Bad Moon Rising (4 page)

Opening the bottom drawer of his desk, he dug deep
beneath several spiral notebooks labeled
geometry sucks the big one
and
english lit is for fags
,
withdrew a magazine, and
carefully, as if it would detonate at any moment, placed it on his desk. He
arranged the lamp closer, adjusting the shade so it cast a spotlight on the
glossy, colored photographs of naked couples.

Certainly, he was well aware of the facts of life,
birds and bees and all those cliched stupidities adults termed “fucking.” But
the photos presented here were highly enlightening, in short, leaving nothing
to the imagination. His curiosity of the female anatomy had been assuaged
within the covers of this encyclopedia of smut. Couples, threesomes, men and
women, women and women, men and men emblazoned the photos with a boldness that
made a knot form in his stomach and a heat center in his groin that flushed his
entire body, not just with the stirrings of his awakening hormones, but with
an anger that made him grit his teeth so hard his jaw hurt.

So engrossed was he at the moment, he didn’t hear his
bedroom door open. It wasn’t until he heard his mother’s horrified gasp that he
realized he had been caught with the goods.

“Oh my God.”

He stiffened.

As his mother snatched the magazine from the desk,
Patrick leaped from the chair and spun around to face her.

“Oh my God,” she repeated, her face blanched of color
and her eyes wide with horror as she stared at the photographs in her shaking
hands. “What in God’s name—”

“What happened to knocking?” he shouted, embarrassment
turning his face red.

“Where did you get this trash?”

He glared at her, a gazillion excuses scrambling in
his brain.

“Answer me, Patrick. Where did you get—”

“None of your business,” he finally managed, unable to
come up with anything more appropriate at the moment. It was a kid’s right of
birth to turn the tables on his parents when caught with his pants down, so to
speak. To acknowledge one’s own guilt went against the laws of nature.

“I beg your pardon? None of my business? I find my son
with a pornographic magazine and it’s none of my business?”

“What’s it matter? I got it, okay?” He shoved by her
and walked to his bed, flopped onto his back, and stared at the ceiling. Genius
or not, there were times when playing stupid was essential to pubescent
survival. “What’s the big deal, anyhow?”

She sank into the chair. “The big deal is, you’re
sixteen years old—”

“Sixteen and a half.”

“You’ve got no business looking at this kind of perversion.”

He might have continued the argument had his mother’s
voice not begun to tremble. She obviously was on the verge of crying, and if
anything could stop him cold and fill him up with raw, ragged, and bloody
regret, it was his mom crying. Anger and rebelliousness took a backseat to
guilt when it came to disappointing his mother. And although he seemed to be
doing that a lot these days, he just couldn’t help himself. Just like he couldn’t
help not destroying the piece of smut that intrigued him as much as infuriated
him.

His mother rolled the magazine into a tube while her
gaze continued to bore a hole into him. He wondered if this would be the
impetus for her to finally lose control and start yelling like most parents
when they got pissed at their kids. Often he listened to his friend’s tales of
parental terror with envy. They were normal, and normal intrigued him. Life in
the Damascus household had never been normal.

“I just don’t know what to do with you anymore,” she
said.

He watched a model of a stealth fighter slowly rotate
above him.

“What’s happened to us, Patrick? We used to be so
close. You used to talk to me.”

“Guess I don’t have anything to say.”

“Why are you so angry? What have I done?”

Come into my room without knocking, for one.

“First I get this call from the principal at your
school, now this.” She tapped the tube on the desk. “I suppose I should speak
to your father—”

“He won’t give a damn. Why bother?”

“Stop cursing.”

“Everyone curses. Even the geeks. What’s the big deal?”

“Because you’re only—”

“Sixteen. God, why can’t I be eighteen? Then I could
get the hell out of here.” He rolled to his side, offering his mother his back.
“It sucks here. I hate it. I want to go live with Uncle J.D. He’s cool.”

His mother crossed the room and sat on the bed beside
him. She touched his shoulder.

“J.D. comes to my soccer games,” he continued. “We
watch videos together when I’m at his place. He doesn’t treat me like I’m a
stupid kid.”

“I’d miss you,” she said softly.

He rolled again to his back and focused on her eyes. “You
could come, too. And Amber.”

She forced a smile. “Move in just like that, huh?”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m married to your father.”

“So get a divorce.” Her eyebrows lifted.

“Why not? You two don’t love each other. Not anymore.”

A deep red flush crept up her face. “You’re not
denying it,” he pointed out. “Because it’s ridiculous.”

He gently placed his hand on her back, felt her
stiffen. “It’s okay, Mom. I don’t blame you. He treats you like shit.”

