Murder by Moonlight Read online

  It’s one of these same uniformed guards who escorts me to an interview room where Chris is waiting for me. The guard unlocks the door, opens it for me. When I step inside, he tells me to hit the doorbell-like button that’s mounted to the wall beside the door when I want out. He’ll be there for me within a few seconds.

  Before he closes the door behind me, he reaches in and offers a friendly wave. “Hey, Chris,” he says, all neighborly like. Pulling his hand back, he slams the metal door closed, sets the bolt.

  Christopher Parker is sitting at the end of a rectangular stainless-steel table that, like everything else in the joint, is bolted to the concrete floor. His hands and feet are shackled and chained. For added security, the chain is locked to an iron ring that’s attached to the underside of the table.

  I introduce myself, show him my ID and PI license. He leans into the table, stares at them for a moment, and then offers up a gentle smile. Unlike his college friends, I get the feeling Chris might be able to spot a fake.

  “Mother is very encouraged about you,” he says. The range of his voice isn’t childlike. But I notice a kind of childlike quality to it. It isn’t the baritone you might associate with a tough guy or a killer. It’s higher than that. Gentle. Not effeminate, like Mitch Hart. Just gentle.

  Despite the shackles, he does his best to offer up his right hand.

  I take hold of it, squeeze it in place of a shake. It’s a cold, thin hand. It’s also trembling. I’m careful not to squeeze too hard. Letting go, I feel the cold residue of Chris’s perspiration pasted to my own hand. In my brain I can’t help but see the hand holding a fireman’s axe. It’s so surprisingly frail and birdlike, I can’t imagine it even lifting a heavy axe, much less swinging one. My guess is that the already wiry kid has lost a good deal of weight during his jail time.

  He smiles again. But I know that he’s scared. I also know that he probably hasn’t enjoyed a decent night’s sleep since his incarceration began almost four months back, friendly guards or no friendly guards. I’m surprised he’s got any meat on his bones at all at this point.

  I keep my leather jacket on and sit down. “How’s the food in this place?” It’s an icebreaker and probably a bad one at that since we both already know the answer.

  He shrugs his narrow shoulders. “As luck would have it, Mr. M., I’m not a big eater.” Another weak smile. I’ll have to get used to them.

  From the looks of things, he isn’t lying. Chris is about six feet tall. Taller than me, anyway. But judging from his thin arms and sticklike neck, I peg him for maybe a buck thirty. And that’s soaking wet. He seems to float in his orange jumpsuit. As if the county doesn’t make one for so slight a young man. He certainly doesn’t resemble the basketball player I recall from his mother’s picture collection.

  “You wanna tell me what happened on the night of September 14th and 15th?” I inquire.

  Metallic blue eyes go wide. When he opens his mouth to inhale, the cheeks on his narrow, clean face go concave. Closing his mouth, his thick lips fill with red blood, making them seem almost swelled. As for his teeth? The middle-class Parkers spent a fortune they didn’t have on orthodontists.

  “Who have you spoken with?” A question answered with a question.

  “Just tell me what happened.”

  He describes a restless night where he couldn’t sleep and didn’t feel like hanging around the dorm. He’s not into hanging around the bars in Rochester, so he simply wanders the campus. Gets to sleep around dawn. Wakes up later in the morning, heads out for a run. When he comes back, he gets the bad news from a friend. He immediately drives back to Bethlehem.

  “Security cameras show you driving your Jeep in and out of the campus lot at various hours of the night.”

  He purses thick lips. “It’s like I told the police…Detective Bowman…There’s a few all-night coffee shops and gas stations off campus. I’ll say it again: I went out for a soda and a snack, a pack of cigs.”

  “What’d you eat exactly?”

  He blinks. He doesn’t expect a menu question. But I want to see if I can trip him up a little.

  “I can’t really remember,” he offers. “Something sweet. A Snickers bar, maybe. Say, Mr. M., how long have you been a private eye?” Changing the subject. He’s smiling again, eyes glassy.

  “Long enough. You like Snickers, huh?”

