The Love Killings

by Robert Ellis

  The baby-faced blonde with those smoldering gray eyes.

  Matt reached the New Jersey Turnpike and took another drag on the cigarette. The snow was blowing sideways now, and traffic heading north reduced to two lanes and moving at only forty-five miles per hour.

  His stomach started going again. He tried to keep cool.

  CHAPTER 67

  Indian Field Road hadn’t been plowed yet, the snow almost a foot deep. As Matt slid through a curve, he spotted his father’s mansion and the lights from two patrol units in the drive.

  He pulled down the road and through the gate and parked underneath the front entrance. The wind was howling, the nor’easter brutal. Zipping up his jacket, he got out of the car and ran over to the patrol unit idling by the steps. He knocked on the driver’s side window. When no one responded, he brushed the snow off the glass and peered inside.

  And then he flinched.

  The car was running, the lights were on, and the two cops in the front seat were dead.

  The cop behind the wheel had been shot in the face, his partner in the forehead.

  Matt drew his .45, eyeing the house and property, then ran over to the second unit backed into the mansion’s parking area. Like the first patrol car, the engine was idling and the lights were on.

  But Matt could feel it in his bones before he even got within ten feet of the car. He saw the snow accumulating on the windshield and did the math. He ran around to the driver’s side, wiped the snow away, and gazed inside.

  Two more cops shot in the head.

  Matt shivered as he took a deep breath and tried to focus. He noted the footprints in the snow, and did a quick inventory of the cars parked in the lot. The Range Rover, the Bentley Continental GT, the Jaguar F-Type coupe, and MX-5 Miata roadster hadn’t moved since the snow began falling. But the rundown Toyota Corolla with Pennsylvania plates had and, from the tire tracks, appeared to have been here for at least an hour.

  Matt spotted the footprints by the Corolla and followed them with his eyes to a door that he guessed opened to the kitchen. Like the tire tracks, the footprints didn’t appear fresh.

  He needed to work quickly. He opened the car door, took the cop’s radio mike, and pressed Talk.

  “Officers down,” he said in as calm a voice as he could manage. “Officers down.”

  The dispatcher came on, a female who sounded concerned. “You’re not Sergeant Murphy,” she said. “Please identify yourself.”

  A hard gust of wind blew snow into Matt’s face. He didn’t have time to get into a conversation.

  “This is LAPD Detective Matt Jones. Four of your people were sent to a home off Indian Field Road. All four are down, and the two shooters are still here. Andrew Penchant and a young female. I need your help.”

  Matt dropped the radio mike, popped open the trunk, and ran to the back of the car. When he looked inside, he spotted a twelve-gauge pump gun, picked it up, and checked the mag tube. It was a shotgun designed specifically for law enforcement that Matt had used in the past. A Remington 870P with a short fourteen-inch barrel and an extended mag that held two additional three-inch shells. One shell had already been chambered. Five more had been loaded into the tube.

  He spotted a box of shells in a nylon pack and ripped it open, grabbing two handfuls and stuffing them into his pockets. Then he ran up the steps and tried the front door. When he found it locked, he stepped back and, without hesitation, pulled the trigger.

  The sound of the 870P was deafening. The three-inch load blew open the door and knocked it onto the floor. Matt grimaced as he chambered another shell and entered the mansion.

  It was all about speed now and not wasting time. He spotted the wide staircase and raced up the steps. His first thought was that Penchant would repeat himself and commit the murders on the second-floor landing. But when he reached the top and prepared to fire the shotgun, no one was here.

  Matt began to worry. He found the master bedroom, but no one was here as well. The house was dead quiet.

  He raced back downstairs and stormed through the first floor—room by room—completely focused on his mission. This was no longer about making an arrest. As he turned the corner, he saw two bodies at the other end of the hallway and burst forward. It was the two bodyguards he’d seen with his father on the news, laid out on the floor beside a set of doors that were closed. Both men had been stripped of their weapons and shot in the back. Matt moved over to the doors and listened.

