Parker 04 - The Fury (14 page)

Helen Gaines.

I stopped the car short of the driveway and put it into

Park. I kept the engine running. Just in case.

With the engine purring, we both unlocked our doors

and tentatively stepped into the evening air. Wind

swirled around us as we stared at the cabin. I couldn't

see much inside, so I crept closer, hunched low to the

ground. Dirt crackled under my feet as Amanda kept

pace several steps behind me.

I crept up the front steps and up to the door. Both side

windows were closed, and a drape prevented me from

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viewing what was inside. I gently knocked on the door.

There was no doorbell.

"Miss Gaines?" I called. "Helen?"

There was no response.

I called louder. Waited a minute. Heard nothing.

I walked back down the steps, then decided to go

around the house to see what we could find.

Heart pounding in my chest, I slid up to a side

window, cupped my hands to the glass and peered in.

The room was dark. There was a long couch, and I

could make out a television stand and what looked like

a desk. Other than that the room was impeccably clean.

Peering in closer, I could see a faint yellow glow ema

nating from a room beyond this one. A light was on

somewhere on the first floor.

"Stay here," I said to Amanda.

"Like hell," she replied. That was the end of that

discussion.

Staying low, we sidled around the back of the house

where another window faced the forest. Off in the

distance, I could make out a narrow road, paved poorly

but wide enough for a car to fit through. It did not face

the front of the house, and would be unseen by anyone

who was not in this room at the time. The window was

mere yards from the SUV tire tracks.

There was no doubt; whoever had come here had

used that path to gain access to the house.

I approached the window. My breath was ragged, and

I could hear Amanda panting behind me. Gently I stood

up until my eye line was just over the windowsill.

I made out the top of a shower rod and a medicine chest.

This was clearly the downstairs bathroom. Then I saw it.

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The right medicine cabinet was open. Pills and

makeup were spread out all over the counter. Bottles

were broken. Things scattered everywhere.

That's when Amanda stood up, saw the entirety of

the bathroom, and let out a bloodcurdling scream.

When I saw what she was looking at, it was all I

could do to stifle mine.

A body was facedown on the floor. Her blouse was

ripped and tattered. Her arms were splayed out in a

horribly unnatural position.

And a pool of blood was spread around her head like

a gruesome sunrise.

Without thinking, I ran to the nearest tree, propped my

foot against a limb and pulled until I heard a crunch and

the thick branch snapped off. Taking a running start, I

brought the limb back behind my head just like when I

played Little League, and slammed the branch against

the windowpane. The glass didn't shatter, but a large

crack snaked down the middle. Just enough. Two more

whacks and enough glass had broken for me to clear the

rest out with the branch. I carefully climbed through the

window. The blood around Helen Gaines's head looked

dark red, almost dried but not completely. A small piece

of metal floated in the gore, but I couldn't tell what it was.

I smelled the air, a faint but still noxious odor present. I

looked closer. There was a chance she was still...

I gently moved her hair away from her neck so I

could check her pulse. And that's when I realized that

this woman was black. It was not Helen Gaines.

I pressed three fingers against her carotid artery,

praying for a pulse. I felt nothing. I pressed again, this

time on her wrist. Silent. Dead.

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117

I looked at the body.

My hands shook as I reached into my pocket and

pulled out my cell phone. Thankfully there was recep

tion. My fingers fumbled and I had to dial 911 three

times before getting it right.

"911, what is your emergency?"

"A woman's been killed at 97 Maple Lodge Road.

Please get here quick."

"Sir, can you check her pulse?"

"There's no pulse. Please just get here."

"All right, sir, an ambulance is on the way. Do you

know the victim?"

"No," I said, nearly passing out as I sat down on the

rim of the porcelain bathtub. "I don't."

Sitting in the pool of blood, about two feet away from

the body, was a tiny diamond earring, lying next to

another thin sliver of what looked like gray hair. The

diamond was a princess cut. One day, a few weeks ago,

I was looking online at engagement rings. Thinking

about whether I could see Amanda wearing one. I re

membered seeing the name--princess cut--and

thinking it was perfect.
A princess for a princess,
I'd

thought.

But there was only one earring on the ground.

The other was either taken by the killer. Or still being

worn by someone who'd escaped.

Then I looked at the body again. The victim's ears

weren't pierced. Which meant the single earring on the

ground had belonged to Helen Gaines. And she'd

dropped it before she fled.

15

Her name was Beth-Ann Downing. She lived two

floors above Helen and Stephen Gaines in their apart

ment in Alphabet City. She and Helen had been friends

for fifteen years. She owned a Camry, which she parked

in a garage on Fourteenth Street. A call to the garage

confirmed that Beth had taken the Camry a few days

ago and had not returned it. Beth-Ann Downing was

fifty-three years old. Divorced. One daughter who lived

in Sherman Oaks, California, Sheryl Harrison, who was

on a flight to New York City to attend her mother's

funeral.

Beth had worked as a bank teller. According to the

police, gas and credit-card receipts showed she'd left the

city with Helen Gaines the very night Stephen Gaines

was killed. A waitress at a diner on I-87 recognized Beth

and said she'd been eating with another woman. That

woman fit the description of Helen Gaines, Stephen's

mother. Beth was either fleeing from something, or was

simply helping an old friend who
was
fleeing from

something.

