He searched the tape of Sparke’s session with Delaney until he found the segment he was looking for. He played it for Reese: Richard interrupting his therapy session to comment on an unexpected flash of light. A few seconds later when the conversation resumed between doctor and patient, Leonard stopped the tape.
Reese cleared his throat then commented, “Okay, so what are you driving at?”
“I remembered,” Leonard said, switching tapes, “that when I interviewed Sparke two years ago about the attack on his wife, he’d said something very similar, about seeing a ‘strange light’. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, and it’d quickly escaped my memory. Until now. Kevin...that’s why earlier I couldn’t be certain about it him saying it--because for so long I didn’t remember it. Now it’s as clear as day, I can even recall exactly when he said it. Give me a minute.” He fast-forwarded the tape, listened to a few seconds of dialogue before stopping it. He fast-forwarded a little more, then stopped. “Okay, right here...listen to this. He pressed play:
‘So you’re saying, Richard, that your wife’s injuries were fresh, that she’d without doubt obtained them that night as she slept?’
‘That’s correct. While I slept too.’
‘Do you feel, unequivocally, that there was an intruder?’
‘No, I don’t, but I don’t see any other possibility.’
‘Any idea, if there was indeed an intruder, who it might--’
‘What’s that?’
‘What’s what?’
‘I saw a light...a bright blue flash...like a flash from a camera.’
‘I didn’t see anything, Richard.’
‘Don’t worry about it. Forget it...I must be dreaming.’
Leonard stopped the tape. “He even mentioned the part about ‘dreaming’ earlier this morning. It’s like history repeating itself.”
Kevin said, “Must sound weird hearing yourself from two years ago having a conversation with the man who’s been our primary focus for the last twelve hours.”
“Weird’s an understatement.”
“Here we are, finally,” Reese said, slowing down. He pulled the car into the right lane and exited the interstate at Bledson Hills. Once on State Road 35, he unbuckled his seat belt and kept his eyes focused on the dark winding road.
“Should be on the right,” Leonard said. About a mile up.
“Nothing but trees.”
Leonard paused for a moment, his mind and thoughts shifting back to Janice. He never called her to tell her where he’d be, or when he’d be home. Never gave it a second thought, really. Was it fair to leave her sitting at home wondering where he was? Whether or not he was okay? Leonard shrugged away the creeping guilt. This wouldn’t be the first time he stayed on the job late, and Janice very well knew that he sometimes lost track of time. He’d always told her in the past, No news is good news. Don’t wait for the phone to ring. But he also knew that she hadn’t figured him to be eighty miles away investigating a double murder--that he wouldn’t be coming home at all tonight. She’s probably seen the news, he thought. She must know what I’m doing. He wondered if she really cared. Maybe she’s sleeping? She’d be better off lost in some dream than waiting for my call.
“There!” Leonard pointed, regaining his train of thought. Just past a bend in the road was a Sheriff’s car sitting on the shoulder alongside a wire fence. In front of the car was a path that ran under a section of the fence with hinges on it--a gate, one perhaps utilized by local authorities. When they pulled up and parked in front of the trooper’s vehicle, a middle-aged man with short cropped hair emerged from the front seat to greet them. He wore plain clothes--jeans, a red plaid shirt, and baseball cap--but Leonard could see he was a cop by the harness and gun belt draped over his chest. His eyes smiled and he wore a pleasant grin beneath a bushy moustache. He looked relieved that they’d finally arrived.
“Good evening. Fairview’s finest, I suppose.”
Reese smiled. “I’m Captain Reese. This is Officer Leonard Moldofsky, and Officer Kevin Hughes. We came as quickly as possible.”
They exchanged handshakes. “Assistant Deputy Harnisch. Pleased to meet you.” Pointing further up the road, and getting right down to business, he said, “There’s a lot of physical disturbance near the park’s main entrance, but this here service entrance will make the going a good deal shorter. Why don’t you gentlemen come with me.”
