The ride out of the city was a nice change of pace for Lauren. Snow coated the trees, settled in the bare branches and sat on top of bushes like dollops of whip cream. A fallacy about Buffalo is that it’s always sub-zero, temperature-wise. The truth is that they did get a lot of snow, but the temperature rarely dipped below zero degrees, even with the wind chill factor. Lauren didn’t love winter. She was not a skier or a snowmobiler or an ice fisherman, but she loved the look of Buffalo in the winter. It was like the whole region was frosted in a clean, white glaze. And once that melted away, everything would be new again.
John Hudson’s house was located in Orchard Park’s newest subdivision. So new, some streets only had ornate black lampposts marking where the houses would be built in the spring. Lauren carefully ticked off the numbers as she cruised down East Glass Lake Road. Glass Lake, the manmade body of water the mansions backed to, was frozen over in a veil of ice.
The enormous blue-sided colonial had an attached four-car garage. Smoke poured from a brick chimney on the side of the house. If anyone was home, there was no sign of it from the outside, except for that smoke. Even when she pulled into the driveway behind a cherry-red, snow-covered Mustang, not a curtain was parted. The snow on the front walk and stairs leading to the front door was undisturbed. Where were Hudson and his daughter – away? It hadn’t snowed since late the night before. Surely someone would have left some tracks on their way to work in the morning.
Her city-issue boats crunched all the way to the front door. A festive wreath decorated with a huge gold ribbon adorned the massive red door. Lauren took a deep breath and hit the bell.
She could hear a faint bonging echoing through the house. Then it was just the sound of her breathing. She watched the clouds of steam escape from her mouth for almost a minute. Waiting is something you become excellent at when you worked in Homicide. She was just about to hit the bell one last time before she left a notice to call the office when Lauren heard someone approaching.
The door swung inward, revealing a tall, slim black woman in blue hospital scrubs with an open black cardigan over the shirt. Tight curls framed her oval face. ‘Can I help you?’
She pulled her coat open to reveal the gold badge on her hip. ‘I’m Detective Lauren Riley with the Buffalo Police Department. Is this the Hudson residence?’
The woman’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. ‘What did Brooklyn do now?’
Lauren was thrown off script for a second. ‘Brooklyn? No, I’m looking for Mr John Hudson? Gunnar Jonsson’s father?’
Now she was met with straight up suspicion. ‘Can I see your credentials please? Who did you say you worked for again?’
Lauren fished the wallet that contained her official identification out of her back pocket. The woman cracked the glass storm door and took it from her. Lauren watched her study it carefully before passing it back. She tried again. ‘I’m Detective Riley with the Buffalo Police Department. I’d like to speak with John Hudson, please.’
‘I’m Mr Hudson’s nurse.’ She crossed her arms in front of her. ‘He’s not taking visitors now. I’d be happy to pass along any message you might have. Or a business card, if you have one.’
It was time to stop dicking around. ‘Ma’am, I need to speak with Mr Hudson immediately.’
From somewhere in the house a nasally voice yelled out: ‘Erna? Who’s at the door? Is it for me? I’m waiting for a package.’
The nurse half turned and yelled behind her, ‘No one for you, Brooklyn. Mind your business.’ Turning back to Lauren she mumbled, ‘Can’t be bothered to come up for breakfast. Now she sticks her head out of the basement like a gopher.’
‘Ma’am,’ Lauren said bluntly, ‘I’m with the Homicide Unit.’
Erna’s brown eyes went wide for a second, then she opened the door. Lauren tried not to let on exactly what squad she was with until she had the immediate family present, but she could tell she was going to meet further resistance getting into the residence. Nurse Erna obviously took her job of taking care of Mr Hudson very seriously. Stepping aside so Lauren could come in, she held the door open for her.
‘Mr Hudson is in the media room. Follow me, please.’
The interior of the house made it seem like it was unoccupied. Everything was brand new, everything matched perfectly, and nothing was out of place. It could have been a model home on display. Or a funeral home before a wake.
‘The house is lovely,’ Lauren commented as they passed a huge unlived in living room.
