Orchard Grove Read online

  I came around the fence to the small patch of woods, and in the moonlight I made out the spot where the coffee can had been extracted from the earth. I also made out something else. Another area beside it that had recently, as in mere hours ago, been disturbed so that the ground was no longer covered in dead leaves and varieties of vegetation. The area I speak of could not have been more than a couple of feet by a couple of feet, and it rose up out of the ground like a miniature burial mound.

  All life seemed to drain out of my body then. What replaced it was inevitability. The ice cold realization that perhaps Lana and Carl had been telling the truth after all, and that my memory had indeed failed me, either because of the whiskey or simply a form of selective memory that can only be achieved after an event so violent and disturbing, the conscious brain can’t possibly process it.

  I no longer felt the pain in my foot, no longer cared it if was leaking an oil slick of blood. I only needed to know what exactly had been buried inside that mound. Hobbling through the brush and onto the patch, I dropped to my knees like a penitent man. I brushed away the dirt and dug with my hands until I felt a cold, round, semi soft object. Like a pumpkin covered in a sticky liquid. When I brought my fingers to my face, I smelled the unmistakable iron-like aroma of blood.

  I put my hands back on the pumpkin and felt something soft, lush, and gentle.

  Hair.

  Tears began to fill my eyes, the pressure building behind my eyeballs as I dug around the hair, until I uncovered a small portion of face and a single eye. I dug in my pocket for my car keys and the small LED laser light attached to the keychain, and I shined the light on the face and saw that the hair was dark. Brunette. I shot onto my backside, because I knew now what I was looking at without having to see it in its entirety.

  “Oh my sweet Jesus,” I said, the first of the tears streaming down my face. “Sweet Jesus in heaven.”

  I shifted onto my knees and brushed more of the dirt away and I could see that the head had been severed at the neck. Shifting myself, I vomited onto the loose dirt and fell back onto my side. I recalled the previous night when I’d gone to Lana’s home armed with a sharp French knife. I saw myself standing outside on the Cattivo back deck, the knife gripped in my hand while I listened to the sounds of Lana and Susan making love in the bedroom at the other end of the ranch home. In my head I saw myself going to the sliding glass doors, saw my hand taking hold of the opener, saw myself sliding the door open…

  But that’s all I recall.

  All I recall, that is, until I woke up in my bed, my hands covered in blood from the small cuts on my palms and fingers. Or so I could only assume. Had I actually made my way into the Cattivo house, crossed over the dining room and the kitchen, and entered into the master bedroom and killed Susan after catching her making love to Lana? My Lana? Our Lana? Had I been filled with a jealous rage not only at seeing the two of them together in bed, but knowing they’d been plotting against me all along to take the fall for John’s murder? Were there two sides to my personality? The movie maker artist and the cold maniacal killer? I was all too familiar with the artist, but I’d never been introduced formally to the maniac until now. Until last night.

  “Oh sweet Jesus,” I repeated as I pulled myself up onto my knees, then up onto my feet. “I killed Susan. I… killed… Susan.”

  …Or did I? I’d been drinking Jack Daniels. Jack Daniels makes me crazy, violent. It makes me black out…

  As the tears fell, dripping off my chin and onto the raw earth, I did my best to cover up the shallow grave with dirt and dead leaves. Then, returning to my feet, awkwardly and out of balance, I began to make my way back through the brush, and around the fence perimeter to the Cattivo driveway.

  Carl’s truck was still parked in the driveway where he left it earlier, the keys still inserted in the column-mounted ignition. Opening the door, I shoved myself inside, turned the key, fired the engine up. For a beat or two, I stared out the windshield onto my new neighbor’s home-sweet-home, until I shifted my gaze onto my own home only a few feet away. They were the kind of neighborhood homes that would be a dream for a young couple just starting their new life together. I was there once myself. Me and Susan.

  Unzipping the blood and mud stained overalls, I reached into my pocket, pulled out the mobile phone. I saw that it still had power even if the battery life indicator was now in the red. Once I got to my studio in the city, I’d charge it back up. But for now, I also saw that the voice recorder app was still operating. Thumbing Stop, I then hit play just to make certain I’d succeeded at recording everything that went down inside the Cattivo house of horrors since I’d arrived there less than a half hour ago.

