Dick Moonlight - 01 - Moonlight Falls

by Vincent Zandri

  56

  THE TWO OF THEM stood there like human figures out of a bad dream.

  Joy and Cain, the arresting officers, standing to the right-hand side of the bench. Only about seven to ten feet in front of the long table where I sat shackled and cuffed, directly beside my lawyer, Stanley Rose.

  This was the morning after my airport arrest.

  Per standard procedure I had been called before the Orange County Court for a Prelim Hearing. For the show they’d decided to keep me dressed in my blaze-orange county lockup suit. Stormville was in an uproar, so they sped the process up, made a circus of the whole thing.

  With all the media attention the show was already getting, they weren’t about to allow a Stormville cop arrested in connection with two possible counts of Murder One to be arraigned in his best suit. They wanted me to appear the ruthless cop/cop wife killer that I was supposed to be. Boost ratings and all that.

  “Mr. Prosecutor,” the balding, ashen-faced Judge Hughes announced from high up on his bench, “you may proceed with your action.”

  I just sat there, careful not to rattle my chains. As if the noise would somehow draw me even more unwanted attention. Like the attention I was getting from the few spectators and media people allowed inside what was intended to be a closed hearing—not to mention the hordes of angry Stormville cops perched outside—made a single difference at that point. I remember how surprised I was that they weren’t already building a gallows out in the parking lot.

  Stanley was tapping his feet.

  I heard the nervous clip-clop, clip-clop coming from under the table.

  The noise was unsettling, like a green-bellied garbage fly buzzing against a windowpane.

  He was a short, somewhat paunchy middle-aged guy who, for the hearing, had dressed himself sharply in a charcoal three-piece suit. His full head of thick gray hair was parted neatly on the side in a kind of wave that draped over his left eye, almost touching the rims of his eyeglasses.

  To my immediate right sat the special prosecuting attorney for Orange County. Beside him sat an entourage of Assistant D.A.s, lawyers and clerks. Every member of the team had their own personal laptop computer opened and glowing before intense young faces.

  Prosecutor O’Connor stood.

  He smoothed out the creases in his black suit, lifted a yellow legal pad off his desk, started walking my way. He faced me, not three feet away from where I sat, little brown eyes cutting into me like lasers.

  Until he turned towards the bench.

  “Your Honor, the defense is requesting bail. But the county would like to present the argument to counter such request, based upon evidence of two counts of capital murder, the first of which we plan on proving beyond a reasonable doubt.”

  “State your case, please, Mr. O’Connor.”

  My head, pounding from the tension; wrists and ankles nearly bleeding from yanking and pulling on the shackles and cuffs.

  “In the weeks ahead we will make evident beyond the shadow of a doubt that S.P.D. Detective Richard Divine deliberately and intentionally set out to murder Scarlet Montana in the most gruesome and heinous of ways, after which he murdered her surviving husband in an equally gruesome manner.”

  Stanley shot up.

  “Objection, your Honor,” he shouted. “Might I remind the Prosecutor that the law defines the defendant as innocent until proven guilty. Mr. O’Connor seems intent on passing sentence on my client even before the bench has granted a hearing with the Grand Jury. And might I add that Mr. Divine is presently accused of one offense and not two.”

  “Very well, Mr. Rose,” Hughes announced for the court stenographer. “Your objection is duly sustained.” He tapped something on the keys of his own laptop computer which was set to his right-hand side. “However, I am going to allow Mr. O’Connor the opportunity to state his evidence.”

  Stanley sat down.

  O’Connor stepped over to his table and was handed a stack of eight-by-ten color glossies from one of his young women. Once more he approached the bench, handed the photos to the judge who, having slipped on a pair of reading glasses, began shuffling through them.

  When he was finished, he handed the photos back to O’Connor.

  He said, “Of course, Mr. O’Connor, you will make these pictures available to the defense by two o’clock this afternoon.”

  “Naturally, your Honor,” he agreed. “Per the Order of Discovery.”

