The Doll Maker (12 page)

Another pause. ‘May I ask what this is about?’

‘We’ll get to that in just a second.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I do.’

‘Can you tell us where the car is right now?’

‘Of course.’ He pointed in a generally southern direction. ‘It’s in my garage.’

‘The attached garage?’

‘Yes.’

‘Were you out in the car late Friday night or early Saturday morning?’

‘This past Friday and Saturday?’

‘Yes.’

‘No,’ Malcolm said. ‘I just flew in from Atlanta. I got in about five-thirty this morning.’

‘And you parked your car at the airport?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s too expensive. I took a cab.’

Jessica made the note. ‘And you say you were in Atlanta?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was this business or pleasure?’

Another pause. ‘Business. I work for Aetna.’

‘How long were you in Georgia?’

‘Five days,’ he said. ‘I usually fly out from Philly Sunday night, and come back either Friday night or Saturday morning. I couldn’t get a flight out Saturday.’

More information unasked yet answered, Jessica thought. ‘And there are people who can confirm this?’

Jessica saw that Malcolm was about to get angry with the intrusion, but checked himself. Anyone out on bail with a pending hearing – especially for a charge of Attempting to Lure – knew that a sense of outrage with law enforcement was best held in check. In the end he said, simply: ‘Yes.’

To that end Malcolm reached – slowly – into his pocket, produced a US Airways boarding pass, handed it to Byrne. Byrne scanned it, nodded at Jessica, handed it back to Malcolm.

‘You say this is a weekly routine for you?’ Jessica asked.

He nodded. ‘For the past five months, yes.’

What had begun with promise – Jeffrey Malcolm’s car being spotted a few yards from a murder scene, its owner out on bail pending a sex crimes charge – was beginning to look less so. Still, it did not mean he was not involved.

‘And you say your car is in your garage right now?’ Jessica asked.

‘Yes.’

‘And it’s been there all week?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘As far as I know.’

Jessica glanced up. ‘As far as you
know
? Why would you say that?’

‘What I meant was, the car has been there the whole time I was gone.’

‘Why not just say that?’

Apparently, Malcolm had no response to this. He said nothing.

‘Did you loan your car to someone during this past week?’ Jessica asked.

‘No.’

‘Do you mind if we take a look in your garage?’

Again, Malcolm appeared to want to object. He once more decided against it. ‘No problem.’

Jessica gestured to the front door. They walked outside, Malcolm leading the way, down the steps, then over to the garage. Malcolm opened the garage door. It wasn’t locked.

The garage was empty.

‘
What?
’ exclaimed Malcolm.

Both Jessica and Byrne gave this so-called revelation a few moments.

‘You seem surprised,’ Jessica said.

‘I am,’ Malcolm said. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘When was the last time you saw your car?’ Jessica asked.

Malcolm thought for a few moments. ‘Last Sunday. I went to the mall in the afternoon to pick up a few things for the week.’

‘And you put the car back into this garage at that time?’

‘Yes.’

‘About what time on Sunday?’

‘Maybe seven o’clock.’

‘In the evening?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was the garage door locked all week?’

Malcolm shook his head, pointed at the locking mechanism, a spring actuated assembly. The slide was missing. ‘No,’ he said. ‘The lock has been broken since I moved in.’

‘Was the car locked?’ Jessica asked.

‘Probably,’ he said. ‘I can’t remember.’

‘Who else has keys to your car?’

Malcolm thought about this a little too long. ‘No one. Just me.’

‘And where are those keys now?’

Malcolm made a show of digging in his pants pockets. He came up empty. ‘They must be inside. Do you want me to get them?’

‘That would be helpful,’ Jessica said. ‘We’ll go with you.’

As they walked back to the house, Jessica made eye contact with Byrne. Somehow, two and two were not equaling four, at least as it related to Jeffrey Malcolm and his mysterious car.

By the time they reached the porch, they had their answer.

Before Byrne could step across the threshold, Malcolm pivoted and slammed the door in Byrne’s face, then turned the deadbolt. It took only three attempts for Byrne to shoulder open the door. He drew his weapon, ran across the living room, into the kitchen. He called out to Jessica.