  “My fave. Can’t get them in here, though.” A roll of his eyes.

  “I’ll remember to bring you some.”

  “Mother was right. You are a nice man, despite…What did she call them? Some rough edges.”

  I look away because I know there will be another smile and it will be directed at me personally. And I’m creeped out enough having to pretend I believe in his innocence. Eyes on the table, I ask, “Do you have any idea who could have killed your father, wounded your mother?”

  He sits back, deflated. It’s like the air inside the jumpsuit is suddenly released, like a pinpricked balloon. “I can’t possibly imagine who could do such a cruel and inhuman thing, Mr. Moonlight.”

  “Just Moonlight.”

  “Of course. Moonlight. Great name. As for your question, it’s all I think about in here. Someone or something splitting my parents’ heads open with an axe.” He turns away like he’s all choked up and about to bawl. No more smiles. Seems legit. Or maybe he’s just a real good actor.

  “You aware of a relative of yours by the name of Freddie ‘the Fireman’ Parker?”

  More blinking. More staring at the concrete floor like he’s waiting for it to suddenly crack open, swallow him up. “I know of him.”

  “Was he ever really a fireman?”

  He nods. “A while back. When he was a good, decent man.”

  “Your dad owned the fireman’s axe that killed him?”

  This time he lifts up his head and dry swallows. The Adam’s apple that bobs in his throat seems too large for his thin neck. “My dad has all sorts of tools in the garage. I think he’s had that axe for ages. Long as I can remember, anyway.”

  “You think cousin Freddie gave it to him, Chris?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. M. Gee, why should it matter?”

  “I’ll be honest, Chris. I think Freddie might have had something to do with your parents’ attacks. Your dad and your mom testified recently about Freddie’s mob-related activities. Helped put him in prison. I think it’s possible he retaliated against your parents with a good old-fashioned mob hit and did it in a way that not only makes a statement, in the Godfather sense of the word, but that also makes you look like the attacker.”

  OK, I’m going for something here. Not the truth, necessarily, but a version of the truth that might please the kid enough to get him talking. Offer him something to hold onto and, at the same time, make him relax a little, maybe loosen up his lips. And let me tell you, it works, because his blue eyes light up again. He raises up his head and once more sets his sights on me.

  “Why aren’t the police looking into Freddie, Mr. Moonlight? He’s down at Green Haven Prison. That’s, like, only forty miles from here.”

  “Good question. But myself and your lawyer feel pretty confident that if we can convince the county prosecutor of the possibility, it might be enough for you to get out on bail.”

  There it is. The weak smile, along with lit-up eyes now filled up with real tears. He either believes what I’m telling him or he’s one hell of an actor. Or maybe he’s just a psychopath.

  “Who else besides you, your brother, and your parents knew about the key in the planter out front?”

  “Nobody.” He says it with zero hesitation.

  “Could your cousin have possibly known about it?”

  “Mom told you about the strange men who’ve been hanging around the driveway at all hours of the day and night? Don’t you think it’s possible one of them could have spotted Mom or Dad using the key?”

  Kid’s got a point.

  “But what about the code on the keypad? You’d have to have pretty good
eyes in order to see the code your mom or dad typed into it.”

  His eyes do another roll. “If I had a dollar for every time my dad forgot to arm the alarm system before he went to bed at night.” Grinning. “I mean, it’s freakin’ Bethlehem, you know.”

  I force myself to make a smile. Yeah, it’s Bethlehem. Home of the Great White Society. But I recall a little girl by the name of Christina Riley dying in the quaint little town, and now two upstanding citizens have had their brains bashed in with a fireman’s axe by either a mobster or their psychotic young son, or both.

  I stare at him, into him, until it hurts. “You might be able to pay off your Jeep now, Chris.”

  He lets loose with a laugh. More like a sarcastic snort. “Huh, Mr. M.? Lost me there.”

  “Dad’s insurance payoff. I understand you’d been having money trouble as of late.”