‘Mr Hudson had it custom built two years ago when he got his settlement. He’s very proud of the way it turned out.’ Erna talked over her shoulder as she led Lauren deeper into the home. ‘He has two maids to do the housekeeping, a landscaper, and a handyman. He came from humble beginnings and he’s determined to keep what he’s built in fine order.’
‘I can see that,’ Lauren marveled as they passed floor-to-ceiling windows in a dining area. The view of Glass Lake would be spectacular in the warmer months.
‘Erna!’ The same disembodied voice echoed through the house. ‘Who the hell is here?’
This time she didn’t bother to answer, let alone turn around. ‘That’s Mr Hudson’s daughter, Brooklyn,’ she said as she pushed open a set of double doors.
‘I might need to speak with her as well.’
‘I’m sure she has no plans to leave her basement hideaway any time soon.’ She stopped and motioned to another door in front of them. ‘Mr Hudson is in a wheelchair. He was in a terrible accident some years ago and is in need of constant medical attention. Would you mind just waiting here for a moment before I let you in? I’d like to lessen the stress on him, if I could.’
Not possible, Lauren thought, but said, ‘Yes, of course.’
Erna cracked the door. ‘I’ll only be a moment,’ she told her as she slipped into the other room.
Clasping her hands in front of her, Lauren studied an abstract painting done in greens and browns hanging to her right. It looked like someone had framed some moldy moss snot and hung it on the wall. From inside the media room, she could hear the faint murmur of conversation. After thirty seconds or so Erna stuck her head out. ‘Mr Hudson will see you now.’
Lauren didn’t know what she had expected; maybe a stately older man in silk pajamas with a cashmere throw over his lap, gray hair combed back off of his high regal forehead. What she got was a shaggy salt-and-pepper haired man, not much older than her, in red, white and blue sweatpants and a stained Buffalo Sabres T-shirt. Nasty scars crisscrossed the left side of his weather-worn face, trailing down his neck. He sat in an expensive-looking motorized wheelchair, framed by the huge flat screen TV that covered most of the wall behind him. A projector from somewhere behind Lauren cast a dizzying display of sportsmanship against it. She had interrupted the hockey game he’d been watching.
There were no windows in the room and the walls were lined with sports memorabilia in shadow boxes, and framed posters of famous football teams. Dark and claustrophobic, it was more like an underground cave than a media room.
The man smiled, or at least did his best to with the only working side of his mouth, as Lauren came into the room.
‘Mr Hudson?’ Lauren asked.
‘Yes. Would you like to have a seat?’ He motioned with his right hand to the leather couches positioned in front of the big screen. His left hand rested immobile on the arm of his wheelchair. Lauren wondered if he was able to move it at all. Erna silently walked behind him and hit the mute button on a black remote sitting on a glass coffee table. A frenzy of passing continued in the background as he talked. ‘Something to drink?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Erna says you’re with the police and want to talk to me?’ His speech was slurred and jagged, like he had to gulp for air after every syllable.
‘Are you John Hudson,’ Lauren asked, for confirmation, ‘father of Gunnar Jonsson?’
‘I am,’ he said with obvious pride. The way his sunken chest puffed up at the me
re mention of the young man’s name made her stomach twist a little.
‘My name is Lauren Riley and I’m with the Buffalo Police Homicide Squad.’ She paused for half a second before she rattled off the ugly truth of her visit. ‘I’m truly sorry to have to inform you that Gunnar died last night.’
His chest deflated in that instant. Confusion flashed across his broken face. ‘He what?’
‘Gunnar was found dead last night near his hotel. I’m very sorry.’ Lauren braced herself for what was coming next.
His head swung back and forth in denial. ‘No. There’s been a mistake. He was here all day yesterday. He didn’t leave until almost six o’clock.’ His eyes darted to his nurse. ‘Tell her, Erna. Tell her Gunnar was here all day.’
Before Erna could speak, Lauren pulled her work phone out of her pocket. She already had Gunnar’s passport picture pulled up. Walking over to Mr Hudson, Lauren handed him her cell. ‘Is this your son, sir?’