  Silence. Stillness. None of it good.

  He readied the shotgun, grit his teeth, and kicked open the doors. And that’s where he found them. His father, his stepmother, and their two sons. The sight carried so much weight to it that Matt had to take a moment before he could enter. He noted the books on the shelves, a library table, and his father’s desk—everything gathered in quick glimpses, everything playing like a nightmare. The room had the feel of being private—a space where his father could work and read without being disturbed.

  Matt’s eyes drifted back to the four murder victims and the pools of blood collecting on the Oriental rug and hardwood floor. His stepmother and her two sons had been stripped of their clothing. Like Tammy Stratton and Mimi Holloway, one of her sons had been draped over her naked body. Matt guessed that both sons were in their midtwenties. After his return from Afghanistan, he had driven up from New Jersey to take a look at things. At the time he had wanted to confront his father, but in the end, decided against it. He could remember spying on them while they drank wine and cocktails on the terrace. He could remember his stepbrothers dressed as if they were twins. They would’ve been twenty, and the way they were dressed had seemed so odd and disconcerting.

  Matt walked over to his second stepbrother and knelt down for a look at his face. As he lowered his gaze, he noticed semen on the floor beside a second pair of panties. They were pink and way too small to fit his stepmother.

  What the hell were these people into? How could anyone start out fresh and become an Andrew Penchant? And how could anyone like Penchant find someone to be with who was apparently a kindred spirit?

  Matt glanced at his father, noting all the papers on the floor and the gunshot wound to his chest. Even though his father remained clothed, he found the sight of his dead body too painful to look at. There was too much going on. Too many dark clouds racing over his being, and Andrew Penchant and his psychotic getaway driver were still free, still living and breathing in the real world.

  He jumped to his feet, rushing for the doors, when something in the room moved. Matt took a deep breath and turned back to his father.

  His eyes were open. He was staring at him.

  Matt ran back into the room, knelt down, and felt his father take his hand. He could see the man appraising him, measuring him—his eyes big and wide and filled with a certain kind of wonder and curiosity. As he held Matt’s right hand with his own, he raised his free hand and felt Matt’s face almost as if he couldn’t believe that his firstborn son was real. He smoothed his fingers over Matt’s forehead and down the bridge of his nose. He touched his cheeks and felt his chin. Then he gave Matt’s hand a light squeeze. He was trying to say something, but didn’t seem to have the strength to speak.

  He lowered his gaze, and Matt followed his eyes over to his wife and two sons. Matt could tell that he was replaying his horrific evening in his mind. The nightmare and the terror.

  After a long moment, his father looked back at him, and a tear dripped down his cheek. And then another. When he gave Matt’s hand another squeeze, everything inside Matt seemed to stop. He could feel that flock of blackbirds flying through his soul again. Wave after wave coming from a full moon.

  “I’m here, Father,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I was too late.”

  His father gazed back at him. After he gave Matt’s hand another squeeze, his eyes lost their focus and he became still.

  “I’m sorry I was too late.”

  CHAPTER 68

  Matt ripped through three rooms until
he reached the living room and a wall of glass.

  The blackbirds were still migrating through his soul from a full moon.

  Everything inside him was coagulating into a hardened mass of rage. Everything he’d seen since he left LA, everything he’d experienced, all of it burning up inside him like a wildfire that could never be contained.

  Something caught his eye. Lights through the heavy snow.

  He tried to focus. It couldn’t be Greenwich PD. He was standing before a window that faced the terrace and the Sound.

  He moved over to the set of French doors. The snow was still blowing sideways in a hard wind. Throwing the locks, he pushed open the doors and stepped outside into the storm.

  It was his father’s yacht, the Greedy Bastard. He could see Penchant and the blonde scrambling across the deck. Penchant had just made it into the bridge and switched on the lights. It looked like the girl was trying to free the line lashed to the rear cleat. Like they were thinking about taking the yacht out for a ride in the storm.