The four piled into the trooper’s sedan. Harnisch used a remote control to open the steel gate, and took them into the state park.
“That’s pretty cool,” Kevin said.
“Isn’t it? These here fences were put up back in the eighties in order to keep the deer from going out onto the road. They just installed this remote control gate so the ranger doesn’t have to get out of his car every time he goes in and out. Anyway, there’s a bunch of cabins up here in the park that the town council rents out to state employees. A fringe benefit, I guess, if you like to camp or hunt, although we’re out of hunting season at the moment. Jake Hammer, a park employee, was using one of the cabins for a little ‘r and r’ when he heard some gunshots. Doesn’t have a gun, so he waited a while before going out to have a look around. About three hundred yards further on up the mountain from where he was staying, he found a body. Nasty gunshot wound to the head. I haven’t seen it yet, but Sheriff Porter’s up there right now with Deputy Boyer. Said it must’ve been a shotgun blast at close range.”
“Must be a messy scene.”
“Uh-huh, that’s what I figure.” Harnisch cleared his throat. “Anyway, Sheriff Porter got the printout of your fugitive today over the computer and had it in his pocket when he got to the body. Said it’s definitely him. He radioed me at the station and had me call you right away, then told me to wait for you by the service entrance.”
The car jostled as the road began to thin. It curved upward over a rough embankment, the headlights dancing across the dark environment like nightclub spots. They reached a flat area of land where Harnisch stopped the car beside a large pine. To the right a small cabin sat against a backdrop of trees, two windows and a front door illuminated by the amber glow of interior lights. Dozens of moths danced and flitted around the windows, beetles the size of nickels gripped the screens. The front door opened and a man appeared. He was probably in his fifties, but his grizzled appearance made him look older. His hair was mussed, and he needed a shave three days ago. He wore a similar but dirtier outfit to the assistant deputy, plaid shirt and Wrangler jeans that’d seen better days. He coughed like an old car and spit out a wad of tobacco juice before offering a receptive grin.
“Jake, these here are the detectives from Fairview. Sheriff thinks you might’ve found their man.”
“Evening officers...Harn, you want me to take ‘em up?”
“You bet. I’m coming along for the ride, heh heh.” The two men shared a giggle, slapped each other playfully on the shoulder. Leonard grinned at Kevin, who eyed Reese, who in his silence seemed to say, Where the hell are we? Mayberry?
Jake went into the cabin and returned with three flashlights. Harnisch retrieved two more from the cruiser so each man could have his own. With Jake in the lead, they began to walk through the woods, Leonard finally ‘getting’ Harnisch’s bad joke about coming along for the ‘ride’. Redneck humor, simple and quite unfunny.
The full moon’s light trickled through the dense pines, allowing them a trace of visibility even beyond the span of wavering beams from their flashlights. Keeping a steady pace, they ventured uphill over sticks and rocks and twigs for a good ten minutes, their footsteps nearly drowned out by the never-ending serenade of crickets and cicadas. Leonard shuddered as he tried to comprehend the overwhelming variety of bugs teeming throughout the woods, the different shapes and sizes they came in, the different clicks and chirps they made. His skin crawled and gooseflesh ran across his arms as he visualized them creeping beneath his clothes, pincers digging into his skin looking to scoop out their fair share of flesh and
blood.
“You better stop scratching, Len. You’ll get an infection.”
“Damn mosquitoes. How much further in is it?”
“Another couple of minutes,” Jake said. “The woods are starting to clear now.”
Soon the woods did clear and a wide open stretch of nature came into view, dimly illuminated beneath the pleasant lunar radiance. The sound of running water immediately rose from a nearby trough, at a safe enough distance, it seemed, so they didn’t have to worry about falling in. Ahead and to the left a pair of construction spots ignited a small area about fifteen feet from the edge of the trough where two men stood beside a dark figure on the ground. They walked in the direction of the lit area, the earth much wetter here in the open, their sloshing footsteps announcing their disorderly approach.
“Must’ve rained here,” Leonard said. “Gonna make it difficult gathering evidence.”
