Scream Catcher Read online

  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

  The Innocent

  Concrete Pearl

  The Remains

  Moonlight Falls

  Moonlight Mafia

  Moonlight Rises

  Permanence

  Godchild

  True Stories

  Vincent Zandri

  Table Of Contents

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Part I – The Unreliable Witness

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Part II – The Wait

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Part III – The Dark Monster

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Part IV – Darkness My Old Friend

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Part V – Resident Evil

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Epilogue

  Chapter 108

  Excerpt of The Innocent

  Like the cat I have nine times to die …

  Dying

  Is an art, like everything else.

  I do it exceptionally well.

  —Sylvia Plath

  Prologue

  Sweeny’s Boxing Gym

  Lake George, New York

  Tuesday, August 15, 6:10 A.M.

  The man is hiding. Has been for a long time now, since his life—his physical body—became reduced to a shadowy reflection of his own fear. A fear so real, so palpable and heavy, it seems like there are times it might be possible for him to unzip it like you would a second skin and maybe hang it up on a sixpenny nail to dry. If only that were possible.

  But his fear is more than skin deep. It is an internal demon and it is lodged inside bone and flesh like a cancer. It is what he has in the place of a soul. Rather, it is what has replaced his soul. Only when he least expected it did it reveal its beastly head of pale white skin, black eyes and fang-like teeth before entering into his body and holding him hostage.

  Ever since that day he has since been trying his best to purge the demon from his body. But he does not use a priest for his exorcist. He does not use a shaman. He does not use a psychiatrist. He does not use God.

  Instead, he uses only physical exertion.

  He attempts to push the fear out through his ribs by improving his physical body with exercise. Grueling exercise on a daily basis. Running, lifting, boxing, stretching, sweating, groaning, pushing, pulling, crying, bleeding, sucking air and, on occasion, passing out.

  It’s bad that those closest to him no longer trust him. It’s w
orse that he no longer trusts himself. And a man who cannot trust himself can never know what it is to truly love or be truly loved in return.

  Yet, he lives and carries on as if today—this very moment in time—will be the end of something bad and the beginning of a new life free of the demon.

  But today will not be one of those days.

  Because today, Jude Parish, forty-five year old ex-cop turned bestselling true crime writer, gets to be the eyewitness to a murder.

  Here’s how it happens:

  He’s just exited Sweeney’s Boxing Gym by way of the back door. It’s raining, the new summer dawn hidden by a black and blue sky; its heat by fierce wind gusts; its calm by lightning and thunder. The early morning workout—six rounds jump rope, six rounds speed bag, six rounds heavy bag—is all but historical fact. Now oxygen starved lungs crave the fresh air; tired muscles and joints welcome cool rain. Kissing the sky, Jude allows the rain to pelt his stubbly face, to soak his cropped hair, to dampen his gray sweats.

  Mounted to the block wall behind him is a reflective exit sign and a lit spotlight. To his right a blue dumpster, the letters B.F.I. printed on the four metal side panels. To his left, an open sea of cracked and blistered blacktop. Beyond that, a too dark nothing that stretches all the way beyond the Canadian border.

  Dead ahead he spots two people.

  What at first glance appears to be a long-haired man chasing a T-shirted man from out of the old Malloy gravel pit. Two grown men stumble down the pit embankment, crash through second growth woods like two hunted deer, until spilling out onto the flat lot.

  Back pressed up against the block wall, Jude watches, listening to his heart beat inside his temples. He’s no stranger to the pit. As a boy he used to play Johnny Quest inside the big dig during the day, but never at night when the Lake George dark monster came out of hiding. Standing in the rain his mind recalls deep craters, jagged shale, abandoned automobiles, empty beer bottles, used condoms and rock piles galore. The images flash back while he works up a smile. Black Bear’s Bar and Grille is located on the opposite north end of the old pit. Black Bear’s is open all night for the commercial salmon and charter fishermen and their pickled livers.

  As for the running men?

  They must be drunk as rabid skunks.

  Pulling himself away from the wall, he sucks in a wet breath, prepares for the two-mile jog back home to pregnant wife and child when the T-shirted man drops to his knees on the pavement, and Longhair raises up a hand exposing a silenced automatic.

  What happens next takes forever and an instant.

  Longhair extends his right arm, presses the automatic to T-shirt’s head.

  “Scream,” he orders in a strange, high-pitched voice. “Scream. For. Me.”

  The man on his knees hesitates. Peering slowly up at the long-haired man, he doesn’t scream. He produces only silence and a frightened smile. Until Longhair thumbs back the hammer on the automatic.

  “Scream. For. Me.” he repeats, bringing a handheld device to the mouth of the T-shirted man.

  T-shirted man loses his smile. He lowers his head, swallows a deep breath.

  He screams.

  Screams so loud the guttural shriek bounces off the side of the gym and rattles Jude’s bones.

  He screams directly into the handheld device. A device that by now Jude is certain is an iPhone.

  When the scream is finished, and the T-shirted man’s lungs are empty of oxygen, silence returns to the lot. That’s when two muzzle flashes light the dark sky for two brief instances.

  Longhair takes a step back.

  T-Shirt falls face first. French kisses a rain puddle.

  “God almighty,” Jude whispers to himself.

  But there’s nothing God Almighty can do now.

  Longhair slides the automatic into a shoulder holster, and pockets the iPhone. Sensing another presence, he turns, laser beams a gaze in the ex-cop’s direction.