  Hughes sat back hard in his swivel chair, removed his glasses.

  He said, “You realize, Mr. O’Connor, Mr. Rose, that I have no choice but to accept most of your evidence as factual. In this, I am talking about the prints and blood spatters. Also the footprints found in the backyard of the Montana home. However, I’m curious as to the inclusion of the photo of the beer bottle. What am I supposed to make of it?”

  “We believe the bottle to contain Mr. Divine’s D.N.A. as well as latent fingerprints, sufficiently placing him at the scene of the crime on the night of 5 May 2003.”

  “And where is the actual bottle, Mr. O’Connor?”

  The prosecutor went tight-faced. He cleared his throat.

  “We seem to have lost track of it, sir.”

  Stanley shot up again.

  “Your Honor, beer bottles and prints may indeed point to my client having been present at Ms. Montana’s house before she died. They were friends. But that does not mean he killed her. And may we respectfully remind the prosecution that photographs of beer bottles do not qualify as viable evidence.”

  “Overruled, Mr. Rose,” Hughes said. “It will be your job to prove that none of these items, photographed or not, point to murder. May I also remind you that the blood spatters look especially intriguing, convincing me that deviation from the bond process might be the way to go after all.”

  My skull, not just pounding, but splitting open.

  “Your Honor, might I remind the Court that my client suffers from an inoperable pathological condition. A .22 caliber bullet is lodged in the center of his brain, directly beside his cerebral cortex and thalamus, causing on occasion an inability for rational thought.”

  Stanley, exploiting my condition, pulling out all the stops, maybe knowing that in the end, he’d own my house.

  “He looks fine to me, sir,” Hughes said, not without a slight smile. “I am told he is well enough to play cop, and anybody well enough to play cop is also well enough to pose himself as a substantial flight risk.”

  “He is well enough in relative terms,” Stanley said. “However, the stress of lockup carries with it the potential to create problems with the condition, increasing his risk of stroke and/or seizure for which the State will bear the ultimate responsibility.”

  “Save it for later, Mr. Rose. While Mr. Divine lives, I’ve got two dead people to think about, one of them my police captain.”

  Hughes looked me directly in the eye, asked me if I understood the nature of the charges filed.

  I said I did.

  He asked me if I was aware of my constitutional rights as an accused offender.

  “Yes,” I told him.

  “There will be no set bail,” Hughes went on, “as is consistent with capital cases in my court of law. I am ordering the defendant detained to Orange County Correctional Facility until a hearing with the Grand Jury.”

  The courtroom exploded in cheers and jeers.

  So much for the side of right.

  Then the judge set a date for a Grand Jury hearing.

  He slammed down the gavel and that was it.

  I watched Cain as he turned to me and smiled. Son of bitch actually cracked a grin before he walked by me on his way out of the courtroom.

  Joy, on the other hand, approached me with a face so distraught you’d have thought he was the one facing a death sentence. He asked me to turn around, step out and away from the table. When I did, he grabbed hold of my jumper collar and asked me to walk. It was then, as we were moving past the judge’s bench, that he dropped something. I didn’
t know what until I looked down.

  It was simply a pen. A standard Bic ballpoint.

  He ordered me to stop.

  I did.

  He went down to retrieve his pen. When he did, I felt the sensation in my foot. Something slipping inside my blaze-orange slipper. Something small, cold and hard.

  I said nothing about it.

  But when we stepped out into the hall and began our march toward an awaiting armored vehicle, I knew it must have had something to with what Joy would whisper in my ear.

  “Hotel Wellington,” he said. “Room 6-5-7.”

  I made not a sound. I simply repeated the words and numbers over and over again in my head as I shuffled forward.

  Hotel Wellington, room 6-5-7 … Hotel Wellington, room 6-5-7 …

  Just what the significance of room 6-5-7 was, I had no clue, only that it represented to me some kind of hope in an otherwise hopeless situation. But then, there was something else I managed to figure out: sometime between my arrest and arraignment, Officer Joy had made the conscious decision to piss on Cain’s parade.

