Northern Moonlight

This is a work of fiction.  The names, characters, places, and events depicted in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any similarity to actual people, either living or deceased, is purely coincidental.

Prologue

Mount Hollow
, Vermont, 1966

F
reshly fallen snow gleamed in the moon’s reflection and blanketed coarse terrain. Whistling as he drove home in his father’s shiny blue pick-up truck, the eighteen year old boy felt invincible.  He thought dreamily of the toasty winter’s evening he had spent sipping hot cocoa and kissing by the fireplace with his sweetheart.  The handsome, raven-haired boy curved the truck around a sharp corner, approaching the serene neighborhood he called home. 

In the distance, he was startled to hear sirens blare alarmingly.  The raucous emergency noises seemed grossly out of place in the eerily still New England night.  Troubled by an uncomfortable stirring deep in the pit of his stomach, the boy accelerated as the sirens became louder.  As he approached the snaking stretch of road where his family home was located, he gasped to see bright orange cones blocking entrance to the entire street.  The teenager bolted out of the vehicle, abandoning it on the side of the road so he could proceed on foot.  Long, brisk strides quickly became breathless sprints as the sirens wailed, red lights flashed, and the booming voice of a police officer echoed on a radio.

Sights and sounds were overwhelmed by a gagging stench of smoke, soot, and ashes.  He blinked disbelievingly, rubbed his eyes, and realized with mounting horror that his house had burned to the ground. 

He ran forward to a fireman, screaming and sobbing, “I live here!  This was my family’s house---where are they?!”

The firefighter looked sadly at the young man and said, “I’m sorry.  Kid, I don’t know how to tell you this.” The fireman wrung his hands anxiously.  “If your family was in there, they perished.  There’s nothing left of the house but burnt rubble.”

“No!  That’s not possible---my mom, dad, my brother…they were all in there!” He shouted in agonized denial.

“Are you sure? Maybe one of them could have been out?”

“It’s three o’clock in the morning on a Tuesday!  Where else would they be?  My parents go to sleep by eleven.  Oh God…” The boy’s voice trailed off in grief.

“We believe that’s the problem, young man.  They were sleeping and didn’t even know the house was on fire.  We received a call from a neighbor who apparently woke up for a late night snack, looked out the window, and saw the flames.  As of now, we’re
investigating the cause of the fire and will need to interview you at some point for possible clues.”

The fireman’s words seemed utterly foreign to the boy’s painfully ringing ears, just as the scene was a nightmarish blur to his stinging eyes.  In too much shock to grasp the reality of what had happened, he was nonetheless acutely aware that his family was gone as he surveyed the incomprehensible damage.  Nothing was left.  Bewildered and wracked with unspeakable grief, the teenager fell to his knees and sobbed from the depths of his soul.

Several Hours L
ater…

A cold, murky dawn shrouded the earth as the grieving boy emerged from a night of unbearable interrogation.  Though the boy had been ruled out as a suspect, Chief Investigator Glen Cooper initially suspected arson and was merciless in questioning him.  Relentlessly, Chief Cooper asked about the teenager’s family life, the parents’ relationship, his fifteen year old brother Carlo’s personality, and anyone with whom the family might have had unfinished business.  But young Giovanni assured the balding, middle aged man that his family had lived an upstanding life without drama. 

During the questioning, Giovanni voiced concern over some unfriendly neighbors, Bert and Cathryn Shanty.  He explained how the Shantys rarely left their home and never looked anyone in the eye.  Chief Cooper noted this on his pad, cleared his throat, and began a different, but equally excruciating line of questioning. 

Cooper stated that the inferno’s destructive force had obliterated any possible evidence of mechanical failure or other accidental cause.  He asked Giovanni to consider his family’s habits and appliances---did they cook at night?  Was the stove in need of repair? 

Giovanni explained how his mother kept a treasured collection of floral-scented tea light candles.  Each night, Laura Salvatore would light them all around the house before bringing up a mug of warm milk to her husband, Marcello.  Could she have forgotten to snuff them out last night?

Chief Cooper seemed satisfied by Giovanni’s theory, and authorities officially closed the case a few weeks later.  The cause of the blaze was listed as unknown, but most likely an accident originating from Laura Salvatore’s candles.

Chapter 1

11:54 PM, December 31, 1979, Vermont

The
winter
sky was black as onyx
above the jagged dirt road
as the rusty
blue
pick-up truck rumbled and clattered its way along.
 
The man inside ran a hand through his dark hair, letting a frustrated breath out in a slow,
ragged
gust
.
 
He had just made his escape from a farce of a New Year’s Eve party
at a ski lodge
.
 
Now as he drove home
to Burlington
, bracing himself for the hour-long
trek
through slippery, snow-covered
landscape
, he thought about how everyone would react i
f they knew he had left before m
idnight.
 
That’s Giovanni
, they would say. 
Why in the world hasn’t he married?
 
So handsome and
yet so lonely…how odd.
 
Thinking of the gossip and whispers, Giovanni sneered,
focusing his attention on the open road and
pumping the accelerator pedal in an
impatient
effort to gain momentum.
 

He
switched on the radio dial, as the soun
ds of an asinine disco song
wafted
vapidly
onto the airwaves.
 
Giovanni listened with disinterest, contemplating the past decade of his life, in
five
short minutes about to be swept away by the inevitable tidal wave of time and the onslaught of a new era
.
The 1980’s
, he mused with a slight shiver.
 

Born and bred
on the outskirts of Vermont, thirty-two year
old Giovanni Salvatore was an outdoorsman to the bones.
 
He had grown up the son of a
hard-working carpenter father
,
Marcello, a Sicilian
immigrant, who had taught his son
practical skills like woodworking, fishing, and mechanics.
 
Giovanni’s
mother, Laura,
had been
an expert homemaker who made Sunday feasts of spaghetti with fresh tomato sauce and bread steamy and crisp from the oven.
 
Giovanni’s younger brother, Carlo, had been his best fr
iend during those idyllic years.
Until the horrific fire
…

Tears threatened to brim his eyes. 
Giovanni forced himself to concentrate on the road before him, as
conditions
became more treacherous, and the
disco
song faded into the decade in which it was born, just as midnight struck.
 
How anticlimactic
, Giovanni thought,
it’s 1980, and I’m
the same as I was a minute ago in 1979!
 
Just driving along, reminiscing and half-listening to the
stupid
radio.
 
He shook his head
,
and unavoidably his thoughts roamed
back
to his beloved family.
 

Clenching his deep brown eyes shut for a moment, then refocusing on the road, Gio
vanni recalled the night that his life had changed forever. 
That
night
was fossilized in the most carefully concealed reces
ses of his mind.
 
At eighteen, he had been
a carefree
high school senior with
a beautiful girlfriend and
boundless hope for the future.  But h
is world had tilted on its axis that fateful
night
, whirling around him dizzyingly until it
smashed into a million shards with the realization that his parents and brother had died in
a
fire.