Moonlight Sonata

by Vincent Zandri

  “Here’s to my newest powerhouse authors,” states literary agent William Craig Williams. “Congratulations on your present successes and your good fortune to come.”

  “Yeah, yeah, Willy,” Roger laughs, taking a drink of beer from the open bottle of beer set before him. “Like you won’t hesitate to drop one of us if we stop moving units. Sit your ass down before you embarrass us. And order more of those jumbo shrimp.”

  Williams sits down and pours more champagne all around. He’s smiling and pretending to be good humored despite Roger’s assessment of literary disloyalty. But the agent has reason to celebrate. He’s not only succeeded at acquiring Roger a new three-book deal with one of the biggest houses in the land, he was also able to secure a tidy mid-six figure sum for an advance. Then he sold Oatczuk’s, a.k.a. Ian Brando’s, most recent opus Dancing with the Dead, for an equal sum. He even sold Moonlight Falls for a nice advance that will keep me in food and beer for a year or more.

  I feel almost like a star, being included in the company of real writers. Makes me feel kind of special. But I’m not about to give up my day job. Turns out private detecting is not only a way to make some money, it’s also a way to come up with a plot for the new book I’m now contracted to write as the follow-up to Moonlight Falls.

  Who’d ever have guessed: Richard “Dick” Moonlight. Captain Head-Case and author.

  “Tell me, Gregor,” I say, after a time, “why did you decide to send your manuscript to Suzanne Bonchance under a pen name?”

  He sips some champagne, sets the glass down, runs his hand over his trim black beard. A beard that now makes him look a lot like his father.

  “I knew she wouldn’t like it, mostly because she didn’t like any of the other books I’d sent her. She was clouded by poor judgment. I knew I had a good book and I wanted her to see not the name Oatczuk, but something hip and fresh. Turns out she really liked the story.”

  “A little too much,” Roger adds. “She stole it. Thus began her downfall and the long and lurid tale that would climax with her death in the kitchen of my former Chatham home. A tale you no doubt will be writing sooner than later, am I right, Moonlight?”

  “Do you have a title yet, Richard?” begs William.

  “I’m thinking Moonlight Sonata,” I say.

  “Has a good ring to it, if I don’t say so myself,” Roger says, drinking down the rest of his beer, then holding up his hand to grab the waiter’s attention.

  The talk and back-talk goes on like that for a while, everyone getting drunker, the mood getting lighter, William Craig Williams growing more enthusiastic about selling our movie and foreign rights. We talk about world tours, reviews in People Magazine, and about Moonlight Falls being a great vehicle for Clooney or Pitt. Williams makes real and mental notes and, after a time, I simply tune out and fade away into the back of my own mind. Is this it? Is this what it’s all about? The literary life?

  After a while I stand and excuse myself from the table.

  “I need to make a phone call,” I say, and head back across the dining room to the restaurant’s front door. Stepping outside into the warm, moonlit night, I pull a cigarette from the pack inside my leather coat, and fire it up. I retrieve my cell phone from my pocket and speed-dial my son in Los Angeles. I wait for the connection while I listen to the rings over the sound of my pulse beating in my temples. When the connection is made, I hear the machine click on.

  “You’ve reached the home of Lynn and Harrison Harder, please leave a message at the tone and have yourself a great day.”

  I wait for the beep and when it comes I am left only with silence and nothing to say. I draw a complete blank. Me, the new author. The man of words. I can’t even work up a simple hello or I love you for my son. Instead I thumb End and stuff the phone back into my coat pocket.

  When did Lynn drop Bear’s last name for her own maiden name? She never consulted me about it. But, then, I suppose she considers herself much more of a father to our son than I am. But she has no idea how much I miss the little guy and what I wouldn’t do to get him back. Maybe now that I have a new writing job to go with my day job, I can afford to bring him to Albany for a while.

  I smoke and gaze through the windows into the restaurant.

