No answer. Jessica heard the music morph into a Latin disco beat. She made another note. Salsa club.

“Meet me,” Parkhurst said. “There are things you need to know about these girls.”

“Where and when?”

“Meet me at The Clothespin. Fifteen minutes.”

Next to salsa club she wrote: within 15 min. of city hall.

The Clothespin was the huge, Claes Oldenburg sculpture at the Center Square Plaza, right next to city hall. In the old days, people in Philly would say Meet me at the eagle at Wanamaker, the late, great department store with the mosaic of the eagle in the floor. Everyone knew the eagle at Wanamaker’s. Now, it was The Clothespin.

Parkhurst added: “And come alone.”

“Not gonna happen, Dr. Parkhurst.”

“If I see anyone else there, I’m leaving,” he said. “I’m not talking to your partner.”

Jessica didn’t blame Parkhurst for not wanting to be in the same room as Kevin Byrne at this point. “Give me twenty minutes,” she said.

The line went dead.

Jessica called Paula Farinacci who, once again came through for her. There was certainly a special place in Babysitter Heaven for Paula. Jessica bundled a drowsy Sophie into her favorite blanket and shuttled her three doors down. When she got back home, she called Kevin Byrne on his cell phone, got his voice mail. She called him at home. Ditto.

Come on, partner, she thought.

I need you.

She put on jeans and running shoes, her rain slicker. She grabbed her cell phone, popped a fresh mag into her Glock, snapped on her holster, and headed into Center City.

Jessica waited near the corner of Fifteenth and Market Streets in the pouring rain. She decided not to stand directly beneath The Clothespin sculpture for all the obvious reasons. She didn’t need to be a sitting target.

She glanced around the square. Few pedestrians were out, due to the storm. The lights on Market Street formed a shimmering red-and-yellow watercolor on the pavement.

When she was small, her father used to take her and Michael to Center City and the Reading Terminal Market for cannoli from Termini’s. Granted, the original Termini’s in South Philly was only a few blocks from their house, but there was something about riding SEPTA downtown and walking to the market that made the cannoli taste better. It still did.

In those days they used to saunter up Walnut Street after Thanksgiving, window-shopping at all the exclusive shops. They could never afford anything they saw in the windows, but the beautiful displays had sent her little-girl fantasies adrift.

So long ago, Jessica thought.

The rain was relentless.

A man approached the sculpture, snapping Jessica out of her reverie.

He wore a green rain slicker, hood up, hands in pocket. He seemed to linger near the foot of the giant art piece, scanning the area. From where Jessica stood, he looked to be Brian Parkhurst’s height. As to weight and hair color, it was impossible to tell.

Jessica drew her weapon, kept it behind her back. She was just about to head over when the man suddenly walked down into the subway stop.

Jessica drew a deep breath, holstered her weapon.

She watched the cars circle the square, headlights cutting the rain like cat’s eyes.

She called Brian Parkhurst’s cell phone number.

Voice mail.

She tried Kevin Byrne’s cell phone.

Ditto.

She pulled the hood of her rain slicker tighter.

And waited.

TUESDAY, 8:55 PM

He is drunk.

That will make my job easier. Slower reflexes, diminished capacity, poor depth perception. I could wait for him outside the bar, walk up to him, announce my intentions, then cut him in half.

He wouldn’t know what hit him.

But where’s the fun in that?

Where is the lesson?

No, I think it is best for people to know. I realize that there is a good chance

I will be stopped before I can complete this passion play. And if I am, one day, walked down that long corridor, and into an antiseptic room, and strapped to a gurney, I will accept my fate.

I know that I will be judged by a much greater power than the commonwealth of Pennsylvania when my time comes.

Until then, I will be the one sitting next to you in church, the one who offers you a seat on the bus, the one who holds the door for you on a windy day, the one who bandages your daughter’s scraped knee.

That is the grace of living in God’s long shadow.

Sometime the shadow turns out to be nothing more than a coat tree.

Sometimes the shadow is everything you fear.

TUESDAY, 9:00 PM

Byrne sat at the bar, oblivious to the music, the din of the pool table. All he heard, for the moment, was the roar in his head. He was at a run-down corner tavern in Gray’s Ferry called Shotz, the farthest thing from a cop bar he could imagine. He could’ve hit the hotel bars downtown, but he didn’t like paying ten dollars a drink.

What he really wanted was a few more minutes with Brian Parkhurst. If only he could take another run at him, he would know for sure. He downed his bourbon, ordered one more.

Byrne had turned off his cell phone earlier, but he had left his pager on. He checked it, seeing the number of Mercy Hospital. Jimmy had called for the second time that day. Byrne checked his watch. He’d stop by Mercy and charm the cardiac nurses into a brief visit. There are never any visiting hours when a cop is in the hospital.

The other calls were from Jessica. He’d call her in a little while. He just needed a few minutes to himself.

For now, he just wanted the peace of the noisiest bar in Gray’s Ferry.

Tessa Wells.

Nicole Taylor.

The public thinks that when a person is murdered, cops show up at the scene, make a few notes, then go home to their lives. Nothing could be further from the truth. Because the unavenged dead never stay dead. The unavenged dead watch you. They watch you when you go to the movies or have dinner with your family, or lift a few pints with the boys at the corner tavern. They watch you when you make love. They watch and they wait and they question. What are you doing for me? they whisper in your ear, softly, as your life unfolds, as your kids grow and prosper, as you laugh and cry and feel and believe. Why are you out having a good time? they ask. Why are you living it up while I’m laying here on the cold marble?

What are you doing for me?