  “Well good morning, Carl. How long have I been asleep?”

  “Get out. In the house.”

  I hit stop, then went to texts. There was a new text from Miller and also several unanswered calls from him.

  “Where are you, Ethan?” the text said. “You can’t run. Let me come for you.”

  “Carl is dead,” I texted in response. “So are Lana and Susan. They are all dead.”

  I hit Send and waited for a reply. It came within seconds.

  “I must bring you in. You know that. Stay where you are.”

  “Not yet.”

  I thumbed Send once more, then turned the phone off, shoving it back into my pocket. Looking down at my foot, I could see the small puddle of blood pooling on the floor under the gas pedal. Setting my left foot on the brake, I shifted the truck into reverse. Backing out of the driveway, I could feel the sharp throb shooting in and out of my foot, and I could smell the rotting flesh, and feel the fever burning in my head. I had no choice but to suck it all up while I made one last drive through Orchard Grove back to my studio in the city. It would be one hell of a rough drive, but a drive I had no choice but to make.

  I was all alone now.

  The last slave of Lana Cattivo left alive.

  I’m dying.

  Serves me right I suppose. For now I sit at an old wood desk that’s positioned only a foot or two from the front door to my downtown writing studio. I see my pale, scruffy face framed inside the mirror that hangs on the wall by a sixpenny nail. My smartphone in hand, I have it hooked up to the charger I store here and which is plugged into the wall.

  “That’s all there is to say, Miller,” I say, speaking into my smartphone voice recording app. “There’s nothing left to tell. Only questions remain, the major one being, what happened to Susan’s body?

  “But then, I can only assume you’re probably at the Cattivo house as I speak. That you’ve seen the bodies of Lana and Carl Pressman lying on the gunroom floor. Have you located the rest of Susan’s remains? Have you located her head in the pot patch out back? Did you find the knife that killed her? Was it a French knife?

  “I still have no recollection of doing something so brutal and unspeakable to her. How is it possible I could take a knife to her like that? Sure, I woke up with blood on my hands, but there was no garden dirt on me that I remember. Is it possible that I didn’t kill her? Is it possible that I dropped the knife onto the deck outside the sliding glass door, like I remember? That Lana heard the back sliding door open and close, and when she came outside to inspect, she saw the knife and was overcome with a sick idea? Maybe, in the end, she decided the only way you and the rest of the APD would truly believe I carefully planned her husband’s murder was by my leaving behind yet another body. The body of my wife. It would be a crime of passion. A murder committed by a man who was out of his mind with rage. By killing her in the most inhuman of ways, you wouldn’t find it very hard to believe that I was also capable of taking out Detective Cattivo.

  “Even the placement of the head would not have been an indiscriminate move. John knew all about my pot patch and he’d threatened on more than one occasion to use it against me. He knew I was selling weed in order to make ends meet. I was about to lose my house after all. He was aware that financially, Susan and I weren’t making
it. That in mind, Lana could have easily drugged Susan by slipping something into her drink, then cut off her head, burying it in the pot patch, all the time knowing full well that you would have no choice but to accuse me of the obscene crime. Add in the killing of the convenience store clerk and the run-in with the troopers down the road from that motel, and you’ve painted a picture of a crazed killer on the loose. A man who, in another life, achieved a degree of fame in Hollywood, but who’d fallen on times so hard, his brain snapped.

  “I guess I can’t be entirely sure how it all went down, but that seems as good a theory as any. Anyway, where I’m going, I guess God will be the judge. Or the Devil. But promise me something, Miller. That when I’m finally gone and you recover the rest of Susan’s body, you will also make an attempt at searching for evidence that will exonerate me of her death. I can’t be sure of what you will find, if anything, but it might just be enough to let my soul off the hook. After all, eternity is a long time to fry.

