Shadow of the Moon
Copyright © 2017 by Kwen D Griffeth
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Shadow of the Moon
Kwen D Griffeth
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Chapter 1
Special Agent Adeline “Andee” Trakes sat on her heels and, despite the abundance of moveable lights on adjustable stands, used her mini flashlight to illuminate the hole in the back of the victim’s head. The man lay on his stomach, his face hidden by the ankle-length grass in what’s called the Sheep Meadow. She spoke loud in order to be heard over the rhythmic coughing of a portable generator. The noise and exhaust fumes came from somewhere in the darkness surrounding the island of light in the middle of Central Park. At 3:30 on a Thursday morning, the park was deserted except for the crime scene team and a few homeless people. A heavy mist, not quite rain, had settled over the park, and it left a damp sheen over every surface. Trakes silently wished she had brought a hat as her hair, now wet, allowed a trickle of water to sneak down the back of her neck. She flexed her shoulders in an effort to sop up the wetness with her shirt.
The agent raked her fingertips across the victim’s shoulder blades and felt the moisture on his coat. She estimated the man had been there for some time. She twisted to look over her shoulder and up into the beefy face of NYPD Homicide Detective Gerald Meeker, who hunched behind her with his hands resting on his knees. She controlled the smile that crept across her face. In the shadows he resembled a gargoyle.
“Lab boys told me the time of death is around midnight, give or take,” he said. “Due to the changing weather, they’re fudging some, but they wanted to give us something to work with. The level of rigor and body temp says he’s been dead a couple of hours, maybe little more.”
Trakes studied the tired eyes of the detective. She had known him a long time. His expression added nothing to his conversation.
“Was he dropped here?” she asked.
“No,” Meeker shook his head. “This is the spot where he departed this world.”
Trakes nodded, removed a balled tissue from her jacket pocket and wiped the moisture from her face.
“That’s some kind of bullet wound, Jerry,” she said, and then added, “I got a feeling someone didn’t like him.”
She replaced the tissue. Meeker smiled down at her and shook his head.
“It’s amazing to me, how you FBI agents can show up on a scene, take one quick look around and come to those kind of detailed conclusions. Do they send you to school for that?”
Trakes twisted back to focus on the victim. Without standing, she duck-walked a few steps until she was close to the dead man’s head.
“I remember when my knees would let me do that,” Meeker observed.
Trakes glanced at the detective, rolled her eyes and focused on the victim. She removed latex gloves from her other jacket pocket. She carefully pulled them on over her hands and reached for the victim’s head. She wanted to see the face.
“You might want to think twice about that,” Meeker cautioned her.
She glanced up at him, and even in the distorted light, he recognized her disapproval.
“This ain’t my first rodeo,” she said flatly. “I’ve seen dead people before.”
Meeker shrugged, as if to silently say, “I warned you.”
Trakes lifted the head. Where the face once had been, only a crater remained.
Forehead? Mostly.
Chin? Yes.
Ears? Both of them.
Mouth, nose, eyes, cheekbones? Gone.
“Oh, sweet mother,” she prayed silently.
Fighting the urge to simply drop the head, she slowly placed it back in the grass. In one motion, she stood, turned and stepped away from the body. She took a couple of deep breaths and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she glared at Meeker.
“You could have warned me.”
“I did warn you.”
“That wasn’t a warning. That was a tempting.”
“A tempting? What the hell is a tempting?”
“You know what I mean. You said just enough to persuade me I had to look at that. You could have just as easily said you double-dog dare me.”
Meeker smiled at her, a small smile.
“Yeah, maybe, I guess.”
Meeker was a large man. He stood five inches over six feet and hadn’t seen a scale reading less than three-hundred pounds in many years. He was built like a whiskey barrel, and Trakes knew there were times he smelled like one. She had known him most of her life and had once asked him about his drinking.
“We all find a way to cope,” he had said and refused any further discussion.
He habitually wore a charcoal-colored topcoat that hung to his knees. He had a permanent hunch to his stance, developed after years of having to look down at those he talked to. In many ways, including how he moved, he resembled a bear. He was 57 years old, married to the same woman for over thirty years, a grandfather, and had worked homicide for the past three decades. He was professional and open-minded, but more than that, he was habitually honest and compulsively thorough.
“You know,” he mused as he looked at Trakes. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a new kind of killing.”
“A bullet in the head isn’t new,” she replied.
“True enough,” he agreed, “but using a cannon to get the job done adds a new dimension.”
Trakes nodded and tried to hide the shudder that ran the length of her spine when she thought of the man having no face.
