Red Moon Rising

by J. T. Brannan

  “The operation went a little bit haywire anyway,” Ben continues. “Nobody’s sure if it was an accident or not, but they ended up severing some of the nerve endings in the penis too, cutting some ligaments. Bottom line is, he couldn’t get an erection even if he had the desire. Not anymore.”

  “Is that why he was the prime suspect? Because those first girls weren’t raped?”

  “Yeah, pretty much. That and the crucifix anyway. Like I said, Menders got religion when he was inside. But in terms of those first attacks, you’ve got to ask yourself why they weren’t raped. Sexually assaulted, yes, but not raped, not as far as they could tell. Could indicate someone early in the cycle, maybe not quite graduated to the full act yet, or else they were interrupted before they could do it, or else they just couldn’t get it up and weren’t able. But you’d usually see some sign of masturbation at the scene, evidence of ejaculate. But there wasn’t anything. Why not? Like I said, could be a number of things, maybe even the physical evidence had been washed away by the rain, but Doug Menders had just moved to town about three months before, and I guess he looked like the top candidate. Ligature strangulation too, just like the case that got dropped back down in Florida.”

  We pass the turn-off for my house and the other farms. Strangely, I don’t feel the need to go there, to check on the place, see how Amy’s getting on. I feel disconnected in some way, like my life is on hold, I won’t go back to normal until this whole thing is straightened out. I wonder if that will ever happen.

  We follow the road, rounding more bends as the terrain becomes steeper. We’re climbing into the forested hills now, and suddenly I’m nervous. Ben might be used to confronting people on the streets, probably gives it no more than a second thought. But for me, even though I’ve dealt with many of the worst kind of people over the years, it’s always been in a guarded, air-conditioned office, or in a courthouse under the watchful eye of the guards and sheriffs. I’m not used to meeting suspected killers on their home turf, and I’m surprised to find myself so unnerved. Maybe it’s something to do with the attack in New York.

  I was surprised at first at Ben’s decision to go and see Menders alone, rather than passing it up the chain of command. But then again, what would he have said? He only knows about the girl pointing because of the fact he believes it happened in what can only be described as an alternate past. Who the hell would believe him? Added to which, he isn’t even supposed to be on the case in the first place, and Menders has already been interviewed at length, and subsequently cleared. He has an alibi, albeit a weak one, but there’s no proof that he had anything to do with it. Ben wants to talk to him directly, get a sense for the man. As he said earlier, he has a gift for these things.

  I feel colder as the car climbs the mountain, and I don’t think it’s just the altitude. I wonder why I asked if I could go with Ben, but of course I know. I want to see him too, get a feel for the guy. I feel so involved in this whole thing that anything I can do to help, I’ll do.

  “He was the prime suspect for the Chugach murders too?” I ask.

  “Hell, Menders is the prime suspect for most things round here. His reputation isn’t exactly good.”

  “You were saying earlier about his religion?”

  “Well, nobody knows for sure if it was a genuine conversion or just a ruse to get out of prison early, but to hear him talk about it he’s a reformed character, an evangelical, deeply into it in an unhealthy fire and brimstone way. We thought he might have used a crucifix due to some sort of terrible internal struggle, you know, he’s conflicted, a religious guy who’s still got these urges he can’t suppress, so when he can’t take it anymore he takes a symbol of that religion and uses it to help him commit the crime, almost making that religion an accomplice with him. Or else we thought he might have just been using it as a sick joke, a kind of big ‘fuck you’ to the whole system, excuse the language.”

  “But there wasn’t enough evidence to hold a case together?”

  “Not enough evidence to start a case against him, never mind hold one together.”

  “Do you think it was him?”

  “I’m not sure,” Ben says uneasily. “He’s such an obvious suspect, you know? And he’s definitely a very, very bad man. Weird, crazy, I mean bat-shit crazy, the whole bit. But the fact was that there was no real evidence against him, so all you’ve really got is a gut instinct. And with this current case, obviously there’s been evidence of direct sexual assault, so that works against him as a suspect, unless he’s grown it all back, and I think we can rule that out. The other option, of course, is that this time he’s been working with someone else.” I immediately think of Pat Jenkins, but that’s probably unfair. Or is it? “He’s guilty of something,” Ben continues. “With someone like him, there’s no doubt about that, but guilty of what? That’s the question no one can answer.”

  We’re off-road now, ploughing through deep snow on a seldom-used single-track lane cutting a swath through the thick hillside forest. If not for the snow storm, in the gaps where the trees cleared I guess you’d probably be able to see my little farming neighborhood in the valley below.

  We travel like this for another couple of miles, and then I see faint lights up ahead through the snow.

  “That’s it,” Ben says. “Menders’ cabin.”

  “Well I guess that means we’re one step closer to answering that question.”

  “Which question?” Ben asks as he pumps the brake, taking us to a safe halt on the unpaved road.

  “Finding out what Doug Menders might be guilty of.”

  8

  Ben knocks on the door as the wind whips the snow up around us. I pull my coat tighter around me as we wait for an answer.

  Seconds go by, the time dragging, and Ben knocks again, harder this time. We wait again, but again there is no answer.