‘The back door’s wide open,’ Byrne yelled. ‘He’s running. Call it in.’

While Byrne sprinted out the back door, Jessica took out her phone, called dispatch. She gave them their location, and a description of Jeffrey Malcolm. She ran out the front door, then north on Nineteenth Street, toward Wharton. When she came around the corner, she saw Malcolm cross the intersection running at a high rate of speed. He had something in his hands, although he was moving far too quickly for Jessica to see what it was. It was silver in color.

A few seconds later, with Jessica gaining on him, Malcolm headed down the crowded sidewalk, dodging pedestrians. He glanced over his shoulder. He saw how close Jessica was.

Byrne was nowhere in sight.

Of all the things at which Kevin Byrne was adept, running – especially in street shoes – was not his forte. She had many times been surprised at his physical strength. Never once by his speed.

At the moment Jessica caught up to Malcolm, at the corner of Wharton and Dorrance, Malcolm cut to his right, between two parked cars, running full bore. He never made it across the street. A white delivery van, moving somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty-five miles per hour, caught Malcolm on his left hip and propelled the man a dozen feet into the air. The sound of Malcolm’s body hitting the pavement was all but masked by the sound of metal on metal, of glass shattering, as the van crashed into a pair of cars parked on the south side of the street.

For a moment there was no sound. It was as if the city had collectively drawn a breath.

Then came the screams from the people on the street who had seen what happened.

Even before Jessica could approach the body a crowd had begun to form. Jessica turned to see Byrne walking up Wharton Street, trying to catch his wind.

Jessica took out her badge, put it on a lanyard around her neck. She noted a sector car turning onto Wharton from Nineteenth. She beckoned it over, made a whirring gesture with her finger, and the patrol officer in the sector car turned on his bar lights.

Jessica walked over to where Byrne stood. ‘Did you see what happened?’ she asked him.

Byrne had not quite caught his breath yet. He put his hands on his knees, shook his head. With traffic stopped, Jessica made her way to the center of the street, next to where Jeffrey Malcolm’s mangled body was splayed. The impact had all but turned his lower body backwards on his frame. The bones of both legs were broken and pierced the skin. A portion of the right side of his skull was caved in, a long streak of blood and brain matter painted the asphalt. He was not breathing.

Jessica snapped on a latex glove, reached in, feeling for a pulse, even though she knew what she knew. She found no pulse. Jeffrey Malcolm was dead. She turned, caught Byrne’s eye.

‘I’ll start a bus,’ Byrne said.

Byrne stepped away, took out his phone, requested an ambulance. When he returned, Jessica asked:

‘What was he carrying?’

‘I didn’t see anything,’ Byrne said. ‘There’s a fence at the end of the alley behind his house. He got over it pretty quickly. Needless to say it took me a few seconds. By the time I hit the street he was rounding the corner. I didn’t see anything.’

‘He had something in his left hand. Something shiny. Silver.’

Both Jessica and Byrne fanned out on the street. They looked curb to curb, and underneath the parked cars. When they reached the crashed delivery van – where the badly shaken driver was now giving a statement to one of the patrol officers – Jessica saw it. It was a small netbook computer, dented and scratched, lying against the curb right near a sewer grate. She got on her knees, reached under the cab, hoping she wasn’t going to be involved in one of those movie moments where the wrecked automobile bursts into flame at just the wrong moment. Nevertheless, she grabbed the laptop and got out of there as fast as she could.

She walked back to where Byrne was standing. When the paramedics arrived, and the scene was secured, they stepped back down Nineteenth Street, found a newspaper box. Jessica put the laptop computer down on top of the box. She tore off her bloody glove, snapped on two fresh ones, opened the laptop.

The desktop had only a few icons. She double clicked the mail icon, launching the program. There were dozens of recent emails, address to
moneybear
. All of the email messages contained links to sites that were clearly adult oriented.

Jessica found a folder on the desktop called
virus
. She opened it to find another folder called
quarantine
. She opened that folder to find yet another folder called
travelpics
.

Inside this folder were what had to be more than a hundred subfolders, all bearing a first name.

Girls’ names.

