Byrne stepped quietly up to the target door, placed his ear against it. He listened for a few moments, then shook his head. He tried the knob. Locked. He stepped away.

One of the two SWAT officers made eye contact with the entry team. The other SWAT officer, the one with the ram, got into position. He counted them silently down.

It was on.

“Police! Search warrant!” he yelled.

He drew back the ram then smashed it into the door, just below the

lock. Instantly the old door splintered away from the jamb, then tore off at its upper hinge. The officer with the ram pulled back as the other SWAT officer rolled the jamb, his .223-caliber AR-15 rifle high.

Byrne was in next.

Jessica followed, her Glock 17 pointed low, at the floor. The small living room was directly to the right. Byrne sidled up to

the wall. They were first accosted by the smells of disinfectant, cherry incense, and moldering flesh. A pair of startled rats scurried against the near wall. Jessica noted dried blood on their graying snouts. Their claws clicked on the dry wood floor.

The apartment was sinister-quiet. Somewhere in the living room a spring clock ticked. There were no voices, no breathing.

Ahead was the unkempt living area.A stained gold crushed-velvet love seat, cushions on the floor. A few Domino’s boxes, picked and chewed clean. A pile of filthy clothing.

No humans.

To the left, a door to what was probably the bedroom. It was closed. As they drew closer, from inside the room, they could hear the faint sounds of a radio broadcast. A gospel channel.

The SWAT officer got into position, his rifle high.

Byrne stepped up, touched the door. It was latched. He turned the knob slowly, then quickly pushed open the bedroom door, slid back. The radio was a little louder now.

“The Bible says without question-uh that one day everyone-uh will give an account of themselves-uh to God!”

Byrne made eye contact with Jessica. With a nod of his chin, he counted down. They rolled into the room.

And saw the inside of hell itself.

“Oh, Jesus,” the SWAT officer said. He made the sign of the cross. “Oh Lord Jesus.”

The bedroom held neither furniture nor furnishings of any kind. The walls were covered in peeling, water-stained floral wallpaper; the floor was dotted with dead insects, small bones, more fast-food trash. Cobwebs lined the corners; years of silken gray dust covered the baseboards. The small radio sat in the corner, near the front windows, windows covered with torn and mildewed bedsheets.

Inside the room were two occupants.

Against the far wall, a man was hung upside down on a makeshift cross, a cross that appeared to be fashioned from two pieces of a metal bed frame. His wrists, feet, and neck were bound to the frame with concertina wire that carved deep into his flesh. The man was naked and had been slit down the center of his body from his groin to his throat—fat, skin, and muscle were pulled to the sides to form a deep furrow. He was also slashed laterally across his chest, forming a cruciform shape of blood and shredded tissue.

Beneath him, at the base of the cross, sat a young girl. Her hair, which may have been blond at one time, was deep sienna. She was soaked with blood, a shiny pool of which had puddled in the lap of her denim skirt. The room was filled with the metallic taste of it. The girl’s hands were bolted together. She held a rosary with only one decade of beads.

Byrne recovered from the sight first. There was still danger in this place. He slid along the wall opposite the window, peered into the closet. It was empty.

“Clear,” Byrne finally said.

And while any immediate threat, at least from a living human being, was over, and the detectives could have holstered their weapons, they hesitated, as if they could somehow vanquish the profane vision in front of them by deadly force.

It was not to be.

The killer had come here and left in his wake this blasphemous tableau, a picture that would certainly live in all of their minds for as long as they drew breath.

A quick search of the bedroom closet yielded little. A pair of work uniforms, a pile of soiled underwear and socks. The two uniforms were from Acme Parking. Attached to the front of one of the work shirts was a photo ID tag. The tag identified the hanging man as Wilhelm Kreuz. The ID matched his mug shot.

At long last, the detectives holstered their weapons.

John Shepherd called for the CSU team.

“It’s his name,” the still-shaken SWAT officer said to Byrne and Jessica. The tag on the officer’s dark blue BDU jacket read d. maurer.

“What do you mean?” Byrne asked.

“My family is German,” Maurer said, trying his best to compose himself. It was a difficult task for all of them. “Kreuz is cross in German. His name is William Cross in English.”

The fourth Sorrowful Mystery is the carrying of the cross.

Byrne left the scene for a moment then quickly returned. He flipped through his notebook, looking for the list of young girls for whom missing-person reports had been filed. The reports contained photos as well. It didn’t take long. He crouched down next to the girl, held a photograph by her face. The victim’s name was Kristi Hamilton. She was sixteen. She lived in Nicetown.

Byrne stood up. He took in the horrific scene in front of him. In his mind, deep in the catacombs of his terror, he knew he would soon face this man, and they would both walk to the edge of the void together.

Byrne wanted to say something to the team, a squad he had been selected to lead, but he felt like anything but a leader at that moment. For the first time in his career, he found that no words would suffice.

On the floor, next to Kristi Hamilton’s right leg, was a Burger King cup with a lid and a straw.

There were lip prints on the straw.

The cup was half full of blood.

Byrne and Jessica walked aimlessly, a block or so down Kensington, alone with images of the shrieking insanity of the crime scene. The sun made a brief, timid appearance between a pair of thick gray clouds, casting a rainbow over the street, but not over their moods.

They both wanted to talk.

They both wanted to scream.

They remained silent for now, the storm roiling inside. The general public operated under the illusion that police officers

can look at any scene, any event, and maintain a clinical detachment from it. Granted, the image of the untouchable heart was something a lot of cops cultivated. That image was for television and movies.

“He’s laughing at us,” Byrne said.

Jessica nodded. There was no doubt about it. He had led them to the Kreuz apartment with the planted print. The hardest part of this job, she was learning, was to relegate the desire for personal vengeance to the back of your mind. It was getting harder and harder.