  “Jeez, who doesn’t? I’m in college. An expensive college. My dad makes nominal money working for the county as a law clerk.” A disdainful shake of his head. “Man his age and education should be managing partner of his own law firm by now. Should be making a half a mil a year, no sweat. That would easily place him in the top 1 percent of salary earners in Albany. Maybe the top 0.5 percent.”

  Wow, kid’s done his salary-earning homework.

  “No point in arguing the situation now. Maybe your dad loved his work. Maybe he believed in it. Maybe it was his passion.”

  “While Mother and my big brother and I scraped by,” he whispers through suddenly clenched teeth. Then, “Do you know why my brother joined the navy, Mr. M.?”

  “Patriotism? A profound distrust of the Muslim radical element?”

  “Hardly. No money for college.”

  “Guaranteed student loan.”

  “Guaranteed strapped-for-life is more like it.” The look on his face is disgust.

  “You’ve taken out loans. Your dad managed to make some of the payments for you.”

  “Sure, some of it. But it was like pulling teeth trying to get anything out of him.”

  I don’t say anything about the heated exchange of e-mails between Chris and his parents. The e-mails that figure so prominently in the cops’ and the prosecutor’s case. The e-mails that point to a motive.

  “Why did you buy the Jeep if money was so tight?”

  He’s not afraid to look me in the eye. “Because I wanted something to call my own. Something the other guys at school would think was cool.”

  “Cool. Even if you couldn’t afford the loan.”

  “You want something bad enough, you make it happen.”

  “Sure thing. Why’d you tell your friends at school you were rich?”

  Another laugh. “God, I could use a cigarette,” he says and exhales. “Hey, Mr. M., you wouldn’t happen to…”

  “Quit a few years ago.” A few months ago is more like it. But that’s my business.

  “They don’t let you smoke in here anyway.” He smirks.

  “So why pretend to be rich?”

  “I wanted people to like me?”

  “OK, fair enough. But you realize, now they think you’re a liar.”

  “Ooooohhhh,” he utters, with a shake of his head. “I suppose they also think I’m the return of Lizzie Borden. Minus the dress.”

  This time I laugh. “Your Jeep was spotted outside the house early on the morning of September 15th. You think it could have been a coincidence? Or a mistake?”

  “Maybe it was Freddie making it look like me. Who spotted it? That sneaky Maxwell Okey?”

  I don’t say a word. Nor do I mention the mud stain. But once again, the kid’s got a point. Maybe cousin Freddie planted a Jeep identical to Chris’s outside the Parker house on the morning of the murders.

  “I really have no explanation for it other than I know where I was.”

  I stand up.

  He, too, goes to stand, but then remembers the shackles and cuffs. “Hate it when I do that,” he grouses.

  “You hang on in here a little while longer,” I reassure the probable axe murderer. “All goes OK, the judge will see that you were unfairly accused and he’ll have no choice but to release you on bond.”

  But what he does with that parole will be up to him. Far as I’m concerned it’ll be for the good if he gets dragged right back to jail to await trial.

  I turn for the door, not sure if I believe the Freddie the Fireman angle anymore than I believe what Joan believes: that her son is innocent. But I’ve been hired to do a job and tossing Freddie the Fireman into the frying pan might be the only way Chris is going to see the light of day again. Until his trial, that is.

  “How can I thank you, Mr. Moonlight?”

  “Don’t thank me yet. You’re still going to have to stand trial, no matter what I dig up. But in the end, if all this works out, you’ll want to thank your mother. If she hadn’t recanted her statement about who attacked her…”

  He looks away, swallows. “Yes, of course,” he says. “Mother. My God, what hasn’t she been through?”

  “You like to ask questions. Even if they’re rhetorical.”

  He purses his lips, cocks his head. “Ever have a habit you just can’t shake?” he poses. Then giggling. “Oops I did it again.” He actually sings it like Britney Spears. Now I’m convinced he’s a psycho.

  “Your mother needs you now. That’s why I’m doing this for you…for her.”

  “We need each other. Don’t you think?”

  “Yeah. But it won’t excuse you when it comes time for the State of New York to have its day in court.”

