Murder by Moonlight Page 19

  “This isn’t over, Terry. I’ve got a real bad feeling in my gut.”

  He opens the door. I hear a commotion, then footsteps coming down the hall.

  “Welcome to my world,” Terry spits. “Now just go!”

  “I don’t want to spoil the party,” I say, reciting a sad but famous Beatles song. I step out onto the vestibule. He closes the door, dead-bolts it behind me. Makes me wonder if he’s locking me out, or locking Jonathan in.

  That night I lie in bed with Aviva pressed up against me, her head resting on my bare chest. Our naked skin is still covered with a very thin patina of perspiration, our hearts still beating, our breathing slowing bit by bit, the good feeling of being emptied and relaxed, but knowing that you both aren’t ready for sleep yet.

  “So let me get this straight,” she whispers over the sound of the river lapping the dock piers outside the big windows. “You coldcocked your client’s son at a party celebrating his brother’s release from prison.”

  “He was holding a gun on me and Kindler. Actually, two guns. And Chris didn’t get released from prison. He just made bail from jail.”

  “A real gun?”

  “Yup. An antique Colt six-shooter. Like on Gunsmoke.”

  “What’s Gunsmoke?”

  “A TV show.”

  “I don’t have a TV anymore. I only watch YouTube and Netflix. Or I read on my Kindle.”

  “How old are you again?”

  “Thirtysomething. I’m younger than you, yet more mature. Imagine that.”

  “Funny. Getting back to Jonathan: he was pretty drunk and pretty angry, and I don’t think he likes me very much.”

  She asks why.

  “I think that he thinks that I’m taking his mother for a ride. It’s possible he trusts enough in his little brother’s innocence to believe the system will actually take care of him without his saintly mom having to resort to hiring a scumbag PI like me.”

  “You’re a very cute scumbag. But does Jonathan actually believe his mother is actually in her right mind?”

  I shrug my shoulders against the down pillow. “I don’t know. I’ve only had one prior conversation with him, and that wasn’t especially revealing. But I’m beginning to suspect his mind isn’t all that right itself.”

  “You think he’s got anger issues?”

  “Yup.”

  “You think both Parker boys have anger issues?”

  “Yup.”

  “You think they had a normal upbringing?”

  “Nope.”

  “You still think that if Christopher killed his parents, he did so for money?”

  “Nope.”

  “You think it might have had something to do with Joan fucking…excuse me…sleeping with Detective Bowman?”

  “It’s OK, we just enjoyed some fucking ourselves…and yes.”

  “You think there’s more to Christopher’s friendly relationships with both Dr. Robinson and Maxwell Okey? And that Erin girl?”

  “Yup.”

  “You gonna keep looking into this case even though you’ve been relieved of duty?”

  “Yup.”

  “You gonna have sex with me again tonight?”

  “Yup.”

  “You gonna keep talking like that or you gonna do something better with that mouth of yours?”

  Aviva slides up onto the pillow beside me, her rich, coffee-colored skin and thick dark hair smelling like lavender and heartbreak.

  I start sliding down, kissing her body while I do it.

  “Might be kind of sexy if you were really old enough to be my dad,” she giggles, opening her legs wide. “Make me come, Mr. Moonlight. Make me come and tremble.”

  Outside the window, the river laps at the dock piers.

  As usual Aviva is gone when I wake up the next morning.

  Just once, I would love for her to stick around, maybe share some toast, coffee, and a morning tryst. But she’s a working girl and has a life. She’s also a committed noncommitter when it comes to living with me. I wonder if she’ll still be interested in sleeping with me a handful of years from now, when I begin the official back nine of my life. That is, if I live to be one hundred.

  Right now the sky outside the windows is clear over the Hudson and the wind is blowing in the opposite direction of the river flow, fleecing the surface with chop. I know it’s cold out, but it’s a beautiful day anyway.

  I grab the paper from out front, see the headline announcing Chris’s release and the photo of him and his injured mother below it. The headline and graphic take up the entire top half of the page. As expected, Steve Ferrance wrote the story.