Leaving the bed, she paced to the window and looked
out. “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with my son. I can’t believe
you would welcome a divorce—”

“You’d be happier. And so would I. Besides, Dad doesn’t
deserve you.”

She turned again to face him. “Is that what all this
anger is about? Your father?”

“I hate him.” There. He’d said it. Lightning didn’t
bolt out of the sky and incinerate him.

“Patrick!”

“I do. I hate his guts. He doesn’t love you, and he
doesn’t love me and Amber.”

“That’s not true.”

“He’s a creep and I wish he was dead.”

“That’s enough. I won’t have you talk like that about
your father.”

“If you don’t divorce him, I’m going to run away from
home. I’ll move in with Uncle J.D. whether you like it or not.”

“I won’t listen to any more of this nonsense.” As she
always did when she found herself unable to cope with the momentary crisis, his
mother moved toward the door, gripping the porno tube so tightly in her hand it
bent in the middle.

“Mom,” he said as she reached the door. She paused and
looked back, her eyes so full of anguish he felt punched in the stomach. “Please
...
don’t tell Dad about the
magazine.” He swallowed. “Please.”

She left the room, closing the door behind her.

He felt certain that she wouldn’t tattle. She never
did. Because she knew as well as he did that bad news regarding Eric Damascus’s
kids would float in one ear and out the other. Normally, Patrick wouldn’t have
bothered with the request to keep this type of perverted news from Louisiana’s distinguished legislative director, but this was an exception. This shocking
revelation would have caused consequences he wasn’t ready to deal with at the
moment. Not yet. In time, but not now.

He locked his door. Something he should have done
before pulling out the porno magazine, but he wasn’t accustomed to needing to.
His mother had always respected his privacy, but lately she’d been slipping.
Since she’d caught him smoking, it seemed he was always finding her popping up
out of nowhere.

He retrieved his portable disc player with earphones
from his bookshelf, along with his favorite CD—both of which J.D. had given him
the last time they’d gone out together. He prized it as highly as the soccer
ball, autographed by David Beckham, that J.D. had given him last Christmas.

Crawling under his bed, he extracted his hidden stash
of cigarettes and matches the freak Raymond Dillworth had provided him at
school. Raymond had offered him weed sprinkled with crack as well, but he was
genius enough to know that if he was caught with a juice joint, his mom wouldn’t
have been just rattled to tears, she would have gone apoplectic. Couldn’t have
Senator Strong’s legislative director having a son who walked around baked.
Might cost the asshole a vote or two.

Easing up his bedroom window, Patrick crawled out on the
roof, carefully working his way along the gable until he settled down beside
the chimney. Then he leaned back, positioned the headphones on his ears, and
hit the play button before lighting up his Marlboro Light. As Credence
Clearwater Revival exploded against his eardrums singing about a bad moon
rising and trouble being on the way, he gazed at the sky, inhaled deeply from
the cigarette, and studied the moon overhead.

There was definitely trouble on the way, he thought.
It was only a matter of time.

The nights were always the worst, when memories
clawed their way to the
forefront of his mind and arranged themselves like a slide show in
chronological order.

Laura on their wedding day dressed in a beige suit,
loose-fitting to hide her pregnancy, their vows spoken to a justice of the
peace while Vegas lights flashed on and off against the fake chapel windows.

His holding her hand as she gave birth to their son
six months later. He’d kissed her and whispered, “We’re going to make it.
Things will only get better now.”

He’d wanted to believe it, if for no other reason than
to spite his father, the honorable mayor of New Orleans at that time, who felt
J.D., his shining hope for the future, was throwing his life away by marrying
the daughter of a used car salesman.

No, he hadn’t been in love with Laura any more than
she had been in love with him. But neither of them believed in abortion, and
both believed that, eventually, they could come to love one another, for the
sake of the child, if nothing else.

For a while, the hope had sparkled like new diamonds.
William Damascus had been a dream child, healthy, happy, a bundle of pleasure
that filled J.D. with enough love that he didn’t miss the void of affection he
shared with his wife. But, little by little, the glimmer had eroded as he was
forced, thanks to his father cutting him off financially, to work a night job
in order to pay his way through his last year of law school.

The pressures of school and mounting bills had corrupted
their home life. There had been talk of divorce. But again, the thought of his
father’s “I told you so” had been the impetus to hang in there. He had been
certain, once he passed the bar and landed the A.D.A.’s position, that he and
Laura could start fresh. William was everything to him. The idea of weekend
visiting privileges seemed intolerable.

