Dick Moonlight - 01 - Moonlight Falls
Page 4
No one would catch the wrath of his inner turmoil more than Scarlet.
Through the years she would stick by him, thick and thin. She even married him thinking that she would be his saving grace, his way out of the gloom. Or so she told me during one of our recent “massages.” For many years she probably never complained. Not to her husband anyway. Not about the long absences, not about the lonely nights, not about the drinking.
Not about Jake’s perpetually lifeless face.
The same lifeless face that now, like a .22 caliber frag, was embedded inside my brain.
9
WE ARRIVED AT THE Montana colonial on Green Meadows Lane just a little after three A.M. There was the usual array of Stormville cruisers parked outside—black and white, and unmarked. There was an E.M.T. “Emergency Response” ambulance backed up into the driveway, the light and sirens killed.
A handful of uniformed cops paced the front lawn in what for the moment had become a kind of light mist. There were two who stood all by themselves, hands jammed inside trouser pockets. A couple of others were smoking cigarettes, kicking at the wet grass with the tips of their black lace-up cop shoes. They were whispering to one another. But at the same time, their eyes were peeled on us.
The brutal death of the Captain’s wife: it must have seemed like one very surreal situation for them. Not the typical crime scene by any stretch of the imagination.
Under normal circumstances, a carnival-like atmosphere almost always punctuates a crime scene, with bright lights and medical emergency people milling about. People giving orders or taking them while traipsing in and out of the residence, the doors to which are usually propped wide open like a barn even on the dreariest of spring nights.
Usually you see the rapid-fire flashes coming from the forensic cops and their digital cameras and the bright white glare of spotlighting that comes from the television news crews and their shoulder-mounted video units.
Usually you can count on at least four or five newspaper reporters to shove hand-held recording devices in your face while, as a detective, you do your best to examine the dead and the crime scene they left behind.
But as I exited the cruiser, I could tell right away that the Montana crime scene was going to be different. What I mean is even the curious neighbors were staying away. Or at least having the good sense to keep their distance—hiding under the cover of darkness and stormy weather. But stepping up the blacktopped drive, I could not help but feel their eyes cutting into my back as each and every one of them looked out onto the action from behind their living room and bedroom curtains.
To my left as Cain, Joy and I entered the front door to the residence: a wide open living room that contained a beige, L-shaped couch covered in silk throw pillows. The floor was rich dark hardwood. On the opposite side of the room was a large walnut cabinet that contained a flat-screened digital TV, a CD player and a DVD machine. Behind the cabinet, the wall was covered in original artwork. Big colorful modern pieces. Expensive pieces you would not expect to find inside a cop house. Not on cop scratch.
Not even the Captain’s.
In the far corner of the room, opposite from where I stood inside the vestibule, was another wood and glass case, this one antique. Displayed inside were maybe two dozen mail-order dolls. Not the sort of doll you might catch a little girl playing dollhouse with. But expensive, one-of-a-kind dolls.
Living dolls.
More like miniature porcelain sculptures with chiseled features and gowns made from expensive fabrics.
From where I stood, I noticed a limited edition Barbie set side by side a doll that was supposed to mimic the popular singer Cher. Not far down the line, another doll had been ordained with a gold tiara, a furry robe and a gem-ornamented sepulcher. A Princess Diana Memorial doll for certain. Displayed beside her, a baby blue statue of the Virgin Mary, the Holy Mother’s eyes just as lonely and still as those of the dolls that surrounded Her—as lonely and still as those of the red-haired woman who until only a few hours before, owned and cared for them, like the children Jake would never allow her to bear.
That house, that lonely childless house … if it could have spoken it would have screamed of despair.
That sanitized house …
It spoke to me anyway. In the eyes and faces of all those lifeless dolls. It spoke to me in a way it never had before. Sure, it was not a happy place. But then, it was more than that too. As I stared into the living room where only few hours before a very alive Scarlet lay on her stomach on the floor, me kneeling over her, an open bottle of Bud set out before me, visions of the night shot through my brain like a video on fast forward.
Scarlet lying naked on the bed, blowing smoke rings up to the ceiling …
Scarlet sitting up in her bed, a smile on her face while her husband slammed the door off the kitchen …
Scarlet laughing while I jumped out of bed, tried desperately to get into my clothes.
It’s true, this wasn’t the first time I had entered the Montana castle.
I only had to pretend that it was.
Cain and I climbed the stairs up to the second floor.
Once at the top, he stopped and turned. Slate-gray eyes cut into my own dark browns. Behind him, a bathroom. To his left, the second floor hall and the four bedrooms that shot off of it.
Including Scarlet’s.
From where I stood I could see that the bedroom was well lit.
My cut-up hands buried deep in my pockets, I said, “Why you so sure this is a suicide?”
Cain ran the fingers on his right hand over the stubbly hairs on his chin.
“No forcible entry,” he said.
Fair enough, I thought. But the response might have been scripted.
I tried to take a step forward, to get past him inside that narrow second floor corridor. But he immediately blocked my path.
