Kennywas dead.

    Beforeshe could get her things out of the drawers in the upstairs bedroom she heard anoise.

    'Jason?'No answer.

    Shelistened for a few more moments, heard nothing. Must have been the brats nextdoor, she thought. One day they'd thrown a basketball against an adjoining wallfor three straight hours. She wouldn't miss them.

    Shegrabbed her two battered suitcases from the top shelf of the bedroom closet,began to stuff them with clothing. She soon realized she would need some bigplastic garbage bags to take it all.

    Sharonran down the stairs, her mind racing in a hundred different directions. Whenshe turned the corner toward the kitchen she saw the shadow on the wall. Shestopped, spun around, her heart pounding.

    'Jason,we—'

    It wasn'tJason.

Chapter 13

    Thebuilding at 31st and Market streets where old police records were kept had oncebeen the offices and publishing plant of the Evening Bulletin. TheBulletin, published from 1847 to 1982, was at one time the largest eveningnewspaper in the United States.

    Nowthe massive and deceptively benign-looking building was fenced and sealed likeFort Knox, with concertina wire ringing the exposed public areas. The enormousbrick wall that faced the parking lot rose more than four stories and boastedonly five small windows near the roofline. A dozen or so parking-lot lightsjutted from the wall like rusted bowsprits.

    Jessicasigned in at the gate, drove in, parked. She was about twenty minutes late, buthad not spotted Byrne's van. She decided to wait in the car.

    Beforeleaving the Roundhouse she had run Sharon Beckman and Jason Crandall throughthe databases. The kid had a misdemeanor possession charge from last year, acharge that was dropped when Jason did community service.

    SharonBeckman had no record.

    Jessicathought about how the case was developing. The bizarre condition of KennethBeckman's corpse was still a mystery and indicated something that festered deepin the heart of the killer, something personal and twisted. She thought aboutthe paper band wrapped around the victim's head, the way the cut traversed theforehead, the way the—

    Therewas a loud sound, inches from her left ear, a cracking noise that made herjump. She spun in her seat, her hand automatically unsnapping her holster.

    Byrnehad tapped her window with his ring. Jessica slowly rolled down the window,making him wait in the drizzling rain.

    'Thisis how people get shot, you know,' Jessica said.

    'Icould use the rest.'

    Shetook her time getting out of the car, driving home her point. A minute laterthey entered the building, walked over to the elevators, shaking off the rain.

    'Didyou talk to Sharon Beckman again?' Jessica asked.

    Byrneshook his head. 'She wasn't home,' Byrne said. 'Neither was Spicoli.'

    Referencingthe Sean Penn role in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Byrne was, ofcourse, referring to Jason Crandall. Jessica had no idea where Kevin Byrne'sframe of cultural references began and ended.

    Inthe extensive basement were records for thousands of crimes, some going backtwo hundred years, the residue of a city's shame: names, dates, weapons,wounds, witnesses. What was absent was the evidence of loss. There was no recordto be found here of a father's tears, a son's loneliness, or a grandmother'sempty Sundays.

    Instead,here were block after block of huge steel shelving racks, some reaching twenty feethigh, each packed firm with thousands of cardboard boxes, each box tagged witha white label detailing name of the deceased, case number, and year.

    Theysplit up the Beckman files. Byrne read the witness statements and forensicreports, while Jessica went through the original police reports and the noteswritten by the lead detective.

    Justinside the binder was a picture of Antoinette Chan. She'd been a pretty girl,with flawless skin and a beguiling smile. Jessica moved on to the police reporton Beckman.

    KennethArnold Beckman, born in 1970, was originally from the Brewerytown area ofPhiladelphia. At the time of Antoinette Chan's murder he had worked as ahandyman for a pair of apartment complexes in Camden, and had lived in the Nicetown/Tiogaarea on Lenox Avenue.

    Bythe age of twenty-nine he had been arrested five times for breaking andentering, twice convicted of possession of stolen merchandise.

    In2001 Beckman took his ten-year-old stepson Jason trick-or- treating on North 18thStreet between Westmoreland and Venango. They went door to door, with Beckmanaccompanying the boy to each stoop. Some of the people in the neighborhoodlater remarked about how Beckman hovered a little too close to the door, how heseemed to be looking into the houses with a little too much interest as thelittle boy received his candy.

    Overthe next five months there were six burglaries in the neighborhood, alloccurring during daylight hours when the residents were at work. Each time thesame sort of items were stolen: cameras, jewelry, cash, MP3 players. Nothingtoo big to fit in a pillowcase.

    Apair of astute divisional detectives noticed the pattern and created a photolineup of people living in a one-mile radius of the break-ins who had a criminalhistory of burglaries. One of the people in that lineup was Kenneth Beckman.

    Aftergetting positive IDs of Beckman as someone who had come to neighborhood houseson Halloween, the detectives placed him under surveillance. Within a few daysthey followed him to a pawnshop in Chinatown, a known address for fencingstolen items. In forty-eight hours they set up a sting operation, with adetective posing as an employee of the shop. But Beckman, perhaps sensing aproblem, never returned.

    Inmid-March 2002 they received a call from a young woman they had spoken toearlier, a woman named Antoinette Chan, the daughter of one of the burglaryvictims. She said she had gone down to her basement for the first time in a fewweeks to do laundry and had seen a shoe print in the small lavatory off thefurnace room. Whoever had broken into her house had come through the basementwindow. It appeared that the burglar had made a comfort stop. The originalinvestigators had never looked in the lavatory.

    Theshoe print matched a size twelve Frye boot. Surveillance photos of KennethBeckman revealed him wearing the exact model.

    Detectivesvisited Beckman's place of employment, only to discover that he had left.

    Whendetectives arrived at the Beckman house on Lenox Avenue, search warrant inhand, they found a pair of PFD ladder trucks on the scene, and the block of rowhouses - four in all - ablaze. The old wooden structures burned to the groundin a matter of hours.

    Acrossthe street, sitting on a curb, smoking a cigarette, was Sharon Beckman. Therewas little doubt in anyone's mind about who had started the blaze, and no doubtat all why. Unfortunately for the investigators, there was no direct evidence.Sharon was not formally questioned or charged.

    Accordingto police, later that night Kenneth Beckman kidnapped Antoinette Chan, broughther to a location in South Philly and bludgeoned her to death. When Beckman wasfound in a motel in Allentown three days later and brought in for questioning,he dummied up and requested a lawyer.

    Withoutany witnesses, and without any opportunity to search his house, all chargesagainst Kenneth Arnold Beckman were dropped.

    Andnow he was dead.

    Jessicaopened the folder with the crime-scene photos and felt her heart leap. 'Holyshit.'

    'What?'Byrne asked.

    Jessicaput two of the Antoinette Chan crime-scene photos on the table, took out heriPhone, opened the photos folder, swiped over to her most recent photographs.She put the phone on the table, next to the printed pictures.