Moonlight Falls (7 page)

Ever since we’d entered the house, the bile had been shooting up from my stomach.

I had no choice but to swallow it back down.

The whole thing was starting to get to me. Hours before I’d been running these same hands along this very same body, under completely different circumstances. I had been inside her. In a very real way, I was
still
inside her.

When my breathing returned to normal I continued running my hands down the length of her left leg, feeling for any inconsistencies, bumps or bruises that might suggest she’d been beaten. Or maybe bound and gagged, carried into the room not by her own will.

There was a crucial piece of the puzzle missing.

If I’d had the blade or knife to work with, I could have checked it for prints, latent or otherwise, compared them to anything I might have pulled off the bed frame or the body itself. But Cain was sticking to his story. He told me that Jake had disposed of the knife.

But then, what about Jake?

Apparently, I wasn’t being granted much of an interview. At least no more than I’d already been granted earlier that morning during the drive from my house to the S.P.D.

Jake Montana, my part-time boss.

You don’t bite the hand that feeds you. But you might just give it a slight nip once in a while.

Here’s how I nipped at Cain:

I’m not entirely sure what got into me. Maybe it had something to do with my possible involvement in Scarlet’s death. Or maybe it had more to do with Jake’s possible involvement. But as I raised myself up off the floor, began removing my gloves, I felt a sense of resolve pour over me like the blood that covered my lover’s chest.

I directed my gaze at Joy.

“Tag and bag her,” I said.

Joy turned to Cain, blue eyes gaping open.

“Lieutenant,” he said, as if to say,
What do I do?

If this had been a cartoon, Cain’s jaw would have dropped to the floor.

He asked, “What are you doing, old partner? You know the score. We just send her on to Fitzgerald’s for burial.”

“She’s got to be cut open before I can make a final decision on the suicide theory,” I said. “You know all suicides go under the knife. And I’ve got a witness to back me up in my methodology and procedure.” I shot Joy a look like,
You’re it!
“Which means, we’ve got the lab and toxicology to consider.”

Mitch took a step forward, a cup of 7-Eleven coffee steaming in his right hand.

He said, “Look at her for God’s sakes, Divine. Look at all the blood. She got drunk out of her mind, cut her own chest open, then finished herself off at the neck. End of story.”

He’s right, Divine. What the fuck are you doing? Send her on to Fitzy’s for burial. Get rid of the body of evidence. Whitewash anything that might potentially point to you as the killer. But then, what if I’m not the killer? What if Jake is the killer? He needs to pay for what he did. She was a hell of a nice girl. He shouldn’t treat her like this in death. He needs to pay. Yeah, but what if I did that hack job? What if by being a stubborn hard-ass, I ended up indicting myself?

I said, “Show me a means of death, Mitch. Show me a weapon.”

The furrows on Cain’s brow were scrunched and deep. His unblinking slate-gray eyes told me he could not believe this was happening.

He insisted, “Jake panicked, deep-sixed the blade.”

But like I said, I’m not entirely sure what got into me. Maybe it was all for Scarlet, for some deep feelings I never knew existed. In any case, I had no choice now but to stand firm, hold my ground, take control of the situation, not miss a shred of important information.

“I’m requesting an autopsy, Mitchell. I want tox to test for drugs. I want to interview Montana.”

“All in that order?” Cain said under his breath. “What if I just decide to dismiss you?”

“Then I go straight to I.A.,” I bluffed.

Cain, nodding, resigned, knowing that for the first time, I was determined to go by the book.

The uniformed Joy, ever in the background, keeping his mouth shut, myopic eyes glued to the tops of his shoes. Behind him, two or three S.P.D. cops paced the hall, listened in on our conversation—witnessed it. If you wanted to call it that.

“My Lord, Divine, you been reading too many mysteries in your spare time.”

“I’m just trying to do the right thing.”

“Maybe you should think about it this way,” Cain added. “Whose side is I.A. gonna take? A part-timer with a memory problem, or mine?”