  Below that story is another big piece about Bowman’s payoff to Dr. O’Connor at Albany Law and how it directly relates to Bowman’s suicide and Chris’s parole. Ferrance wrote that piece, too, which means he wrote the entire front page of the Times Union newspaper. He must have been up all night. But then, the paper runs on a skeleton crew now that online news has taken all the fun out of working for a newspaper. I know that I owe him a call about the Joan Parker/Detective Bowman affair. But right now I have no real proof, other than what Erin intuited, Joan’s reaction, and what my gut keeps telling me. I also know that if my snooping results in my coming up with anything new today, he will have even more stuff to write about. I may have done my job for Joan, but I’m not done with the case. Not by a long shot.

  I go to make the coffee. But it’s already made. There’s a coffee cup sitting out for me on the counter. A note has been placed under it. I pick up the note, read it.

  Aviva, telling me how much fun she had last night. It also says she’ll see me later and that she’s already missing me. She signs it, “Love, Aviva.” Then she adds an X and an O. We’ve been seeing each other for almost half a year now. As of late, she’s been using the four-letter L word more than usual. I should take that as a good sign.

  I think about my ex-wife out in California and I think about my son, think about giving him a call. I wonder what it is that’s holding me back. Maybe I should look into a shrink.

  I fold the note into quarters, take it with me into my bedroom, slide it into my wallet. I’ve been unlucky in love my entire life. Will anyone every truly fall in love with me again? Will Aviva want to spend the rest of her days with me, a head case who could die at any moment?

  I sit down on the edge of the bed and ponder that very question.

  Instead of driving onto Brockley Drive and accessing the woods via the Parker backyard, I decide to drive farther into the countryside, access the deep woods from the Five Rivers State Park parking area. I’m doing this for two reasons.

  First reason: I’m officially off the Parker case. Paid in full and relieved of duty. Anything I do from here on out is of my own volition, paid for on my own nut, at my own risk. To be seen walking around the Parker property will raise the suspicions of not only the neighbors, especially Okey, but also the police, who, after Bowman’s suicide, will no doubt be on edge.

  Second reason: Chris spent a lot of time in these woods. I’m not sure why I feel like I need to explore them, but something inside me is luring me there, calling me. As if those woods might provide some clue as to who, or what, Christopher has become as a young man, and why he might have taken an axe to his parents.

  No other vehicles are parked in the small, unpaved lot in mid-January. The place is cold and deserted, the leafless landscape brown and decrepit looking from lack of snow. But it still smells of pines and fresh air. Like a real forest.

  I get out of the hearse, pull out my 9 mm, pull back the slide, cock a round into the chamber, thumb the safety off. You never know when you might wake a bear from hibernation, or come face to face with a rabid squirrel. Moonlight, the prepared.

  Pocketing my keys in my leather jacket, I make my way to the trailhead and enter the woods. I wouldn’t call myself a woodsman by any stretch of the imagination. I much prefer a comfortable bed in a hotel with a well-stocked bar than a pup tent and freeze-dried rations. But I�
��ve done some hiking in my time and there’s always something deeply gratifying about entering into a thick wood. If I have to describe it, it would be a “through the looking glass” sensation. Time doesn’t stop, necessarily, but it slows down and the reality of everyday life has no meaning.

  It’s also lonely as all hell.

  I follow the worn trail for a while, moving uphill for maybe half a mile, the woods getting thicker and colder all the time. The air is cool and damp and there are no leaves on the tall trees and only the old pines block out the sunlight. Despite the cold, I manage to work up a sweat under my jacket. I know now I should have brought along a bottle of water. But I wasn’t expecting such a long hike.

  Maybe twenty minutes pass before the trail and its red plastic New York State trail markers take a noticeable turn to the north. I’m not a complete dolt when it comes to directions, but judging by the position of the sun, I know that the Parker residence is located due east. If I’m to continue heading in that direction, I’ll have to do it off trail. That means bushwhacking. It must be precisely how Christopher would have maneuvered inside these woods. Off trail.

