Murder by Moonlight

by Vincent Zandri

  My eyes back on Joan.

  “OK, Joan, let’s pretend Chris didn’t know about your affair, and he was simply being his good old self when he cashed Peter’s checks and forged those loan signatures. Sad as it sounds, that’s not all too uncommon behavior among semibroke college students.”

  “Please, Mr. Moonlight,” Joan says. “These little things might seem trivial to you, but Christopher’s father knew better. When our son nearly flunked out his freshman year, he came home and spent much of the summer wandering the backwoods with Mr. Okey. He said he was trying to get his act together, trying to get his head straight for the coming school year. He needed the woods, he said, and he needed Mr. Okey’s guidance. Just like he needed his job working with the animals at Pet Sounds. Despite everything, we trusted our son and were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Then…”

  Voice trailing off, she begins to cry. Tears emerging from her good eye and from beneath the patch.

  “Then what, Mrs. Parker?” I push.

  “Then, that summer, in late June on very sunny, hot afternoon, a little girl went missing. A little girl only four years old. A preschooler at Bethlehem Elementary.”

  My stomach drops. Inside my skull, I feel my pulse pick up. It sounds like an orchestra of tight strings warming up. “What was her name?” I whisper through a dry mouth, the words peeling themselves from the back of my throat like dead skin.

  “Christina,” Joan whispers. “Her name was Christina Riley. You would come to know her mother later on.”

  Cook shoots up.

  So does Kindler. Chief Daly reaches out, presses a thick hand against the lawyer’s chest to hold him back. “Please, Joan!” Kindler warns. “For God’s sake, listen to what you’re saying!”

  I feel all the air leave my lungs. If it weren’t for the crutches, I might drop on the spot.

  “Moonlight, maybe you should sit,” Cook begs.

  Out the corner of my eye, I see Kindler grab one of the DA’s wooden chairs. My eyes glued to Joan, I slowly inhale, regain my balance.

  “I’ll stand,” I say. Then, “Go on, Mrs. Parker.”

  Staring at her lap, she says, “While a search was underway for Christina, a teenage boy from Albany went missing. Not long after that, a woman was taken. This one in her twenties.”

  The noise in my head grows louder and louder until it’s nearly deafening.

  “Christopher,” I say. “The Great Society.”

  “You don’t know that,” Kindler chimes in.

  “There was never any proof that my son was involved in these abductions,” Joan goes on. “But as God is my judge, my husband and I knew in our hearts that Christopher was somehow involved…that he and Mr. Okey were behind them. That others might be involved. Maybe Dr. Robinson.”

  “What about Bowman?”

  “Yes,” she says. “He had no doubt that Chris had to be involved. And he had no doubt because I had no doubt. He also suspected, but could never prove, that Christopher might have had something to do with his own son’s death.”

  I take a clumsy step forward. Part of me wants to pick her up, shake her, beg her to tell me where Christopher buried that little girl, where her body can be found. But other than that single step, I can’t move a muscle.

  “Mrs. Parker,” Cook says. “Do you believe Christopher knows the whereabouts of these victims?”

  She looks up, raising her head with a speed and strength that defies her condition. She sucks in a breath, then exhales it. A teardrop falls from her good eye, runs down the length of her sad face.

  “Yes,” she utters. “I believe he knows precisely where they are. I believe everyone in this room believes that he knows.”

  We drive to the Albany County Correctional Facility, where Christopher is being held without bail inside a special protective cell. Me, Aviva, Joan Parker, Kindler, Cook, and Chief Daly. The press is on our heels the entire way.

  When we enter the building, we find Jonathan standing outside the windowless interview room that holds his little brother. Even from a distance, he looks like he hasn’t slept all night. Glassy blue eyes lock onto me, watch me limp without my crutches, which I’ve stubbornly left behind at Cook’s office. The corridor is narrow and brightly lit with overhead lamps. The walls are white stucco, the floor concrete, painted a glossy battleship gray. The place feels like a morgue. Smells like it, too.

