The Skin Gods by Richard Montanari Read Free Book Online

and death. For weeks he had wondered if he was going to go back on the job or take his twenty and run. His papers were on the dresser in the bedroom, ready to be signed. But now he knew he had to go back. Even if it was for just a few weeks. If he wanted to clear Jimmy’s name, he would have to do it from the inside.
     
     
That evening, as darkness embraced the City of Brotherly Love, as the moonlight crested the skyline, and the city wrote its name in neon, Detective Kevin Francis Byrne showered and dressed, slid a fresh magazine into his Glock, and stepped into the night.
     
     
     
    6
SOPHIE BALZANO, EVEN AT THE AGE OF THREE, WAS A BONA FIDE fashion maven. Granted, when left to her own devices and given free rein over her clothes, Sophie was likely to come up with an outfit that ran the entire spectrum from orange to lavender to lime green, from checks to plaid to stripes, fully accessorized, all within the same ensemble. Coordinates were not her strong suit. She was more of a freewheeling kind of gal.
     
     
On this sweltering July morning, the morning that was to begin an odyssey that would take Detective Jessica Balzano into the mouth of madness and beyond, she was late, as usual. These days, mornings in the Balzano house were a frenzy of coffee and cereal and gummy bears and lost little sneakers and missing barrettes and mislaid juice boxes and snapped shoelaces and traffic reports on KYW on the twos.
     
     
Two weeks earlier, Jessica had gotten her hair cut. She’d worn her hair at least to her shoulders— usually much longer— ever since she was a little girl. When she had been in uniform, she had tied it in a ponytail almost constantly. At first, Sophie had followed her around the house, silently evaluating the fashion move, giving Jessica the eye. After a week or so of intense scrutiny, Sophie wanted her hair cut, too.
     
     
Jessica’s short hair had certainly helped in her avocation as a professional boxer. What began as a lark had taken on a life of its own. With what seemed like the whole department behind her, Jessica had a record of 4–0 and was starting to get some good press in the boxing magazines.
     
     
What a lot of women in boxing didn’t understand is, you have to keep your hair short. If you wear your hair long, and keep it in a ponytail, every time you even get tapped on the jaw your hair flies, and the judges give your opponent credit for landing a clean, hard shot. Plus, long hair has the potential to come loose during the fight and get in your eyes. Jessica’s first knockout came against a girl named Trudy “Kwik” Kwiatkowski who, in the second round, paused for a second to brush the hair from her eyes. The next thing Kwik knew, she was counting the lights on the ceiling.
     
     
Jessica’s great-uncle Vittorio— who acted as her manager and trainer— was negotiating a deal with ESPN2. Jessica didn’t know if she was more scared of getting in the ring or getting on television. On the other hand, she didn’t have JESSIE BALLS on her trunks for nothing.
     
     
As Jessica got dressed, the ritual of retrieving her weapon from the hall closet lockbox was missing, as it had been for the past week. She had to admit that she felt naked and vulnerable without her Glock. But it was standard procedure for all officer-involved shootings. She had been on the desk for nearly a week, on administrative leave pending an investigation of the shoot.
     
     
She fluffed her hair, applied a bare minimum of lipstick, glanced at the clock. Running late again. So much for schedules. She crossed the hall, tapped on Sophie’s door. “Ready to go?” she asked.
     
     
Today was Sophie’s first day at a preschool not far from their twin row house in Lexington Park, a small community in the eastern section of Northeast Philadelphia. Paula Farinacci, one of Jessica’s oldest friends and Sophie’s babysitter, was taking her own daughter, Danielle.
     
     
“Mom?” Sophie asked from behind the