Andee Trakes was almost thirty years younger than the detective. During a coffee break on one occasion, they had determined Meeker had worked his first homicide seven months before she was born. Andee looked small next to Meeker, but that was mostly illusion. She stood five feet, ten inches tall, weighed one hundred forty-five pounds, and under the olive tint to her skin, carried the muscles of an athlete. And for good reason—she had been an athlete in college, playing goalie on the University of North Carolina’s women’s soccer team. The small scar beneath her right eye she wore as a badge of honor. The blemish was shaped like a check mark, earned when she ran headfirst into an opposing team’s forward, fighting for the ball. She brought the same determination to her investigations.
She kept her shoulder-length, dark auburn hair pulled back when working and used only hair bands of Carolina blue and white, her school colors. Her eyes were dark brown, and they added to her image of a serious and stoic woman. More than one ex-boyfriend had referred to her lips as “pouty.” One night, after too many wine coolers, she shared with a co-worker that shortly after a boyfriend called her lips pouty, he became an ex-boyfriend. She had wondered aloud if there was a psychology to that, and both women laughed.
Meeker reached for Trakes’ elbow, and she allowed him to escort her away from the body.
“Come on, Agent Hottie, I sent a patrolman for coffee.”
She looked at him.
“First of all, that’s Special Agent Hottie to you, and second, you know I don’t drink coffee.”
He smiled, and both recognized his sexist insult was an effort to remove the image of the missing face from her mind.
“I know that, and I’ve ordered hot chocolate for you. I just hate to say that word in front of the troops. You know what I mean?”
“What word?”
“Hot chocolate. It sounds so… so prissy. No cop should drink chocolate.”
She shook her head as she said, “Need I remind you, first, I am not a cop. I am an FBI Special Agent. And second, why is it you can insult my gender without hesitation, yet find it beneath you to say the word hot chocolate?”
Meeker shrugged his oversized shoulders as if the question stumped him. The detailed patrolman arrived and Meeker took the cups with a nod of thanks to the uniform. He offered one to Trakes.
“Just a minute,” she said and after checking to see she was not being watched, shimmied her hips and tugged on the beltline of her pants.
Meeker watched with amused interest, then asked, “What in the world are you doing?”
She glanced at him and using the back pockets, pulled the seat of her pants away from her bottom.
“If you must know,” she said, “the cuffs of my pant legs are soaked after walking through all this grass. When I sat on my heels next to the body, I got my butt wet. Its cold and uncomfortable.”
Meeker chuckled.
“Don’t you laugh at me,” she said as she took her cup from the detective. “I also think I’ve ruined these shoes. I might send the bill for replacing them to the city of New York, courtesy of you.”
Meeker sipped his coffee and shrugged, “You might as well. The city can ignore that bill as well as it ignores the others.”
For a couple of minutes, the two stood in silence and held their cups. Each allowed the heat warm their souls as much as their hands, and the aroma seemed to clean their spirits. They watched the crime scene crew, whose sounds were muffled by the distance. They appeared to be performing a dance of chaos under the high intensity lights. How fitting for New York, Trakes thought, as she and Meeker watched in silence and drank their hot liquids.
“Why am I here?” Trakes finally asked.
“What?”
“Why am I here?” she said again and turned to face the detective. “Okay, you have a well-dressed guy face down in the middle of Central Park. He has a hole in the back of his head, and he’s missing a face. Why is that a reason the federal government should get excited?”
“Oh, that,” Meeker said, as if he’d forgotten the difference between city and federal officers and their mandated jurisdictional limitations.
“You’ve been assigned to the United Nations Field Office, for what now? Six months?”
“Seven,” she corrected him.
“Well, I know how exciting working liaison can be and on top of that aren’t you the Agent in Charge of background checks. That’s got to keep you up nights.”
Andee surrendered with her hands, “All right all ready. If I’d known punching out that Assistant Federal Prosecutor would land me here, I might have let him have his way with me.”
Meeker grinned at her, “The sacrifices a girl makes for her honor.” He leaned closer to her and dropped his voice, “You should have let him take you out back, thinking he was going to get you, and put a bullet in his brain.”
“Hey, how was I supposed to know the Attorney General has plans for the guy and needs him to have a spotless reputation?”
“Well,” Meeker muttered, “I stand by what I said. You should have dropped the guy, but on the bright side, doing what you did, got you out of South Dakota and to the big apple.”
“Yeah, lucky me,” she said as she thought of the hundreds of background checks she’d need to process. Each new diplomat and their families and aides required one and it seemed in some countries every citizen got to take their turn.
“Anyway, I thought you could use a break and might enjoy getting in the field again, so I had the desk sergeant call you. Besides, this is right up your alley.”
“How so?” she asked.
He reached into the pocket of his coat, and removed what appeared to be a small book. He handed it to Trakes.
“Here, Ants,” he said. A slight grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Take a look at this.”
She took the passport and corrected Meeker, “Don’t call me ‘Ants’ on the job. You know I don’t like that. Sunday dinner, Saturday picnics, no problem, we’re friends, and I know your grand-daughter can’t say Andee, so you guys have given me a nickname, but not in front of the troops.”
