Murder by Moonlight Page 5

  Still, somebody had to have messed with it. Somebody tried to stop it from doing its job. I can’t recall reading anything about the cops having been alerted to a B and E at the Parker residence on the night of the killing/attempted killing. That means somebody had to know the key code prior to messing with it. Somebody who would want it to appear to have been messed with. Or was it possible the Parkers had never set the alarm to begin with? That the intruder only assumed it was locked and loaded?

  I grab hold of the knob of the door that leads into the house, twist it.

  It’s unlocked. Lucky me all over again.

  I open the door, step inside what looks to be the den, get a whiff of that cold, sweet air. Blood. You can’t mistake it. Can’t escape it. Blood, like the stuff running through your veins. Only on the outside. Old, sick, and stale.

  I close the door behind myself.

  I could look for a wall switch but I’m not supposed to be here, right? So I shine the flashlight onto the floor in front of me. Just a little disk of guiding light that snoop-dog Gokie Dokie won’t catch a view of from his front picture window.

  Just a few steps in and the sweet, stale blood smell gets stronger. It becomes a wormy, sweet, stale blood smell. Like the cops left a piece of meat out to rot on the kitchen counter.

  Scanning the neatly arranged den with the little disk of light, I make out a La-Z-Boy recliner. The kind that’s as big as Dad’s Cadillac funeral hearse, with a mechanical footrest you operate with a stick shift attached to the side of the chair. A chair to get fat and old in long before you hit sixty.

  Piled high beside the recliner is a stack of newspapers. I shuffle over to them, shine a light on the topmost paper. Sure enough. September 15th. The day Peter’s life came to an end. The paper’s got blood stains on it, and bloody fingerprints. An electric charge shoots up and down my backbone. The hairs on my neck rise. Peter somehow managed to retrieve the morning paper even with his brains bashed in? And I think my head has problems?

  Behind the papers is a standing lamp and a small wooden end table that bears the ingrained circular condensate stains made by what I’m guessing are Peter’s beer bottles. Years’ and years’ worth of them.

  To my left, the television set occupies one entire corner of the room. It’s a relic of the 1970s. The old-fashioned tube kind that starts out with the little, bright-white speck of light when you flick the TV on that eventually expands into a full-color TV program. The Love Boat maybe. Or The Mary Tyler Moore show. Shows I grew up on back before home computers, video games, and smartphones. I wonder how Parker managed to hook cable up to it. Or where he found extra tubes when they had to be replaced. Maybe mechanical engineer Maxwell helped him out.

  I cross the den, step up into the kitchen. Since the only windows in the room open onto the backyard, I give it a quick once-over with the flashlight. I swallow a breath of bad air. The place has been left exactly as it was found on September 15th. In the cylinder of white light, I follow a rust-colored bloodstain from the center hallway into the kitchen. Bloodstains in the shape of bare feet tattoo the kitchen linoleum. Farther up on the counter near the sink, the Mr. Coffee coffeepot is full of cold and molding coffee. An open can of Maxwell House is set beside it. There’s a spoon set beside that, and a coffee cup.

  Peter’s coffee cup.

  Like the floor, the counter is marred with dried blood. So is the Mr. Coffee pot, the coffee can, the spoon, and the cup. Blood everywhere. Somehow, by some miracle of neurology, Peter managed to make a pot of morning coffee in his zombie condition. I try to picture him standing inside the kitchen in blood-soaked pajamas, blood streaming down his face, running down his arms and fingers. A grade-B horror movie, only real. I see him measuring out spoonfuls of coffee while blood collects in little crimson pools on the counter. Maybe he’s whistling or humming a tune. Something pleasant to greet the brand-new day. Something totally insane.

  I stare at the coffee cup, wonder why it hasn’t been confiscated by the Bethlehem police, added to the collection of physical evidence. Maybe they’ve decided the place itself is a murder laboratory. Preserve the scene of the crime, perhaps for the benefit of a future jury to view for itself. So leave a few things behind. Unnecessary things. Seems a pretty slapdash approach for the sharp-dressed, super-fit Bowman, who struck me as something of a control freak. Maybe he’s got something to hide, I’m thinking. The less evidence collected, the less investigation would need go into a case that need not be investigated at all. Not when you already know who dunnit!