  I step off the path, make my way slowly into even deeper, thicker woods. I have to hold a hand out to push back the branches and briars. I try to maintain as straight a path as possible, despite the overgrowth.

  It’s tough going, but after another fifteen minutes or so, I begin to hear the sound of rushing water. The woods thin out and the briars give way to a thick stand of giant pines. So thick, the sun is nearly completely blocked out, the forest floor a soft bed of fallen, rust-colored pine needles.

  Not far ahead, the earth dips to form a gulley. I make my way to the edge and look down into a stream. It’s the Normans Kill. I know the river runs through the town of Bethlehem. I also guess that it was the settlement’s primary source of fresh water 350 years ago during its founding as the Great Society.

  Making my way down the side of the gulley, I know I have to find a place to cross the fast-moving, wide stream. Some well-placed boulders, maybe. Or a felled tree. Looking right and left, I see nothing. I decide to move south a ways until I find an area that looks suitable.

  When I find a place where the stream runs shallow, I decide to go for it, wet feet or no wet feet. I step into the water and nearly do a belly flop. The stream water isn’t nearly as shallow as I assumed. The clarity of the water fooled me into thinking it was a few inches deep when, in fact, it’s closer to a foot deep. But it’s running slowly and I keep moving through it, the frigid water numbing my legs and feet with every step, until a full, agonizing minute later, I make it to the other side.

  When I reemerge onto the stream bank, I suck in a deep breath. My feet and legs are soaked through. It’s maybe thirty-five degrees out. I’m in the middle of the deep woods, off trail. I know about the dangers of hypothermia. I know that if I stop moving even for a few minutes, my body temperature will start to drop. I gaze up at the summit of the gulley and I start to climb.

  I’m feeling out of breath by the time I make it to the top. The woods ahead of me seem endless. But the hiking will be easier through the pine forest.

  I walk.

  My pants are starting to dry when the pines end and more of that thick briar growth takes over. Branches and twigs slap at my face, make eyes tear. I wonder if Chris Parker had the same trouble with these woods that I’m having. He’s an Eagle Scout. He probably enjoys this kind of torture. I’m a city man. The concrete jungle is my kind of territory.

  I move on through the thick stuff anyway. Then, just like that, I’m through it.

  I come upon something completely unexpected. It’s an open area of about an acre or so. The trees that surround the area’s second- or third-growth trees and their leafless branches look ugly and distorted. There are the remnants of an old fence that’s mostly rotted away and a kind of building that’s not a building at all but a covered basement foundation that was meant to support a building. Set directly beside it is something I had no idea about.

  It’s a log cabin. And it’s set in the middle of the woods. Doesn’t take me long to figure out the purpose behind the log cabin. It’s a real, honest-to-goodness Boy Scout camp.

  The same camp Chris would have known and loved as a good little boy.

  I approach the log cabin through the stand of dead tall grass. After only a few steps, I can see that it’s no longer used by the Boy Scouts. If the Boy Scouts even exist anymore. Can’t remember the last time I saw a teenager helping an old lady across the street without trying to knock her down or steal her purse.

  A porch has been built onto the front of the two-story, A-frame structure. But it’s become rotted from time, exposure, and lack of care. The logs that make up the exterior of the camp are covered in mold and moss. Tree branches have grown over the roof, and in some cases, into the roof, and what’s left of the black asbestos roof tiles are covered with pine needles and cones. The closer I come to the place, the more I get the feeling that all I have to do is breathe on it to make it come crashing down into a pile of so much rotted wood.

  I step carefully onto the warped porch. It creaks and shudders. I feel I might fall through it. But it holds my weight while I make it to the old wooden door. I look down at the old brass knob. It’s as green as the Statue of Liberty.

  I grip it, turn it, and it falls off in my hand. Dropping it to the porch floor, I push the door open.

  As expected, the interior is in a shambles. To my left is an open space that must have served as a kind of a living-slash-bunk room. A fireplace occupies the opposite wall. The brick fireplace is now tangled in vines that have grown up through the floorboards and snaked their way through the walls. Nature taking over in the absence of human animals.