  I see my table and the men who occupy it, minus myself. Roger is holding court. He’s got a napkin draped over his head and he’s holding the champagne bottle by its neck. His son Gregor is laughing hysterically, as is William Craig Williams and quite a few admirers who occupy the surrounding tables.

  Roger Walls, local celebrity author. I found him and found out a lot more about myself in the process.

  Tossing my cigarette to the macadam, I stamp it out. I begin making my way back to the front entrance. But I don’t get half way before something stops me. I turn and begin walking the opposite way, toward the downtown and the colorful neon that lights up the juke joints and the dancehalls on lower Broadway, not far from the riverside loft where I live, alone.

  Folding up the collar on my leather coat, I decide to walk away from it all, accompanied only by the sound of a heart that beats under a cover of brilliant moonlight.

  Back to TOC

  Winner of the 2015 PWA Shamus Award and the 2015 ITW Thriller Award for Best Original Paperback Novel for Moonlight Weeps, VINCENT ZANDRI is the New York Times, USA Today, and Amazon Kindle No.1 bestselling author of more than 30 novels including The Remains, Everything Burns, Orchard Grove, and The Detonator. His list of domestic publishers include Delacorte, Dell, Down & Out Books, Thomas & Mercer, and Polis Books. An MFA in Writing graduate of Vermont College, his work is translated in the Dutch, Russian, French, Italian, and Japanese. Having sold close to 1 million editions of his books, Zandri was also the subject of a recent major feature by the New York Times. He has also made appearances on Bloomberg TV and the Fox News network. In December 2014, Suspense Magazine named Zandri’s The Shroud Key as one of the “Best Books of 2014.” Recently, Suspense Magazine selected When Shadows Come as one of the “Best Books of 2016”. A freelance photojournalist and the author of the popular lit blog The Vincent Zandri Vox, Zandri has written for Living Ready Magazine, Romantic Times, New York Newsday, Hudson Valley Magazine, The Times Union (Albany), Game & Fish Magazine, MudTribe, and many more. He lives in Albany, New York and Florence, Italy. For more go to VinZandri.com.

  Back to TOC

  BOOKS BY VINCENT ZANDRI

  Stand-Alone Psychological Thrillers

  Paradox Lake

  Sleeper

  The Girl Who Wasn’t There

  The Caretaker’s Wife

  The Concrete Pearl

  The Detonator

  Everything Burns

  When Shadows Come

  Orchard Grove

  The Scream Catcher

  Permanence

  The Jack “Keeper” Marconi PI Thrillers

  The Innocent (formerly As Catch Can)

  Godchild

  The Guilty

  Dressed to Kill (novelette)

  Arbor Hill

  The Corruptions

  The Sins of the Sons

  The Damned

  The Dick Moonlight PI Thrillers

  Moonlight Falls

  Moonlight Rises

  Blue Moonlight

  Full Moonlight (short story)

  Murder by Moonlight

  Moonlight Breaks Bad (novelette)

  Moonlight Sonata

  Moonlight Falls (Editor’s Cut Edition)

  Moonlight Weeps

  Moonlight Gets Served (short story)

  Dog Day Moonlight (novelette)

  Moonlight Goes Viral (novelette)

  Moonlight Kills

  The Steve Jobz PI Thrillers

  The Embalmer

  The Flower Man

  The Extortionist

  The Plumber

  The Chase Baker Action/Adventure Thrillers

  The Shroud Key

  Ch
ase Baker and the Golden Condor

  Chase Baker and the God Boy

  Chase Baker and the Lincoln Curse

  Chase Baker and the Da Vinci Divinity

  Chase Baker and the Seventh Seal

  Chase Baker and the Dutch Diamonds

  Chase Baker and the Viking’s Secret (with Ben Sobieck)

  Chase Baker and the Humanzees from Hell (with Ben Sobieck)

  Chase Baker and the Apocalypse Bomb (with Ben Sobieck)

  Chase Baker and the Lost Ark of God

  The Young Chase Baker Series

  Young Chase Baker and the Cross of the Last Crusade

  Young Chase Baker and the Mummy’s Curse

  The Sam Savage Sky Marshal Action/Adventure Series

  Dead Heading (novella)