  Matt didn’t know anything about boats. The Greedy Bastard could be a large boat or a small ship. He didn’t know what to call it or what words to use. All he knew was that the yacht stretched past eighty or ninety feet and obviously required a crew.

  He sprinted across the terrace and down to the dock. The tide was up, the rough swells steep and ocean-like. Climbing into one of the three dinghies, he untied the line and pulled the cord on the motor. After three tries, the engine lit up and he began to cut through the choppy water. The spray was ice-cold and stung when it smacked his face. For a brief moment, he thought about what might happen if he fell overboard in water this cold. He guessed that he might last for a minute or two, but not much longer than that. Hypothermia would come so quickly he probably wouldn’t even realize his own death.

  He shook it off. He was closing in on the yacht, less than fifty yards out now. The blonde had untied the first line and was running from stern to bow. But then she stopped and turned and looked right at him. Her eyes got big and crazy and she rushed into the bridge and started shouting something at Penchant.

  Then both of them ran onto the deck, each with a pistol in their hand. They were looking for him in the snow. They were listening to the motor and searching for him in the darkness.

  Matt couldn’t afford to cut the engine. Not in water this choppy or this cold. All he could do was brace himself.

  Penchant seemed to locate him, raised his pistol, and fired a single round. When the girl followed his lead, Matt thought that he heard the slug hit the water about ten yards off to his right.

  They fired two more gunshots—the sound of the pops identical and way too clean to come from a Glock .40 semiautomatic. Matt guessed that they were using the weapons they’d pulled off the bodyguards before shooting both men in the back.

  Before shooting his father.

  Matt let it go. He was closing in now and guessed that every inch forward made him more visible. He raised the shotgun and waited. When it looked like Penchant had located him in the darkness and was ready to take a third shot, he pulled the trigger, rocked the slide back, and fired another shell.

  It worked. The girl slipped, but rushed toward the bow to release the line from the buoy, and Penchant scrambled across the deck into the bridge. Matt killed the motor as he glided into the stern. After lashing the dinghy up, he took a moment to load three more shells into the mag tube, then started up the ladder. The Greedy Bastard ’s engines turned over, the sound deep and throaty before they cut out. Penchant tried a second time, but the engines still wouldn’t catch.

  Matt peered over the rail and up the deck. The girl had released the second line and vanished. The Greedy Bastard was floating away from its mooring buoys and beginning to toss up and down in the wind and big waves.

  Penchant tried the engines again. This time both of them turned over and lit up. When Matt heard Penchant adjusting the throttle, he climbed over the rail and ran toward the bridge. He looked through the window and could see Penchant standing before the wheel. He raised the shotgun. From a distance of twenty feet, he couldn’t miss.

  And that’s when the blonde decided to swing the boat hook down and strike Matt on the head. He lost his footing on the ice and fell, the shotgun sliding across the deck and out of reach. It had been a hard blow, and his heart started pounding as panic set in. He could see her standing before him with a wicked grin on her face. He tried to scramble to his feet, but she took another swing with the boat hook and knocked him down again. She tossed the pole aside and reached for the semiautomatic stuffed in her jeans.

  Matt lunged for the shotgun, rolled over as fast as he could, and pulled the trigger. The heavy blast missed, but she lost her balance and slipped on the ice. As she tried to recover, she started screeching almost like she’d snapped and lost all control. Matt was afraid to look at her too closely. Afraid she might have snakes in her hair. Afraid he might turn to stone. He drove the butt of the shotgun into her face, then watched her shudder and go down. She mumbled something, and Matt grit his teeth. When she snatched her gun off the deck and got to her knees, when she turned and raised the pistol in the air, when her eyes seemed to widen and glow and met Matt’s gaze, he pulled the trigger and watched her take a three-inch shell in the gut. Then he chambered another shell, raised the barrel to her face, and pulled the trigger again.