  “Son of a bitch is probably playing games with us,” Ben says, brow furrowed.

  I don’t know why – maybe just because it’s so damned cold – but I reach forward and push at the cabin’s thick wooden door, and I’m not even surprised when it swings slowly open.

  Ben’s arm instinctively goes across me, holding me back, at the same time as he draws his handgun from the holster underneath his jacket. I can see from the look on his face that this is unexpected.

  “Doug’s careful,” he whispers to me, “he never leaves the place unlocked, even when he’s home.”

  “Are we going in?” I whisper back.

  “I am,” Ben answers, “you’re going to stay right here.”

  I look around the snow-swept landscape, hemmed in by thick trees on all sides, the feeling of claustrophobia bearing down hard on me, and I grip Ben’s arm, glaring at him. “I’m not staying out here,” I say in a voice that I hope will convince him. “If you’re going in there, then so am I.”

  Ben takes a second to decide, and although his eyes roll skyward, he nods his head and gestures for me to move behind him.

  I do, and a moment later he’s through the door, into the cabin, and I’m following him so closely we might as well be attached.

  The cabin is small and homely, while still managing to keep an air of the sinister about it. Religious paintings hang on every wall, alongside crosses and crucifixes of every shape and size imaginable. I don’t know if it’s the darkness that comes from a lack of light – the windows are shuttered against the cold and a single bare bulb illuminates the inside space – but the Christian paraphernalia, cloaked in shadow, is far more disturbing than uplifting. Again, I wonder if Menders is a believer, or if it’s all for show. At any rate, I can see how the discovery of the crucifix in the woods might have people peg the man as a prime suspect in those crimes. I wonder what his alibi was.

  Ben moves further into the room, and a moment later I hear the breath catch in his throat.

  “Shit,” he breathes, shoulders sagging, and I’m reminded of the first time he saw Lynette, dead outside my house, and I fear the worst.

  Ha
s he found another one?

  “Shit,” he sighs again, and I move past him, peering around the old sofa that’s been blocking my view.

  I inhale sharply as I see the sight before me, as shocked as Ben.

  There, on the floor of the cabin, is the dead body of a man, congealed blood spread out across the pinewood floor in a gruesome halo that reflects the religious iconography with vicious irony.

  “Menders?” I ask Ben, unsure.

  “Yeah,” he says, moving forward. “It’s him.”

  I see Ben turn away from the body then, obviously aware that the killer could still be here.

  He checks the room quickly, then turns to me. “Stay there,” he orders me, and this time I don’t argue; and a moment later, Ben is gone, off to check the cabin, room by room.

  I look around the room nervously, the fear rising again, ice chilling my veins. I try and look away, but I don’t know which is worse – the dead body on the floor, or the paintings and crucifixes on the walls.

  Eventually, despite my fear, my eyes turn back to the dead body of Douglas Menders, a thousand thoughts running through my mind. Who killed him? When? Why? Was it connected to Lynette’s death? Was it another captive, who’d killed him trying to escape? Or if Menders wasn’t the killer himself, did he know who it was? And had the real killer murdered him as a result?

  I look again at the body, my stomach queasy.

  Is he even dead?

  I edge nervously forward, staring at the man on the living room floor. At first glance, I am surprised. I think I must have been expecting some sort of frightening, sinister caricature of a man, with missing teeth and crossed eyes. But on first account – except for the bloody wound to his head – Douglas Menders seems entirely normal.

  The man looks to be in his fifties, trim and fit for his age. He still has most of his hair too, and while he isn’t exactly handsome, he’s definitely not the horror show that I was expecting. A pair of small oval-framed spectacles – dislodged by the blow that presumably killed him – hangs down on his chest, linked to a thin chain around his neck. Combined with his woolen cardigan and leather slippers, he has more the look of a slightly eccentric college professor than a serial killer. And yet I have to remember that, whether he has any connection to the Hyams case or not, he has been convicted of a string of violent sexual offences, and is – was? – a dangerous man.

  I bend over the shape, looking for any sign of life while still keeping my distance, all too aware that he might be playing possum. Ted Bundy used props such as arm casts and crutches to appear injured, to get his victims to lower their guards – and when he dropped his keys and they bent down to pick them up for him, he’d crack them in the back of the head with a tire iron and haul them into the boot of his VW Bug. Menders might look dead, but I’m not taking any chances.

  From this distance, he doesn’t appear to be breathing – I watch for a full minute or more, looking for the tell-tale rise and fall of his chest. I consider putting my fingers to the blood, to check if it’s real; but who am I kidding? I’m no expert, despite my years working for New York County. It was all prosecutorial, paperwork-based, interviews and paper-pushing. I’ve never investigated a real, live crime scene before.

  But the blood smells real, and I gather up the nerve to kneel beside the body, extending my fingers toward the man’s neck to check for a pulse.

  I jump as a hand claps down on my shoulder, my fingers jerking away from Menders’ exposed neck like they’ve just touched a bare electrical wire; my heart leaps in my chest, and my pulse triples in an instant.

  “Jessica,” I hear Ben’s voice say from behind me, “what are you doing?”