He grasped the phone with his good hand and stared down at it. Behind him, out of his line of sight, Erna made the sign of the cross. His voice lowered to almost a whisper. ‘How?’
‘He was murdered.’
The phone slipped from Hudson’s fingers and clattered against the polished hardwood floors. ‘How?’ he demanded again as Erna circled around his chair and draped a protective arm across his thin shoulder.
Lauren bent over and picked up her cell, stowing it away as she spoke: ‘He was bludgeoned to death, in an alley next to his hotel. Sir, I know this is shocking and difficult, but I’m going to have to ask you some questions.’
Hudson’s chin dipped down and he shaded his eyes with his good hand as he took a staggering breath. When he got some control over himself, he stretched his arm back out and looked up at Lauren. She watched as he gripped and ungripped the arm of his chair with his good hand. ‘Did you make an arrest? Do you have the guy?’
Lauren shook her head. ‘No, sir. That’s why it’s really important I get this information from you now. It could help the investigation.’
‘Bludgeoned? Are you sure it’s Gunnar?’
Actually, until his prints or dental records came back, Lauren was relying on his identification of Gunnar’s photo for the positive ID. She hated to say the next lines: ‘If you want to view the body before we turn it over to your funeral home director, that can be arranged. Does he have a spouse or other next of kin that needs to be notified?’
Mr Hudson broke into a spasm of coughing, causing Erna to quickly grab a box of tissues from a table next to her. She pulled two out and put them in his hand.
‘He has a half-brother in Reykjavik. Apparently, his mother is dead. Gunnar wasn’t married,’ Erna filled in as Mr Hudson tried to catch his breath. ‘That’s why he was so happy to find his birth father after all these years.’
‘Go get Brooklyn,’ Mr Hudson finally said, turning his good eye to his nurse. ‘Get her in here now. And call Ryan.’
Nurse Erna gave his shoulder one last comforting squeeze and hurried from the room. Lauren waited a moment and continued. She pulled her notebook out of her inside jacket pocket and poised her pen over it to jot down notes. Usually one detective asked the questions and the other writes down the answers, but Lauren was solo and she didn’t want to risk losing any information or having to come back by not writing things down.
‘Do you have a contact number for the brother in Iceland?’
Hudson shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Was Gunnar in a relationship with anyone?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Do you know anyone who would want to harm Gunnar?’
‘You don’t understand.’ The words came out slightly garbled and he took a second to compose himself. ‘I have no idea who’d want to hurt him. I never met Gunnar until he knocked on my door six days ago.’ He turned his broken face up to Lauren’s, and she couldn’t help but think how similar his eyes were to those of Billy Munzert’s father. ‘I didn’t even know he existed.’
EIGHT
‘I was in the Air Force. Stationed right here, out of the Niagara Falls Air Force Base. It was the early 1990s. I was eighteen, green as hell, and they deployed us over to Iceland for six months. There used to be an Air Force base there, the Naval Air Station Keflavik. It’s closed now. Right before I left to come back home, I had a one-night stand with Gunnar’s mother, Katrin. That’s all I knew about her – her first name.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘It was the only one-night stand I ever had in my life. I came home and met my future wife. I haven’t given a thought about that night in years. Until Gunnar knocked on my door a week ago with those papers in his hand.’
Lauren was dumbfounded. ‘And you have no doubt that you are his father?’
‘He’s the spitting image of my mother – got her nose, her eyes, same chin. Gunnar’s mom in Iceland was as pale as a calla lily and just as delicate. As soon as Erna brought him to this room, well, I thought I was seeing a ghost. In a way, he even sounded like my mother. Then he pulled out those papers and showed me that my son Ryan was his brother.
‘Gunnar did one of those DNA genealogy tests. When he said that, I remembered Ryan telling me ages ago he was going to take one. I’m such a mutt, I had no idea what it was going to say. Ryan phoned me and told me the initial results. He was still living out west then. It all seemed like a lot of nonsense to me. I never dreamed it would come back after all this time and say that I had another son.’ His voice caught again on that last word.
‘You had no clue Gunnar was coming to visit you?’