  I peer inside an open cabinet. At eye level, there’s a box of blank checks, the names Peter and Joan Parker printed in Arial font over an artist’s generic rendering of a peaceful seaside. I shoot the white light across the floor to the kitchen table. One of the chairs has been pulled out. It’s been sat in. There’s dried blood all over it. Who sits in a pool of blood? A vampire? Or a man so badly brain damaged he doesn’t know that his own life is rapidly bleeding out. What’s left of a pool of blood is dried and caked up on the table directly in front of the chair. Weird thing about it is, the pool is smeared by fingers, like somebody used it as finger paints. Did Peter play with his own blood? Maybe he tried to clean it up.

  Breathing in and out through my mouth, I tell myself it’s time to head upstairs to the room where the axe came down on the sleeping Parkers.

  I follow the dried blood out into the vestibule, to the landing by the staircase, where the blood trail continues up and down the carpeted treads. This is the place where court security man Mitchell Hart found Peter’s dead body.

  I step over the wide blood smear and start up the stairs, careful to climb the edges of the treads. At the top of the stairs is a bathroom. Scanning it with the light, I see that it, too, like the rest of the house, has rust-colored blood all over it. Spots of blood cover the sink. Blood also spots the handle on one of the toothbrushes hanging in the wall-mounted holder.

  Holy Christ, did Peter brush his teeth after having his head bashed in with a fireman’s axe? Did he look at himself in the mirror? Maybe he thought he was dreaming. Maybe he thought he was living through a nightmare from which he would suddenly wake up. Maybe he was acting on autopilot. In the meantime, he brushed his teeth for the very last time in his earthly existence while the life oozed out of him, drop by drop.

  There’s this physical tension in the bathroom air.

  I’m not sure how else to describe it.

  Feels like I’m not the only living soul inside this hellhole. My skin itches. I look over my shoulder into the darkness of the stairwell and I wait for it to explode. In the mirror I see a shower curtain and my heart shoots up into my throat, lodges there so tight I can taste my own blood. I pull my piece, draw back the curtain quick. But the tub is empty, the white porcelain painted with more finger-smeared blood. It’s like Charlie Manson was let out of prison. For the first time since I broke into this place, I think I’m going to be sick. But I don’t get sick. Maybe I’m too old for that.

  I re-holster my weapon and let go of the shower curtain. Look down at my feet. The bathroom linoleum is littered with clumps of blood-soaked toilet paper. So Peter did know that he was injured in the head and face. He knew he was bleeding and not dreaming. He knew enough to try to stem the flow of blood by putting pressure on it with the little clumps of toilet paper, like he was trying to clot a paper cut.

  Peter knew he was hurt, but the axe blows made him stupid. Punch drunk. He had no idea of the severity of his wounds. No idea that the wounds would be fatal. His cognitive reasoning abilities were seriously compromised. He had no chance in hell of making any sense of his bashed-in skull and the amount of bleeding it produced. It’s impossible for your brain to feel its own pain. He never attempted to call the police, never tried to call 911, never solicited the help of a neighbor. He simply stood before the bathroom mirror and tried to stem the flow of arterial blood with little clumps of Charmin double-quilted.

  Killing the light, I head back out into the dark ha
ll.

  I face the master bedroom head-on. I shine the light beam on the floor and see that more blood smears surround the queen-sized bed. The sheets and comforters have been removed and probably occupy the evidence room in the basement of the Bethlehem Police Department along with the fireman’s axe. Only the important stuff.

  The bed screams volumes by the amount of blood that’s seeped into the mattress. Enough to soak it and the box springs through, at least on this side. The stains look black in the round beam of flashlight. How anyone could live through this axe attack and the bloodletting that followed is beyond my comprehension. How anyone could inflict this kind of damage is beyond my understanding, my innate belief that deep down inside, human beings are basically good. But then, I guess not everyone is human. Even if they do own a set of arms and legs, flesh and bones, some skin to wrap it all in. Whoever did this had one thing in mind: to kill violently.