  The sweet smell of spent gunpowder permeated the air. He could see the girl’s mangled body snap backward, hit the railing, and vault upward in the heavy winds. Matt ran over to the rail fast enough to see her hit the water and vanish. But as he looked at the splash, he saw the boat’s wake and realized that the Greedy Bastard was underway.

  He turned, but not fast enough.

  Penchant was standing in the doorway with his semiautomatic raised. From the expression on his face, he had witnessed the shooting and seen his girlfriend get blown overboard into the void. Matt pulled the trigger and dove sideways onto the deck. The shotgun hadn’t been aimed anywhere near Penchant, but seemed to shake him up enough to throw off his timing. Matt heard the pistol fire, chambered another shell, poked the muzzle up and out, and pulled the trigger.

  The blast missed Penchant, but the shards of glass from the bridge window didn’t. Matt heard him let out a scream and watched as he rushed back into the bridge, throttled the engines all the way up, and cackled like a madman.

  The Greedy Bastard picked up speed, the large vessel slicing through the whitecaps. Matt turned back to the bridge and saw Penchant spinning the wheel in a violent motion. As the yacht changed course, Matt looked over the bow and knew that they were doomed. He could see a dark mass through the snow. An island made with piles and piles of large black rocks. Penchant was steering the Greedy Bastard straight ahead.

  Matt aimed the shotgun at him and fired his last two shells. Penchant was hit, but from a distance, and roared with laughter in spite of the blood streaming down his jacket. He fired his pistol into the air, shrieking and shouting over the wind.

  “I told you we were brothers, Jones. I told you we were friends.”

  He turned to Matt and flashed a grin. But all Matt saw were his light-brown eyes. Finally, those dead eyes.

  The same hollow look that he shared with Adam Lanza and Dylann Roof. The eyes of a beast. A devil.

  Matt watched Penchant turn away and gaze over the bow. He listened as the man with blond cornrows let out another shriek and emptied his pistol into the ceiling of the bridge. One deafening shot after the next.

  Matt’s eyes snapped back to the rocks. He calculated the amount of diesel fuel it took to run a luxury yacht this size and could see the explosion in his mind. Five, maybe ten seconds—no time to think. He tossed the shotgun onto the deck, then climbed over the rail and dove into the ice-cold water. His only chance at survival was to shut everything down and swim toward shore as fast as he could swim.

  He heard Penchant howl with laughter as the Greedy Bastard skidded out of the water and crashed into t
he rocks. A split second ticked off before the air cracked and the explosion billowed upward. Matt took a quick look over his shoulder—the snow burning up in the fireball before it could reach the water. The wind dying out as all the air seemed to be drawn into the massive flames. The dark December sky lighting up bright as noon. The sound of debris flying out of the fireball and hitting the water close by.

  Matt turned back and started to swim toward shore. And then he felt the pain ricocheting through his body. The gunshot wounds in his chest and gut that had been healing for seven weeks had come alive in the ice-cold water. It was a stabbing pain, almost as if the knife had been red-hot. As if the knife wouldn’t stop penetrating his flesh.

  He realized that he was becoming light-headed and could no longer feel his arms and legs, just the four gunshot wounds.

  He started to sink, then pulled himself back up. The water looked as black as ink. He tried to pull himself together and started swimming. He concentrated on moving his arms and legs even though he couldn’t be sure they were even there.

  Over and over again he played a fantasy in his head. A series of simple images. Quiet images. A man taking a swim on a hot summer day. A man who looked quite like him. Over and over again, until finally, he pulled himself onto the beach and heard himself let out a series of tortured gasps. As he fell to his knees in the snow and sand, unable to stop shivering, he looked up and saw them coming. Men and women in uniform carrying flashlights and brandishing guns. They were running across the lawn. They were running toward him. He could see them coming in the night.

  CHAPTER 69

  Matt went through his meds, zipped up the pocket, and slid his shaving kit into his briefcase. After checking the time, he took a sip of coffee and started folding clothes and tossing them into the duffel bag. His flight to LA was about three hours off, and Rogers had promised to swing by the hotel and give him a lift to the airport.