Theyeach had a case on which they were working. Both cases had stalled, and therewas no worse feeling for a homicide detective than the sense that aninvestigation was slipping away from them. While Byrne made calls to the fourwitnesses he needed for the grand- jury probe of Eduardo Robles, just to keepthe pot simmering, Jessica looked up some addresses, trying to align thewitnesses in another case.

    Twoweeks earlier a gun had been left at the scene of a drug- related homicide. Theweapon had been traced back to a woman named Patricia Lentz, a known drugaddict and prostitute.

    TheLentz apartment was on North 19th Street near Cecil B. Moore. When Jessica andByrne arrived, they found the door open, TV blasting, something burning on thestove. The first floor was a haze of vile smoke, a landfill of soiledmattresses, broken furniture, spent crack vials and empty liquor bottles.

    Theyfound Patricia Lentz passed out beneath a pile of clothing in the basement. Atfirst Jessica did not think she was going to find a pulse. But the woman hadjust passed out and, once she'd been revived by paramedics, was taken intocustody without incident.

    Whereasthe suspect was in custody, her apartment had not yet been cleared. Jessica wasquite familiar with the layout of these row houses and knew there were two morerooms upstairs. While Byrne turned the barely coherent woman over to theuniformed officers for transport to the Roundhouse, Jessica continued upstairs.She cleared the first small bedroom, and the bathroom. When she walked into thesecond bedroom she found there was a closet. She eased open the door.

    Jessicafroze. There, on the floor in front of her, partially hidden by a plasticgarbage bag bursting at the seams with rotting trash, was a little boy. No morethan two years old. A dark-haired little boy dressed in a ragged T-shirt anddiaper. It appeared that he had crawled beneath the garbage for warmth.

    Reachingdown into the closet, she picked up the boy. He was shivering with fear,miserable in his soiled diaper. There were rashes on his arms and legs.

    'It'sokay, little man,' Jessica said. 'It's okay.'

    Onthe way out of the house, Jessica found a pile of papers on a card table nearthe front door. They were mostly unpaid bills, flyers for pizza and Chinesetakeout, shut-off notices. Also on the table was a photograph of an infantlying on a dirty bed sheet. Jessica could not mistake those eyes. It was thelittle boy she had in her arms. She flipped the picture over. It read Carlosage three months.

    Hisname was Carlos.

    Jessicabrought the boy back to the Roundhouse to await a representative from theDepartment of Human Services. She had stopped along the way and bought diapers,wipes, lotion, powder. It had been a long time since she had done these thingswith Sophie, but it was like riding a bike: she hadn't forgotten.

    Cleanedup, shiny and combed, Carlos sat at one of the desks, on top of a pile of phonebooks, secured to the chair with an empty ammunition belt. Someone found aPhiladelphia Eagles child's sweatshirt. It was a little too big, so they rolledup the sleeves and Scotch-taped them gently around the boy's wrists.

    Theboy's mother, Patricia Lentz, was booked on first-degree murder charges, andthe case was a lock. They had the murder weapon, ballistics matched, and Lentzwould not be coming back for a long time. Carlos would have children of his ownby the time she got out.

    'What'sgoing on with Carlos?' Byrne asked, bringing Jessica back to the present andthe new case at hand.

    Jessicahad to take a second. The last thing you wanted to do in this room, even withyour partner, who knew you better than anyone in your life, was display anyemotion besides anger.

    'Nothing,'Jessica said. 'They still haven't been able to find Patricia Lentz's sister.Word is that she's an even bigger crackhead.'

    Jessicaknew it was no secret, especially to Kevin Byrne, that she and Vincent had beentrying for two years to have another child. Sophie was now seven, and thelonger they waited, well, all the books said you really didn't want too much ofan age gap between siblings. The very notion of undertaking the monumental taskof adopting Carlos was, of course, a ridiculous idea. During daylight hours,anyway. But when Jessica lay awake in the middle of the night it all seemedpossible. Then the sun would come up again and she realized it would neverhappen.

    'Howis he doing?' Byrne asked.

    'Good,I guess,' Jessica said. She really didn't know if that was true or not, but itwas the only answer she had.

    'Ifyou want, we can stop in at the Department of Human Services and check on him.'

    Thesooner Jessica let go, the better it would be. Still, she knew what she wasgoing to say. 'Sure. That would be good.'

    Beforethey could discuss it further, Nicci Malone poked her head into the duty room.'Kevin, you have a call.'

    Byrnecrossed the room, hit a button, answered. A few moments later he pulled out hisnotebook, wrote something in it, punched a fist through the air. It was clearlygood news. Jessica needed some good news.

    Byrnehung up, grabbed his coat. 'That was the ID Unit.'

    TheID Unit processed latent fingerprints.

    'Arewe on?' Jessica asked.

    'Weare,' Byrne said. 'Our cleanshaven dead man has a name. Kenneth ArnoldBeckman.'

Chapter 11

    TheBeckman house was a gaunt and peeling postwar row house on West Tioga Street,in the Nicetown area of North Philadelphia. Nicetown was a blue-collar sectionof the city that was slowly recovering after three decades of slow decline, aslide culminating in the Tastykake company moving out of the area in 2007. Atone time it was rumored that Trump Entertainment would be building a casino onHunting Park Avenue. It never happened. The only gambling being done inNicetown these days was among those residents and store owners debating whetheror not to hang onto their property.

    Beforeleaving the Roundhouse, Jessica asked Josh Bontrager to run a check on KennethArnold Beckman. Bontrager would call if there was anything to report.

    WhenJessica and Byrne pulled to a stop in front of the Beckman house, near SchuylerStreet, it began to rain. The wind picked up, and when they stepped onto theporch wet leaves gathered at their feet.

    Jessicarang the bell three times before noticing that there was a wire hanging outfrom the bottom of the rusted panel. The bell didn't work. A quick look at thecrumbling porch, with its leaning support pillars and brickwork desperately inneed of tuck pointing, explained why. She knocked on the door, gently at first.The second time she knocked harder. Eventually they heard the deadbolts beginto turn. There were three of them.

    Thewoman who answered the door was a hard forty. Her platinum hair was perm-fried,her make-up looked like it had been applied with a paper towel. She wore blackCapri pants and battered pink running shoes. A lighted cigarette hung from thecorner of her mouth.

    LookingByrne up and down, she tossed a sideways glance at Jessica.

    'Areyou Mrs. Beckman?' Byrne asked.

    'Well,now,' she replied. 'That would depend on two things, wouldn't it?'

    'Andwhat would those two things be?'

    'Whoyou are and what the fuck you want.'

    Ohboy, Jessica thought. We've got a real charmer here.

    Byrnetook out his ID, badged the woman. She stared at it far too long. Jessicafigured this was an attempt on the woman's part to establish some sort of powerdynamic. What the woman didn't know was that Kevin Byrne could outlast aglacier. She looked at Jessica, raising a painted-on eyebrow. Jessica reachedinto her pocket, showed the woman her ID. The woman sniffed, turned backto Byrne.