  The Empire Runaway (novella)

  Tunnel Rats

  The Rebecca Underhill Trilogy

  The Remains

  The Ashes

  The Tanya Teal Corporate Wars Chronicles

  Primary Termination

  The Handyman Episodic Erotic Noir Series

  Season I

  Lust and Letters (novella)

  Naked Heat (novella)

  Savage Sins (novella)

  Season II

  Savage Submission (novella)

  Savage Blonde (novella)

  Savage Women (novella)

  Nonfiction

  Pieces of Mind

  The Hybrid Author Mindset

  Back to TOC

  Here is a preview from She Talks to Angels, the third Henry Malone novel by James D.F. Hannah.

  Click here for a complete catalog of titles available from Down & Out Books and its divisions and imprints.

  Chapter 1

  They built Parker County General Hospital in the 1950s. It’s a squat one-story complex on that rare chunk of flat earth in proximity to Serenity. Renovations over the years—more functional than aesthetic—left the place usable but uglier than a blind date on prom night. The nearest other hospital is three counties over, though, and I suppose when your options are few, even the ugly girl looks good.

  Old-timers still call it “the miners’ hospital.” Billy told me about men who were rushed there after mining accidents—where someone lost a limb or was paralyzed after a ceiling collapse. Other times, there’d be a cough that wouldn’t go away and they couldn’t catch their breath anymore, followed by a black lung diagnosis, the by-product of decades spent sucking in coal dust, doing what it took to pay the bills.

  Like most people my age, I traced my origins back to Parker County General. Well, not my origins per se; I didn’t want to know about that shit. But I was born at the hospital.

  “I came off a shift out of Mine 5 and drove straight over and your mother’s already in the delivery room,” Billy had said. “I heard her through the door, screaming and pushing, and the doctor telling her how great she was doing and her telling him to go fuck himself, and then there was this crying noise, and it was the first sound I ever heard you make. They let me come in after a bit, once I’d scrubbed myself up and they put a gown on me so I didn’t get you filthy, and they let me hold you.” He laughed. “You were an ugly baby. Shame you grew up into such an ugly adult, too.”

  No one’s ever accused my father of being a nurturing soul.

  Inside the hospital, signs for the neonatal unit led you past the viewing area for the newborns. A mix of humanity stood at the glass, staring at pink-cheeked infants. Newly minted fathers looked at their just-born children with a blend of pride and fear. Family members contemplated ways to spoil children. Siblings had a dawning recognition of where they now stood in the pecking order. A few wandered over from other parts of the hospital, people in need of a reminder of hopeful beginnings as they waited for inevitable endings.

  The nurse at the unit desk was about forty, with a lot of crispy blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. She wore scrubs and a paint brush’s worth of blue eye shadow. I leaned against the desk as she tapped away on a computer.

  “I’m looking for Katie Dolan,” I said.

  She stopped and looked at me with narrowed eyes. “You Henry Malone?”

  “Every day since I can remember.”

  She smiled. “I’m Katie.” She motioned to another woman in scrubs. “Claire, you mind the store for a few?” She snatched cigarettes and a lighter from her purse. “We’ll go outside to talk.”

  The smoking area was in the rear near the delivery entrance and close to a cluster of dumpsters. I suppose the hospital didn’t want to encourage bad habits with a good view.

  Katie lit her cigarette. “I heard you’re kind of a detective,” she said through a cloud of smoke.

  “That’s kind of true,” I said. “I used to be a state trooper. I don’t have a license, so nothing I do could be termed ‘legitimate,’ which means I can’t legally charge you, though I’m not above it if you want to be generous and hand me a few bucks. Nonetheless, I can ask questions and annoy people and tell you whatever I find out.” I pulled a pack of Marlboros out of a front jeans pocket, shook a stick loose, and set the end on fire. “Your brother’s Eddie Dolan.”

