Devils in Dark Houses

by B. E. Scully

  “Maybe certain kids decided to start doing some facilitating of their own. Starting with a baby and ending with a homicide.”

  Martinez shook his head. “You remember when my oldest kid Hannah was just a little girl running around in pigtails playing with dolls? Well, one day I wake up and she’s a grown woman.”

  “Monte, she’s only sixteen.”

  “Only! You know what else? One day she just decided out of nowhere that she’s going to be a vegetarian. Now everything is all about animal rights. The other day she made me feel like a serial killer for having eggs for breakfast. I’m afraid she’s going to end up one of these fanatics who get arrested gluing themselves to hardware store floors in protest of mousetraps or something.”

  “It’s like I always tell you, Monte—sometimes I envy you your family, sometimes I don’t.”

  Martinez sighed. “You really think our killer is kids?”

  “Yeah, I really think it’s kids.”

  “Well, either way, I want to catch these bastards. The last thing we need is for people to start running around with some cooked-up justification for any cause or group they want to get violent about.”

  When Martinez was only four years old, his family had illegally crossed the border from Mexico into the United States. They’d eventually become legal citizens, but those childhood years of running beneath the radar had left a permanent imprint. He knew what it was like to be the target of every angry discontent looking for a scapegoat. In both the Los Angeles neighborhoods where he’d grown up and then later on the streets he’d worked as a cop, Martinez had seen firsthand the deadly domino game of so-called vigilante “justice.”

  Kids or not, “Nostri” needed stopped. But it wasn’t going to be easy.

  The “Not On My Front Lawn” Mark Jacobs’ case had a bit more to offer than the baby in the dumpster. Despite conflicting statements from witnesses either too intoxicated to remember what happened or too mistrustful of the police to want to help, the most consistent picture to emerge of the person who had deposited the Promise Village residents on Mark Jacobs’ lawn was of a thickly built Caucasian, between 5’ and 5’2”, with short, dark hair. Several witnesses, including one of Mark Jacobs’ neighbors, claimed a second person had been involved, but no one had provided a solid description. Even so, Shirdon and Martinez were certain “Nostri” wasn’t a one-man act. The increasing complexity of the crimes seemed to indicate at least two people—especially now that their hijinks had escalated to homicide.

  The only problem was they weren’t entirely certain the James Parker case had started out as a homicide.

  Based on the scene recreations and ballistics reports, the theory was that the killer had been kneeling down in the grass when James Parker approached. Still in a crouched position, he’d fired one shot directly into Parker’s leg. James Parker went down and the shooter stood up, firing two bullets into Parker’s chest from a close-range position. According to the autopsy report, one entry wound was located on the left front chest area and would not have proven immediately fatal. A second entry wound was to the heart and probably killed James Parker instantly. The coroner determined that the two shots to the chest had come in rapid succession, but she couldn’t definitively state which round had been fired first.

  Martinez kept coming back to that oddball shot to the leg. “At that close of range, why not just fire the gun directly at his chest? Even if the shooter wanted to stay crouched down in the weeds—to stay hidden or take Parker by surprise, maybe—why not just go right for the kill shot?”

  Shirdon thought it might fit with the “Nostri” pattern. “If they wanted to send James Parker the same message they wrote in the note—hey, look how your father’s pro-gun stance has come full circle—the shooter may have wanted him alive long enough to deliver some kind of speech. To make some kind of point.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe the leg shot is all they intended to do in the first place. Maybe they just wanted to wound him and it got out of hand.” Shirdon shot Martinez one of her raised eyebrow skeptical looks. “I know, I know. Then why proceed to deliver not one, but two shots guaranteed to kill the kid? I guess the whole thing just feels off to me.”

  Their interest in the leg shot was more than just curious speculation. It meant the difference between criminal homicide and the possibility of a lesser charge. Did the shooter purposefully wound James Parker in order to deliver a message along with his murder, or was the leg wound supposed to be the message, the first and only shot fired that day? The difference was between cruel and intentional murder and a stupid stunt gone tragically wrong.

