The Doll Maker Read Online Free PDF Page B

Beckert’s execution date coming in less than three weeks, it would probably go into foreclosure, if it wasn’t already. Soon after, it would surely be demolished.

    It was late, but Byrne knew the deputy superintendent at the State Correctional Institution at Muncy, a 1400-bed facility for women, located in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, near Williamsport.
    Valerie Beckert was incarcerated at SCI Muncy, where she would be held until Phase III of her death sentence began, and then would be moved to SCI Rockview, which was located near State College, Pennsylvania.
    Byrne picked up the phone, made the call. He was soon routed to the desk of Deputy Superintendent Barbara Louise Wagner. Wagner was a former PPD detective who had worked in the Special Victims Unit for many years until she decided to enter the Department of Corrections.
    They got their pleasantries out of the way. Byrne moved on to the reason for his call.
    ‘I need you to look into something for me, Barb.’
    ‘On one condition,’ she said.
    ‘Okay,’ Byrne said. ‘Name it.’
    ‘One of these days you and I go to Wildwood, check into a cheap motel, and snog like drunken ferrets for the whole weekend.’
    Barbara Wagner was Byrne’s age, perhaps a few years older, married as hell, with four or five grown kids, and at least as many grandchildren. Still, this was their game, and always had been. Byrne played along. It was fun.
    He needed fun.
    ‘Sounds like a plan,’ he said.
    ‘I still have that black negligee from the first time you promised me.’
    ‘And I’ll bet it looks better than ever on you.’
    ‘Sweet talker.’
    Byrne laughed. ‘It’s a gift.’
    ‘What can I do for you, detective?’
    Byrne gathered his thoughts. ‘I need to know about an inmate.’
    ‘Name?’
    ‘Valerie Beckert.’
    ‘Ah, our girl of the hour,’ Barbara said. ‘Tick, tick, tick.’
    ‘Yeah. Won’t be long now.’
    ‘She was your case?’
    ‘Not much of a case,’ Byrne said. ‘At least not for Thomas Rule.’
    ‘Sorry to say I’m out of the loop on this one,’ Barbara said. ‘Fill me in.’
    Byrne explained the circumstances of Valerie Beckert’s arrest, conviction, and sentencing. He glossed over the details of Thomas Rule’s murder.
    ‘Christ,’ Barbara said.
    ‘I’m Catholic, but I think He must have been busy that day.’
    ‘What do you want to know?’
    Byrne had thought about this, but everything he intended to say suddenly vacated his head. He went on instinct.
    ‘There were more kids, Barb. I had her in the box for six hours. She didn’t ask for a lawyer, and I didn’t offer. In the end it didn’t matter. I couldn’t break her.’
    Barbara Wagner just listened.
    ‘I need to know if she’s confided in someone at Muncy.’
    ‘Okay,’ Barbara said. ‘But you know she has limited contact, right?’
    ‘I know,’ Byrne said. ‘But in three weeks she’s going to have no contact. With anyone. And her secrets are going to hell with her. I need to know. The families need to know.’
    Byrne knew he was hitting this hard, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.
    ‘Understood,’ Barbara said.
    ‘Do you think they’ll let me see her?’
    ‘Hard to say. If it was up to me, no problem.’
    ‘I know,’ Byrne said. ‘Thanks.’
    As a convicted murderer on death row drew closer to his or her execution date, contact with outside visitors became more and more limited. In the final days it was down to clergy, legal counsel, and immediate family.
    Detective Kevin Byrne was none of the above.
    ‘I can put in the request,’ Barbara said. ‘It’ll have to clear her counsel.’
    ‘Who’s her lawyer now?’
    ‘Hang on.’
    Byrne heard Barbara tapping the keys on a keyboard.
    ‘Her latest is Brandon Altschuld, Esquire.’
    ‘Philly?’
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘He’s a PD out of Allentown.’
    When Valerie Beckert went on trial for first degree murder she was represented by a rather pricey firm in Philadelphia. Now, when she was no longer