  I stop before Jonathan. Face to face, maybe twelve desperate inches separating us. He’s wearing a black leather jacket. It’s buttoned all the way up to his thick neck. His eyes are bloodshot, his face pale. He’s not saying a word. Somehow, saving my life doesn’t make up for what he is, for his connection to a young monster who’s killed more than we can imagine. I try to shove past him. But he won’t move.

  “Let him by, Jonathan!” Kindler. Insistent.

  “Yes.” Joan. “Please step aside and allow the man to enter the room.” Softly. But somehow stronger than Kindler.

  The young navy man keeps staring at me, through me. It’s as if he senses that my presence means the end of the line for his brother. And he’s right. It does mean the end of the line for his brother.

  “I just want you to know,” he speaks in this thick, understated voice, “that my brother wasn’t always a monster.”

  I look him in the eye. “You suggesting that something made him a monster or coerced him into becoming evil?” It’s a question that seems beside the point at this stage of the cold-blooded murder game. But I ask it anyway.

  He nods. “Yeah. Something made him a monster. He wasn’t born like that.”

  I almost tell him to save the sob story for a shrink or a priest or for Christ himself. But instead, I reach for the doorknob. He moves to the side, giving me just enough room before our bodies touch. I open the door, step into the darkness.

  Sitting in a chair, his shackled wrists and ankles chained to the underside of a long metal table, is Christopher. He’s wearing that same blaze-orange jumpsuit that floats on him. He looks tired, but he’s smiling, as though any semblance of good conscience has pulled an Elvis and left the building. The smile gets bigger as I enter.

  “Hey there, Mr. Moonlight,” he greets. “Come on in, make yourself at home.”

  They all follow me into the room, take seats around the table. Everyone but me. I stand on the opposite side of the room. Truth be told, I’m afraid that if I come too close to the kid, I might grab him by the throat, squeeze the juice right out of him.

  “Christopher,” Joan says. “What can you tell these people about the people you’ve taken? About their bodies?”

  Her words fill the room with a heavy, toxic air. It’s almost palpable.

  “You must know, Christopher,” Kindler breaks in, “that you are not yet being accused of anything officially regarding anyone other than your mother and father. And even then, it’s been established that you didn’t actually swing the axe. Robinson did. But you’re still facing a possible death sentence for conspiracy to commit murder one. At the very least, you’re facing two counts of life. So if you do happen to know something about these missing people, your cooperation will be highly valued by Mr. Cook and the court.”

  “It will indeed, Christopher.” Cook, backing the lawyer up.

  “Just fucking do it,” Jonathan insists. “You’re gonna fry no matter what.”

  All eyes have shifted from Christopher to Jonathan, like big brother alone holds the ultimate power over little brother. And I believe he does.

  The killer clears his throat. “So this is what I propose.” The devil smile on his face suddenly wiped away. “I show you what I know. But only if Mr. Moonlight accompanies me…us…the entire way.”

  Daly shoots up. “No fucking way. How do we know you won’t have one of your pals waiting there for Moonlight? For my men?” Daly has lost a brother over this mess, and it’s the first time he’s actually said anything of value.

  “You don’t,” Chris concedes. “But you also know that I’m not that kin
d of young man. Believe it or not, I’m all about peace, love, and understanding. I work at a vet clinic, for God’s sake, Chief.” Cocking his head, like he’s about to retract a statement. “But things have happened in my pursuit of Great Society membership and now I know things that you would also like to know. Mr. Moonlight has uncovered things, too. Done it alone and with a bullet in his brain. Uncovered things you, the police, and you, the law, haven’t come close to. Mr. Moonlight is a man who lives for the truth. Isn’t that right, Mr. M.? That said, it’s Moonlight and me all the way.”

  I refuse to look at him, acknowledge his optimistic tone.

  “It’s risky,” Cook chimes in.

  “This isn’t Hollywood, Paul,” Chris goes on. “I can call you Paul, right? Feels like we should be on kind of intimate terms, seeing as how you’re going to try to get me legally exterminated. I’m not asking you to set me free with Mr. Moonlight. I understand I will be accompanied by police the entire way.” Smiling again. “I just feel that after all Mr. Moonlight has been through—not just with this case but with his suicide attempt, and the fact that he could die at any time—with all that, I want Moonlight to see what there is to see before the cops get their grubby hands on everything and mess it all up, like they did when Dr. Robinson put the axe to Mom and Dad. Agreed?”