  Because of the criminal and litigious aspects of the Mark Jacobs case, the spray-painted sign that had been stuck into the grass of his front lawn hadn’t disappeared like the note with the baby. But it was covered in so many fingerprints and had been handled by so many different people that it was worthless as a piece of evidence. And even if they could find out who was responsible for the first two “Nostri” acts, the notes were the only thing connecting them. And an interest in Roman philosophy definitely wasn’t enough to prove murder.

  Shirdon couldn’t exactly tell that to Lieutenant Mickelson, though. And he was still standing in front of the now silent briefing room, waiting for her and Martinez to update him on a list of suspects they didn’t have.

  Intervention came in the form of a sergeant knocking on the door and then rushing through it without waiting for a response. “I’m sorry to interrupt, lieutenant, but I think you should see this. It’s on the television in the lobby, or you could pull it up right here online. It’s on almost all the news channels.”

  Lieutenant Mickelson clicked a few keys and a breaking news report blipped to life on the presentation screen at the front of the room. Gordon “Gord” Parker, the thus far silently grieving father of James Parker, was standing in the middle of a crowd of reporters.

  The reporters were firing one question after another at him, but he seemed oblivious to all of them. Instead he stared directly into the cameras, steady and silent as a stone.

  He stayed that way until the reporters went quiet one by one. Then Gordon Parker spoke publicly for the first time since his son’s murder.

  “I know everyone has been waiting for me to make some kind of a statement about how my son’s murder is connected to the right to bear arms in this country. But I’m not going to make that statement, because there’s no statement to be made. James’s death is not a statement. It’s not about the Second Amendment. It’s about the same thing every other homicide is about, whether it’s committed with guns or knives or a baseball bat. It’s about deliberate, cold-blooded murder, plain and simple. And so I’m not here to talk about guns. I’m here to talk about murder. And I’m here specifically to talk to James’s murderer. And here’s what I have to say: if you want to use firearms to take an innocent life, and you then want to call it some kind of political statement, then I challenge you right here and now to take that statement all the way. If you truly believe in ‘an eye for an eye,’ then it’s my turn to take a shot at yours. Are you ready to put your money where your mouth is, or are you just hiding behind schoolyard notes pinned to a dead child?”

  Gordon Parker then proceeded to rattle off his home address, cell phone number, and email as the stunned cops in the briefing room looked on.

  “Now you know exactly where I am, and exactly where to find me. You let me know wherever and whenever you’re ready for a face-off. Then we’ll find out what the real ‘Nostri’ is all about.”

  3

  Some people don’t have kids. Others have them, but they’re grown-up and live far away, sometimes even in other countries. If Gordon Parker had been one of those people, then Emma Kaster wouldn’t be in her room getting ready to go and face what might turn out to be her own premature death. School would have started and Emma and Senz would have forgotten all about “Nostri,” and maybe even each other. They wouldn’t have ended up crouched in a field of weeds waiting to shoot a b
oy they didn’t even know. They wouldn’t be murderers.

  But not only did Gordon Parker have a kid, he had the perfect kid for their plan. Every day of the week between eight and ten o’clock in the morning, James Parker went for a run in Pioneer Park. He always took the same path, which just happened to pass by an overgrown field at the most isolated end of the park. At fifteen years old, James Parker was even the perfect age—too old to be considered a child, but too young to be considered an adult. Around the same age, in fact, as Emma and Senz.

  He could have been anybody’s kid. Only now he was nobody’s kid. Now he was dead. And Emma had killed him. Or Senz had killed him. Or maybe both of them.

  They’d picked a Monday, when most people were at work and the park would be as empty as possible. When Emma eased out of bed and slipped silently through the house and out the front door, an almost full moon was still limning the front lawns and sidewalks with silver. When she got to the patch of deserted parking lot at the edge of Pioneer Park, Senz was already there, pulling weeds out of the cracks in the asphalt.