I said, “Let me see the body, Mitch.”
I pushed up against his shoulder, forced my way forward.
“Take it easy, Dick,” he said.
I wanted to swallow a hard lump that filled my throat. But it was impossible.
So was taking anything easy.
Out of the corner of my right eye, I made out Scarlet’s bare feet, where they rested on the edge of the queen-sized bed. They looked like mannequin feet to me—pale, plastic, dead still. For the first time since my rude awakening in the middle of the night, the reality of Scarlet’s death lodged itself like a brick inside my stomach. These were not the same feet that had rubbed passionately up against me just a few hours ago. These appeared to be the feet of a stranger.
A dead nobody.
I felt my hands in my pockets. I would have to reveal them eventually. I would have to pull them out of their hiding spaces.
If I had come back to this home in the middle of the night, how the hell did I manage to get in?
“Let me ask you something, Mitch,” I said. “Is it more accurate to say that no forcible entry has been found, or that no forcible entry has been found yet?”
He bit his bottom lip.
“Whole house has been searched and searched again,” he responded, eyes half on me, half on the open door leading into Scarlet’s room. “By all means, check for yourself,” he said. “If it will make you feel better about your investigation.”
So what if no forcible entry has been found? I might have lifted a key from Scarlet’s bedroom. I might not remember having done it. In any case, no forcible entry could mean suicide and it could just as easily mean homicide. Not only homicide committed by me. But also by Jake Montana.
What I knew as a cop: that in a case like this one in which a previously non-violent woman is discovered with her throat and chest cut open, you must assume the worst: that the suicide is really homicide made to look like a suicide.
But then, what if she was killed while I was still on my trek home through the rain? Or what if she died while I was in my bed fast asleep?
I asked, “How about an E.T.D.?”
&
nbsp; Cain quickly shoved the sleeve up on his damp blue blazer, gave his wristwatch a sideways glance.
He said, “One o’clock. Give or take.”
I knew then that the M.E. must have already made his rounds, before forensics. Again, a crucial break in procedure (assuming the M.E. had been called in at all).
I was home by one o’clock. I had gone to bed by then. Was it possible that I might have sleepwalked during that time, made my way back to Scarlet’s, somehow gotten myself into the house, snuck my way upstairs, completed the evil deed, then snuck my way back out and back to bed?
The answer to my questions was as obvious as the defensive wounds on my palms.
“Let me see the body, Mitch,” I said again.
Detective Mitchell Cain stood aside to let me through. Finally.
The adrenaline began to pump as soon as I walked into that room.
Maybe it was the shocking sight of the body, the destruction to the chest and neck, the blood, the still wide-open eyes, the disheveled hair. Or maybe it was the sight of that bedroom window. The same window I climbed out of earlier, my sneakers in my hands. It went through my mind that somebody could have already checked for footprints outside in the soft grass.
Thank God for the rain, I thought. Maybe the heavy rain would erode the prints.
But then again, I reminded myself, that other than sleeping with Scarlet, I hadn’t done anything wrong. At least, other than the wounds on my hands, there was nothing to suggest I had anything at all to do with her death.
Why, then, was I so nervous?
I’ll tell you why I was nervous.
Because if my fellow officers—not to mention Jake and Cain—knew I was sleeping with Scarlet, they could then implicate me in her death. That is, the suicide could turn out a murder.
That was the problem.
In any case, there was the game and it needed to be played.
“Whaddaya waiting for, partner?” Mitch asked. “Do what you think you have to do, and then let’s get the hell out of here.”
I sucked a deep breath of dead air and approached my secret lover.
10
OUTSIDE IN THE HALL, Mitch Cain grabbed hold of Joy’s uniformed arm, yanked him off to the side.
“Where the fuck is Jake?” he demanded, tar-charred voice a screaming whisper.
Joy pulled his arm free of his superior’s grip.
“I don’t know,” he insisted, big frown planted on his gaunt baby face. “The boys downstairs said he left in a rush about a half hour ago. Didn’t say where he was going. They just assumed he was upset, distraught. His wife just got killed for Christ’s sakes, Mitch.”
“And you think that’s why he was upset?”
Joy, not able to respond, just staring into the hard face of his boss.
“Nicky, you understand what Scarlet’s death means?”
The kid swallowed something hard.
“It means we have a serious breach in our little protective wall. It means that if I.A. demands a full-blown investigation, we all stand the chance of getting fucked.”
The hallway was quiet for a moment. Until Joy spoke up.
“Mitch,” he said. “Do you think the Captain killed his wife?”
“Nicky,” Cain said, “I don’t give a fuck who killed her. I just want to find him, get him to find a way to get her body buried as soon as possible.”
“What difference does it make when she’s buried?”
“Inside that room back there is a body of evidence. And I, for one, am not about to go down for it.”
11
A FOGGY MIST HOVERED above the river in the predawn of morning.