  Me, nodding. “Agreed,” I say and exhale.

  “Chief Daly,” Cook says, cocking his head over his shoulder.

  “So long as we’re with them every step of the way. Come to think of it, I guess there’s no reason the kid shouldn’t show us the poor bastards he’s buried. Expedites things pretty damn well, actually. Save the city some cashola.”

  The kid smiles that smile again, bobs his head like this is all fun and games.

  “Right on, Chief,” he giggles, tossing the top cop a wink. “That’s the spirit. OK then, so long as the police don’t get in the way of my little tour, we’re all in agreement.”

  Everyone stands up, including Joan, who by now is openly weeping.

  “Let’s get this started,” Cook insists. “I want to end this today.”

  I meet with a team of Albany and Bethlehem cops inside the chief’s office, just outside the main booking room. The plain-suited dicks want me to wear a wire just in case Chris passes on any juicy info that might help seal their case or cases against him. Not that I try very hard, but there’s no talking them out of it. They tape the transponder to my left butt cheek and snake the wire up my boxer shorts, tape the mike onto my chest. They ask me to tap the mike with my fingertips in order to test it before I pull my shirt over it. When I get the go-ahead, I slip on my leather jacket, zip it all the way up.

  “You’ll ride with Chris and one of my support staff,” Daly informs. “We’ll be ahead of you and behind you.”

  “I’ll be OK,” I say.

  As if on cue, we both eye my licensed 9 mm sitting out on the cop’s desk.

  “I can give you a .22,” Daly says. “But that’s it. Tape it to your ankle.”

  I nod.

  He shoots a glance at the two dicks. One of them goes to the desk drawer, pulls out a black snub-nose, pushes open the cylinder, checks the rounds, slaps it back home. He hands it to me, along with a little leather clip-on holster, followed by a roll of gray duct tape. I wrap the holstered pistol to my right ankle, hand him back the roll of tape.

  “Let’s move,” Daly says.

  Christopher is sitting in the backseat of an unmarked cop cruiser. I occupy the front seat, again per the kid’s request. A blue uniform drives. A Plexiglas divider like the kind you find in a New York City cab separates us. I can hear his voice because of the little holes cut into the Plexiglas. He’s shackled from head to toe and he’s still dressed in his blaze-orange county jumpsuit. His hair is thick, black, and parted to the side just over his right, baby-blue eye. He seems to be enjoying the cold, sunny day. His smile beams.

  I sit, feeling the weight of the pistol on my ankle.

  “We going back to the woods?” I query.

  “You wearing a wire?” he queries back.

  “Yes. That upset you?”

  He laughs.

  I picture the Bethlehem dicks cursing the afternoon air.

  “Thanks for letting me know.”

  “I’ve got a piece strapped to my ankle, too. It’s loaded. Every one of the hollow-points has your name on it, Chris. Just give me an excuse to use one.”

  “Stop joking, Mr. Moonlight. The police will think you want to harm me in some way.”

  I laugh, because what else can I do?

  The cop starts the cruiser, pulls out of the lot, out onto the road, positions the car in the center of a train of cop cars, rooftop lights ablaze.

  “Where to, Christopher?” the cop says. “This is your show now.”

  “Why, the woods behind my parents’ house, of course,” the kid says. “We’re going to visit the Boy Scout camp this afternoon.”

  The cop speaks into his chest-mounted walkie-talkie, transfers the information. The train starts moving.

  We drive. It’s slow going, with cops in front of us and in back of us. We head into Bethlehem. Past the big sign announcing the home of the Great Society, dozens of cars pulling off to the side of the road to let us pass, people standing on the sidewalks, the media blocking the road in some places, the whole thing getting to be like a circus. Like the O.J. Simpson chase revisited!

  Then we stop.

  Cop’s got to hit the brakes abruptly, causing me to lurch forward, nearly slamming my head against the dash.

  “Why are we stopping, officer?” Chris asks. Polite.