“Sorry,” he said, “Wasn’t thinking. Guess I was wishing we were on a picnic instead of here.”
Trakes looked up at him, and again, thought how much he resembled a bear. His bulk, size and height made him look mean, almost fierce, but she knew him to be a teddy bear who wanted little more out of life than be with his family.
“You look tired,” she said.
He shrugged, “I’m rested well enough, but maybe I’m tired of walking through other people’s blood. You know what I mean?”
Trakes nodded and could think of nothing to say. Instead she opened the passport and said, “Ferreira, Eduardo, NMN, foreign national.”
She motioned “so what” with her hands and again raised her eyes to look at Meeker. “Okay, same question, why should Uncle Sam get excited?”
“You don’t know who he is, er, was?”
She shook her head, “No, should I?”
“He’s the youngest son of Matheus Ferreira. The old man is a member of the trade delegation from Argentina at the United Nations.”
“A diplomat’s son,” Trakes sighed. She rubbed her forehead as if she could ward off a headache.
“And,” Meeker added, “according to our narcotics intel people, a player. Nothing solid, mind you, but his name has come up several times. Rumor says he’s linked to a cartel.”
“So why am I here? Why not the DEA?”
“Called them, they weren’t interested. Said they’ve heard the rumors, same as us, but so far, that’s all they are. Rumors. They don’t want to commit the resources until the info is more solid. Advised us to pass it to you.”
“Oh, this just keeps getting better and better,” Trakes grumbled as the headache settled in behind her eyes.
Meeker smiled at her misery, “I thought you’d like it, but you can see Uncle Sam’s interest.”
“I can, and I appreciate you bringing me into the situation this early. Most of your lot would have waited until sometime next week to let me know about this.”
“Hey, you know I think the world of you. I have your back. Your old man and I served together. You’re like my niece. Besides, now I can forward all potential fallout to your office and just focus on solving the murder.”
“Is that how you treat your niece? Having crap dumped on her head?”
Meeker smiled, “I said you were like a niece.”
“Well, almost uncle,” Trakes smiled up at him, “can I ask a question?”
“Shoot.”
“How did our victim get here?”
Meeker smiled again, “That’s my girl. Bantering with the best of them and still has her mind where it belongs, on the crime.”
“So,” she asked and motioned “tell me” with her hands.
“We don’t know.”
“You didn’t backtrack him?”
“Tried to. Dog wouldn’t take the scent.”
“Get a different dog.”
“Tried three. Not a one of them would get close to the body.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Tell me about it. But if you don’t believe me, check with the K-9 cop.”
Meeker pointed in the direction of a man and dog sitting away from the crime scene. The man, dressed in the overall of a dog handler, sat on a park bench as the dog rested his head on the man’s thigh. Trakes walked toward them.
“Good morning,” she said as she approached.
“Not for that guy,�
� the handler said and nodded in the direction of the crime scene.
“True enough. I’m Special Agent Andee…”
“I know who you are. I’m Mike Harrison and this,” he scratched the dog’s head, “is Rosco.”
“Rosco? I thought you guys named your dogs Rocket or Lightning. Blitz or Thunder.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Harrison shrugged, “if Rosco was an attack dog or a guard dog, but he’s a tracker. He’s an American Coon dog, so I named him in honor of that great American actor James Best.”
“Who?”
“James Best. The man did a lot of things, but he’s best known as Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on ‘The Dukes of Hazzard.’ I thought Rosco was more fitting than James.”
Trakes laughed, “I have a Jack Russell named Kelsey.”
“For Kelsey Grammer,” Harrison added.
Trakes nodded, “Yup. I live in an apartment and can only have a small dog, but Kelsey is dog enough for me.”
“You know what they say, it’s the size of the fight in the dog, and I hear Jack Russell's are all dog.”
Trakes pointed in the direction of the body and said, “I heard Rosco had an off-night tonight.”
Harrison nodded, then added defensively, “As did the other two dogs we tried.”
“What happened, or as the case may be, didn’t happen?”
Harrison scowled at the agent.
“Don’t belittle my dog. I don’t know why but the dogs, all of them, refused to get close to the body. Each dog got within about four, maybe five feet, and then just sat down. Wouldn’t work. Stopped dead in their tracks. No pun intended.”
Trakes showed her palms to the officer in a gesture of peace.
“I didn’t mean anything by my comment,” she said. “I really didn’t. I’m just trying to figure out what happened here, and if we could backtrack the victim, we might get something of value.”
“I understand that, but it’s a no-go.”
Trakes looked at the dog’s sad eyes and the ears that seemed too large for his head. She thought he looked repentant.
“Would you be willing to try one more time?”
Harrison looked into her eyes and said firmly, “Absolutely not.”
Shadow of the Moon: A Fantasy of Love, Murder and Werewolves Page 1