SEVEN
Byrne knew the moment he walked into the building. The feeling settled first on the surface of his skin, a damp sensation of dread that seemed to bleed from these walls, stone that had stood witness to a hundred years of secrets, and before that the history of the land from which it had been quarried. Byrne all but heard the hooves on wet sod, the fading heartbeats of the fallen.
Here, in this place where the stone had long ago been keyed and weighted, this place where murder was done, the walls protected its ghosts.
The Boy in the Red Coat.
Byrne had not thought of the boy in many months, a long time considering his history with the case. The Boy in the Red Coat was one of the more famous, and lurid, unsolved crimes in Philadelphia’s history. Byrne had gotten a call from the pastor of St Gedeon’s, the South Philadelphia church of his youth. When he arrived the church was empty save for a dead boy in the last pew, a child clad in a bright red jacket.
Byrne secured the scene, waited for the divisional detectives. That was where and when his official involvement with the case ended. In the years since, many detectives, including Byrne himself, had looked at the files, tried to track down fresh leads. The case remained open. But Byrne had never forgotten the sensation of walking into that huge, empty cathedral that day, seeing the dead child.
It was the same feeling he had walking into the dank basement on this day, seeing the young man so barbarously wired to the chair, his body bathed in scarlet.
In his time as a homicide detective Byrne had borne witness to every imaginable violence, every conceivable way for one human to cause the death of another. Since he’d had his own near-fatal experience many years earlier – an incident where he was pronounced dead, only to come back to life a full minute later – he had been both blessed and cursed with this vision, this sight. It wasn’t as if he could see into the future, or the past, or had any sixth sense that made him special. He felt special by no means. It was, instead, more of a sense of presence, a sense of being, an incarnation of the men and women who had occupied these rooms before him. Many times he walked into a crime scene, a place fresh from the murderer’s touch, and felt as if he walked in the killer’s skin for a fleeting instant. It was an ugly, sickening sensation, to feel even for a moment a soul devoid of compassion, a heart bereft of sorrow.
Many times, late into a night of bad dreams, Byrne had wished this ability would go away. Just as often he wished it would develop, becoming more clear and profound, something he could channel. It never happened. It had always been – and, he suspected, would always be – something that came and went. Something that had its own power and agenda.
Ever since the visions began Byrne believed he would one day walk onto a scene and know that it was the beginning of the end, that he was about to engage in a great battle, a stand between good and evil.
This was that day. He didn’t know how he knew it, but he knew it.
It was finally happening.
In the vestibule of the old building was a narrow door to the left, slightly ajar, its hinges rusted, its jambs out of square. Byrne shouldered the door. It opened just enough for him to squeeze through.
He mounted the winding stone staircase to the bell tower. When he made it to the top he stepped inside. The bell itself was long gone; the two small windows were covered with thin slats of wood lath.
Byrne pulled a few of the slats free. The parched wood came loose with very little effort. The gray light coming through the opening gave him a better view from the landing.
He closed his eyes, felt the feeling wash over him, the knowledge that –
– this evil has just awakened and the mother and child mother and child mother and child the –
– mother and child.
Byrne opened his eyes, looked out the window. He saw Jessica on the street, talking to one of the CSU officers. Next to Jessica stood Maria Caruso and Josh Bontrager. Behind them stood thirty or so people gathered to bear witness to what had happened today, many of them women –
– having given birth to a child who would one day grow to be a man who would expiate the sins of his father by becoming his own father, a man who would walk the dark corners of the night and –
– do murder.
Byrne thought of Jessica, of her daughter and newly adopted son. He thought of his ex-wife Donna and their daughter Colleen. He thought of Colleen, who would one day soon find love and have a child of her own. He thought about Tanya Wilkins and her sons Gabriel and Terrell. He thought of all the women who hoped for the best for their sons and daughters. He thought of that day long ago when he walked into a church and saw the small figure in the back pew, that blood red coat, the smell of death, a scent he would forever carry in his soul.
Mother and child, Kevin Byrne thought.
Mother and child.