  Fuzzy noise over the radio. Something about a crowd of gawkers in the street. And the media following with cameras. Cops want to find an alternate route. But now the reporters are about to converge on the cruiser. The cop is getting panicked. He does something stupid. He throws the cruiser into park, opens the door, gets out. He starts yelling at the vultures to stay back. That he’s on official police business.

  I see the face of Christina Riley in my head, see the gray duct tape covering her little mouth. I just want to know what happened to that little girl. I just want to know. It’s never going to happen in this craziness. Never going to happen with the entire world watching on their TVs, computers, and iPhones. Never going to happen.

  I see the key inserted in the ignition. I see the cop half a dozen steps away from the door now. He’s a big, fat cop. I see all the news people trying to get a shot at Christopher for their nightly news reports.

  I see death and I see Christopher and I see evil.

  I somehow see good, too. I see my son.

  I reach into my shirt, yank the wire from my chest, feel the sharp sting come and go. I toss the wire onto the floor and then quickly shift my body over behind the cruiser’s wheel.

  “What are you doing, Mr. Moonlight?” Christopher begs.

  “Taking the fuck over.”

  I pull the driver’s door shut, lock the doors. The cop turns at the sound, stares back through the glass at me. He hustles over, tries the door. I gun the cruiser, pull out, not caring who gets run down in the process. Tires squeal on the pavement as I hook a left into a Price Chopper Supermarket parking lot, swerve in between parked and parking cars. I slam a grocery cart powered by a young mother. The groceries fly off the windshield. A carton of milk explodes.

  “Sweet, a car chase!” Chris barks. He’s having the time of his life.

  I see an opening at the end of the lot. Between the main supermarket and an adjoining Italian restaurant. It’s a narrow opening. An alleyway. I know that if I reach it, I’ll be out of sight. I make it, speed down the alleyway, the cruiser trading paint with the masonry wall on my left side, sparks shooting up past the windows.

  When I come out the other side, there’s nothing in front of me but a row of suburban houses. A long privacy fence protects them. I gun the car for the fence, ram through it, boards and poles slapping off the hood, cracking the windshield. I fly across a fro
zen brown lawn, come to the neighborhood street, jumping the curb.

  Pedal to the metal, I hook a left, fly down the street in the opposite direction of where I left the cops on Main Street. Thus far, no one is tailing us. But I know that will end.

  “Where you taking us, Mr. M.?” Chris shouts.

  “Five Rivers,” I tell him. “We walk from there.”

  “Goody,” Chris says. “My last hike on earth.”

  We cruise through the neighborhood, little kids jumping out of the street and onto the sidewalks for fear of being run over. At the end of the street, a cul-de-sac. Dead end.

  Fuck me.

  I pull up onto the lawn of the farthest home, drive over it, look for a way out. In the backyard, a set of swings separates me from a small wood. Beyond the narrow stretch of leafless woods, Route 443, the main north/south road that will take me into New Scotland and the Five Acres State Park. Take me in the back way. I gun the cruiser through the swing set, and through the brush, praying I don’t plow into a tree.

  I get through the woods, pull down an embankment, pull up hard onto the road, nearly hitting a tractor-trailer. The rig has to swerve out of my way. I catch sight of it in the rearview, the semi leaving the ground on one side, riding only on the driver’s-side wheels until it slams back down. For a split second I’m sure he’ll jackknife. But he doesn’t.

  Out ahead of me, open road.

  I push the engine, and hope that the cops haven’t already figured out my destination.

  A mile into the drive, Chris wants to chat.

  “Do you want to know why Robinson and I really did what we did to my mother and father?”

  I feel my heart skip a beat when he says it. Just three miles to go and we’ll hit the Five Rivers’s woods. Three longer-than-long miles.

  “Money and becoming vested members of the Great Society,” I say. “There’s more to it than that?”

  I look at his face reflected in the rearview. He purses thin, red lips, peers out the side window onto the gray trees, the brown lawns, and the occasional piles of soiled, salt-and-pepper snow pushed up against the identical split-level cookie-cutter houses. He’s peaceful, at ease with himself. It’s like he’s on a casual Sunday drive.