  “Sirens. I hear sirens, Miller. Is that you coming after me down here in the city? Are the sirens I’m hearing outside my door meant for me? Let me look. I don’t even need to get up out of the chair to crack the front door open a few inches.

  “Okay, I see you now. I see you standing outside my building, protected by the opened door to your unmarked cruiser. I also see six or seven blue-and-whites parked diagonally in the middle of the road, their rooftop flashers igniting the black sky. I see cops armed to the teeth. It’s a perfect ending, set up exactly the way I’d script it.

  “Wait, what was that? The call for me to come out with my hands in the air. You want me to exit the door, climb the three steps to the sidewalk, and surrender myself to the law. Then you’ll insist that I drop to my knees and lie down flat on my chest, face down on the hot summer-heated macadam, hands outstretched over my head.

  “It’s all over for me… for us, Detective Miller. It’s all she wrote. Pun intended. So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to pull out Carl’s 9mm, and release the clip. Pulling back the slide, I’m releasing the one-chambered bullet so that no bullets remain in the gun whatsoever. If only John Cattivo had checked his gun in the first place to see if it were loaded, none of this would have happened. But when you look at the empty gun in just a few short minutes, Miller, you’ll see proof positive that even if I am guilty of shooting Cattivo in the head, I’m not really a murderer.

  “I’m standing now, Miller, heading outside. But I’m taking my phone with me so I can record for posterity what will be my final moments. I’m opening the door wide and looking up through the stairwell, I see you standing only a few feet from me out in the road. You’re bathed in flashing light, your hands gripping your sidearm. I’m heading up the stairs, the gun in my hand. I’m aiming the gun directly at you, Miller.

  “Muzzle flashes. You’re shooting at me. Bullets… against flesh and bone… but I don’t feel them… I don’t feel… any pain… Detective Miller. No pain at all… I see only darkness…

  “Nothing but eternal darkness…”

  Albany Police Department

  (Preliminary) Incident Report

  Case No. 1324-08232015

  Date: 08/23/2015

  Incident: Scriptwriter Ethan Forrester, 50, was shot and killed early this morning at approximately 1:30 AM outside his Swan Street writing studio by the author of this report who, at the time, was acting in a manner consistent with the conditions set forth by the “use of deadly force.”

  Forrester’s death occurs on the heels of four related homicides, all of which transpired within the span of 48 hours and at the same location: 26 Orchard Grove in North Albany (see attached coroner’s report for specific ETD and manner of death for each).

  The four homicides are as follows:

  -Susan Forrester, 48, of 24 Orchard Grove in North Albany: death by asphyxia and decapitation.

  -Lana Cattivo, 46, of 26 Orchard Grove: shot with 9mm caliber handgun to the face at close range.

  -Albany Police Detective, John Cattivo, 41, of 26 Orchard Grove: gunshot wound to head with .45 caliber handgun. Note: wound might have been self-inflicted, although evidence also points to Forrester having pulled the trigger.

  -Albany Police Sergeant, Carl Pressman, 35, of 45 Fairlawn Avenue: shot with 9mm handgun to the face at close range.

  Case Summary: At this time, all evidence, both circumstantial and physical, indicates Ethan Forrester conspired with Lana Cattivo to murder Detective John Cattivo. Forrester’s testimony points to the fact that he asked Cattivo to demonstrate precisely how a cop “eats his piece” on behalf of research for a new movie script he was allegedly writing. While Cattivo agreed to the demonstration, he had no way of knowing that hours prior to the event, a live round had been placed in the magazine either by Forrester or Lana Cattivo. When cocked into the chamber, the single round created a “hot,” and therefore potentially deadly handgun.

  Forrester had been conducting an affair with Lana Cattivo for an undocumented amount of time. Forrester’s wife, Susan, had also been conducting an affair with her simultaneously, even though both husband and wife were unaware of one another’s illicit activity until hours prior to John Cattivo’s death.