“Memory’s not the problem,” I said. “It’s a slightly damaged cerebral cortex; an occasional inability to discern what’s important from what’s not; to tell what’s right from wrong.”

He stepped up to my ear.

“A simple case of brain damage,” he whispered.

I stuffed the rubber gloves into my old partner’s coffee and walked out.

14

I SPOTTED LOLA’S SILVER, gas-guzzling Humvee parked up against the concrete curb as soon as we made the corner on to Hope Lane. Consciously or not, I knew that I had been looking for it; looking for her. I knew she must have tried to call the house while I was gone. When she got no answer other than the machine, she must have closed up her lab early, made her way over.

Sometimes I couldn’t be trusted.

Five after four in the morning. The rain had stopped once more.

The air was damp and cold. It had a ripe gamy smell to it. Probably from the worms that had washed up onto the concrete sidewalk.

I slowly made my way up the slate stairs that led to the front portico of the split-level. Joy took off, headed south towards the downtown. I wondered if the kid ever slept. Maybe he was an android.

The bile was still bubbling inside my stomach.

Now that I was alone with the night sky, I could plainly feel it. Nausea, sneaking up on me.

Once inside the house, I knew I was going to lose it.

I bolted through the vestibule into the bathroom off the kitchen. I dropped to my knees and retched. All of it was coming out of me. My fear, my confusion. My guilt for what had happened to Scarlet, for denying our past together, for my bolting the scene instead of standing by her side, standing up to Jake. I was sick and sad for her life
and
her death.

I was sick and sad that I might have had something to do with it!

I reached into my jacket pocket, pulled out the bloodied cut-off tee shirt, wiped my mouth. Some of Scarlet’s blood got onto my tongue. The taste of her blood made me sick for a second time.

The blood of a woman who was both dead and alive for me.

When I was empty, I tossed the shirt into the dirty laundry hamper under the counter. Then I rinsed my mouth out in the sink. The taste would not go away. I feared it would stay with me forever, like the memory of her touch, her smell, her smile, her soft auburn hair.

After a time, I went back to the front door, bolted the lock.

Rather than call up to Lola, I stood at the bottom of the stairs. I listened for the sound of her breathing. It was impossible to hear anything. I pictured her curled up in my bed, long black hair covering the side of her long face, full lips trembling gently as she slept and breathed.

I went back into the kitchen, pulled a clean coffee mug from out of the dishwasher and the bottle of Jack from the wall-mounted cabinet above it. I sat myself down at the kitchen table, poured myself a shot, drank it down in one swift swallow. Then I poured another with the intention to sip it.

Reaching into my right-hand pocket, I pulled out that little Scarlet leather bag. I peeled back the string that opened it, dumped the contents out onto the table.

Three items.

A small silver skeleton key, like the kind of key that might go to a strongbox—an antique strongbox.

A flock of blond hair tied together in a knot.

A folded piece of loose-leaf paper upon which was drawn a jagged line that extended to a perpendicular straight line. Located in the center of the diagram was an arrow. I knew right away that the drawing must have been some kind of map or diagram. But to what? Or was it a diagram at all? Maybe just some kind of silly doodling.

But then, instinct told me different.

I replaced all the items back into the pouch, got up from the table, set the pouch inside a spice tin on the counter near the sink. A white tin that was marked COFFEE in big black letters.

Back at the table I took another sip of the whiskey, tried to make some kind of sense out of what had happened last night.

I thought about two different Scarlet Montanas.

The first one alive and sexy, kissing me with a full soft mouth. The other lying naked, flat on her back, throat cut from ear to ear, chest bearing the scraped scars of a “Y” incision, as if somebody were trying to get at her insides.

The first thing I had to do was get it out of my head that I had played a part in Scarlet’s killing. What I had to do was relegate my paranoia to … well … paranoia. If I didn’t start looking at Scarlet’s death as a murder somebody else committed then I would lose the one chance I had for finding out who the real killer was and why he or she could have done such a thing to such a sweet girl.

Questions:

Who the hell could have mutilated her if she hadn’t managed it herself?