  Heading for the door, I hit the button on the wall. The buzzer sounds. Loud, abrupt, prison-like.

  Before the door opens, I turn back to the kid. “You’re an Eagle Scout.”

  “Yes, sir,” he says proudly, trying to give me the three-fingered Boy Scout salute with his right cuffed hand. “First degree, I might add.”

  “You must have spent a lot of time in the woods.”

  “I was lucky enough to have thousands of acres at my disposal as a boy. They’re still there. Behind my parents’ house.”

  “Lucky you. I grew up inside a funeral home surrounded by stiffs.”

  The door opens. I slip out, the words “first degree” echoing inside my head.

  Back on the other side of the river, I pull up out front of the Stage Coach coffee shop on lower State Street for two large regulars. In the Caddy again, I drive up the hill past the white marble State House and park in an open spot outside the equally white marble Albany County Courthouse.

  I carry the coffees inside.

  I don’t know Judge Cross, but having worked for a decade as a real cop, I know of him. I stood inside his court on more than one occasion and once was even asked to approach the bench, where I got a whiff of his heavily applied Old Spice. It’s that same fragrance that fills my nasal passages the moment I enter his office up on the third floor of the old courthouse.

  He’s sitting behind his big wooden desk. Piles of papers and court dockets almost manage to conceal the short, gray-haired man like the vertical battlements on a castle. He’s still wearing his black robe. The thick black glasses that barely cling to his ears and nose look like they’re about to fall into his lap.

  Behind him is a giant picture window that looks out over the downtown and the Hudson River. The rest of the office wall space is covered in bookshelves filled to capacity with soft and hard volumes, law journals, and magazines, some of them piled vertically and others coursed horizontally. On the floor beside a leather-and-wood chair rest stacks and stacks of old newspapers. New York Times, mostly. A few Times Unions tossed into the mix for a little local flavor.

  When I walk in and set the coffee on his desk in one of the only bare spots I can find, he doesn’t thank me. He doesn’t look up at me either, for that matter.

  “You’ve got five minutes,” he growls, old voice deep and gruff.

  “I only need three, Judge.”

  He reaches out for the coffee, cracks t
he lid on it. I crack the lid on mine.

  “I understand you’re working for Terry,” he points out. “It’s the only reason I agreed to see you. Plus, you were an Albany cop. Plus your head.” He finger-taps his right temple.

  “My head?” I inquire, even though I know precisely what he’s getting at.

  “I’ve felt low myself at times. It happens.” Staring down at his coffee. “It’s good you lived.”

  “Thanks, Judge. Good to be here. And I truly appreciate your time.”

  His head shoots back up like, Back to reality! “Dispense with the fucking brownnosing, Moonlight. None of this means I actually like you. I’ve gotta be back downstairs in four and half minutes and my gout is acting up again. Takes me all that time just to hobble to the elevator. So spill your shit already.”

  “Right on, Judge. Why’d you send your court officer to the Parker home when Peter didn’t show up for work on September 15th?”

  “I was concerned about him.” Stealing a careful sip of the hot coffee.

  “A little excessive, sending someone over. Maybe he’s too sick to call in. The flu. Or something worse.”

  I don’t say anything about Mitch Hart following me to my loft last night. I know the judge has no idea about it and that if he finds out, he might not like it. He sets his coffee down. Running both hands over a tired, worn face, he grimaces and sighs.

  “Mr. Moonlight,” he says and exhales, “Peter has been working for me for nearly thirty years. Do you know how much sick time he’s taken in that period?”

  “Let me guess,” I say, carefully sipping my coffee. “St. Peter took less than none in order to prove his loyalty to judge and jury.”

  He sits back hard in his swivel chair, raises his right hand so that the sleeve on the flowing black robe slides down to his elbow. He sticks out his index finger, shakes it at me like a pistol. “You,” he says through clenched teeth. “You are a fucking wiseass.”

  Me, reining my smile back in. I’m forgetting this guy just lost his good friend in a brutal axe murder. He’s still human, even if he is a judge. “Forgive me if I’ve ruffled a few feathers, Judge.”