  Absolute murder by moonlight.

  I walk around one side of the bed and back around the other. Everywhere I go, the carpet is stained with blood. I look at the walls. Pictures of the boys hang on them. Pictures of Christopher and his older brother when they were in grammar school. Then high school. Then later on, Christopher in college and Jonathan in the navy. All of them headshots, all taken by the same photographer, by the looks of it. Kids grow fast. Memories fade. Pictures help jar those memories. I wonder if Joan wants to remember anything anymore. I wonder if she can.

  I walk back around the bed to the open door, turn back toward the room. Flick off the flashlight, raise it up over my head with both hands, like I’m holding an axe handle. I try to imagine the weight of the axe, keeping it balanced while walking the four short steps it takes me to reach the bed.

  I remember my dad taking the side closest to the door so that he would be the first line of defense should an intruder enter. I remember doing the same thing, back when I had a wife and a family. So it’s portly Peter I see lying in the bed beneath my imagined axe, cuddled up under the covers, black-haired head resting on two or three down pillows. I take aim, bring the axe down hard. I feel the thick axe head enter into rigid bone and soft brain tissue. I picture pulling the axe out for another blow. And another and another, all the time Joan asleep right beside her suffering husband. I wonder how it was possible for her to stay asleep through it all. How could she not have heard the commotion of one man chopping up another?

  I take a step back.

  Bile rises up from my stomach, fills my mouth. Burns it.

  Turns out I’m not too old to get sick after all.

  I thumb the flashlight back on, run out of the room, back into the bathroom, drop to my knees in front of the toilet, pull up the cover. The water in the tank is black and smells even more obscene than it appears. I turn away quick and lose my lunch into the bathtub instead.

  When I’m done, I run the water and thrust myself back against the wall. I’m down on my ass on the bloodstained bathroom floor inside a house of horrors. I pull a hanky from the back pocket on my jeans, wipe my mouth. It’s then the floor catches my attention. Something on the floor behind the toilet. Something stuck into the far corner.

  I lean in with the flashlight for a closer look.

  Christ, it’s dried puke. I’m not the first one to get sick in this place in recent history. There’s something stuck to the puke, too. A piece of clear, rigid plastic that’s no bigger than my thumbnail.

  Maybe I should ignore the vomit. But my built-in shit detector speaks to me. Shouts!

  Does Joan Parker seem like the kind of woman who would allow blown chunks to lie around the bathroom?

  Hardly.

  She seems like the kind of woman who would have gotten down on her hands and knees and personally scrubbed it away when it was still fresh and warm. The puke had to have come from the night of the axe attacks. Maybe the attacker lost his lunch after trying to make hamburger out of the Parkers’ heads. But then, why wouldn’t the attacker try to clean up the puke? Anyone careful enough to cut the phone line and smash the entry alarm would know that leaving behind a puddle of blown chunks would be like leaving behind a DNA calling card.

  Or maybe the puke was the result of some cop with a weak stomach. Christ, maybe it came from Peter himself. But then, what if it came from Christopher? It would prove he was on the scene that night, and it would have been one hell of a DNA-filled clue for Bowman and his team to have missed. It would also likely mean he did in fact take an axe to his parents. Maybe I’m working for Joan Parker, but I’m not against finding out the truth. That puke just might be the truest thing there is in proving who killed Peter and tried to kill Joan.

  Reaching out with my hanky, I take hold of the dried chunks. It comes away from the corner as one solid chunk resembling a half-eaten oatmeal cookie with some plastic stuck in it. Wrapping it up in the hanky, I stuff the dried mess into my jacket pocket.

  Back on my feet, I shut off the tub and, as painful as it is, set about finishing my investigation of the Parker home’s second floor.

  Physical tension.

  It’s in the air again.