  It’s then that Jude’s body suddenly becomes a pinpricked balloon.

  All strength bleeds out of his feet.

  He drops down onto the wet lot, rolls his body behind the B.F.I. dumpster, hides himself behind stacks of cardboard and rain-drenched newspapers.

  Heart beats a berserk rhythm. Hands tremble. Adrenalin-filled brain becomes an orchestral symphony warming up inside the skull, until the roar of a car engine and burning rubber kills the music.

  Longhair is getting away.

  What’s the ex-cop gonna do?

  Ex-cop is gonna listen to the demon inside his chest, and he’s going to sit still, play dead.

  The car approaches, downshifts to a crawl, then brakes to a hard stop some fifteen or twenty feet away. As soon as the passenger window goes down, Jude can’t miss it: gunmetal death staring him in the face.

  Longhair’s got an unobstructed shot.

  When the hammer comes down the ex-cop never sees the flash. Never feels the pain.

  What’s it like to die?

  It’s like the lights in a room being turned out. It’s about silence and stillness and darkness. It’s freedom from the demon. It’s like falling …

  … falling into a deep and painless sleep.

  Part I

  The Unreliable Witness

  1

  Sweeney’s Boxing Gym

  Tuesday, 6:30 A.M.

  But Jude is not dead.

  Instead he’s jarred awake to the voices that belong to the handful of boxing students who’ve arrived at the gym for their early morning, pre-work workouts, two of whom promptly assist him off the damp pavement.

  Standing awkwardly, out of balance, eyesight blurred to the point of being blinded, he’s become the crippled sum total of his fear. He begins to realize that there is both good and bad news in his situation.

  First the good news: the bullet discharged from the killer’s silenced automatic only grazed the right side of his skull. The bullet, while knocking him out cold, did not penetrate the brainpan.

  As for the bad news: his skull feels like it’s been rammed into the block wall.

  His head rings and throbs with jolts of pain. His swelled brain feels like it’s about to explode out the ears, eyes and nostrils. Something is bothering Jude, too. Something that only a former cop can’t help but contemplate: if the long-haired killer finds out he missed his target, he’ll have no choice but to hunt Jude down, destroy the eyewitness to a murder.

  * * *

  The Lake George summer tourist paradise is gearing up for another beautiful beach ball-cotton candy day. The newly risen sun has already burned off the predawn rain. Maybe Jude has no way of seeing them clearly, but he can feel the rays warm on his face. Sweatpants and sweatshirt are heavy with the rainwater that’s saturated them; sneakers damp, squishy, his feet itching.

  His fellow boxing students do their best to hold him upright and steady, one on each arm. He tries with all his powers to regain his equilibrium while big iron bells relentlessly toll inside a bruised skull. But the imaginary bells are not loud enough to drown out the distressed voices of the boxing students.

  Managing to free himself from their grips, Jude stumbles a step forward, gently touches his head wound with the tips of his fingers, comes away with sticky blood. From where he’s standing, he’s able to make out one student who’s crying inconsolably, another student ordering the distraught woman, “Don’t look at it!” referring no doubt to the assassinated T-shirted man. Yet a third student—this one a man—asks him if he’s going to be okay.

  “I’m having trouble seeing,” he whispers. “But it’ll pass.”

  “Police are on their way,” the same man adds in a shaky voice. “So is Jimmy Mack and an ambulance.”

  At the mention of his adoptive father and former L.G.P.D. boss, Jude feels a knot begin to twist itself around his intestines. Not only did he witness a murder, but he froze up, allowed the murderer to get away. That clearly in mind, he isn’t sure if he can bear to look into Mack’s face when the old Captain finds out about i
t. Maybe he has no idea how Mack will react. But already he can taste the top cop’s disappointment on his tongue, as if he’s just swallowed a mouthful of sour milk.

  By the time the first emergency siren can be heard blaring from out of the near distance, the sight is already returning to his eyes.

  2

  Wooded knoll behind Sweeney’s Boxing Gym

  Tuesday, 6:37 A.M.

  Bright blue eyes peer through the narrow tree branch openings.

  Eyes focused not on all the people scattered behind the boxing gym, but instead on one man. A man the people sometimes refer to as Jude and at other times as Parish. A former Lake George policeman turned best-selling author. Or so the people whisper to one another.

  Blue Eyes sees that Parish stands a bit unsteady, wobbly. The ex-cop is holding his head in his hands. When Parish finally raises his head up, Blue Eyes spots the small but noticeable gash between the temple and the right ear lobe. It’s where the .22 caliber round from the silenced automatic must have grazed him instead of killing him.

  Blaring from out of the distance, sirens.

  The police are coming …

  Black Dragon studies the face of Jude Parish, commits it to memory. Black Dragon wants to hear Jude Parish scream.

  In his right hand, he grips the iPhone. He turns on the scream catcher app he created himself. He presses play, puts the phone to his ear. He listens to the scream the T-Shirted man made just before his death. The scream sends ice water up and down his backbone.

  When the first cop car turns the corner into Sweeney’s back lot, Hector “the Black Dragon” Lennox is already bushwhacking back through the woods towards his silver sedan.

  “Scream. For. Me.” chants the blue-eyed beast. “Scream. For. Me.”

  3

  Sweeney’s Boxing Gym

  Tuesday, 7:01 A.M.

  Shock.

  It’s how the demon fucks with him, tainting his blood with a numbing poison.