Dick Moonlight - 01 - Moonlight Falls Read online

  Moonlight Falls

  Dick Moonlight [1]

  Vincent Zandri

  StoneGate Ink (2009)

  Rating: ★★★★☆

  Tags: Mystery, Detective, Suspense, Thriller

  Mysteryttt Detectivettt Suspensettt Thrillerttt

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  In MOONLIGHT FALLS, novelist and photo journalist Vincent Zandri asks the question "If you knew your life could end at any moment, how far would you go to prove you murdered your lover? " Albany, New York, is the setting of Zandri's paranoid thriller (in the Hitchcock tradition) about Richard "Dick" Moonlight, former APD detective turned private investigator/massage therapist, who believes he killed Scarlet Montana - his illicit lover and wife of his ex-boss, Chief of Detectives Jake Montana. The problem is ... Moonlight doesn't remember what happened!

  ### About the Author

  Vincent Zandri has an M.F.A in Writing – Vermont College of Norwich University, 1997, and a B.A. in Sociology, Providence College, 1986. Moonlight Falls is his fourth thriller/suspense novel and he is working on the fifth. A world-traveler, Zandri is also a photo journalist.

  PRAISE FOR VINCENT ZANDRI

  “If you want a novel that runs wild like a caged beast let loose, Zandri is the man.”

  —(Albany)

  “Sensational…masterful…brilliant.”

  —New York Post

  “Probably the most arresting first crime novel to break into print this season.”

  —Boston Herald

  “A thriller that has depth and substance, wickedness and compassion.”

  —The Times-Union (Albany)

  “Vincent Zandri explodes onto the scene with the debut thriller of the year. As Catch Can is gritty, fast-paced, lyrical and haunting. Don’t miss it.”

  —Harlan Coben, author of The Final Detail

  “A Satisfying Yarn.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “Compelling…As Catch Can pulls you in with rat-a-tat prose, kinetic pacing…characters are authentic, and the punchy dialogue rings true. Zandri’s staccato prose moves As Catch Can at a steady, suspenseful pace.”

  —Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

  “Exciting…An Engrossing Thriller…the descriptions of life behind bars will stand your hair on end.”

  —Rocky Mountain News

  “Readers will be held captive by prose that pounds as steadily as an elevated pulse… Vincent Zandri nails readers’ attention.”

  —Boston Herald

  “A smoking gun of a debut novel. The rough and tumble pages turn quicker than men turn on each other.”

  —Albany Times-Union

  “The story line is non-stop action and the flashback to Attica is eerily brilliant. If this debut is any indication of his work, readers will demand a lifetime sentence of novels by Vincent Zandri.”

  —I Love a Mystery

  “A tough-minded, involving novel…Zandri writes strong prose that rarely strains for effect, and some of his scenes…achieve a powerful hallucinatory horror.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A classic detective tale.”

  —The Record (Troy, NY)

  “[Zandri] demonstrates an uncanny knack for exposition, introducing new characters and narrative possibilities with the confidence of an old pro…Zandri does a superb job creating interlocking puzzle pieces.”

  —San Diego Union-Tribune

  “This is a tough, stylish, heartbreaking car accident of a book: You don’t want to look but you can’t look away. Zandri’s a terrific writer and he tells a terrific story.”

  —Don Winslow, author of The Death and Life of Bobby Z

  “Satisfying.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  Other books by Vincent Zandri

  Scream Catcher

  The Innocent

  Concrete Pearl

  The Remains

  Moonlight Falls

  Moonlight Falls UNCUT

  Moonlight Mafia

  Moonlight Rises

  Permanence

  Godchild

  True Stories

  Love at First Sight

  “Maybe being a good man didn’t amount to anything … It didn’t seem to get you much. You ended up in the same place as the bad man. Sometimes with a cheaper coffin.”

  —Robert B. Parker

  “He reached out and took the knife to slaughter.”

