Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense by Richard Montanari

few weeks, Tessa thought long and hard about the problem, then realized there was something she could do to help.
    Tessa paid a visit to her aunt Georgia. She borrowed her aunt’s Singer sewing machine and, at her own expense, made curtains for the homeless woman, drapes that could be cleverly hooked into the fabric of the car’s interior ceiling.
    This was a special young lady, Jessica thought.
    The last entry of note read:
Dad is very sick. He is getting worse, I think. He tries to be strong, but I know it is just an act for me. I look at his frail hands and I think about the times, when I was small, when he would push me on the swings. I felt as if my feet could touch the clouds! His hands are cut and scarred from all the sharp slate and coal. His fingernails are blunt from the iron chutes. He always said that he left his soul in Carbon County, but his heart is with me. And with Mom. I hear his terrible breathing every night. Even though I know how much it hurts, each breath comforts me, tells me he is still here. Still Dad.
    Near the center of the diary, there were two pages torn out, then the very last entry, dated nearly five months earlier, read, simply:
I’m back. Just call me Sylvia.
    Who is Sylvia? Jessica wondered.
    Jessica went through her notes. Tessa’s mother’s name was Anne. She had no sisters. There was certainly no “Sister Sylvia” at Nazarene.
    She flipped back through the diary. A few pages before the section that was removed was a quote from a poem that she didn’t recognize.
    Jessica turned once again to the final entry. It was dated right around Thanksgiving of the previous year.
I’m back. Just call me Sylvia.
    Back from where, Tessa? And who is Sylvia?

9
    MONDAY, 1:00 PM
    J IMMY PURIFY had been nearly six feet tall in the seventh grade, and no one had ever called him skinny.
    In his day, Jimmy Purify could walk into the toughest white bars in Gray’s Ferry without uttering a word, and conversations would drop to a whisper; the hard cases would sit a little straighter.
    Born and raised in West Philly, in the Black Bottom, Jimmy had endured travails from within as well as without, and he had handled it all with self-possession and a street dignity that would have broken a smaller man.
    But now, as Kevin Byrne stood in the doorway of Jimmy’s hospital room, the man in front of him looked like a sun-faded sketch of Jimmy Purify, a husk of the man he had once been. Jimmy had lost thirty or so pounds, his cheeks were sunken, his skin was ashen.
    Byrne found that he had to clear his throat before speaking.
    “Hey, Clutch.”
    Jimmy turned his head. He tried to frown, but the corners of his mouth turned up, betraying the game. “Jesus Christ. Doesn’t this place have security?”
    Byrne laughed, a little too loudly. “You look good.”
    “Fuck you,” Jimmy said. “I look like Richard Pryor.”
    “Nah. Maybe Richard Roundtree,” Byrne replied. “But all things considered—”
    “All things considered, I should be in Wildwood with Halle Berry.”
    “You’ve got a better shot at Marion Barry.”
    “Fuck you again.”
    “However, Detective, you don’t look as good as he does,” Byrne said. He held up a Polaroid of the battered and bruised Gideon Pratt.
    Jimmy smiled.
    “Damn, these guys are clumsy,” Jimmy said, bumping a weak fist with Byrne.
    “It’s genetic.”
    Byrne propped the photo against Jimmy’s water pitcher. It was better than any get-well card. Jimmy and Byrne had been looking for Gideon Pratt for a long time.
    “How’s my angel?” Jimmy asked.
    “Good,” Byrne said. Jimmy Purify had three sons, all bruisers, all grown, and he lavished all his softness—what little there was of it—on Kevin Byrne’s daughter, Colleen. Every year, on Colleen’s birthday, some shamefully expensive, anonymous gift would show up via UPS. No one was fooled. “She’s got a big Easter party coming up.”
    “At the deaf school?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I’ve been practicing, you