  “What am I doing?” I exclaim, heart still pounding as I turn my face to Ben’s. “What the hell are you doing, sneaking up on me like that?”

  “Hey,” he says, hands raised in surrender, “hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, okay?” He peers down at me, brow furrowed. “What are you doing?”

  “Checking that he’s really dead,” I say, realizing how stupid the words sound.

  Ben’s eyes rove across the body of Douglas Menders and he shakes his head. “He’s dead,” he says with grave finality; but he bends at the knee anyway, his own fingers going to Menders’ carotid. They dig into the folds of skin and he waits for a few moments before shaking his head again. “He’s gone, Jessica.”

  I don’t know whether I’m relieved or upset; on reflection, maybe I’m a little bit of both.

  “What happened here?” I ask as I stand back up.

  Ben shrugs. “A struggle, maybe,” he says, indicating a small table that’s been knocked over, magazines and books scattered on the floor. I’d missed it before, the result of the room’s poor lighting.

  My first thought was that another victim must have escaped – bashed her captor over the head and high-tailed it out of there. Even now, she might be cowering half-naked somewhere, out there in the ice and the snow.

  There were no tracks outside, but there’s been so much snow that it might have covered any footprints. There could still be someone out there; someone like Lynette.

  “Do you think it was another victim?” I breathe to Ben, and I watch as he looks around, taking in the scene, his finely-honed detective’s instincts probing silently.

  “I don’t know,” he offers in the end. “I’ve checked the house, there doesn’t seem to be any place a victim could have been secured or tortured. There’s just a kitchen, a bathroom and a single bedroom, and that’s it.”

  “The bathroom?” I ask, remembering a case I’d worked back in New York, prosecuting a sick sonofabitch who’d strung his girlfriend up from the shower pipe over his bath, beating her black and blue for over a week before neighbors had alerted the police to the screams. It had taken them a week, but at least they’d done it in the end.

  I wonder, though, if a victim like Lynette Hymans could have been strung up over Douglas Menders’ bath, been kept there, tortured there?

  “I don’t think so,” Ben says, “there’s no sign of blood or anything else in there. If a girl had just escaped, it’s not likely she would have cleaned the place first. Plus, police have been up here a few times since we found Lynette – both Palmer PD and the ABI – and we didn’t see anything going on, and believe me, the place was searched from top to bottom.”

  I shrug my shoulders. “Then what?”

  Ben looks around, taking it all in again. “Could be a vigilante attack,” he says thoughtfully. “Maybe people got wind of Menders’ name, despite it being kept out of those news reports, decided to take matters into their own hands. Wouldn’t be the first time something like that would have happened . . .”

  “With Menders?”

  “Well, I think old Doug was beaten up a few times during his early years here – one of the reasons he didn’t really leave the cabin, he was too damn scared, another reason why I don’t think he was involved too directly. He was just too scared to drive around and troll for victims, you know? But no, what I was really thinking about was when I was still with the SFPD, I worked a couple of real nasty cases where suspects had been beaten to death by vigilante gangs. One guy had been called a pedophile by the press, and was dead within the week. Turns out he wasn’t even guilty anyway. Another one was guilty, a rapist, and while I didn’t have much sympathy for the guy, what they did to him was pretty sick. He was unrecognizable, he had a face we knew well, but we had to go off fingerprints and dental records for an ID in the end.”

  I nod with understanding; I’ve seen similar cases in New York myself. “Can I take a look around?” I ask, not really sure why.

  Ben looks quizzical, as if asking himself the same question, then he nods gently. “Okay,” he says, “but don’t touch anything, this is a crime scene. And be quick, I’m gonna have to call this in, and I want you gone by the time the ABI gets here. It’s gonna be bad enough explaining why I’m here, never mind you.”

  “Okay,” I say, knowing that he’s right
. Ben could conceivably come up with a story about calling in to check up on Menders, or some other little white lie, but me? What would I be doing here? And why would Ben be with me? Even though my father has waved his magic wand, I’m sure Captain De Nares still sees me as a suspect. Ben shouldn’t even be working the case, never mind me.

  Ben pulls out his radio and starts to call it in to the PD, and I finally move away from the dead body of Douglas Menders and head for the thick wooden door that leads to the kitchen.

  I remind myself not to touch anything – the last thing I need is for my fingerprints to be found here when the lab boys arrive on the scene. That would really mess with my day.

  With a sense of trepidation, I push open the door using the back of my hand and slowly enter the kitchen.

  The space is small and – like the living room – eerily dark, a tiny, solitary window allowing some of the cloud-dulled sunlight from outside the cabin to pass through.

  There is a sink, a worktop, a small cupboard and a simple iron stove, all clean and serviceable. I put my gloves on and open the cupboard, see a small range of cooking and eating utensils stored there, stacked neatly. There is also a small wooden table and a single chair, and I start to try and imagine Douglas Menders’ life here – day after day, week after week, month after month spent alone here. Waking – maybe in the morning, maybe not until the afternoon – and making himself something to eat, sitting down alone at the table to consume it. Washing and drying the pans and plates, putting them away, making the place clean and tidy again before moving onto . . . What?