Yet, despite the immense love he had felt for his son,
he found himself burying himself more deeply in his career.
Avoidance,
a marriage counselor had
termed it. A failure to communicate. If he would be more attentive to his
affection-deprived wife, perhaps she wouldn’t need to drown her sorrows in
American Express Platinum cards and daily jaunts through the Neiman Marcus
catalogues. J.D. had snidely remarked that if she backed off the Am Ex and Neiman
Marcus catalogues, perhaps he wouldn’t have to put in twenty hours a week of
overtime.

It hadn’t helped that, thanks to hourly threats from
the criminal element, he was forced to start wearing a gun.

In a space of two short years he had become The Man
Most Likely to Be Snuffed.

The prediction had almost come to fruition when someone
unloaded a shotgun through his bedroom window. In order to keep Laura from
collecting Billy and hightailing it to her parents in Milwaukee, he had taken a
leave of absence to try to save their marriage. They’d rented a condo in Gulf Shores, Alabama, and tried to revive their nonexistent love for one another—romantic
walks on the beach in the moonlight, champagne and candlelight, and sex like
horny teenagers. Two weeks later, they had driven away from the love nest with
the absolute certainty that they had no future together. Three weeks later,
Laura had informed him she was pregnant. So much for condoms.

He couldn’t imagine that he could ever love another
child as much as he loved Billy. Not possible. But the moment he held Lisa in
his arms, he had been gut-punched, brought to his knees by her cherubic face,
awash with such heartrending responsibility and protectiveness, he had been
willing to sell his soul to the devil to keep the marriage together. He cut
back his workload, lived for the moment when he could sprawl on the floor and
allow the children to jump on his belly as if he were a trampoline. Never mind
that he and Laura existed in an emotional vacuum where they rarely spoke and
slept in separate bedrooms. The love he felt for his children was his cup that
runneth over.

Lisa with her wispy, blond pigtails bouncing around
her shoulders as she chased butterflies in the park.

Billy on the first day of school looking back over his
shoulder, eyes full of tears, as J.D. stood on the sidewalk with his hands
crammed in his pockets and a knot the size of a goose egg in his throat.

Birthday parties, tooth fairies, Santa Claus.

Then they were gone.

As J.D. lay in the dark in his bed, the nearby buzz
fan doing little to assuage the heat that made his naked body sweat, he stared
at the ceiling that faintly reflected the distant neon of the Lucky Lady
Casino. Occasionally, he reached for his glass of Pepto-Bismol and milk, a mixture
that he had grown accustomed to over the last few years. The radio in his room
played softly. A classical station that often soothed him to sleep.

Tonight, however, sleep was elusive. Every time he
closed his eyes, the image of Cherry Brown was right there in all its gory
detail
...
superimposed over those of
his family.

He’d spent three days in Shreveport, business that had
kept him out of town longer than anticipated. He had spoken to Laura Thursday
night, late, to let her know that he would be home Friday afternoon. She had
been testier than usual. They had argued and she had refused to let him speak
to Billy and Lisa—already in bed, she had lied, though he could hear them
playing in the background.

Something in the way she had behaved had caused caution
and suspicion to niggle at him long after he’d hung up the phone. Something
wasn’t right. Not that it ever was right between them, but that particular
conversation had set his every instinct on edge. He hadn’t become a kick-ass
A.D.A. without being able to sniff out the undercurrents of brewing trouble,
and Laura’s nervous, evasive attitude had reeked of it.

He’d canceled his meetings for the next day and taken
a late flight, arriving in New Orleans after midnight. In the airport, he had
bought Lisa a doll and Billy a T-shirt.

He had arrived home to an empty house. Standing there
with sweat running down his temples, the fear that she had left him at last,
taking his children, rushed like acid through his blood.

At four in the morning, he had fallen into bed, exhausted
from pacing the floor all night, repeatedly calling her cell phone and getting
no response.

At six-thirty the doorbell had rung. He’d known, the
moment he looked into the detectives’ faces, why they were there.

He’d held it together in the car, even walking down
the long corridor to the morgue. Avoidance, again. There was always a chance
that the bodies a jogger had discovered were not those of his family. Laura
wasn’t a prostitute. No reason that the serial killer who was slaughtering prostitutes
would suddenly turn on a housewife and kids. They didn’t fit the victim
profile.

He’d held it together until the medical examiner,
Janice, Mallory’s wife, had pulled the sheet back to reveal Billy’s face.

After that, it had all been a blur. Like he was
fighting his way out of a nightmare that wouldn’t end. First Billy, his throat
cut from ear to ear, then Lisa, her blond pigtails soaked in blood. Then Laura.
He’d identified her by the birthmark on her right hip, and, of course, the
wedding ring on her finger.

Like the prostitutes who had been killed, they never
found Laura’s head.