  57

  THE CONCRETE AND RAZOR-WIRE Orange County Lockup was located across the river from Stormville on what used to be a precious landscape of country farmland. In order to get there, we had to cross over a fifty-foot high steel expansion bridge that supported four lanes of Interstate 90 traffic.

  Two going east towards Boston; two going west on their way to Buffalo.

  There were two sheriff’s deputies escorting me to my would-be home away from home.

  They hadn’t picked me up in an armored car after all. Instead, they had commandeered a black Chevy Suburban with tinted “one-way” glass. I guess the deception had been orchestrated in the interest of my safety. As a supposed cop killer (or the killer of the head cop’s wife, anyway), there existed the very real possibility that someone—angry cop or no angry cop—might try and take a shot at me.

  Funny how they didn’t provide me with a Kevlar vest; funny how the Suburban contained no incarceration cage. Not to keep me in, but to keep would-be attackers out.

  I sat in the middle of the back seat with only a seat belt securing me. The two deputies up front didn’t bother with theirs even though buckling up is the law. Being a deputy has its perks.

  The big mustached guy driving the Suburban must have been doing ninety when he hit the on-ramp for the bridge. Everything in the vehicle shifted to the left, including me.

  “Jesus, Bobby boy,” said the second, younger guy. “You’re gonna get us killed.”

  “You think I wanna die?” said Bobby the speeder. “Maybe we ought to burn one, Timmy? Calm me down a little.”

  Timmy made a nod over his left shoulder, to bring attention to me.

  “What about him?” he said, as if I were blind, deaf and dumb.

  “What about him?” Bobby repeated as the entrance to the bridge loomed ahead. “He’s going to fry soon enough. You think our burning one is gonna make a goddamned difference? ‘Sides, stupid fucker can’t remember a goddamned thing.”

  It’s not memory that’s the problem …

  Timmy paused to run his hands over his clean-shaven cheeks. I could tell he was thinking it over, coming to a definite decision. Then, as if I weren’t even there, the county law officer reached into his shirt pocket, produced a fat bomber of a joint. He flipped it into his mouth, went to light it with a transparent yellow Bic lighter.

  “That’s a boy,” Bobby the speeder said with a big-ass grin. “Light that sucker up.”

  The bridge approached.

  A laptop computer had been installed in the center of the Suburban console where a two-way radio would have been some five or ten years ago. The computer was turned off and the radio was so low, you couldn’t hear the dispatcher’s voice at all. Maybe these guys didn’t care. Secured between the two bucket seats was a riot shotgun. I had a hard time keeping my eyes off of it while Timmy had a hard time making fire with his lighter.

  “Fuckin’ childproof lighters,” he complained.

  Timmy had a way with words.

  We were on the bridge now, heading directly over the river. Looking out the window, it seemed a long way down.

  “Give me that, idiot,” Bobby said, reaching over for the lighter.

  “I’ve got it, man,” Timmy insisted, thumbing the mechanism with a vengeance.

  “I said, let me have it,” Bobby exploded, one hand on the wheel, the Chevy beginning to swerve with the excessive speed. He tried to grab hold of the little lighter, but his partner insisted on doing it himself.

  Bobby wasn’t keeping his eyes on the road.

  When we crossed over into the far right lane, he didn’t even realize it.

  The two were fighting over the lighter. Like children inside a playpen. Stupid children.

  I decided that it was as good a time as any.

  Because I was sitting down, there was more than enough slack in my waist restraint for me to unbuckle my seat belt.

  No one noticed. Not when I bent down, retrieved the key out of my slipper, slipped it inside my mouth under my tongue; not even when Bobby managed to pull the lighter away from Timmy.

  I’m not entirely sure, but maybe we were halfway over the bridge when I reached up and over Bobby’s head with my cuffed hands, wrapped the restraint chain around his fat neck, squeezed the bitch as hard as I could.

  It wasn’t like the movies at all.

  We didn’t swerve all over the road while a major struggle ensued inside the Chevy.

