Byrne woke up on the couch. He had dreamed of Jimmy Purify. Jimmy and his pretzel logic. He had dreamed about a conversation they had once had, late one night in the unit, maybe a year before Jimmy's bypass. They had just brought down a very bad man, wanted on a triple. The mood was smooth and easy. Jimmy was working his way though a huge bag of barbecued potato chips, feet up, tie and belt undone. Someone brought up the fact that Jimmy's doctor had told him he had to cut down on fatty, greasy, sugary foods. These were three of Jimmy's four basic food groups, the other being single-malt.
Jimmy sat up. He assumed his Buddha pose. Everyone knew a pearl was forthcoming.
"This happens to be health food," he said. "And I can prove it."
Everyone just stared, meaning, Let's have it.
"Okay," he began, "Potatoes are a vegetable, am I right?" Jimmy's lips and tongue were a bright orange.
"Right," someone said. "Potatoes are a vegetable."
"And barbecuing is just another term for grilling, am I also right?"
"Can't argue with that," someone testified.
"Therefore, I am eating grilled vegetables. This is health food, baby." Straight-faced, perfectly serious. Nobody did deadpan better.
Fucking Jimmy, Byrne thought.
God, he missed him.
Byrne got up, splashed some water on his face in the kitchen, put the kettle on. When he walked back into the living room, the case was still there, still open.
He circled the evidence. The epicenter of the case was right before him, and the door was maddeningly closed.
We didn't do right by that girl, Kevin.
Why couldn't he stop thinking about this? He remembered the night as if it were yesterday. Jimmy was having surgery to have bunions removed. Byrne had been partnered with Phil Kessler. The call came in around 10:00 PM. A body was found in the bathroom of a Sunoco station in North Philly. When they arrived on the scene Kessler, as always, found something to do that had nothing to do with being in the same room as the victim. He started a canvass.
Byrne had pushed open the door to the ladies' room. He was immediately accosted with the scents of disinfectant and human waste. On the floor, wedged between the toilet and the grimy tiled wall, was a young woman. She was slender and fair, no more than twenty years old. There were a few track marks on her arm. She was clearly a user, but not habitual. Byrne had felt for a pulse, found none. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
He recalled looking at her, so unnaturally posed on the floor. He recalled thinking that this was not who she was supposed to be. She was supposed to be a nurse, a lawyer, a scientist, a ballerina. She was supposed to be somebody other than a drug statistic.
There had been some signs of a struggle-contusions on her wrists, some bruising on her back-but the amount of heroin in her system, coupled with the fresh needle marks on her arms, indicated that she had recently shot up, and it had been far too pure for her system. The official cause of death was ruled an overdose.
But hadn't he suspected more?
There was a knock at his door, bringing Byrne back from the memory. He answered. It was an officer with an envelope.
"Sergeant Powell said it was misfiled," the officer said. "He sends his apologies."
"Thanks," Byrne said.
He closed the door, opened the envelope. The girl's picture was clipped to the front of the folder. He had forgotten how young she looked. Byrne purposely avoided looking at the name on the folder for the moment.
As he stared at her photograph, he tried to recall her first name. How could he have forgotten? He knew how. She was a junkie. A middle-class kid gone bad. In his arrogance, in his ambition, she had been a nobody to him. Had she been a lawyer at some white-shoe firm, or a doctor at HUP, or an architect at the city planning board, he would have treated the case differently. As much as he hated to admit it, in those days, it was true.
He opened the file, saw her name. And everything made sense.
Angelika. Her name was Angelika.
She was Angel Blue.
He flipped through the file. He soon found what he was looking for. She was not just another stiff. She was, of course, somebody's daughter.
As he reached for the phone, it rang, the sound echoing in tandem with the question caroming off the walls of his heart:
How will you pay?