Jake stood along its edge, inhaling and exhaling the thick, sour/metallic smell of the slow north-to-south moving water. To his left, the port of Stormville and a massive cargo freighter tied off to the docks with thick ropes. To his right, a riverbank that stretched all the way to somnolent Stormville. Dead ahead, darkness broken only by the lonely clanging of a ship’s bell.
He was alone in body, but in his mind he was surrounded by the memories of his wife. Their first meeting at a precinct fund-raiser, she, years younger than him, the daughter of a wealthy litigator; he, recently promoted from Lieutenant to Captain of the S.P.D. He saw the perfect suburban, picket-fence home they purchased together, saw their happy shining faces in the self-portraits they snapped on its front lawn with a camera positioned on a tripod, set on a self-timer.
Happy times.
But then, while the invisible bell sounded, he was reminded of the not-so-happy times.
The fighting, the screaming, the shouting. In his throbbing head, he saw Scarlet with a hand positioned carefully over her belly. There was something growing inside her. But Jake wouldn’t have any of it. Children were never to be a part of their happy family. Not when he had taken away the life of another.
Now, standing along the river’s edge, he saw the inside of that home-sweet-home on Green Meadows Lane and it reminded him of an intricate mausoleum. A shrine to the dead. A true love rotted away by greed, stubborn stalemate and loneliness.
“How does love lead to murder?” he whispered to himself.
Reaching inside his blazer pocket, he pulled out his Buck pocket knife, unfolded it. A six inch stainless steel blade with not a drop or a spot of blood on it. But did that mean he had not used it to kill his own wife? Maybe he had cleaned it while still drunk from the whiskey. Maybe the cleaning was still relegated to the blackout in his brain.
Whatever the answer, there was only one option to take.
He held the folded open knife not by the wood handle, but by the sharp steel blade. Inhaling a breath, he cocked back his arm like a baseball pitcher, heaved the knife into the river. It hardly registered a sound before drowning in the deep current.
Not far away, an iron bell tolled.
12
MY IMMEDIATE PRIORITY WAS to concentrate only on what was important.
It’s not like Cain was about to allow me a proper comprehensive C.S.I. Not with the private deal Jake forced me into. And to be honest, I’m not sure I wanted to do one. The stuff I needed to pick up on—the stuff that would lead either to a conclusion of suicide or murder—would have to be relegated to the naked eye. In other words, as far as they were concerned, I had to make it look like I was going through the proper motions. As far as I was concerned, I needed to make certain that any kind of homicidal evidence I uncovered did not lead directly to me.
The second goal was to turn off all the intimate feelings I might have harbored for Scarlet; ignore any potential outward signs of anxiety that might give away my personal involvement with the deceased.
It wouldn’t be easy.
Not with the low-to-medium velocity blood spatters that stained the baby blue walls and windowpane above the bed. Not with the blood that soaked the mattress, pillow and down comforter. Not with the odor—the sickly sweet smell that filled the twelve-by-fifteen foot bedroom telling me that Scarlet had definitely entered her second hour of death.
I approached the bed, feeling my feet shuffle across the surprisingly clean carpeting as though in slow motion.
Behold Scarlet’s body.
This was not the same woman I’d caressed with my fingertips just hours earlier. Now the human she had become an inhuman it. I had to believe in that one distinction if I was going to get through the procedure without passing out. She’d become a soulless shell with a thick, blood-encrusted gash that ran from ear to ear, and a kind of rough Y-shaped incision scraped into the dermis on her bared chest.
A body that once belonged to a beautiful woman with wide-open eyes, the whites of which were slowly fading to gray, the pupils fully dilated, the head cocked unnaturally to the left, the mouth slightly open in the right-hand corner as if she were about to issue one of her wry smiles.
Cain stepped up behind me. He pulled a cigarette from out of his left breast pocket—slid it out without having to remove the pack. Professional smoker that he was.
“You’re right about one thing,” I said. “No sign of break-in.”
A cursory look at the room furniture—the unbroken table lamp, the tidy table still with its neatly placed Patterson novels, prescription bottle of Ambien and glass of what appeared to be water, but what I knew had to be Stoli.
“No sign of struggle,” he said, before popping the cigarette into his mouth, unlit.
“Not so much as a footprint or a smear,” I added while once more gazing over the tan carpeting.
“A clean scene, Gene,” Cain agreed, lighting up the smoke with a silver-plated Zippo. “A clean scene-a-reno.”
“Maybe too clean,” I said to myself.
Now Joy stood inside the open door.
Cain handed him the still lit, partially smoked cigarette.
“Would you mind?” he asked.
I wondered where Jake had disappeared to. I knew that the last place he’d want to be was here. I knew that the last thing Cain wanted was for me to demand an audience with him. But then, under the circumstances, it would have been the right thing to do.
Joy nervously took the smoking butt into his fingertips, preceded to carry it down the hall as if it were a lit bomb.
My head was beginning to pound inside its core; the invisible conductor striking up the band.
I asked Cain if I could get a drink as I raised my right hand, grabbed hold of it with my left, pinched the feeling back into it.