One of the two men stepped forward. He wore a full sheriff’s uniform, complete with a cowboy hat and badge. Perhaps this is Mayberry after all, Leonard thought jokingly, his tired mind starting to make him think frivolously. The sheriff wore thick brown-rimmed glasses that needed cleaning; they were covered with a film of water and dust.
“Evening...Captain Reese?”
“That’ll be me.”
“Sheriff Porter.” The two men exchanged handshakes. Sheriff Porter was the type that must have been made fun of in school. His face bore a striking resemblance to a bird, long and cadaverous, his nose pointed like a beak. He had a thin Vincent Price-like moustache above even thinner lips. He was probably fifty pounds overweight, most of it concentrated in a belly that’d seen more than its fair share of bacon and eggs. He took a sideways glance at Leonard’s badge. “Detective Moldofsky, I presume?”
Leonard didn’t want to correct the Sheriff, God only knew how temperamental the local yokels got when invading their turf, so he simply nodded and grinned, along with Kevin who introduced himself as ‘officer’ Hughes.
“I got your bulletin late this afternoon. Took a gander then folded it up in my pocket. Didn’t pay too much attention. After all, not too many serial killers make it out of the city, you know. And if they do, Bledson Hills is a wee bit too small to hide out in.”
“Well, we thought Fairview was safe from this kind of drama too, but here we are, two and possibly three murders later, trailing a local man as our primary suspect. Looks to me like he found the hills a good place to hide.”
“Or a good place to commit suicide. There’s a Winchester right next to the body.”
Suicide?, Leonard thought. Was Sparke really that desperate? No, it can’t possibly be.
“Shotgun. Must be bad.”
“Pretty messy.” He hesitated, then said, “I suggest you put your thinking caps on, gentlemen. The man you thought was a murderer either committed suicide, or was murdered himself.” His smile was thin, all wry and cocky as if he just single handedly unfoiled every theory that Leonard and Kevin had worked so hard on to establish. Damn it, Leonard thought, Porter wasn’t even the one who discovered the body. He grunted to himself. Quite possible that all this overtime was starting to make him tired and cranky, but his first impression of Porter fell sour--he really didn’t like the man.
“Can we see the body?” Reese, his impatience showing through, also seemed to find an immediate distaste for the local authority.
Sheriff Porter stepped aside and made a sweeping gesture with his hand as if granting them admission into a carnival tent. The three cops moved forward, flashlights pointed at their feet, careful not to step on anything that might prove to be valuable evidence at a later time. From behind them, the sheriff yelled, “Try not to touch anything. A specialist is on his way from the city now to do a sweep. I just wanted you all to make an ID before the body is taken away.”
Kevin said, “I guess we should be thankful that he called us up here. He could’ve waited until the body was in the morgue.”
Leonard agreed. “To his credit, he knows timing is everything. But I can live without the arrogance. Besides, we still have to wait for their men to get here before any additional clues come our way, and that won’t be until tomorrow morning.”
Deep inside he hoped and prayed that the body lying twenty feet away wasn’t Richard Sparke. Because if it was, then many of their theories were out the window...except for that of a third person being involved, or suicide, which Leonard highly doubted. There’d been no evidence in Delaney’s files to suggest this possibility. And if Sparke had been murdered by the third person, then they would have no clues as to who might have done it, and what their motivation might be. It’d be like starting from square one, a consideration Leonard totally dreaded.
Finally they came to the body, the ten-yard journey feeling like an endless trek. They froze before it, staring, mouths open, their breaths visible--clouds of anxiety unfurling before them. Leonard’s thoughts ceased, paralyzed. He could only nod. And gaze upon the mutilated body.
Son-of-a-bitch, it’s Sparke all right.
Except now he looked much different with half his skull missing.