  It might be interesting to note that a partial manuscript was discovered on the dining room table beside a manual typewriter in the Forrester home. The five pages describe an illicit affair between a next-door neighbor and the wife of a prominent banker. In the story, the two plot to kill the banker and collect not only his fortune but also his insurance payout. One can only wonder if fiction were reflecting reality in this manuscript as there is no question in my mind that Ethan Forrester conspired with Lana Cattivo in the fabricated suicide of her husband.

  Regarding the death of Herbert Wylie, 73, the convenience store owner/clerk in Nassau (Columbia County): My professional opinion on the matter (and this can be corroborated by the Nassau Sheriff’s Department), is that Forrester acted in self-defense when he issued a fatal blow to Wylie’s head with a shotgun stock. Therefore I have not listed the death amongst the homicides. I believe the security videocassette tape which was recovered inside a dumpster outside the convenience store will conclusively back this theory up.

  Questions also remain about how and why exactly, Albany Police Sergeant Carl Pressman engaged Forrester in an altercation at the Cattivo household, which resulted in the police officer’s death by gunshot wound to the face (It should be noted for the record that Pressman’s body was discovered with $5,000 cash on his person. Cash that can be traced directly to Ethan Forrester). While it is my professional opinion that Forrester was acting purely in self-defense when he shot Pressman, I have included the latter’s name amongst the homicides because of his complicity in the overall plot to murder John Cattivo (see transcript of Forrester’s semi-audible mobile phone recording, also attached).

  Based on the testimony of sources inside the APD, I am also convinced now that Pressman was also conducting an illicit affair with Lana Cattivo. Perhaps Pressman’s feelings for Lana combined with the knowledge of her sleeping with Forrester (and several others), provided the motive he needed for attacking the scriptwriter with lethal intent.

  The question of how and why Susan Forrester died in a brutal beheading is naturally foremost on this detective’s mind. I wish I could report that in all my years as a police officer, I’ve never come across so gruesome a murder, but that would be inaccurate. During the five-year period between 1979-1984, I, as a young APD detective, was placed in charge of investigating a series of murders/beheadings, all of which occurred in the North Albany area. All the known victims of the so-called “North Albany Mauler” were men. However, they ranged in age from early teens to one man who was in his late forties and the principal at a now defunct public grammar school.

  In August of 1984, Lana Strega, then 15, allegedly escaped the killer in an attack that took place down in the wooded area of the Albany Riverside Corning Preserve. I personally interviewed her at the South Pearl Stree
t APD moments after she was rescued and taken into police custody. At the time, I noticed that she bore a unique tattoo on the ankle of her left leg. A heart that cried tears of blood.

  I have not seen a tattoo like that printed on that part of a woman’s body, since August of ’84. Until now that is, when I examined the most recent crime scene at the 26 Orchard Grove Cattivo address (It should be noted that although Lana’s husband had been working for the APD for two months at the time of his death, I had yet to meet his wife in the flesh, much less take notice of her left ankle. Nor did I ever have opportunity to see that John Cattivo also possessed an identical crying heart tattoo on his left bicep, since department regs call for a long sleeve shirt and jacket for all detectives). That the deceased Lana Cattivo bore the identical crying heart tattoo on the same ankle, led me to immediately believe that after thirty years, I had finally found my killer.

  What I find disturbing in retrospect, is that the North Albany Mauler had not only been in my presence back in ’84, but that I had her in custody. Only because she appeared to be a sweet young lady did I immediately discount any possibility whatsoever that she could be responsible for a dozen known gruesome murders and beheadings. In a word, she didn’t match the profile. I thought of her as the one victim who got away, and nothing more.

  Having stumbled upon the North Albany Mauler quite by chance, I firmly believe Ethan Forrester had nothing at all to do with killing his wife, Susan, despite the fact that the weapon utilized in the killing, a common kitchen “French” knife, was later located inside the Forrester household and contained only Forrester’s bloody prints.

  My opinion is that prior to Susan’s murder, Lana Cattivo broke into Forrester’s home, stole the knife, committed the murder, then returned the knife to its original location on the floor of Forrester’s dining room. It’s possible she avoided leaving her own prints on the weapon by covering her hands and fingers in latex gloves, although this fact has yet to be confirmed by forensics experts.