‘None. But I was so happy. I’ve been on cloud nine since he showed up. I have a son and daughter. And two grandsons. I thought that was my whole family. And he was so wonderful. Gunnar had my mom’s smile, her laugh. He was even built like she was, on the small side, but wiry.’
‘I couldn’t believe I was so blessed. I spent every day with him after that meeting, and paid for him to extend his stay here in Buffalo. I didn’t want him to leave. He told me he’d just go home long enough to take care of some business and come back. He was an assistant to the CEO of a big shipping firm.’ His words cracked in his throat. ‘Do you have children?’
Lauren swallowed hard. ‘Yes, two daughters.’
‘Then you can imagine what it felt like.’ Tears welled in his eyes but refused to spill over. ‘It was a miracle. His existing and coming into my life, especially now. He was a gift from God.’ He made another of those choking sounds. ‘All because he and my son Ryan took a stupid DNA test. And now he’s gone.’
There was something Lauren didn’t understand. ‘Your son didn’t tell you about possibly having a brother when he got his results?’
Just as he was about to answer a tall, thin woman about twenty-one years old came bursting through the door with Erna in tow. ‘Why is a cop here?’ she demanded, walking up to her father wearing flannel pajama pants. ‘Queen Erna won’t tell me a goddamn thing!’
‘Where were you last night?’ Mr Hudson asked, his voice lowering an octave.
‘Wait, what?’ She took a step back and almost ran into Lauren.
‘I asked where you were last night?’
Lauren absorbed the reality of what was happening. Mr Hudson was actually suspicious that his daughter had killed Gunnar.
Brooklyn Hudson’s forehead creased in anger. ‘I was at Lenny’s. All night. I swear. We were playing Fortnite. You can ask him. What’s going on?’
‘Your brother Gunnar was murdered last night,’ Mr Hudson told her.
Lauren didn’t know what she had expected, but she absolutely hadn’t imagined Brooklyn snorting with laughter as she said, ‘Well, that’s another gold-digging-relative problem solved, right?’
‘Brooklyn!’ Erna exclaimed, her hand covering her mouth.
‘What? It’s the truth.’ She crossed her stick-like arms against her sunken chest. ‘He shows up here saying he’s my brother. And everyone just believes him. Why’d he wait until now? Why didn’t he show up when you were
just a garbage man, Dad?’
‘Why didn’t you?’ Erna countered. ‘You were living in Las Vegas with your mother until he finally got his settlement. You and your brother.’
Brooklyn opened her mouth to reply but Mr Hudson cut her off. ‘Enough. I want you to give this detective all of Lenny’s information, right now.’
She threw her hands in the air. ‘What? No way. No way is Lenny going to talk to cops—’
There was steel in Mr Hudson’s voice now. ‘Then I will get into my van and take the detective there myself if I have to. And if I have to, you’d better be gone when I get back.’
Brooklyn’s shoulders slumped in her retro Van Halen T-shirt as she repeated an address Lauren knew quite well on the east side of the city. The apartments had been known to house drug dealers for years. When she was briefly in Narcotics, they’d hit one apartment and the dealers would set up shop the next day in the apartment upstairs. Lauren wrote it down, noticing the tremor in Brooklyn’s hands and the track marks on the inside of her elbow. Erna must have caught her off guard. Most junkies at least tried to cover up for the sake of appearances.
‘Ryan and Kristin are on the way over,’ Erna said, as Lauren finished jotting her notes on Brooklyn.
‘Did you tell them?’ Mr Hudson asked his nurse.
‘I did. I hope that’s all right, Detective?’
Not ideal, but what was done was done. ‘Not a problem.’
‘You better ask them where they were last night.’ Brooklyn turned her venom on Lauren now, pointing a boney finger at Lauren’s notepad as she flipped it shut. ‘You better get their alibis because they had just as much to lose as I did.’
‘Lose?’ Lauren asked, a look of confusion flitting across her face.
‘Do you really think this is the time, Brooklyn?’ Erna was back at Mr Hudson’s side, practically propping him up as he slumped against her.
‘And you too,’ she spat at the nurse. ‘I’m sure you’ve managed to get yourself into my dad’s will.’
A Full Cold Moon Page 5