  Everything had been planned in advance. They cut across the meadow and crouched in the waist-high weeds, the mosquitos chewing Emma’s ankles to pulp. Neither of them spoke as the sun chased off the last of the morning mist. Finally, they spotted James Parker coming down the path. He was still quite a distance away from them, and Emma thought he looked small and surreal, like some lost forest wanderer in the fairy tales she’d loved so much as a kid.

  Senz gripped the gun in both hands.

  They still hadn’t spoken as James Parker descended the path that wound out of the towering pines and into the open meadow.

  “‘The human race should be granted a pardon,’” Emma whispered. She hadn’t meant to even think it let alone say it out loud, and she hoped Senz hadn’t heard her.

  But he was ready with his own Seneca wisdom. “‘At times, killing is the best sort of mercy.’”

  Throughout the days of planning, they’d never once brought up the word “murder.” They’d discussed everything from how to eliminate trace evidence to how many minutes they’d have to get out of the meadow and through the parking lot if the gunfire attracted anyone’s attention. They’d worked out every last detail—everything, that is, except the actual murder part. And now with the supposed victim less than a hundred feet away and getting closer by the second, Emma wasn’t sure.

  “Yeah, but, Senz, this is an innocent person! James Parker never did anything to anyone!”

  But Senz was still channeling his mentor. “‘Anyone who claims he’s innocent isn’t thinking of his own conscience, only whether his behavior had a witness.’”

  James Parker disappeared into a pine-shaded curve at the part of the path that left the forest and entered the meadow. Emma hoped it would be like in a fairy tale—that some enchanted forest creature or mysterious crone would appear out of nowhere and tell James Parker, “Turn back! Turn around now and leave this evil place!”

  But no such magical intervention arrived. James Parker soon emerged from the pines, moving faster than ever.

  Emma tried one more time. “‘Punishment postponed can still be exacted, but punishment exacted cannot be undone.’”

  Senz checked the bullets in the chamber and clicked off the safety latch. “‘We should attempt nothing that, once we’ve succeeded, will leave us surprised that we did.’”

  “I can’t do it, Senz. I can’t kill someone.”

  “You don’t have to. Just get him over here like we planned. Now hush up. Here he comes.”

  James Parker was almost right in front of them. Emma could have let him run right on by. She could have stayed crouched in the weeds and then walked home and gone back to bed, where she should have been all along. But she didn’t. Instead she sat up, raised her arm in the air, and waved at James Parker just like they’d planned.

  “Help me! Help me over here, I’m hurt!”

  James Parker stopped and peered at her through the weeds. Then he stepped off the path and walked over to where Emma was kneeling in the weeds, Senz still crouched out of view beside her.

  James Parker came and stood right in front of her. “Hey, what’s wrong? Did you fall and twist your ankle or some—”

  When the shot went off, Emma wasn’t sure at first what had happened. Then James Parker gave one surprised, wounded animal howl and crumpled into the weeds. A glut of blood oozed from his left leg, just above the knee.

  Senz stood up and aimed the gun at James Parker’s chest. But Emma stood up, too, and took the gun out of Senz’s hands. “Let me do it.”

  James Parker was pressing on his left leg, struggling to stand. It had to be now.

  Emma aimed the pistol at the center of his chest the way her grandfather had taught her. She fired once. A small spot of crimson appeared on James Parker’s t-shirt. He looked down at his chest, his eyes and mouth wide open in perfect circles of surprise, like a cartoon drawing. Then he toppled backward and lay still in the weeds.

  It was Senz’s turn to take the pistol. “Give it here.”

  Emma let go of the gun. Senz took a step forward and fired another round into James Parker’s chest. “Now there ain’t no way to tell for sure which bullet killed him. Maybe one, maybe the other. Maybe neither on its own. Maybe both together.”

  “Like us,” Emma whispered. “Neither on its own, both together.”

  “That’s right,” Senz said. “Now let’s both together get the hell out of here.”