And last night she was killed when a bullet severed

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119

her brain stem, fired from less than a foot away. Death

was almost instantaneous.

Almost.

And I wondered if Beth-Ann Downing had even

known what her friend was running from.

We'd given our statement to Deputy Reece Watts of

the Indian Lake Police Department. I took a little extra

time washing the blood off my fingers.

We told the police everything we knew. From early

forensics, it appeared that an SUV or van of some sort

approached the Gaines residence during the night, when

both Helen Gaines and Beth-Ann Downing were asleep.

They pried open the storm shutters and snuck in through

the basement.

Beth had awoken, and went downstairs to check on

the noise. She saw the intruders. The police confirmed

there was more than one. Several pairs of footprints,

they said. They chased her to the bathroom, where they

shot her. In the confusion, Helen Gaines had escaped.

That's why we saw tire tracks leaving the cabin.

Helen had fled while her friend was being murdered.

Nobody had any idea of the whereabouts of Helen

Gaines. She hadn't called the police. Hadn't stopped

anywhere for help.

She'd just disappeared.

It might have just been me, but that didn't seem like

typical behavior for a woman whose only son had just

recently been killed. Especially when the alleged

murderer was locked up awaiting trial.

I had no idea how this would play in regards to my

father. Stephen Gaines was still dead. The police were

still figuring out if anything in the cabin was missing.

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Jason Pinter

If they could chalk it up to a burglary gone horribly

wrong. Or if there was something else. Another reason

the intruders had come to that cabin in the middle of the

night.

Regardless of how the autopsy and discovery came

out, I couldn't believe the murder was the result of a

botched robbery. The killers had brought in weapons.

For protection? Maybe. To scare any residents?

Perhaps. Or maybe they brought them because they

were there for the sole purpose of killing Helen Gaines.

And Beth-Ann Downing just got in the way.

On the ride back from Blue Lake Mountain, neither

Amanda nor I said a word. The iPod sat on the armrest

untouched. We had no coffee, no snacks. It was just

completely and utterly silent.

I parked the car on the street near my apartment.

Amanda came upstairs with me.

Upon opening the door, I had a momentary burst

of fear. I generally took my safety for granted, despite

the fact that I'd been the recipient of some fairly

severe beatings over the past few years. I had scars

on my leg, my hand and my chest as a result of in

truders. Yet I wanted to believe I was safe. With

Amanda I usually felt that way. But tonight, after

seeing how another person's life--a
helpless

person--could be invaded and snuffed out so quickly,

it made me rethink the simple dead bolt that protected

my apartment.

"Did you see," Amanda said, forcing the words out,

"all that blood?"

I nodded. Went into the kitchen and poured us each

a glass of water. Amanda gulped hers down while I sat

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121

there holding the cool glass in my hands, wondering just

what the hell was going on.

It didn't make sense that Helen Gaines would be on

the run. I had to assume my father did not kill Stephen

Gaines. I also had to assume that Helen Gaines knew

who the real killer was. And if that was true, she fled

because she did not feel like contacting the police. She

fled because of something she knew, either about her

son or his killer.

She'd gone to upstate New York to hide from some

thing or someone. And not just from her son's killer.

From something larger. If you fear one person, that fear

can be contained, limited. Controlled. You can seek the

help of cops, lawyers. There are always people who can

help.

What exactly was Helen Gaines fleeing from?

I thought about what Binks and Makhoulian talked

about at the medical examiner's office. Binks said that

Stephen Gaines was killed by a pistol likely covered by

some sort of makeshift silencer. That insinuated the

murder was premeditated. Of course, any prosecutor

could make the claim that my father made up his mind

to kill Stephen, that his death would allow my father to

keep on living without paying the money Helen wanted,

or exposing his bastard child to his family. The motive

would still hold up.

But then I thought about seeing Beth-Ann Downing

lying facedown in that pool of blood. The scene was

gruesome and hard to look at, yet I'd trained myself to

do just that. You had to divest yourself of any emotional

attachment. Present the facts. They would tell the story

themselves.

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Jason Pinter

Beth was lying in a pool of blood. I remembered

seeing something floating in that pool. A small piece of

gray hair. I hadn't thought much about it then, merely

processed it into my memory, but now I called it back

up.

The strand was very thin, very short, almost a hair's

width. But it wasn't hair--it was metal.

The conversation with Binks and Makhoulian came

back to me. The silenced gun that was used to kill

Stephen.

Most silencers were not professional. They were

made from simple items. A pillow.Aluminum tubing.

Aluminum tubing filled with steel wool.

I looked up at Amanda.

"Steel wool," I said.

"What?"

"The gun that was used to kill Stephen--whoever

did it used aluminum tubing filled with steel wool to

create a silencer. They didn't find evidence at Stephen's

murder scene, but the coroner said the wounds sug

gested a silencer. But it was impossible to tell what

kind of silencer was used. When I saw Beth-Ann

Downing, there was a piece of metal near her body. I'm

positive it was steel wool. Which means the intruders

knew where Helen was. And between the silencer and

the offroad tires, they didn't want anyone to know they

were there."

Fear grew in Amanda's eyes. "That means the same

people who killed Stephen probably killed Beth."

"And are still after Helen," I said. "Not only that, but

they're actually taking precautions during the murders.

According to Makhoulian, no shell casings or bullets