  —Genesis 23:10

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  What you are about to read is not MOONLIGHT FALLS as originally and graciously published by R.J.Buckley in 2009. It is an “uncut” version that features upwards of 100 pages of original material that is derived from multiple points of view. This material was edited by me in later drafts in order create a more streamline manuscript that was delivered from Richard “Dick” Moonlight’s 1st person POV only.

  In this version, you not only have Moonlight’s perspective, you also enter into the head of several major characters, including Scarlet Montana, her husband Jake Montana, Moonlight’s ex-wife Lynn, and even the Russian mobsters who are busy harvesting human organs illegally. Any chapters that appear for you in italics, are the “uncut” chapters and published in their entirety. Even the original quotation by the late Robert B. Parker which appears prior to the Prologue and which was eventually substituted for a quote from Genesis, is included in this new novel.

  In some ways, this novel is a richer portrayal of the tragic events that lead Dick Moonlight to believe he might actually be responsible for the death of his lover while, as a private detective under the employ of the Albany Police Department’s understaffed violent crimes/homicide division, he goes about trying to solve the riddle of who killed her. You see now the near impossible dilemma Moonlight faces. Simple irony doesn’t fit the bill here. Neither does paradox. Only the words “dark tragedy” seems to come close to describing the frantic and often desperate circumstances in which Dick Moonlight finds himself. The more he searches for a killer or killers, the more the evidence points to himself. Now you see why this novel was described as “A new book for Hitchcock fans,” by MORE MAGAZINE.

  These extra chapters will add a new dimension to the first Moonlight novel. And when combined with the special author interviews, reviews, and essays also included in this especially thick volume by StoneGate Ink, will serve to create a brand new, multi-layered, and indeed, riveting reading experience.

  As always, thanks for reading.

  Vincent Zandri

  October 20, 2011

  Albany, New York

  PROLOGUE

  MAN’S LIFE IS FLASHING before his eyes.

  He’s a little amazed because it’s happening just like it does in a sappy movie. You know, when they run real fast through some homespun Super 8 film starting with your birth, moving on to toddler’s first step, then first day at kindergarten, first communion, first day at high school, first prom, first Gulf War, first marriage, first born son, first affair, first divorce …

  So why’s the life flashing by?

  Man’s about to execute himself.

  He sits alone at the kitchen table inside what used to be his childhood home, pistol barrel pressed up tight against his head, only a half inch or so behind the right earlobe. Thumb on the hammer, index finger wrapped around the trigger, hand trembling, eyes closed, big tears falling.

  On the bright side of things, it’s a beautiful sunny day.

  Outside the kitchen window, cheerful white wispy clouds float by in a wide blue sky. Bluebirds chirp happily from the junipers that line the perimeter of his upstate New York property. The cool wind blows, shaking the leaves on the trees. The Fall air is cool, crisp and clean. Fo
otball weather, his mortician dad used to call it back when he was a happy-go-lucky kid.

  On the not-so-bright side, a bullet is about to enter his brainpan.

  But then, as much as the man wants to call it quits, he is not entirely reckless; not entirely insensitive. He’s thought things through. While he might have used his service-issued 9 mm to do the job, he’s decided instead to go with a more lightweight .22. To some people, a pistol is a pistol. But to the man, nothing could be farther from the truth. Because had he chosen to do the job the absolute right way—the barrel of the 9 mm pushed up against the soft upper pallet of the mouth in the standard method of “eating one’s piece,” he would almost guarantee himself a quick death.

  A good death.

  Problem is, that “good death” would leave one hell of a spatter mess behind for some poor soul to have to clean up after him. So instead of choosing the safe, “good death,” he’s opted for the more thoughtful no-mess, easy cleanup kind of suicide—the assassin’s death. Because only a professional killer with a steady hand knows that a .22 caliber bullet ain’t got no chance in hell of exiting the skull once it’s made jelly filling of his brains.

  In theory at least.

  Outside the window, the wind picks up.