  The exposed floor itself is now warped and, in some places, rotted away completely, exposing the underlayment and wood joists. An old couch is pressed up against the exterior front wall. Its cushions are nowhere to be found, but its springs have broken through the fabric. It doesn’t look the least bit comfortable. In the far corner of the room beside the fireplace is an easy chair that hasn’t weathered Mother Nature’s wrath any better than the couch. Beside the chair, a stand-up lamp, the shade for which is now gone, along with the lightbulb.

  I try to picture a troop of Scouts occupying this room, a comforting fire going in the fireplace, the patriarchal den leader sitting in the easy chair reading aloud from a novel like Captains Courageous or White Fang in the downward luminescence of the lamp. Maybe other den leaders would occupy the room, too, sneaking sips of whiskey from carefully hidden hip flasks. It would be a world without television, laptops, video games, or iPods. A world not all that long ago in which people read and told stories for entertainment.

  I move across the living room and enter the galley kitchen. To my surprise, the narrow kitchen table is still intact, its thick wooden legs and butcher-block top having withstood the years and the weather. I reach out, touch it. If it isn’t for the mold, dirt and dust, you could still eat off it.

  There’s an old gas stove, a soap sink, and a pantry, its doors swung wide open, the remnants of some old canned and boxed foods rotting on the floor. Making my way out of the kitchen, I step carefully back through the living room and climb the narrow staircase up to the second-floor loft space.

  It’s dark up on the landing, the only light coming in through a small, square window. I can hardly stand without banging my head against the inward-slanted walls. But then there’s nowhere to walk to anyway.

  From where I stand I can see a bare mattress laid out on the plywood floor. Overhead, a bare lightbulb hangs down from the ceiling. Connected to it is a thin metal chain. I try the chain. The light doesn’t work. Not without a generator to provide electric power. I pull out my cell phone, open it, shine the white light from the display onto the walls. The once-white walls are spattered with something. And it’s not paint. The color of the spattering is rust, and the pattern it’s made is entirely familiar. A similar pattern
paints the floor and the mattress itself.

  In my brain, I see the letters being spelled out in bold print, one by one:

  B L O O D

  My heart settles up into my throat.

  I back up a step. But there’s no other place to go but down. So I about-face, and that’s exactly what I do.

  Here’s what I know: something bad has happened upstairs inside this Boy Scout camp. Of that, I have no doubt. Just what that something is, I have no idea. Other than it involves blood spatter. But as I descend the stairs to the first floor and walk out the door, I can’t shake the sick feeling that Christopher Parker had something to do with it.

  Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m chasing away the demon, or the demon is chasing me. I can just picture the demon. It looks like a big, black, hairy spider. The kind you can’t get away from in a nightmare. It’s maybe two feet long with a big pregnant abdomen with sharp stingers on the end that look like crab claws. It’s got a hundred eyes and long fangs that protrude from its mouth.

  It’s never far from me and I know that if I stop, it will catch up to me, grab me with those eight legs, sink its teeth into me, inject me with its venom. Then wrap me in silk and hang me from its web, where it will suck the living blood right out of me until there’ll be nothing left but an old dried-up shell.

  The solution is to keep moving.

  Don’t allow the demon spider to catch up to me. Keep moving and don’t stop because to stop is to face the demon past, and to face the past is to die a living death. That demon almost got me once before in the kitchen of the home I was raised in. The demon raised the pistol to my head, but then a vision of my son appeared in my brain and I fought the demon and pulled the pistol away, but not without squeezing the trigger.

  All this blood, all this death in peaceful Bethlehem…it’s resurrecting the demon.

  ____

  I forgo making my way back through the woods in the direction from which I came. I’ve seen enough woods today, been slapped and dunked by enough damp, frozen Mother Nature. And I’ve gotten a pretty good sense of the landscape Christopher grew up in when he wasn’t at home hating his penniless old man and his cheating mother.