He couldn’t recall much of the following months. They
were spent in a fog of tranquilizers and antidepressants. Downers to make him
sleep without dreaming, uppers that allowed him to stumble through the day. He’d
finally unraveled before a judge and jury and half the New Orleans press corp.
It hadn’t been pretty. Jerry Costos had tackled him to the floor, and he’d been
wheeled out of the courtroom strapped to a stretcher by men in white coats. So
much for promising careers.

He’d withdrawn from life—family, friends—holed up in
his empty house full of memories, surrounded by photographs of his children.
Six months after his breakdown, he’d been forced to move out of the house and
file for bankruptcy. Only one thing had kept him from putting a bullet in his
head. Anger and the need for revenge. It raged in him.

He had become a short fuse on a keg of dynamite, one
fizzle and spark away from complete detonation. He was certain that Tyron
Johnson had been his family’s killer and was convinced that their murders had
not been connected with those of the hookers. The son of a bitch had actually
sent flowers to the funerals, attached with a card:
Have a happy life, asshole.

Angel Gonzalez had a sheet of priors as long as his
arm, including child molestation and arrests for solicitation and assault on
prostitutes. Swabs taken from the vagina of the last murdered hooker had
matched Gonzalez’s DNA. But when he heard Jerry Costos’s shitty, circumstantial
evidence, J.D. had known in his gut that Angel was innocent, a man at the wrong
place at the wrong time—just as his family had been, according to the investigators
who wanted like hell to close the books on his wife’s and kids’ murders. It was
one thing for prostitutes to be slaughtered. It was another for a mother and
her kids to be murdered. Their deaths had sent panic through the city like a
wildfire.

There was no doubt in his mind now that Angel Gonzalez
had not been the monster who had murdered his family—or the prostitutes who had
undergone the most brutal slayings in Louisiana history.

The state had not prosecuted Gonzalez for all the
crimes, only one of them, but that had been enough to get him the death penalty
from a jury who had been shaken to tears during a trial the entire country had
watched with morbid fascination. After all, as Governor Damascus had
proclaimed, “You can kill a man only once. No point in bleeding the state’s
budget any more than necessary.”

Never mind that three of the victims had been the governor’s
daughter-in-law and two of his grandchildren.

With Gonzalez’s conviction, the case had been closed
on his wife and kids, all tied up in a neat little package with a few grumbled
words of sympathy from Jerry Costos. Never mind that Laura’s, Billy’s, and
Lisa’s deaths did not fit into the victim profile. His wife was not a
prostitute and the children had not been decapitated—the killer had been kind
enough to only slit their throats.

Honey, who had discovered Cherry Brown’s body, couldn’t
have been more correct. If the public got wind that the state could have—had,
in fact—executed the wrong man, there would be hell to pay. The repercussions
would be felt all the way to the White House. The advocates against the death
penalty, NCADP in particular, would burn the state’s politicians on every cable
network news station in the country.

Rolling over, he hit the replay button on the
telephone answering machine beside his bed. The message had come in at
eleven-thirty.

“John
...
it’s
Beverly. I need to talk to you. Desperately. It’s Patrick again.” Pause. She
cleared her throat. “I found him with ...” Pause. “I don’t want to talk about
it on the phone. I need to see you as soon as possible. Call me. Please.”

As the machine kicked off, he left the bed, wandered
to the kitchen nook, opened the fridge and extracted a Coors Light, then
returned to the bed where he slid his hand between the mattress and box springs
and withdrew his gun, a Beretta Model 92 9mm automatic boasting a fifteen-round
magazine and weighing less than three pounds fully loaded. As he balanced it in
his hand, he glanced down at the phone. The clock beside it glowed two
forty-five in bright red numbers.

He walked to the open sliding glass doors, stepped out
on the rickety balcony that overlooked the river and the Lucky Lady Casino.
Lights from Tyron Johnson’s penthouse winked in the dark.

He imagined Beverly pacing the floor, waiting for him
to call. Beverly, with her soulful green eyes and floral fragrance. Beverly
who, over the last years, had become a balm to his decomposing soul. She was in
love with him, though it had never been spoken aloud. It was evident in the
trembling touch of her hand, her quivering smile, in her gaze that pierced to
the very heart of him. He suspected that her problems with Patrick were only an
excuse to reach out to him, though she probably didn’t realize it herself.

There had been moments, over the last four years, when
he had come close to saying to hell with it and taking her to bed. They had
been friendly in college. She’d hinted more than once that she was interested
in more than friendship. But he had had only one consuming passion in his life
at that time. Law. There simply wasn’t room in his life for both. So they had drifted
apart, lost touch the summer between his graduation and starting law school.
Months later, he had received an invitation to her and Eric’s wedding.