Jessica glanced at Byrne. Considering Jeffrey Malcolm’s legal history, there was little doubt as to what they were about to see. Jessica clicked one of the folders, one called
Judianne
. She was right. Inside the folder were a dozen pornographic pictures of a girl about six years old.

Jessica closed the laptop. She would leave the subsequent investigation into the source of these photos to the RCFL, the Regional Computer Forensic Lab.

The truth was, as creepy as Jeffrey Malcolm was on paper, and indeed was in person, they were only about to take a stolen car report from him, and leave him alone. For the moment. They were not about to search his premises or his person. There was no need to run.

At least there was no reason immediately obvious to the two detectives.

Now they had to know.

Both Jessica and Byrne were well aware that there was a profound distinction between the interests and fetishes of adult men who were interested in underage girls – girls the age of Nicole Solomon – and girls the age of the children on Jeffrey Malcolm’s computer. Sometimes the distinction could be as fine as a year or so.

With a sector car and EMS on site, and traffic being routed around the block, the scene was secure. Jessica and Byrne walked back to Malcolm’s row house in silence, each to their own thoughts.

Because neither of them wanted to vault the fence in the alley, they decided to enter Malcolm’s row house via the damaged front door, and do what they could to secure the premises.

While Jessica entered the house, and walked to the kitchen to lock the back door, Byrne went into the trunk of their departmental sedan and retrieved a large paper evidence bag for the laptop.

When Jessica returned, she saw Byrne standing at the foot of the short driveway, arms crossed, staring straight ahead. She knew the look, the posture.

‘What’s going on, partner?’ she asked.

For a few long moments Byrne said nothing. Then: ‘Are you ready for this?’

‘If I say yes, may I take it right back?’

‘You may.’

‘Okay, then,’ Jessica said, wondering just what could possibly be coming next. In the past forty-eight hours they had begun an investigation into the murder of a young girl, made notification to a man who put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger, and now had come to a question a man who had run into traffic and been splattered curb to curb on a busy South Philly street. She was ready for anything. ‘I guess I’m ready.’

She was not.

Byrne took a few steps forward, turned the handle on the garage door, opened it.

There, in the garage – a structure that had fifteen minutes earlier been completely empty – was Jeffrey Malcolm’s white Honda Accord.

The crowd at Finnigan’s Wake, the legendary Irish pub at Third and Spring Garden Streets, was lively for a weekday night.

Kevin Byrne did not join in the fun. He sat alone at the front bar, nursing his first Tullamore Dew.

Cops always knew who, among their ranks, wanted to talk, needed to talk, and those who needed to be left alone. Byrne figured his vibe was the latter. So much so that two stools on either side of him were empty. Every so often Margaret, one of the best bartenders in the city, would glance his way, expecting him to raise his empty glass, calling for another round.

So far, the double Dew on the rocks had been enough.

Byrne thought about Jeffrey Malcolm, and what it must have been like in his last few seconds, when he knew he was going to die. People who are addicted to pornography, especially child pornography, are hoarders, and there is no one thing in their lives – not money, not possessions, not family or friends – that is more important than their collections. They never seem to be able to delete a single image. In the end, it seems, Malcolm gave his life for it.

Was the man, in any way, connected to the murder of Nicole Solomon? They might never know. Malcolm’s car had been transported to the police garage, and was currently being processed for evidence.

Byrne thought about Valerie Beckert, and how it was a different obsession that drove her to kidnap and murder little Thomas Rule.

Byrne dropped a twenty on the bar.

Twenty minutes later, against all reason, he turned onto the expressway.

The drive to Muncy would take about four hours, taking Byrne northwest through Allentown, Hazelton, Berwick. Even though traffic was light, Byrne found himself following the speed limit, perhaps because he was unsure if this was something he really wanted to do. More than once he eyed an exit with the thought of turning back.

About midnight he pulled off at Rt. 54, ordered coffee at a service plaza.

He sat in a booth, took out the binder that held the case files for the homicide of Thomas Rule. He had many times gone over every page, every photograph, every scientific report. And while it was true that sometimes, even after years of staring at something, a new angle or idea might suddenly appear, Byrne did not think this would be the case with the Thomas Rule evidence.