  The chimes that hang from the eaves make a pretty, jingly, ambient music.

  The Super 8 memories inside his head have ceased. His life story—the entire affair from birth to this very moment some thirty-six years later have officially flashed before his eyes.

  Roll credits …

  Man swallows a lump, thumbs back the hammer. The mechanical action reverberates inside his skull.

  There’s no stopping him; no penetrating the resolve of the already dead. He’s happy with himself for the first time in he can’t remember how long. So happy, his entire body weight seems to empty itself from out the bottoms of his feet. That’s when a red robin perches itself on the brick ledge just outside the picture window. Just a small scarlet feathered robin that’s beating its wings and staring into the house with its dark eyes.

  “What’s it like to die?” the man whispers to the bird.

  He plants a smile on his face a split second before he pulls the trigger.

  Four Years Later

  Stormville, New York

  60 miles north of New York City

  I AM LED INTO a four-walled basement room by two suited agents—one tall, slim and bearded; the other shorter, stockier, clean shaven. The space we occupy contains a one-way mirror which I know from experience hides a tripod mounted video camera, a soundman and several F.B.I. agents, the identities of whom are concealed. There’s no furniture in the room, other than a long metal table and four metal chairs. No wallpaper, no soft lamp light, no piped-in music. Just harsh white overhead light, concrete, and a funny worm smell.

  As I enter the room for the first time, tall agent tells me to take a seat at the table.

  “We appreciate your cooperation,” stocky agent jumps in.

  Out the corner of my eye, I catch my reflection in the mirror. I guess you can say I’m of medium height, and not too badly put together for forty, thanks to the cross-training routine my G.P. put me on not long after my hospital release. Nowadays, my head is Mike Stipe shaved. There’s a small button-sized scar behind my right earlobe in the place where the fragment of .22 caliber bullet penetrated the skull. I wear a black leather jacket over black jeans and lace-up combat boots left over from my military service during the first Gulf War. My eyeglasses are rectangular. They make my stubble-covered face seem slightly wider than it really is. So people have told me.

  Having been led to my chair, I am then asked to focus my gaze directly onto the mirror so that the video man stationed on the opposite side of the glass can adjust his shooting angle and focus.

  “Please say something,” requests the short, stocky agent to my left while removing his suit jacket, setting it over the back of an empty chair.

  “There once was a cop from Nantucket,” I say in the interest of breaking the ice.

  But no one laughs.

  “You get that?” the taller agent barks out to no one in particular.

  “Okay to go,” comes a tinny, hidden speaker voice. “You gonna finish that poem, Mr. Divine?”

  “Knock it off,” Stocky agent orders. Then turning back to me, “Before we get started, can we get you a coffee? A cappuccino?”

  “Mind if I smoke?”

  Stocky agent shakes his head, rolls up the sleeves on his thick arms, reaches across the heavy wood table, grabs the ashtray, places it in front of me.

  Tall bearded agent nods.

  “Let’s get started, Mr. Divine,” he says in this deep, affected voice. “You already know the routine. For now we just want to get to the bottom of the who, what, wheres and hows of this matter.”

  “You forgot the ‘why,’” I say, firing up a Marlboro Light. “You need to know the why to establish an entire familiarity with any given case.”

  Tall agent does a double take, smiles. Like he knows I’m fucking with him.

  “Don’t be a dick, Dick,” he says.

  I guess it’s important not to take life too seriously.

  He laughs. I laugh. We all laugh.

  Ice officially broken.

  I exhale some smoke through a narrow, satisfied grin, sit back in my chair, nod.

  They’re right of course. I know the drill. I know it’s the truth they’re after. The truth and almost nothing but the truth. But what they also want is my perspective—my take on the entire Scarlet Montana affair, from soup to peanuts. As a former full-time Stormville Detective, I know that nobody sees the same thing in quite the same way. What’s important to one person might appear insignificant to another. What those Federal Agents want right now inside the basement interview room is my most reliable version of the truth—an accurate, objective truth that separates fact from fantasy.

