Okay. I’ll just tell her that—”

Jessica was interrupted by the sound of shattering glass coming from the bedroom. It did not sound like someone dropping a tumbler or plate on the floor. It sounded as if a brick had been thrown through a window. Seeing as they were on the tenth floor, this was unlikely.

Byrne fired a glance at Jessica. The glance. They’d been partners for years, had been to hell and back, and there was no mistaking the look.

“Mrs. Somerville?” Byrne called out.

Silence.

Byrne waited a few more moments. “Ma’am?” he asked, a little louder this time. His voice seemed to reverberate between the walls, underscored by the low hum of the air conditioning. “Is everything all right?”

No response.

Byrne walked across the living room, put his ear to the bedroom door. He waited a few moments, listening, then looked back at Jessica, shook his head. He called out once more, even louder.

“Ma’am?”

Nothing.

Byrne took a deep breath, counted off a cop’s second, then eased the doorknob to the right. He shouldered open the door, hand touching the grip of his weapon, flanked left, stepped into the room. Jessica followed.

As expected, it was a bedroom. Inside was a four-poster bed, 1950s vintage, as well as a dresser and writing desk, both from the same era. In the far corner was a brocade settee. In addition, there were two nightstands, a cheval mirror, one closet.

But no Laura Somerville.

The room was empty.

The window overlooking Locust Street had been shattered. A handful of glass shards sparkled on the worn carpeting. Broiling air roared inside, a hot and feral breath from hell. The smell of carbon and oil and exhaust filled the small space, along with a dozen different city sounds—traffic, shouts, hip-hop music among them. Beneath those sounds, closer, the CD player on the nightstand softly offered “Witchcraft.” It was Sinatra’s duet version with Anita Baker.

Jessica turned the CD player off, crossed the bedroom, slowly eased open the bedroom’s one closet door. A puff of moth cakes and worn leather and sweet perfume leaked out. Inside was clothing on hangers, boxes, luggage, shoes, folded sweaters. On the bottom shelf were a pair of dusty, teal Samsonite suitcases. Above that, neatly stacked woolen blankets and sheets. To the right, on the top shelf, was what looked like a strong box of some sort.

But no people. The closet was empty.

Jessica closed the door, put her back to it. The two detectives then crossed the room, looked out the window. Below them, more than ten stories to the pavement, Laura Somerville lay on the baking sidewalk of Locust Street. Her head was demolished pulp, her body a jigsaw of ragged ends. From this height her form appeared to be a dark crimson Rorschach. A crowd was already collecting around the gruesome display.

Byrne got on his handset, called for an ambulance.

Jessica glanced at the writing desk in the corner. It was old, not quite an antique, worn, but well maintained. It held a Tiffany-style lamp, a pair of small black-and-white photos in a tarnished silver double-frame. It also bore a vintage Scrabble board. When Jessica looked more closely, she saw that the words on the board had been disturbed. They were off-center, not quite in their squares. A few of the tiles were scattered on the chair and the floor beneath the desk, as if someone had taken letters off the board in a hurry.

“Jess.”

Byrne pointed at the windowsill. On the sill were four Scrabble tiles. It appeared to be a hastily spelled word, the wooden letters positioned at oblique angles to one another.

In her mind’s eye, Jessica saw Laura Somerville enter this room just a few short moments ago, grab four tiles from her Scrabble board, arrange them on the windowsill, then leap to her death. Suddenly, despite the stifling air rushing in, Jessica was cold.

“Do you have any idea what this means?” she asked.

Byrne stared at the strange configuration a few more seconds. “No.”

At that moment a siren erupted, just a few blocks away. Jessica glanced again at the Scrabble tiles on the windowsill.

One word glared back.

Ludo.

Byrne retrieved his phone from his pocket and flipped it open, preparing to call their boss. But before he could complete the call Jessica put her hand on his forearm, stopping him. She sniffed the air.

In addition to the fact that a woman had just leapt one hundred feet to her death—a woman who, until the Philadelphia Police Department had knocked on her door was only marginally connected to a four-month-old homicide investigation, if at all, a case that was growing more cryptic by the second—something else was wrong.

In a moment, Jessica knew. The smell of burning cotton and smoldering hardwood suddenly made her gag.

She looked at Byrne. No words were needed.

The two detectives bolted from the bedroom as the flames began to tear up the drapes, and across the living room.

The apartment was on fire.

NINE