  There was no time for dramatics.

  The whole thing took no more than three seconds, tops.

  It was all a matter of my squeezing on his neck with the chains and the wheel on the Suburban cutting all the way to the right and then the open-mouthed, petrified expression on Timmy’s gaunt face as we hit the concrete barrier …

  Ramming speed!

  58

  FULLY CONSCIOUS, I LIFTED up my feet, kicked out the side door window. Climbing out head first, I dropped down onto the concrete, managing to break the fall with my cuffed hands. There was no noticeable pain. There was no time to notice it. All around me, cars and trucks were skidding to a halt. Not to avoid the smashed Suburban. But to get a look at me.

  I didn’t give them a chance to get a good look.

  I hobbled over to the side of the bridge in my shackles and cuffs, climbed up onto the steel railing and jumped.

  A fifty-foot drop, feet first into the Hudson.

  I gathered up my bearings, bobbed in the slight chop, fought the weight and restriction of the chains, shackles and cuffs. I pumped like a mad dog to keep my head above water. The key still tucked under my tongue, I tried to breathe without swallowing river water.

  I thought, if I hyperventilate now, I’m done. This time, for good.

  As the shore approached, I glanced over my right shoulder.

  From a distance of two or three hundred feet, I could still make out the Suburban. It was smashed up against the concrete meridian. Bobby and Timmy were nowhere to be found. I wondered if they had taken a dive.

  I wondered if they could swim.

  Maybe I should have been thinking about more important matters.

  To my direct right, the Port of Stormville. A freighter was docked parallel with the port, beside a mooring with a big number 6 painted on its concrete base.

  To my direct left, the county lockup with its guard towers and searchlights beaming down upon chain link and razor-wire fencing.

  Treading water, there was the ever-persistent current that pulled at my legs and feet. The damp air that surrounded me smelled of rotting fish. A school of black ducks circled overhead. On occasion, two or three would break off from the pack, dive into the water, beak first, only to reemerge seconds later, shooting off into full flight like surface-to-air missiles.

  Gazing back at that freighter, I could see that it was getting smaller and smaller. Which told me the undercurrent was pulling me farther and farther away from the port, along
with the stunted Stormville skyline behind it. I knew I couldn’t last forever in that chop. I had to make a run for the bank before my body was dragged further south, where the river opened up almost like an inland ocean.

  The pain in my head was almost gone.

  Without the complete use of my arms, I propelled my body along like a seal. Until I made it to a large culvert that emptied out onto a patch of gravelly riverbank.

  But then that’s when I felt it.

  As soon as I stuffed myself into the aluminum tube it engulfed me like a wave. Not pain, but exhaustion. The kind of pure tired that starts in your brain, travels along your veins and arteries all the way to your toes. Even now I can’t tell you why it decided to bowl me over like that.

  Lying there inside the culvert, my legs still submerged in the water, I felt a lot like the dead and bloated fish that surrounded me on all sides. Probably smelled no better either. I laid my head down for what I thought would be a two-minute catnap.

  By the time I woke up, the afternoon was gone.

  I crawled out onto the bank, laid there in my blaze-orange jumper, soaking wet from head to toes, hands and feet still bound in shackles and cuffs.

  I spit out the key.

  Curling my legs into my chest, I reached down with my left hand, started unlocking.

  A few moments later, I was free.

  I dug a hole in the wet sand, tossed in the chains and cuffs. Then I filled the hole back in. I looked up at the sky. Thick gray black clouds stared back at me.

  I judged the time to be about five o’clock, five-thirty. It was hard to tell.

  It was hard to believe that nobody had located me by now.

  Just up ahead, a concrete dike wall situated maybe ten feet above the shoreline. In the far distance to the north came the mechanical drone of a giant dock-mounted crane that was lifting and setting fifty-gallon drum-filled palettes into the docked freighter’s hold. With the quickly fading cloud-filtered daylight, I knew that the crane would soon be stopping, the workers who manned it heading on home.