  In theory, at least.

  “Ask away,” I say, just as the buzzing starts up in the core of my head.

  “Just start at the beginning,” stocky agent requests. “We have all night.”

  But that’s when the trouble starts.

  Sitting up straight I feel my right arm beginning to go numb on me. So numb I drop the lit cigarette into the table. My head buzzes, chimes like a belfry. The stocky agent seated across from me is staring at me with these wide bug eyes like my head is about to explode all over him.

  But then, just as soon as it all starts, the buzzing and the paralysis subsides. I manage to pick up the partially smoked cigarette, exhale a very resigned, now smokeless breath and stamp the cancer stick out.

  “Everything you wanna know,” I whisper. “You want me to tell you everything.”

  “Everything you remember,” Tall agent smiles.

  Stocky agent bobs his head in the affirmative.

  By all indicators, it’s going to be a long night.

  “I think I’ll take that cappuccino after all,” I say. “In fact, make it double latte.”

  For the first time since entering the basement interview room, I sense my facial expression turning deadly serious.

  One Month Earlier

  1

  IT BEGAN WITH A choice.

  Rather, a real bad decision—the decision to stay with Scarlet Montana for more than her allotted forty minutes. It was the last thing either one of us needed, but the first thing we wanted. Or I wanted anyway.

  In my right mind I’d spend an hour tops on a soothing massage, collect my forty bucks, make my swift exit. That’s exactly the way I planned it on my way over through the rain. It’s the reason I didn’t take the collapsible table with me; the reason I didn’t bring my oil belt, opting instead to shove a small bottle into my gym shorts pocket.

  Get in quick, get out even quicker.

  Just make time for a spur-of-the-moment massage, yours truly kneeling over the spot in which she lay flat on her belly on the carpeted living room floor, only a white bath towel covering her
bare heart-shaped bottom. In a purely professional, if not clinical manner, I would allow my well-oiled hands to do what they had recently been trained (and nearly licensed) to do. At the same time I would act as a sounding board to this thirty-something woman who could no longer stand the sight of her life partner, Jake, the man who had given up any possibility of a happy marriage for the title of Stormville Police Captain—a position bestowed upon him not long after my head injury prompted a forced medical leave from the force. Now instead of a wife, he had a personal assistant; instead of kids, he had the South Pearl Street precinct full of upwardly mobile young cops; instead of a cozy suburban home life, he had his late evenings, early mornings and more frequent days and nights spent away from home altogether.

  As for Scarlet Montana, instead of a marriage and a family, she had a huge helping heap of loneliness sprinkled with despair.

  That Sunday night I dropped everything to brave a violent thunderstorm in order to make the half-mile trek to Scarlet’s on foot. This had to be just around nine o’clock because I was right in the middle of my incline presses when I got her call. Traipsing through the downpour across the lawns and suburban driveways in gym shorts, tennis shoes and gray t-shirt, I must have looked like the most rock-solid neighborhood night-crawler you ever saw.

  But what’s for certain is that this time I promised myself I would stay for no more than forty minutes. This time I would fight to stay in control. Just a nice massage, an understanding listen, then a quick, Hang in there, baby, everything’s gonna be just fine. Maybe a hug, a peck to the cheek, and then like lightning, I’d be gone in a flash.

  Would I ever learn?

  Why could I not restrain myself?

  Why couldn’t I just be satisfied with listening to her soft voice? Why did I have to stare into her soft blue eyes? Why did I have to gaze upon her ocean of thick auburn hair and picture myself swimming in it? Why did I have to picture my lips touching her thick heart-shaped lips? Why did I have to imagine them running the length of her sweet neck all the way down her back? Why did I have to gently slip my hands underneath the white towel? Why did I have cup her perfectly carved glutes into the palm of my one hand while the other gently caressed her milky white breasts?