Cake
The first thing that came to his mind was, What happened to her injury? She was shot, wasn’t she? Then he once again recalled how he’d shattered her nose with the butcher block this morning, and that too had seemed to magically heal itself since then. So at this very moment, upon locking eyes with an uninjured Pam, Richard became fully convinced that she played a much larger role in his life than he ever imagined, one that included his dreams, his anxieties, and his twin nemesis: the now dead man in black. Without doubt he now knew she held all the answers to the questions he’d been asking himself for three years. If they managed to get out of here--he came to the immediate assumption that she was here to do just that--he’d insist on a complete and thorough explanation as to what the hell was going on. And then he’d insist on knowing why she waited until the shit hit the fan before telling him everything.
“What’re you looking at?” Earl asked Pam, stepping away from the wall. Good ol’ Cletus-Earl, just trying to do his job. Kind of tough with a boner making its way across the front of his pants.
She turned and looked back at him, her gaze seductive, her sudden smile dripping with allure. “I wanted to make sure we were alone.”
“Well, we are, ‘cept that guy in the cell.” Richard could see Earl visibly shaking, and he wondered how the hell they could let this idiot carry a weapon. God help the poor soul that required his assistance in a life threatening situation. Hell, if a sexy woman could immobilize him with a smile and a stare, he could just imagine what a gun pointed at his head would do.
Earl smiled then added, “He ain’t nothin’ though. You just tell me what it is I can do for you, ma’am.”
She placed a gentle hand against the bulge in his pants. “My husband is cheating on me, and I’d like to get back at him. Know anyone who might be able help?”
Earl was near conniption, Richard could see. He was trembling even harder now, like a washer on full-cycle, his brain probably spinning as much too. Finally he managed to say, after a few stuttering attempts, “H-How do you suppose to get back at him?”
Under normal circumstances Richard would’ve had a hard time holding in the laughter, after all the scene was quite funny. But the situation was far too serious. And his body hurt like hell. And very soon Tommy would be here to rescue Earl from his father’s lack of confidence in him. That would further complicate the situation. He needed Pam to act fast.
And act fast she did. Earl melted under Pam’s spell, his eyelids closed and fluttering as she stroked his hard-on with her right hand. She pushed him against the wall, working her magic as Earl went off into never-never land. Then, silently and with the finesse of a cat, she used her left hand to remove the gun from his belt. Too caught up in the God-given moment, Cletus-Earl didn’t even realize his weapon had been snatched. He just went on dreaming, fingers groping for and generally missing Pam’s butt and thigh
s.
She placed the barrel against his head. Eyes still shut, he kept on smiling. It wasn’t until she stopped stroking his boyhood that he realized something might be amiss, that when he opened his eyes and watched the cold circle of steel slide from his temple to his groin, he knew he’d been had.
He looked down, contemplating the gun against his hard-on--which was quickly becoming a soft-on--then began to tremble...well, he never really stopped trembling, it just stemmed from a different source now, that of fear instead of pleasure. He tried to utter something along the lines of, “What the fuck?”, but it came out more like whaddafut because so much drool had accumulated in his bottom jaw.
Richard had been watching the whole time, saying to himself, good going, Pam, that was a piece of cake. She jammed the gun against Earl’s groin. Earl flinched. So did Richard.
“Party’s over, country boy,” she said. “Nice and slowly now, turn around.”
He did, no questions asked. He even raised his arms.
“That’s it. Good. Now walk slowly down the hall, and don’t make any moves ‘cause I can just as easily get what I want with you dead.”
He obeyed her command, taking it one faltering step at the time. They reached the cell. Richard stepped back, staring at Pam’s eyes, which went everywhere except towards him. Finally Earl said, “My dad’s gonna shit a brick.”
She ignored him. “Open the cell.”
He hesitated, then said, “Keys’re in my desk.”
She dug the gun into his back, the pain on his face evidence of her strength and desire to get this task over and done with. “They’re in your pocket, Earl. I had my hand down there, remember?”
Richard saw the pained expression of defeat on Earl’s face, his eyelids and nose and lips wrinkling with frustration. He reached into his pocket, slowly fishing out the keyring to the cell.
Sleepwalker Page 25