  They were halfway across the field when Emma stopped. “Wait. We forgot the note.”

  Emma had typed out the “Nostri” note days in adavance and had given it to Senz to hold onto. After running back to James Parker’s body, Senz pulled the note out of his green backpack, leaned over, and pinned the note to the sleeve of the boy’s t-shirt.

  The plastic sheet protector had been Emma’s idea, in case it rained before James Parker’s body was found.

  At first Emma thought she’d have nightmares, or maybe see James Parker’s face every time she looked in the mirror—all the stuff that always happens in stories when the murderer’s guilty conscience comes back to haunt him. But the next morning, the milk was in the refrigerator and the cereal was in the cupboard just like they’d been the day before. Her parents were rushing around getting ready for work just like any other day. The birds were still chirping in the trees, the sun had still risen. Everything was the same as it always was.

  Only it wasn’t.

  The difference wasn’t anything dramatic or meaningful. It might have been easier if it had been. But instead it was like those scenes in movies where all of a sudden the color vanishes and everything goes to black and white. Only for Emma, everything was some dull shade of gray. The milk still tasted like milk, but it didn’t taste good anymore. It was just there, wetting the cereal, which didn’t taste good anymore, either. It just filled up her stomach until it got empty again.

  It was as if overnight everything had become nothing. The only thing that still mattered, that still seemed as alive and important as ever, was Senz.

  And if everything was going to soon come to an end one way or the other, then Emma was going to end it with Senz. Neither on their own, both together.

  When they’d first seen Gordon Parker on the news issuing his challenge to his son’s murderers, they hadn’t said a word about it. Emma was beginning to think it might stay that way until three days later, when they climbed up to Cathedral Point to watch the last of the long summer nights come in.

  Senz was tucked into his favorite corner of the stone ruins. He’d been quiet all day, in one of his thinking moods. Emma knew what was on his mind—Gordon Parker, the same thing on hers.

  She swatted away a mosquito and tried for anything to break the silence. “School’s starting soon. I so don’t want to go back this year, I can’t even explain it. I don’t even think I can do it anymore, you know? Just sit in class and act like I care about any of that stupid stuff.”

&n
bsp; Senz leaned back on his elbows and stared up at the sky. “Yeah.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t go back. Maybe we should just take off somewhere. Live in one place for a while, then go somewhere else. Keep moving. See the world.”

  “Or maybe we should stay right here and take Gordon Parker up on his offer.”

  Even though Emma had known it was coming, she still felt afraid—more afraid than when her dad had been in a car accident and had to spend three days in the hospital. More afraid even than when they’d shot James Parker. More afraid than anything, ever. And yet she knew without asking why they had to do it. If they didn’t face up to Gordon Parker, nothing they’d done had any meaning. If ideas without actions meant nothing, then actions without principles meant even less. If anything they believed in was going to count for anything, they had to be willing to face up to it—in the very literal form of Gordon Parker.

  But Emma still couldn’t help asking. “Do you think he’ll kill us?”

  Senz kept staring at the darkening sky. “Who knows. Most people aren’t willing to put their lives where their principles are. But anything is possible. Either way, though, we still have this on our side.” He pulled the pistol that had killed James Parker out of the waistband of his jeans and aimed it at imaginary targets in the sky. “You know, Seneca once said that it was Socrates’ death by drinking hemlock that made him great—that it proved he was not only willing to live by his principles, but die by them.”

  “And then Seneca faced the same thing when Nero ordered him to commit suicide.”

  “That’s right—things always comin’ full circle. First Nero was Seneca’s student, then his emperor, and finally, his murderer.”

  Student, emperor, murderer.

  They decided to write a note, seal it in an envelope with Gordon Parker’s name on the front, and stick it in his front mailbox. James Parker’s murder was still making headlines, but the press had at least stopped stalking the Parker family. Emma and Senz had waited until it was dark and then walked right up to the Parkers’ mailbox and dropped the letter in.