  I make my way out of the bathroom. Following the light, I head down the hall to a bedroom at its far end. Shining the edge of the white light on the far wall, I see that it’s covered with posters of the US Navy. Big ships, carriers, exotic ports of call. One poster depicts a navy man holding the hand of a little boy while they stand together on a dock looking out to sea at a moored battleship. A famous image. Romantic. Tear-jerking, even. I take this bedroom to be that of the elder of the two Parker boys.

  Jonathan.

  Across the hall is the third bedroom. Christopher’s. I enter it, shine the light all around the floor, careful around the single double-hung window, since it directly faces Okey’s house. The room is bare. Rather, it’s the humble room of a monk or a priest. Or a man being held against his will. There’s a bed, a dresser, and a nightstand with a lamp on it. Beside the lamp, a digital alarm clock/radio. Unlike big brother’s room, there is nothing on the blue-painted walls. Just naked Sheetrock. Cold, uninviting, sterile. Lifeless, even. The window is draped by black curtains. Nice interior decorating touch.

  Is this dead bedroom an indication that the kid had the potential to whack off both parents with an axe?

  No and yes.

  In other words, who the hell knows? But standing in that room, with only a flashlight for illumination, I feel cold water shoot through my veins and I’m sensing again that I’m not alone, even if I am all alone. The events that took place in this house are enough to give me a serious case of the jitters. Makes me think real hard about heading back down the stairs and making my exit. But there’s still one more space to check. The bottom of 36 Brockley Drive. The crypt. The tombs…

  The basement.

  Back in the kitchen, I find the hollow wooden door that accesses the basement. I open it, run my left hand along the wall, find a wall-mounted light switch. But I don’t flick it on, not wanting light to escape the casement windows. A blast of stale air hits me. And the sound of a choked breath. Mine, I’m pretty sure, but my heart is back in my throat. I pull out my 9 mm, grip it in my sweaty hand.

  Stepping down the flight of worn wooden treads, I feel the coolness of the concrete basement and point the flashlight at the bottom of the staircase. At the landing, I hook a left, since it’s the only way to go. I’m dying to turn on the overheads, light up the confined spaces of the mostly empty basement. But I can’t. It’s just me and my flashlight. The dark collapses around the flashlight’s miserable beam.

  A Ping-Pong table takes up most of the center space, the paddles still set out on top of it, a Ping-Pong ball resting up against the green net. But the place is so dark it’s hard to see the opposite side of the table. In my head, I picture the Parker boys playing a heated game of table tennis, the two shouting, cursing, while upstairs Joan lovingly prepares the evening meal. Happier times. Times bearing no resemblance to the axe murder that would destroy this family.

/>   To my left are the boiler and the water heater. Beside the boiler, a small piece of plywood is mounted to the wall. There’s a box of some kind mounted to it, and some wires sticking out of it. The alarm system enunciator panel.

  I make my way over to the gray plastic panel. Like the keypad upstairs, I can see that it’s been smashed. The killer not only knew enough to destroy the box, he knew precisely of its basement location. As a 36 Brockley Drive resident, Christopher would have been well aware of it.

  A noise comes from under the Ping-Pong table. Then the sight of something scurrying along the basement floor, quick and fast. I turn, plant a bead with both the flashlight and the gun. But whatever the hell just scared the skin off my bones is gone.

  Or is it?

  I take a step forward. And another, shining the flashlight along the floor.

  I see it then, trembling in a far corner beneath the wood staircase.

  A little, skinny cat.

  I head over to it, lean down, gently put out my hand. After a few seconds, the gray cat sniffs my fingers, rubs up against them. Why didn’t Joan Parker tell me she had a cat? I scan the beam of flashlight over its body. Poor thing looks like it hasn’t eaten since this place was abandoned. I reach down, pick it up, gently rest it inside my jacket. I zip it up so that the cat stays put.

  Then, heading back up the stairs, I make my way out of the kitchen, down into the den, and back out into the garage.

  This time instead of using the window, I simply exit the garage by way of a back door. Ducking under the crime scene ribbon, I close the door behind me, and with the cat trembling up against my pounding heart, I run for the woods.