  She nodded. The affirmation wasn’t awash with pride. Just acknowledgment of the fact.

  I blew smoke and waited for her to talk.

  If you’ve watched enough true-crime shows—the ones about gruesome deaths in small towns—you’ve heard about ones where it “stunned the community.” That doesn’t do justice to the collective gasp across Parker County when someone found the body of Meadow Charles in the local landfill.

  Meadow came from one of those families described as having “storied money,” but no one told those stories because it wasn’t polite to use that sort of language in mixed company. The daughter of Robert Charles—himself the fourth generation to serve as president of Parker Savings and Loan—and the former Parker County homecoming queen, Meadow was one of those girls most people hated on principle. She was smart, she was beautiful, she had money. She should have been playing croquet with Winona Ryder’s head or pushing other girls along toward an eating disorder. But all anyone had to say was how good of a person she was, someone with a kind heart and a sincere smile for the world.

  Her remains were found next to moldering piles of food and stacks of used tires. She had been bludgeoned to death, a copper pipe next to her covered in bits of her hair and skull. The coroner found traces of lubricant and post-mortem vaginal trauma, meaning she’d been raped after being murdered. She was eighteen years old.

  Fingerprints on the pipe led to Eddie Dolan, a thirty-seven-year-old local with a drug issue and a criminal background, a guy pulling social security because a mental disability left him unable to work. When the police came knocking at his door, he told them a story of the friendship that had developed over the past few years between him and Meadow. A friendship blossomed over their shared mutual interest: heroin.

  A few hours with the History Channel tells you how every society has hierarchies—class divides that separate the haves, the have-nots, and the never-wills. Small towns in West Virginia are no different from European monarchies this way. What makes small towns different is a lack of real estate; no matter the social division, it’s tough to keep yourself away from the disreputable when the bad part of town is only two blocks over and everyone has to shop at the same Walmart.

  Meadow started with pills at parties and made an effortless segue into shooting heroin. She stopped wearing sleeveless shirts anymore because she couldn’t hide the needletrack marks. Her grades plummeted like the drop on a roller coaster. The cheerleading squad kicked her off because she couldn’t remember routines. If Parker County had still had a garden club, the ladies of it would have been abuzz with the rumors.

  Eddie Dolan had a reputation as the local dullard. He made it through life on odd jobs like running errands, cutting grass, and clearing kudzu. People handled him with a mix of ridicule and pity. Somehow, he’d gotten
a girl knocked up a few years earlier, but the girl had packed the kid up and moved up north somewhere. Eddie sent money and gifts at Christmas time but got nothing back in return.

  For a guy like Eddie, drugs were an easy crutch, and he leaned on them more and more as he had less and less hope. He sent less money to the son he had never seen and spent more money getting high.

  Drugs don’t give a fuck about social standing, either, so long as you keep paying the bill. Meadow and Eddie met while scoring heroin at a local dealer’s place. Something clicked between the two of them. Friendships and empires had been built on less.

  They spent nights and weekends riding around in Meadow’s pickup, listening to AC/DC and Metallica. They would get high and sleep in the woods for hours. People saw them at Tudor’s on weekends, eating pancakes soaked in maple syrup and drinking endless amounts of coffee.

  Meadow’s friends—the few she still had—talked. The class difference, the age difference, the fucking heroin, for Christ’s sake—everything involving Eddie Dolan was met with stern disapproval handled through whispers and text messages. There had to be something else going on, they told her. Meadow said there was never anything physical, that all they ever did was talk.

  “He listens to me,” she said. “He doesn’t just hear me; he’s listening.”

  Rumors swirled, and in a small town, there was little you could do to keep them quiet. Robert Charles’s money couldn’t keep everyone silent for long.

  Then, out of nowhere, Meadow disappeared. “Studying in Europe,” everyone said. “Restarting her education,” they said.

  Uh-huh.

  When she showed back up several months later, she seemed like the old Meadow. Clear-eyed. Focused. Ready to reclaim her title as queen of Parker County High.