Where was Jake through this whole thing and why wouldn’t Cain let me talk to him if they didn’t have something to hide or, on the other hand, they didn’t have something on me?

Where had the weapon of death gone? Had it just disappeared? Could I possibly trust Cain when he told me that Jake had somehow disposed of it in all his grief?

If Cain wanted me to rubberstamp what obviously required a full police investigation, what the hell could he be covering up? Why be so afraid of I.A. or the County Prosecutor if a psychotic act of self-mutilation was not only possible, but also probable? Was he that intent on protecting Jake from his own people?

Christ, if anybody other than Jake had anything to fear, it was me. It was my bodily fluids they were going to find, my D.N.A. on her person. Maybe Cain and Jake were fully aware of it, maybe not.

Maybe my head was playing tricks on me again.

Questions but no answers.

I did have whiskey.

At times like these, sometimes whiskey was all the answer you needed. I drank down what was left in my cup, poured one more shot, drank it down. I felt the smoky tasting liquid coat the back of my throat, trickle down my insides like mother’s medicine. I hoped it would erase the taste of blood in my mouth. No such luck.

My thinking process shifted gears.

Was it possible that Scarlet hadn’t been murdered at all? Was it possible that she could have committed suicide?

I knew that if she had been able to work up enough strength necessary to dig a gash so deep that it nearly scraped the interior vertebra inside her neck, her psychosis would have been exceptional. Super human. Where even the point of extraordinary strength had been surpassed. I’d heard of people so out of their minds they could muster the spontaneous strength necessary to lift a car’s trunk end up off the ground or walk across red hot coals or shove nine-inch nails through the palms of their hands. But nothing like this.

Did people commit suicide with knives?

Of course they did. But only on the rarest of occasions.

But as for Scarlet, if only you could have seen her, the way she looked in her death state. It defied all reason and boundaries of suicide.

Maybe the drugs had something to do with it? Maybe she was taking more than sleeping pills? Maybe she had more to drink than just a few Stolis? Maybe Jake had held her down, forced a whole bunch of pills and drink down her throat before he cut her?

Appearances could be deceiving. Especially when it came to homicide and suicide.

The truth of the matter was this: without an opportunity to open her up, examine her the way S.O.P. dictated, I wouldn’t know a goddamned thing. Nor would I be in a position to support their cause or to protect my own. Not to mention Scarlet’s ultimate dignity in the matter. Sure, they could go to another dick to corroborate their conclusions. But then that might be too risky for them. Another man or woman wouldn’t even come close to being the team player that I had proven myself over the past couple of years. At least potentially.

Besides, they weren’t about to give up on me now.

I’d already been witness to too many things. They had no choice but to work with me. In turn, maybe I could control the situation for Scarlet, for me.

Whether I followed their rules of engagement or not.

15

THE MORNING LIGHT BEGAN to emerge red, orange and blue through the stained glass windows of the Saint Pious Roman Catholic Church. Aside from Jake Montana, the place was empty. It was too early, even for the early morning mass. But that didn’t bother Jake. He liked the quiet, the peace, the serenity.

Seated in the back pew, he stared unblinking at the altar, at the crucified Christ that hung high on the wall, at the blood that dripped from the hands, the feet and the right side where the spear pierced it. Maybe it was the events of the night, the effect it was having on his brain. But after a time he could not help but see someone else hanging from that cross.

The body was no longer that of Jesus, but instead his wife.

He saw her cut up body hanging from the wood boards as if someone had somehow transported her from her bed to the church, nailed her up to the wall.

Jake’s heart began to beat. He was suddenly very afraid. Maybe he was sitting inside a church, but he had the distinct feeling that the devil was watching him, touching him. He wanted to get up and run, but his body was glued to the pew. He was paralyzed. He saw it standing below the vision of his crucified wife. The shape of a human figure. A dark, shady image. The face of the image had bright red eyes. It was the devil himself. Or so Jake was convinced. He thought he would die sitting there all alone in the church with the devil. But it was impossible to move.